The Church of Christ

(Based on the Word of God; dedicated to the promotion of independence, Indianisation, unity, co-operation, and to the removal of corruption and evil in all forms and in all places.)

We Cannot All Be Evangelists But We May All Be Soul Winners

We need wisdom beyond our own - to win the souls of men -and the power also, that is of GOD

There Is No Work So Effective, No Work So Enduring. No: Work So Glorious “For myself,” says Samuel Chadwick, “I covet above all gifts - the power and the wisdom to win souls for my Lord.”

— By Edward Last, of Great Britain

Winning The Souls Of Men Was Christ’s Chief Business

The example Christ left us - to walk in His steps - teaches us that in soul-winning, we can have no proxy - we cannot transfer this obligation to the pastor or evangelist.

— By Robert G. Lee

“Come ye after Me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

Available from: Acharya R.C. Das, M.A., Khristpanthi Ashram, 129, Dashashwamedh, Varanasi, India.

“The Holy Family”

By the 19th century artist Vasili Verestchagin (1848-1904).

This painting of “The Holy Family” is unusual in that it is faithful to the historical records of the gospels.

As a setting for the family of Joseph and Mary, the artist selected a house and shop in a corner of Jerusalem near Solomon’s wall.

“Christ is at the left, seated on the steps of the yard wall, with a scroll of scriptures in His hand. A line of bright-coloured clothes hang over Mary and her youngest child.”

On the ground are four children of Mary and Joseph, the “brothers and sisters of Jesus mentioned in the Gospels (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3), one is sprawling on his chest, and another sitting on a board in the form of a cross, Joseph works at a bench with a fellow carpenter.”

However interesting this painting might be and however controversial the imagination, we are more concerned with the Holy Child Who is beyond all controversy and imagination in His objective reality. He came to us from above to be with us and among sinners, and there in lies our hope of Salvation and glorification. Once again at this time we remember the great love of God for the world (John 8:16) in and through Him, May the distressed and distracted world find in Him in these critical times its true Saviour and King. A Happy Christmas to all lovers of Jesus - King of kings!

The Church of the Lord’s Prayer in Jerusalem

A high caste Hindu pilgrim came to my study in Mahasamund, a village in the heart of India. He saw the lighted cross in the church tower and left the main road to have an interview. He was on his way to Puri, going the whole distance of 300 miles by foot, to worship at the famous shrine “Jagganath” (Lord of the World). It was only one stretch of a long pilgrimage to various shrines. Apparently he had not yet found the peace he was seeking. In the course of our conversation, he said there was one piece of devotional literature he prized above anything he had ever read or heard. Asked what it might be, he closed his eyes and in a most sincere, devout and impressive manner, he prayed the Lord’s Prayer in Hindi. Asked where he had learned it, he replied, “In a mission school.” I then told him the story of another Brahmin seeker like himself who had made the same long journey, expecting to be favoured with a vision of the God, whose image was a crudely carved tree trunk. He fasted 3 days, marched around the image 7 times, but nothing happened. He complained to the priest who reminded him he had given him no offering. He fasted another 3 days, gave the priest an offering, marched around the idol at midnight 7 times, and received no vision, jabbed a sharp spike into the idol and left in disgust. At the door an Evangelist met him and gave him a gospel portion. The seeker became a follower of Jesus and eventually a volunteer Evangelist. My guest took leave with no more than “Salam.” I often wondered what he thought when he arrived to worship at Jagganath. Did he perhaps come away with the Lord’s Prayer on his lips?

When we were in Jerusalem in 1960, we visited the Church of the Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer), constructed in 1875 on the ruins of a 12th century church erected to mark the traditional site where Jesus taught the disciples “The Lord’s Prayer”. Inset in the wall of the colonnade are marble slabs, all the same size, bordered with a lovely coloured design, each containing the words of The Lord’s Prayer carved in a different language, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Latin, German, English, and some 40 others. Our hearts were deeply touched as we thought of the millions of Christians in all ends of the earth saying in a thousand different tongues, “Our Father.”

— M.P. Davis.

The Sermon on the Mount: The Kingdom of God

By W. Arnold Hall.

Throughout the Sermon on the Mount occur the terms “the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom of God.” Seek ye first the kingdom of God, thine is the kingdom; entering into the kingdom of heaven; theirs is the kingdom of heaven: the idea is expounded throughout the Gospels and is the chief theme of Jesus’ entire teaching. The word kingdom means both “rule” and “realm.” Wherever God’s will is done, there he is king and there he rules. The world in which God rules is his realm, and we may enter it here and now by virtue of obedience to his will. He who brought life and the world into being determined the way; happy are they (and they only) who walk in it. But mankind is slow to learn its lessons.

The world at large passes by the teaching of the Sermon on the ground that it is unrealistic and impracticable - impracticable not in the sense that it cannot be obeyed, but in the sense that, if it were obeyed, we should not have the things we like possessions, security, revenge, position. Even Christians, strangely enough, have a way of by-passing the Sermon; they say that it is perfectionist and that “you cannot have perfection in this world.” Thus, they claim in effect to know better than their “Master.”

A middle course is followed by some who wish to take the teaching seriously but who find it too rigorous and demanding for the generality. So they say that it was intended only for the few, for the inner circle as it were, just for the “disciples,” for those who (as the phrase goes) are “religiously inclined.”

Some sceptical writers, good Dr. Albert Schweitzer among them, take the line that the teaching was rigorous and demanding because Jesus expected that the world would shortly come to an end and that a new order of God’s devising would be brought in after the old order had been wound-up. It would be worthwhile, therefore, enduring for a short while, to be prepared for entry into the new order. The Sermon, they say, was a temporary or interim ethic.

