from what was seen as the darkness of Hindu practices and the demonic idol worship. It seemed to be self-evident that Christianity was superior in all respects, and that Hinduism would fall down like a pack of cards when it encountered the preaching of the gospel. But gradually, there was the discovery of the depth of spirituality and philosophical traditions found in the best of Hindu scriptures that the oriental movement revealed to the West. Moreover, it became clear that Hinduism did sustain people in their daily lives, and was not as vulnerable to the missionary movement as people had expected.
A vigorous discussion ensued in these missions, in the nineteenth century, about questions of caste and its relationship to conversion. The general missionary view was that caste was evil in its nature and its effects. As Bishop Wilson of Calcutta said in 1833, caste ‘must be abandoned decidedly, immediately, finally’ within the Church itself and on conversion to Christian faith. There could be no compromise here with an egalitarian gospel. This was shown most dramatically within the American Madura Mission. New converts had to eat a meal cooked by Dalit cooks, before baptism. This was extended to existing Christians, and the mission lost a good proportion of its higher-caste catechists, who reverted, or joined another church, rather than agree to such an agape meal before the Eucharist.
The Lutheran churches took a more relaxed attitude, quoting the ‘two kingdoms’ theology of Luther. A casteless world would only happen in the kingdom beyond this world! Higher-caste Anglican converts argued that caste was no worse than the social divisions found in Western countries, and they stood out against the lead of Bishop Wilson. In the end, these discussions made little difference. Marriage customs, above all, continued as before, and the arranged-marriage system enabled caste divisions to continue. The Hindu-linked casteism penetrated the Church at all levels, and this has continued to the present day. The difference is that often the members of the higher castes now claim to be marginalized, as more and more bishoprics and other powerful positions have fallen into the hands of Dalit-background Christians. One of the saddest Hindu influences on the churches lies in this apparent inability or unwillingness to set aside community politics within the church, where it is often little better than outside.
Many missionaries gave their life to India for decades, and some died there. A sample can be included here for the enormous contribution they made to the development of the Indian Church, and local cultures. The first of these were Ziegenbalg (1663–1719) and Plutschau, Danish pioneers deeply identified with Tamil culture, who first came to Tranquebar. William Carey went from Leicester to Serampore, to begin the Baptist mission in 1799. Alexander Duff made a major educational contribution, coming from the Scottish Presbyterian tradition. G. U. Pope and Bishop Caldwell, two Anglican missionaries with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) in the nineteenth century, were so honoured for their contribution to Tamil language and culture that their statues were erected on Madras Marina, by the Tamil Dravidian governing party, the Dravida Munettra Kalagam (DMK), in the 1960s. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, whose birth anniversary was in 2009, was a giant figure in the world ecumenical movement, but above all was a missionary who gave his all to India. Rather different were C. F. Andrews, Anglican priest, the close companion of Gandhi; Verrier Elwin, Anglican priest, who ended being Nehru’s adviser on tribal affairs; and Dick Kaitahn, who was twice sent out of India, back to the USA, because of his espousing of the nationalist cause, and ended by establishing an ashram in the Tamil hill station of Kodiakanal, in post-independence India.
I make mention here of two remarkable North Indian converts who both became Anglicans, and then moved to a post-denominational Christianity, since they could not tolerate the divisions they found in the churches in Europe which had then been exported to India. I make no apology for giving an account of them in detail. Sadhu Sunder Singh (1889–1929) was a convert from a high Sikh family. As a Christian, he put on the robes of a sannyasi, and became a wandering and evocative preacher and mystic, who travelled to many countries abroad, as well as in India, dying somewhere in the Himalayas on his way to Tibet. He describes himself as not worthy to follow in the steps of Jesus, except by sharing in his wandering life, without home or possessions, relying on those who give him food and shelter, an evangelist simply speaking of the love of God that he had experienced himself.
Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922), probably because she was a woman, is less well known, but no less remarkable. She came from a Brahmin family, losing most of her family from cholera. She married, and her husband also died young, leaving her with a child. She was taken in by missionaries in Calcutta, and there studied the Bible and also Sanskrit. She was converted when teaching at Cheltenham Ladies’ College in England. She was deeply impressed by the care shown by a Christian mission in London for ‘fallen’ women, following the example of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4. She returned to North India and worked tirelessly for the women of her country, to provide literacy, shelter and hope for the downtrodden, particularly child widows. She founded the Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, which has continued to this day. She refused to be submissive to clergy members who questioned her orthodoxy. She believed that true religion was the love of God and love of one’s neighbour, and that she should live by this creed was all that anyone could ask of her. She was named Pandita by Hindus, who recognized her wisdom and learning more than her own fellow Christian leaders.
To end this section, mention should be made of the achievement of the formation of the Church of South India in 1947, and the Church of North India in 1970. These two Churches have often not fulfilled the high promise under which they were born. But to join churches across the main Anglican and Protestant divisions into one structural unity was remarkable, as is the fact that they have largely remained together. One of the reasons for the move to unity was the fierce criticism that came from Hindu thinkers about church divisions which made their mission ineffective. Bishop Azariah, the first Indian bishop in South India, famously said that what Indians need is a common Christ in the face of the Hindu masses, not the divisions he encountered when he walked down an English high street and saw all the different churches.
Another special creation of the Indian churches were indigenous missionary societies. The earliest and best known of these were the Indian Missionary Society (1903) and the National Missionary Society (1905). Both are still very active and, though based in the south, work all over India and beyond, supporting large numbers of workers, particularly in tribal areas.
Interfaith dialogue and the Indian churches
Interfaith dialogue has been a necessity of life for Indian Christians, long before it was defined by this technical phrase. As has been seen, they have lived with their neighbours for 20 centuries, and dialogue was necessary to survive. The Roman Catholics have called this the dialogue of life. Theologies may be incompatible, but life is lived together. Christians have faced the same struggles as their fellow villagers, or fellow migrants to the cities, fellow slum dwellers, or fellow students or high fliers in the new dynamic metropolitan India. They share common passions such as those for cricket, Bollywood, common political adherences (it is noteworthy that most vote across faiths, for common parties), common concerns for their neighbourhood, health, education. So also in the sharing in ‘bad’ and ‘good things’ of life – births, marriages, illness, death.
A second level is that of theological dialogue or dialogue of discourse. This is normally informal, as talk turns to faith and belief. This can happen on the train, in the village coffee shop, beside the well. It can happen more formally, as seminars on dialogue are held on common themes. For example, the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, in Madurai, held two significant three-day seminars, one on justice and one on grace, which were then published as books, and included contributions from the major faiths as well as a variety of Christian traditions. They looked at theology, scriptures and the application of these themes to life. The aim has been to become aware of similarities but also of differences. Some dialogues are bilateral, some trilateral, some multilateral, and there are examples of all in India. Meetings, for example, were convened by the Roman Catholic Church, on word and silence (in Bangalore), on working for harmony in the contemporary world (in New Delhi), and in Pune on Hindu and Christian cosmology and anthropology. There has
