India, Its Life and Thought

by John P. Jones

I do not say, of course, that the present forms will be entirely discarded. But they will be so modified and supplemented that they will present an ecclesiastical type of their own.

And why should they not, if our faith is to fit well the Oriental mind, and is to become a gracious power in its life? The growing opposition among the educated men of India, at the present time, is not really antagonism to Christianity itself, but to its western garb and spirit. And there is much reason for this attitude of mind. Conciliation and adaptation has not been the characteristic of the mind of the West in presenting its faith to the East. This did not make so much difference, so long as the Indian was submissive and had not waked up to the spirit of self-assertion. But to-day, when that spirit is so rampant, and when a new nationalism and a half-spurious patriotism glories in everything eastern and is annoyed by all that is western, the matter of adaptation has become all-important.

The relative barrenness of our faith during past centuries in India was largely, if not entirely, due to its foreign ecclesiastical forms and its shibboleths pronounced in foreign tongues. The Christianity of the future in India must breathe of the spirit, and speak forth in the language and life, of the people.

I am inclined to believe that the battle cry of the Christian Church will soon be lost in the ever swelling tide of enthusiasm for the Kingdom of God. Christians will seek less to promote this or that denomination, and more and more to cause to come in power the Kingdom of Heaven. And India is a land which will lend itself very readily to this transfer of emphasis. There is much in the mystical type of the Hindu mind that leads us to anticipate preëminence for India in this change of emphasis from outward organization to deep-working spiritual forces and realities.

India, which has been the most prolific land in giving birth to religions, and in being at present the asylum of all the great faiths of the world, will not be slow to give to Christianity that form and aspect which will most please her.

It is therefore important that all the Christian leaders of India should not only take note of these facts, but should also do their utmost to help in the desired consummation, and make Christianity in India a faith that will appeal to every man and woman in the land.

III

The conquest of our faith in India will be not the less, but the more, thorough, because it will be not only of the letter but also and chiefly of the spirit.

There are a few things which are fundamental to our faith, and which will become the universal and permanent possession of India.

1. The spirit and principles of Christianity will prevail and will dominate the land. Christian, as distinct from Hindu, principles are already making wonderful headway in the country. Many new institutions have been organized in the land, whose principles are those of Christ, and not of Manu. Even the oldest institutions of the country are becoming affected by the desire to appear modern, which really means an ambition to introduce Christian methods and principles. Educated Hindus, especially, add to this the peculiar weakness of interpreting things Hindu by a Christian terminology. The philosophy which they have imbibed and the standpoint to which they have been accustomed are western and, chiefly, Christian. So that when they study their own faith they do so with these Christian prepossessions; and even when they defend their ancestral religion, they really defend not the indigenous product of India, such as is taught by the Hindu pandit and believed by the mass of the people, but Hinduism Christianized and clothed in the garb of the West and spoken in the accents of a Christian.