But so far from being impractical or impracticable visionary, unrealistic the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon is striking by virtue of its detailed application to daily life as we find it. We are daily up against enemies - both private and public; we are daily provoked to anger; neighbours and friends, and perhaps we ourselves are involved in sexual complications; the struggle for security is our daily preoccupation. Come to look at it, it is the very worldliness and matter-of-factness and everyday reality of this teaching which is so striking - and perhaps so aggravating. If we are to postpone obedience to it until there are no occasions for it - until there are no enemies, provoking situations, no material temptations - it will never become applicable at all. In point of fact, Jesus says, only obedience to such teaching in the world as is will ever get us to the world which we should mostly like to see. The ethics of Jesus are crucial by virtue of their worldliness and realism.

It is true that the Sermon on the Mount was addressed in the first instance to “disciples”, to the people who were listening rather than to those who were not. But the aim of Jesus was to bring everyone into the community of disciples. It was addressed ultimately to all. Furthermore, the teaching was not offering the hearers optional opinions; it was offering them facts, statements of cause and effect, moral laws and their consequences. The immediate audience of the Sermon may have been the elect, but the argument of the Sermon is true for all.

Central to the teaching of Jesus is the idea of God and of his Will. The ethic propounded flows from the doctrine of God. He sends his rain on just and unjust alike, and man should do likewise. “Whatever things the Father does, these also does the Son” (John 5:19). Whether the time be foreshortened or extended is an irrelevance; right-doing is right not as a makeshift or an expedient but as obedience to God’s will and imitation of his way.

The teaching of Jesus was not just talk. In the life of Jesus it was example. And example (as he himself said) is something for others to follow. The possibilities for mankind if, instead of regarding his teaching and his life as something not meant for themselves, mankind would emulate them and obey, are altogether bright and hopeful. Without such obedience the prospects remain dark. It is no more coincidence that, alike in Christian scripture and in adoration, Jesus has been called “the Light of the world”; and it is a light to walk by.

— The Guardian from Wayfarer

The Bible Society of India

A/1 Mahatma Gandhi Road, Bangalore-1.

The Word Is Near You

Moses, a fugitive prince turned pilgrim and a prophet, was the first to glimpse God’s incredibly gracious way with this wayward world. He wrote it all down in a book, the book of the covenant. At its first public reading the people responded by saying, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient” (Exodus 24:7). For they saw in it the pledge of the transformation of their own tragic history and the history of the world. On the day they made this pledge their own they took their first confident step in the direction of holiness and nationhood.

For a thousand years Israel nurtured itself on this and other sacred writings called the Law and the Prophets. Readings from them were prescribed in public worship, a tradition carried over from the first reading. These were in Hebrew. But by the third century before the Christian era Greek had become the principal language of the Jews, even in their religious services. Aramaic was a close second. Scripture lessons in Hebrew were therefore no longer intelligible to worshipping congregations. The synagogue met this situation by improvising translations which led to more systematic effort. The result was the Greek SEPTUAGINT (‘Seventy’ from a tradition that seventy men produced it), and the Syriac PESHITTA, a ‘simple translation’.

The Early Church in turn was pressed by a similar necessity. Theirs became a double concern, the need of vernacular versions for use in worship and instruction, and in evangelism. The latter lay rather dormant for centuries but leapt to life with the rise and growth of the modern missionary movement.

In our country this was dramatically symbolised in Ziegenbalg’s Tamil, New Testament (1715), the first in any Indian language. From then on succession of scholars from the ranks of missionaries, civil servants and army officers, often assisted by erudite and tolerant Hindu pundits, laboured on scores of Indian versions. Many worked in unimaginably hard conditions. Pre-eminent among them were Henry Martyn and William Carey.

The rise of Bible Societies at the beginning of the nineteenth century invested the task of translation with a new urgency and a range as wide as the world and its languages, nearly 3,000. Missionary initiative and scholarship had often operated in isolation and under limitations. The Bible Societies helped to end or reduce this isolation by bringing translators into a network of relationships within which they could draw upon the combined resources in Biblical insights and linguistic expertise. They made possible the concentration of efforts so essential to this exacting task. The results were unprecedented, hundreds of new translations in the last century itself, many more in our own.

Today this network of relationship is embodied in the United Bible Societies, the fellowship of all Bible Societies. Our Society has an integral place in it, makes its own distinctive contribution to it and draws upon its combined resources.

Some of the immediate beneficiaries of Bible Societies acting in concert in this way are languages in which translations have only very recently been taken up for the first time. One such language on the northeastern border of Nagaland with Burma came to our notice only this year. About 10,000 people.

The great and pervasive need today is translation or revision of existing versions. Growth in language and developments in style are demanding that Scriptures conform to idiom appropriate to each language. All languages keep changing and changes even in one generation are sometimes considerable. They expect the Bible to speak to them in accents they can understand, as it spoke in Hebrew and Greek to the first listeners.

The deepening insights of Biblical scholarship today assist in achieving this to a greater degree than before. These insights have come from the discoveries in this century of many and priceless manuscripts. The Dead Sea Scrolls are some of the most important ones for Old Testament. The New Testament with thousands of manuscripts has much new light thrown upon it with the help of the newly discovered ones. Archaeology continues to throw up significant new facts on life in ancient Palestine and neighbouring countries. Other discoveries, no less important, have brought a wealth of insights into the languages of Bible lands. All this has helped much to know the text better, grasp its meaning more fully and make it known to others. This making it known is first and last God’s work. He is His own translator. In the Word made flesh He translated Himself. Our translations are only a witness to this decisive event.

Our Society then continues to serve that the Word may be near each one of us, in our mouth and in our heart, that We may do it (Deuteronomy 30:11). God’s Word in man’s heart will not let him live for himself; it constantly judges him and continually liberates him by helping him to do what every man is capable of doing, to repent and to believe. Liberated from falsehood and the worship of power and wealth, he is once again set in the sphere of service. When a Church is thus daily reborn the Word of God becomes pre-eminent in its mouth, and it can then speak with confidence about the ultimate transformation of this world.

The Haves and the Have-Nots

By Dr. J.H. Hunter, Editor.

