India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

2. God is perfect in all His attributes and should be worshipped.

3. The Vedas are the books of true knowledge.

4. The caste system is a human invention and is evil.

5. Early marriage is prohibited.

The movement has assumed the aspect of a sect of Hinduism. But some of its fundamental contentions are so directly antagonistic to most cherished institutions of Hinduism that it is a mighty disintegrator of that religion in the land.

It must be confessed that the Arya Somaj is, in its present spirit, anti-Christian. It champions the cause of home religion in the East as against the aggression of the great rival, Christianity. But the teachers of our faith in India find encouragement equally in the hostility of this movement and in its coöperation in a common attack upon modern Hinduism. Any movement, that effectively calls the attention of the people to the weakness and defects of its ancestral religion, cannot fail, in that very process, to invite their attention to the claims of its rival, Christianity.

The chief function of all these movements is to reveal the general religious interest of the people. Indeed, they forward greatly the spirit of discontent towards the ancestral faith. And while they do this, they themselves furnish a no more satisfying or soul-inspiring substitute. And in this way they emphasize the need of a new faith and draw the thought of many to the new supplanting religion of the Christ. Chunder Sen, even twenty years ago, declared that, “None but Jesus, none but Jesus, none but Jesus is worthy to wear this diadem, India, and He shall have it.” Yes, even through such movements as the Brahmo Somaj, Christ is winning India for himself.

The educated classes of India are largely permeated and influenced by Western thought. They may not be inclined to join any of the reform movements which I have mentioned; but they are now thinking on absolutely different lines from those of their ancestors fifty years ago. The dissemination of Western literature, and especially the conduct of so many Christian schools have done more, perhaps, than any [pg 354] other thing to create an intellectual ferment and to produce a revolution of thought in all parts of the land.

One cannot unduly emphasize the importance of Christian schools in India. The government schools and the Hindu institutions of learning are acknowledged to be the hot-beds of rationalism and of unbelief. They not only furnish no religious instruction to the youth, they too often give the impression that all religion is a mere superstition and is unworthy of being taught.

To such an extent is this trend and influence observable that the government experiences much concern, coupled with an expressed, though vague, desire, that this evil be arrested by the introduction, into all public schools, of some method of imparting at least the fundamental principles of religion. But to discover the method of accomplishing this, without violating the principle of religious neutrality, seems beyond its power.