It is a fact of tragic but indisputable reality that three-quarters of the world’s population goes to bed hungry each night and of this three-quarters some ten thousand die each day from hunger and a great multitude suffer from malnutrition. Two years ago we were in the city of Calcutta and in that city alone some 300 die from starvation every day. Each year the gulf between the “haves” and the “have-nots” widens and one cannot contemplate what it will be like in another decade unless something is done to change it. Against the background of the world’s need consider the following extract on “Age of Affluence” from the Toronto Globe and Mail the other day.

“Yorkdale Plaza appears to be a great success. An estimated 100,000 people went there on the opening day and departed staggering under the loads of stuff they had purchased. Since then, its congregation had averaged 75,000. But those who shop in Toronto’s downtown stores find the clerks as harried as ever, the customers as numerous, and as fiercely intent on spending their cash or using their credit. Torontonians love to buy things. Few of them lack clothing only naked citizens are those on stage at the Yonge Street gin mills. Yet they purchase clothing every day by the square mile. Few of them lack nourishment-most, indeed, eat and drink more than is good for them - yet they purchase food each day by the ton, and booze by the barge load. Few lack worldly possessions - most homes are so jammed with them that the occupants have to fight their way in and out - yet they storm the stores every day to buy more.

And this is only the start. The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce reports that a vast border of teenagers who do not remember the uncertainties of war and depression will soon be marrying and spending the thousands of dollars which, in our remarkable economic system, emanate from a $60 pay cheque. Already big purchasers of radios and records, they will soon be buying everything they can put their paws on, from boats to broadloom.”

Mr. Harold Wilson, leader of the Labour Party in Britain, was in Canada a few days ago. Speaking in Montreal on these distressing economic conditions he said the world had 15 years to close the gap between the white haves and the coloured have-nots. If this is not done he predicted “a fissure will have been created, a lack of trust, a gap of understanding which no subsequent efforts will be able to mend; there comes a time when the past so dominates the pattern of the future that all the goodwill in the world will not change the course that has been set.”

To avert this disaster Mr. Wilson made certain suggestions comprising four lines of co-operative international action by governments. Only unselfish co-operation between all the haves would solve the problem, he declared.

Can man himself find the answer to this desperate situation? We have the material resources, but have we the moral and spiritual power to rise to this challenge? There is the fundamental question. It would have to be done through some organisation like the United Nations since the churches are too divided among themselves to grapple with it. But the have-nations or some of them at least are reluctant to help others that show no disposition to help themselves. It is a fact of common knowledge that the United States has poured out wealth by the billions in an endeavour to improve the economics and the health of these have-nots and has received little thanks. Much of the money so lavishly spent has gone to make some leaders millionaires who leave their own people to starve. The Christian missionaries are the people who should have the administration of such a program, but they are today being turned out of the very countries that most need their message and service.

— The Evangelical Christian.

[It would be an overstatement to say that U.S.A. has received little thanks for their great help - especially to India. We think the people who have been benefited are genuinely grateful. And they express it freely. Only on the part of Government and political leaders the expression of gratefulness has lacked enthusiasm and warmth because the aid given has practically always been attached with “strings,” explicit and implicit, and subject to political pressures.

And this is rather insulting to an independent people. In some cases missionaries have been turned out of India not because of their humanitarianism and genuine Christian charities nor because of ingratitude but because some missionaries have been found guilty of extraterritorial loyalty and harmful political activity.

— Editor - Church of Christ]

Shall We Eat Our Morsel Alone?

"If I have eaten my morsel alone" -
  The patriarch spoke in scorn:
What would he think of the Church were be shown
  Heathendom, huge, forlorn,
Godless, Christless, with soul unfed,
While the Church's ailment is fullness of bread,
  Eating her morsel alone?

"I am debtor alike to the Jew and the Greek,"
  The mighty apostle cried,
Traversing continents, souls to seek,
  For the love of the Crucified.
Centuries, centuries since have sped;
Millions are perishing; we have Bread;
  But we eat our morsel alone.

"We do not well with good tidings for ali,"
  Said the lepers four from the gate,
"To tell them not lest mischief befall
  If till morning light we wait.
Dare not lose time, ere we gladly spread
The tidings good of the Heavenly Bread?
  Dare we eat our morsel alone?

"Ever, of them who have largest dower,
  Shall heaven require the more;
Ours is affluence, knowledge, power,
  Ocean from shore to shore;
And East and West in our ears have said,
"Give us, give us your living Bread;"
  Yet we eat our morsel alone.

"Freely, as ye have received, so give,"
  He bade Who hath given us all;
How shall the soul in us longer live,
  Deaf to their starving call,
For whom the Blood of the Lord was shed,
And His Body broken to give them Bread,
  If we eat our morsel alone?

— The Evangelical Christian.

An Empty Shell

In an agricultural country like ours progressive land reforms are of fundamental importance. Regulation of rent, security of tenure of tenants and conversion of tenants into owners form the cornerstone of our land reform policy. The State Governments have to usher in necessary legislation in order to change the very structure of our village society. But if the State Governments themselves are guilty of creating loopholes in the legislation so that the status quo may continue, what hope is there for the millions of landless tenants?

This is brought out by the land reforms division of the Planning Commission in their critical review of the progress of the Programme. Many tenants do not have a scrap of paper to prove their possession. No State Government has seriously undertaken to make a basic record of tenancies that actually exist. So millions of farmers continue to hold their land depending on the whims and fancies of the landed gentry in the country. Without a record of possession law is helpless to secure the tenancy. The result is the tillers of the land have no incentive to invest in land. The review explodes the myth that it is the apathy of the cultivator that is the major cause of failure in the agricultural front.

Analysing the causes for tardiness of States in the matter of preparation of a basic record of tenancies the review admits that it is because of “pressures exerted by influentials who may be affected by such records.”. The loopholes in the legislation have been deliberately inserted. For example, under the all embracing definition of ‘personal cultivation’ an absentee landlord may throw out any tenant who is unable to establish his possession by means of record. Legislation so far has done nothing to improve the tiller’s lot which continues to be as shaky and risky as before. He has to appease the landlord by paying as rent a much larger share of the produce than the owner is entitled to under the law. The review summarises the position that the security of tenure continues to be “unreal, illusory and ineffective.”

The review goes on to illustrate the cynicism of the State governments to remedy the lot of the landless. After all why do they bother? The governments are secure so long as the votes they poll in rural India are not affected. The landed gentry are with them wholeheartedly. The 3rd plan objective of breaking the landlord tenant nexus and conferring ownership rights to tenants of non-resumable lands within the plan period remains as distant as ever.

Will India’s land revolution happen within the framework of law? Or outside it? Law’s role is to bring in change in relations by more or less painless methods and continuously establish order in terms of a progressive concept of justice which has become part of the social conscience of the people. Has law thus become social engineering to maintain true order. Has law developed the structure both for dispassionate self-appraisal and for necessary growth to play its true role? This it can do only by remaining structurally sensitive to the aspirations of the mass of the people.

The Indian experiment of bringing in change in property relations through law has so far fallen off its mark. It has shown that those who really wield power pervert law to their own ends. Law has thus become an empty shell drained of all its purpose. By its pretences it also takes away the zest for true revolutionary movement of justice. Thus, it plays a dangerous negative role. Instead of true order which it is called upon to maintain it perpetuates a false order by becoming the handmaid of the status quo. Informed human conscience must do away with law’s pretensions and make it a tool of revolutionary zest. Otherwise, it will only pave the way for violent social explosions:

• Guardian Editorial - E.V.M.

Comment

India - Israel Relations

In her quest of good relationship with the Arab nations, India has found it impossible to be cordial to the little nation of Israel. Perhaps, in the sight of India, Israel is an image of Pakistan, a group of people who seek separation from the Arab nations on the basis of race and religion. Anyway in her policies to the Middle Eastern nations, India was faced with the dilemma of choosing between Arabs and Israel. Ideologically India felt that peoples do not become nations on the basis of religion alone. The decision for favouring Arabs, however, might have been made on the basis of India’s knowledge as to the greater potential power and influence of the Arab nations as compared to little Israel.

The question we should ask is whether our policy with Israel needs a second look in the context of a different philosophy of foreign policy. The rigid attitudes in foreign relations that existed immediately after the World War II seems to have given place to more flexible postures. There are exceptions to this. The relations between China and the U.S.A. are still rigid. On the whole, however, foreign policies today are characterised by an openness of relationship. The Arabs themselves are much more flexible in their foreign policies. They are friendly with China, Pakistan and India at the same time. It is time that the Indian attitude to Israel should be softened. This could begin by extending common international courtesies to tourists and journalists from that country. The Jerusalem Post describes the Israeli view of the Indian attitude as.

“At the same time, since Nehru’s day, India has receded still further from any normal relations with Israel, even to the extent of failing to issue visas to a party of Israeli guests of T.W.A. on a new route to India inaugurated by the company a week ago. The Israelis, who included newspaper editors and Government official were harassed and embarrassed by demands for endless additional details of their work and period of employment, as though it were necessary to establish their bona fides at great length, and in the end did not go at all. This is not only a discourtesy, but ludicrous. India has made much of being”uncommitted” in the great East-West dispute. Could not a little of this higher level of political comprehension be applied also to the Arab hostility to Israel? Is there no better way for the subcontinent of India to demonstrate its friendship for the Arab nations than by refusing visas to Israeli journalists?”

Indian visitors to Israel have already created a wholesome atmosphere for beginning a change in our foreign policy in regard to Israel.

“We, for our part, have always been happy to receive Indian guests here, and these are not infrequent, despite the official chill. Most of them are very friendly in their views, but there are few countries where the opinions of press and parliament seem to carry so little weight with the government as in India.”

This relationship could be of mutual benefit to both nations. Israelites have made tremendous material and cultural progress since the emergence of their new State. They have literally turned a desert into a garden.

“A recent visitor, the editor of the Calcutta ‘Statesman,’ observed that he was not concerned with the political relationship, but that India needed contact with Israel for its own development. The Arabs offered only a sterile approach to contemporary problems, in his view, while Israel could contribute many new ideas. For ourselves, in turn, the political relationship might be valuable, but contact with the intellectual world of India would be of far greater importance still, and constitute something in the nature of a spiritual adventure.”

— Guardian (Jerusalem Post - July 10, 1966) - H.J.S.

“Gandhian Revolutionary Party”

Shri P.M. Mani sends the following based on a manifesto of 7-6-66 issued by Shri K. Gopinatha Menon and three others c/o No. 1 Rajghat Colony, New Delhi-1.

In placing before the people of India, for their earnest consideration, the cherished wishes of Mahatma Gandhi, expressed in his last Will and Testament of 29-1-1948, the same as expressed by the team of organisers in New Delhi may be stated as below:

1. Maintain contact with people through Gandhian constructive work and small face-to-face federated groups of pairs of five families units, per Gandhiji’s last testament of 29-1-48, with voluntary squad leaders of four each for two hundred families, one for each group of fifty. These voluntary leaders form the electoral college for respective regions for all future elections.

2. Propagate evolving concepts of revolutionary social orders, emphasising hard work, including some daily manual work and emphasising co-operation, irrespective of caste or religion, to build one class of Indian citizenship, - equality, justice, freedom, civil marriage, one class of inheritance using one’s “spiritual bodies,” - for experiencing evolving Truth to the highest.

3. Practise truth and non-violence or love, settling all differences by arbitration, avoiding war, and furthering the objects of a secular state.

4. Help to enlist all for franchise and to put up Gandhian brothers or sisters as candidates for election and when not available, support such as are nearest to these objectives.

5. Support United Nations and other international organisations for production of food, for health promotion, for scientific development, Universal education and culture.

India has suffered since our political parties who sincerely expressed their high policies, by the sad fact known to all that they were not able to practise the ethical, moral, social, political, democratic ideas published by them.

The approach to all citizens is with request to study the above five objectives, to establish contact with those in New Delhi and with one another and to popularise these ideas democratically and to co-operate with all to build our Nation fresh on these foundations.

The youth leaders in New Delhi state and swear that they will maintain the traditions truthfully and in every detail, in fact and in spirit, fight corruptions and self-seeking to their utmost. On such basis, they desire to establish mass contact. They seek correspondence from all citizens and offer of help in every form from those who can spare time and resource.

They claim themselves as citizens who have for years handled life’s opportunities and problems with all possible rectitude, efficiency and scientific attitude. They are confident that in time this party will succeed to establish itself and serve mother India. Smt. Indira Gandhi accepts the need of youth leaders dedicated to hard, scientific team work, in all cities, town and villages or panchayats of India. These can be enlisted in the dedicated party without current political corruptions, but practise Truth in thought, word and deed, moving with the most up-to-date scientific discoveries and devices, for intensive food production and of all classes of consumer goods, placed within financial resources of all parts.

5,00,000 members from all parts of India are desired. Not Punjabis, Bengalis, Madrasis, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, but Indian citizens willing to be integrated as Indian citizens, keeping religion as personal for individuals.

— Arunodayam.

A Black and Ominous Day in American History

Twenty-one years ago a Christian Century editorial (October 10, 1945, page 1151) predicted that Asian people would fight the restoration of colonial rule disturbed by World War II and that “if the imperialist powers try to restore it by bloodshed, then the world will be treated to the spectacle of a war supposedly fought for freedom closing with allied troops shooting down native peoples for the crime of wanting to be free.” Since that day this journal’s constant position has been that the logic of aggressive action by Western powers requires a deepening involvement and a steady lifting of intervention from one level of military action to another as measures short of war and limited military action fail. The deadly accuracy of these predictions has its latest proof in the United States bombing of storage tanks on the outskirts of Hanoi and Haiphong in North Vietnam. Since 1945 the French succeeded the British and the Americans succeeded the French in futile attempts to restore Southeast Asia to Western control and exploitation. Our military intervention in Southeast Asia has now crossed another “fire line,” has now escalated toward the thin mark between limited war and total war, has now put to Chinese suspicion and fear a challenge that cannot be ignored. Caught in the grip of inexorable and outmoded military logic, blind to the lessons taught by British and French disasters in Southeast Asia contemptuous of the warnings issued by its enemies and the rebukes offered by its friends, the United States has pushed deeper and deeper into that political and military cul-de-sac which devours men and material and permits no peaceful escape. June 29 was a black day in American history and blacker still was that day when the administration - spurning pleas warnings and wise counsel - decided to extend and intensify the war in Vietnam.

— Christian Century.

A Christian Looks at Communism

By S.M. Banergea

The two highly organised groups in the world and in India today are the Church and the Communist Party, the one the Bride of the Lamb and the other the anti-Christ out to destroy allegiance to Him who is the Alpha and the Omega.

There are three obvious reasons why we should try to discuss this big menace to the Lord of life, to Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

The first is that like mighty tidal waves the movement has swept through and spread over Russia, China, Cuba, and the Eastern States of Europe. About one billion of people in the world pay homage to this creed. The second is that the other world religions like Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism are only religions alternatives to Christianity, while Communism is its most challenging rival. The third is that in order to fight this formidable enemy it would be unscientific to condemn it before knowing what the system has to teach and why it is wrong.

At the outset it must be conceded that fundamentally Christianity and Communism are incompatible. Communism is based on materialistic humanism. Divine power should be overlooked for man to thrive:

"I fight alone and win or sink
I need no one to make me free;
I want no Jesus Christ to think,
That He could ever die for me."

Clothed in the sartorial grandeur of materialism, Communism has no place for Christ. While Christianity believes in a Creator, Preserver and Saviour of infinite power, omnipotence and boundless love, Communism bases its cult on material atheism proclaiming from the house-top that man is the measure of all things. In the heart of reality there is the loving father who gave the world the only-begotten that whosoever believes in Him might not perish but have life eternal. Man bound hand and foot by the chain of sin, needs a Saviour. No says the other side, man is stronger than a God who is not and can bring about his own salvation. Ethical realism is not what counts, nor stable moral absolutes. The end justifies the means. Lenin, the master of ceremonies of the communist strategy says - “We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, lawbreaking, withholding and concealing truth.”

On the other hand Christianity posits that the world is governed by a system of absolute moral values as God has placed within the structure of society certain fixed and immutable moral principles. The law of love is the norm for all human conduct. Furthermore, Communism attributes the ultimate value to the State. In theory the State is the interim reality which would die out when the classless society emerges. But while it lasts - and there is no practical end to it - Man has no inalienable right. So Art, Philosophy, Literature, Education, Music and Science come under the compelling yoke of the State, the only omnipotent reality.

Christianity holds that man is an end because as the child of God he was created in the Creator’s image. Man is not what economic forces of the time make him. He is the child of glory, a being of spirit and one endowed with the gift of freedom, as Paul Tillich says man is man because he is free. “The trouble with Communism is that it has neither a theology nor a Christology; therefore it emerges with a mixed-up anthropology.” In the ever-spinning wheel of the State man stripped of dignity and worth emerges as a depersonalised cog.

Archbishop William Temple said somewhere that Communism is a Christian heresy. He meant that Communism has laid hold of certain truths which are essential parts of the Christian view of things. That is so but to these vibrant truths are attached ideas smelling of utter degeneration which no Christian can accept.

Communism challenges us to be more conscious of social justice. ‘Only the action of the just, smell sweet and blossom in their dust.’ In the words of the Prophet Amos ‘Let judgement roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.’ Jesus pleaded for the least of God’s children. On the day of Judgement He would say to the doers of good - inasmuch as you have done it to the least of my children ye have done it unto me. Karl Marx, born of Jewish parents who embraced Christianity, never could forget Amos’ statement, with which he freely mixed the rich thoughts of Christ. He could not but champion the cause of the poor, the exploited and the disinherited. Lazarus and the Dives story must have set him on fire.

Communism proclaims a society whose membership is not limited by a man’s colour or the state in which he has been born. But who does not know that in the world Communism has created new classes and a new lexicon of injustice. Christians have failed Christ. In the New Testament we read “He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree. He hath filled the hungry with good thing; and the rich he hath sent empty away.” Jesus said “The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted; to preach the deliverance to the captive; the recovering of the sight to the blind and to set at liberty them that are bruised.” In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free; no black and no white. In spite of this the Church is content with sanctimonious trivialities. It seems to be so full of the wonderful good ‘over younder’ that it forgets the disgraceful evils and miseries here and now present with the sons of men. Within the present social structure the challenge to the Church has been to remedy the glaring discrepancies between men. The position appears to be that Christianity in and through the Church appears to be more concerned with souls of men and not with the social and economic conditions that are like a stranglehold on them. Is it any wonder that Marxists describe religion as the “Opiate of the people”?

It must be admitted that the church has failed in its social action of racial justice. Colonialism would not have prospered if the Church had put its foot down strongly. In South Africa the Dutch Reformed Church is one of the chief defenders of apartheid. Slavery in America would not have existed if the Church had not sanctioned it. The Church is the most segregated Institution in America. Where the Church should have been the headlight it has often been in those matters a tail light an echo rather than a voice. Communism is an off spring of the sins of omission and commission of the church.

Capitalism thrives on making a living rather than making a life. It is I-centred and not Thou-centred. Capitalism failed to envisage that life is also social, while Communism failed to appreciate that life is individual, Communism failed to appreciate that life is individual and social. The synthesis is, live and help others to live, for the kingdom of God is not based on individual effort, nor upon collective enterprise but upon the synthesis of the two.

The Communist cell dealing with the individuals around in a country where it is still striving to be established are heart and soul dedicated to the cause. How many of us Christians are so? Is the fire of the love of Christ so burning within as that wherever we be, whether at home or in our sphere of activity, we try to preach Him as He should be presented not only with our words but with our actions and lives? The early Christians made a triumphant witness for Christ whether in the royal household, in the village, in the street, in the jail or on the big seas. Their audacity was rewarded by being thrown to the lions in the Roman arenas, or by enduring the poignant pain on the beheading block. But people saw that their lives had been transformed by a Saviour so wonderful that the most humiliating deaths and excruciating tortures gave them new and inexpressible joy. As I.R. Glover says they “out-thought, outlived, and out-died every one else.”

Where is there the burning zeal, the courage which was not subdued by anything however cruel, painful or degrading? Communism will never be stamped out by war. Nuclear weapon is no answer. It can only thrive where human rights are trampled underfoot the right to be fed and clothed properly, to be housed adequately, where opportunities in life are open to all without distinction, where everyone’s needs are respected and met, and where there is a classless society, and men are exempt from all except allegiance to Him whom the big heavens cannot contain and whose foot-stool the earth is.

The challenge before the Church is the acceptance in words and deeds of the revolutionary Gospel of Christ. ‘Our hard challenge and our sublime opportunity is to bear witness to the spirit of Christ in fashioning a truly Christian world.’

Rt. Rev. Ramkrishna Shahu Modak, D.D

President: All India Federation of National Churches, Inc.

President: One World Association, Ine.

Address 27 Madison Avenue, New York 10, N.Y., U.S.A.

October 17, 1966

My dear Acharya Das,

I think of God especially, as I approach my 75th Birthday on the 27th last. I thank God for His continued sustenance and love, which I have been privileged with all these years. I also thank Him for having Blessed me with such friends as yourself. Accept my heartiest appreciation of your effective loyal and dedicated Christian life. I am exceedingly grateful to God for what you have been and for what He can make you - All For His Glory. My earnest prayer to Him is that He should help me to serve you as I want to.

I would appreciate hearing from you. How you have been and what you would have me know concerning our participation in doing God’s Will.

Most of the things which I have occupied myself with during the last many years in America are still unfinished. All I can say in regard to them is that I have struggled. Now He has to give me ultimate success for His Glory. I accept His Will as His Blessing. Whether it is easy or hard for me to do so. He knows and I do not. He is able and I am not. What I am able to do, I will do, and it is to accept His Will and to continue to pray to Him.

In the Only Most Holy Name of Jesus, the Christ, Our Saviour, God.

I express my affectionate regards to You and Bless You.

Yours Sincerely,

The Rt. Rev. R.S. Modak, D.D.

Sadhu Sunder Singh Trust Fund

Sometimes one doubts whether our readers are sufficiently aware of the fact that Sadhu Sunder Singh left his last will and Testament according to which the interest accruing from his money which he got partly from his paternal property and partly from the Royalty of his books, was to be utilised for the encouragement of Bible knowledge among the young and for the support of evangelistic work in the Himalayan regions. The General Secretary of the N.M.S. is the Chief Executor and Honorary Treasurer of that Trust. The other members on the Board of Trustees at present are Bishop S.E. Mondel and Rev. M.R. Robinson of the Bareilly Theological Seminary.

The Fund was started with thirty-five thousand Rupees in the State Bank of India in Simla. With the addition of further sums received as interest, sale of books, it is estimated that the Trust Fund will be not less than Rs. 70,000/-. The Annual interest is Rs. 1,700/-. Attempts are being made to get the exact figures and publish them in these columns. The India Sunday School Union, Coonoor, Nilgiris, is in charge of promoting Bible knowledge by giving prizes and medals for successful candidates in Biblical Examinations. Scholarships are given to a few High School and College students. The N.M.S. work in Nepal receives an annual contribution from this fund. Money is available to help further causes in line with the above-mentioned objectives.

The Trustees also wish to make it known to the public that the Trust is the custodian of the copyright of all Sadhu Sunder Singh’s books.

— SADHU SUNDER SINGH TRUST FUND - Chief Executer

Prayer Is the Mighty Instrument of Divine Intervention

International tension, religious apostasy, atheistic communism, political and moral corruption-all indicate that the awful, desolating judgements of a righteous and almighty God are about to be poured out upon a rebellious and sinful world.

On the spiritual battlefield of today, the Lord has taken up His position for the last great conflict. He is summoning His followers to stand with Him.

Prayer is our response. Through prayer alone we secure His intervention against the forces that seek the destruction of our Christian faith. Through prayer, we fight the battle. By virtue of the authority which belongs to the crucified Victor of Calvary, - and to us, With Him (Ephesians 2:5-6), - we can see situations on earth controlled, forces in the unseen realms moved, and changes effected, the powers of evil dislodged and the purposes of grace pressed forward to final triumph.

For God’s glory and the salvation of souls, we call hundreds and thousands of God’s people over the world to press into the gaps and hold the ground for God - by praying aggressively against the forces of evil.

We cannot roll the responsibility of securing divine intervention in the international crisis of today upon someone else. We each one must solemnly face it as our own. Like Daniel, let each one set his face to seek the Lord, and with purpose of heart and all the determination of our souls - stir ourselves up to take hold of God in Prayer (Isaiah 64:7) - and see the godless forces brought down to defeat, and the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ. (Revelations 11:15).

— Herald of His Coming.

Available from: Acharya R.C. Das, M.A., Khristpanthi Ashram, 120, Dashashwamedh, Varanasi, India.

Printed at Evangelical Press, Christ Nagar, Badagayedapadavu, S. India.

Notes

1. Cow or Man?

That should be the issue in India. In utter disregard of an essential element of Hindu culture - Ahimsa - the Sadhus with the backing of powerful religious leaders - as well as political opportunists - have recently burnt and destroyed Delhi. It is also a serious reflection on the ‘Sadhus’ avowed Anasakti (non-attachment to the world). Their position as protagonists of Hindu faith and culture is further vitiated by their own political motives and alliance with political and violent parties. Government cannot, without danger to its ideals and policies treat this violent phenomenon simply as a matter of law and order. Serious minded and influential leaders must recognise in this incident an outburst of a peculiar Hindu concept of life - erratic and self-contradictory - though fundamental. Has Hinduism ever reconciled the concept of Ahimsa to the crude natural attitudes of man?

Does the cow in India need protection, or man? In a country where for thousands of years man has been subjected to injustice, religious, social and economic - through the operation of the principles of the caste system and where consequently even today more than seven crores of Harijans (God’s men) are living in utter poverty, squalor, disease, debt and ignorance (and are outside the pale of caste - Panchamas), and where many crores within caste - Shudras - the real backbone of society - working and producing classes - are deprived of their birthright to decent living and honourable existence - and not simply an animal that needs not only protection but improvement and progress. In a country where actually millions die not only of diseases but from snake bites and rabid animal attacks, from pestilences and famines, and from artificial starvation conditions; it is man that needs protection first.

We readily concede that the cow is a useful animal. So are many other animals. No rational man will make a sanctimonious distinction between the cow and the goats. We deny any essential difference between the cow and other animals except on the ground of utility. Extreme veneration should not blind us to the fact that once upon a time Aryans used to eat beef. There are irrefutable proofs in the Vedas. Many of our Rishis and Munis are included among beef eaters. Even today some Hindu groups eat cows. Many an educated Hindu today is relishing beef in posh hotels or in overseas countries. It is good that beef eating has generally disappeared from among Hindus. But to make any fuss of legislating against cow slaughter is unwise and even dangerous. It touches the food of many Muslims, some non Indians in India and many others, though most Indian Christians do not eat beef as a habit.

There is utter neglect of the cow among Hindus. They are not fed or otherwise taken care of well. Not enough advantage has been taken by Hindus of the Veterinary Department. The traders in milk, actual owners of cows starve the calves to make extreme profits and thus spoil the breed and future bovine generations on a large scale throughout the country. The greedy cultivators till every inch of soil and leave no pasture ground anywhere. Cows are often mercilessly beaten. Do reform here and the situation will improve ten times.

In a country where even today human blood is artificially sucked by bugs and vermin, where in hundreds of pilgrim centres like Varanasi and in other big cities, men are being hurt and killed by cows and bulls it is man who needs protection. Most of all we need to revise our concept of relative values.

2. The Nagas and Now the Mizos

The talks have been going for too long and there is theoretically a deadlock. They demand national sovereignty. Any other Government would have closed down the negotiations simply on the ground that the hostile Nagas have taken full advantage of the long-suffering of our Government. Or shall we call it inexperience, inefficiency, fear or neglect? It is high time for the Union to clinch the issue and take firm decisive measures in the interests of the majority in all the hill tracts and of the country as a whole. Have Indian Christians no duty in the matter? The Church is one. Why should the N.C.C. not take a Peace and Good will mission to the area as a whole? Especially in view of reports and allegations that not much has been done by the Assam Government for the tribes social and economic welfare though funds were provided for same and that military action against the offenders has been indiscriminate and ruthless though that has not been apparent and the work of sabotage by the rebels has been very destructive?

3. The Overall Situation in the Country

It is awesome. Agitations, hartals, lockouts, strikes, violence, accidents on Railways and Bus routes, antisocial crimes, dacoities and burglaries, famines, high prices and utter wide corruptions have confounded frustrated, demoralised and angered large sections of the population especially the poorer classes. The questions of national defence, law and order, food, prices, sabotage by unfriendly neighbours are acute problems. The Prime Minister assures us that India has not cracked. True, we are a long-suffering and fatalistic people consisting of men, women and children, who are like dumb cattle and like easily led and misled sheep. But the sleeping forces are fast waking up and may engulf us soon. Are the people’s rulers and leaders alert and strong enough? There has not been much consistency, precision or decision in our policymaking. There lurks some fear in the bosom of those who ought to be above it. We need a clear conscience and mind, honesty, bravery, and a forward go. Pleading difficulties and complicated situations, and trying to please both or all sides in the name of courtesy, neighbourliness, friendliness or in sheer crude self-interest - to throw overboard principles of justice, fair play, honesty, high ideals and of good government is to imperil this great country’s present and future. Can Christians who have been claiming a superior religion, higher moral and spiritual standards and a mission to India - can the church do anything, however humble in this situation? We suppose they have not the resources for a big show. But let them try to identify themselves with their countrymen in their joys and sorrows sharing their problems. Many of the questions deeply affect Christians also. Many Christians are honest, true, righteous and courageous. Let them enter the local trouble spots and clean the ulcers, put down the fires, reconcile between groups. But are they qualified? Are they sufficiently integrated into the life of the society at large or are they still living in Christian ghettos, both physical and mental? Are they still drawn by cross currents and harassed by double or treble loyalty? Let us cleanse our hearts and have a single supreme loyalty to God in Christ and then all lesser loyalties will take their respective proper places.

In the Fellowship of Faith and Work

(REPORT AND NEWS)

1. At the annual meeting of the B.K.S. in Calcutta in June last, the following office bearers were elected, President - the Rev. B.D. Roy, M.A., B. Ed. (Bristol) retired from Bengal Government Education Service and former President of the Bengal Baptist Union. Hon. Treasurer - Shri P.K. Sircar, B.A.B.L, retired Corporation lawyer: both residents of Calcutta. We are grateful to Dr. V. N. Sharma, Ph.D. (Heidelberg) of Madras - our retired President and to Prof. M.L. Sircar, M.A. (deceased) our former Hon. Treasurer for their sincere fellowship and helpful service in the cause of the Sangh. We wish good health and success to the newly elected office bearers.

2. Pastor D. Dutt is still in America and sends encouraging news of Divine Healing from Canada. He is expected back to Calcutta before Christmas. Our prayers for his ministry and safe return.

3. Mrs. B. Dutt (D. Dutt’s good mother) had been called by the Holiness Mission to Madhupur and to Jhajha (twice) for conducting women’s meetings. Many were touched by her messages.

4. Brother Ishananda has visited many Churches in Orissa. He has reported bumper crops in Jamboo area where he has some land and an Ashram in the making. We are hoping that an independent church will be organised there soon by the new converts who were baptised there in last June and other believers. Ishananda has a plan to open an Ashram also in Puri this winter.

5. Both in the north (Dum Dum) and south of Calcutta efforts are being made by interested local friends to organise groups for worship and witness under the auspices of the B.K.S. Your prayers are asked for these small ventures of faith to spread the Sangha’s ideals of the Church and its function.

6. Our Brother - Archbishop J.S. Williams of the Bombay Azad Hind Church and General Secretary of the All India Federation of National Churches has been in America in recent months. We hope to publish in a future issue a report of his sojourn in the west.

7. The President of the Federation - the Rt. Rev. R.S. Modak, D.D. Writes a good letter to your Executive Secretary from New York inquiring after our welfare. We are thankful for his services and encouragement to the movement of independence in the Indian Church.

8. The evangelistic work of Brother P.N. Kurien (Gospel Centre, 16/18 W.E.A., Karol Bagh, New Delhi-5) in the shape of a prayer circle and Tract and Gospel distribution by zealous young men has so much increased in volume all through the country that he had to give up his Government Service in the interest of this ministry. We thank God for his leadership.

9. In the same way has grown quietly and slowly the ministry of a dedicated group of believers under the leadership of Brother Henry Rodrigus who all came out of the Roman Church at Mangalore some years ago and Brother Rodrigus is now the Founder-Superintendent of the now famous “Christ-Nagar Mission” with a dynamic Evangelical Press. We again thank God for his gift of creative talents bestowed on our Brother by His Holy Spirit. They stand fully for evangelical principles, Bible Christianity, the apostolic church and for independence though their ministry is primarily confined to Roman Catholics. Let our fellowship together for God’s glory and man’s salvation grow deeper and wider.

10. Another pillar of the independent and national church movement - Archbishop Pillai of South India has been teaching the Christians of America the “Bible through the Eastern Window” and helping them acquire a deeper and more fruitful understanding of the Word of God. We thank God that He is using Bishop Pillai’s experience in this significant way.

11/ Acharya Das has continued in the Ashram in his ministry of prayer, Bible study, worship, spiritual conversation with enquirers. During Dusserah and Diwali there has been a great rush of visitors both Indian and Western. Three Christian families came, some of which included Hindu friends. A South Indian Christian Sadhu, several Hindu families and individuals also came. We could not receive them all in the Ashram for lack of space. Some were put up in lodges and hotels, but we had occasions of fellowship in prayer. Let us pray for and expect in faith a Christmas when our national life will be more settled and happy and the noise of battle will be drowned in the song of peace and goodwill both of the heavenly host and of the children of God on earth

— Secretary B.K.S.

P.S. We have had very encouraging news from Nepal. Brother Purushottama D. Pande and his wife - a young Nepali couple both converts from a Brahmin family, paid a few days visit to Varanasi. The testimony he gave as to how he became a Christian and what sufferings he had to undergo was thrilling. Most of his woes were due to the prejudice and hostility of denominational minded missionaries and Indian Christians. They are in fellowship with Brother Premdayal Prodhan - a great soldier of Christ - whose release from jail was announced in this paper last year with a note of thankfulness to God. They cannot preach the Gospel openly. But the number of enquirers is increasing and Brother Pande reports on return to Kathmandu three baptisms. Nepali believers number a little over a hundred. They want to build an indigenous, independent, non-sectarian Nepali Church which is not liked by Foreign Missions working in Nepal and by denominational Indians. This is not surprising to us - lifelong sufferers. Let us pray for our fellow-believers in the Nepali National Church

Edited and Published by:

Rev. R.C. Das, M.A.,
Khristpanthi Ashram,
129, Dashashwamedh, Varanasi, India

Printed at:

Evangelical Press,
“CHRIST NAGAR MISSION”,
Badagayedapadavu Post, Mangalore Taluk, S. India