India's Problem, Krishna or Christ

by John P. Jones

The simplicity of his faith is beautiful. He has none of those questions of doubt or misgivings of unbelief which are so prevalent in the West. He takes the Bible in all fullness of acceptance. His prayers are not crossed and frustrated by any rationalistic theories, but have the simplicity of childish directness, filial trust and full expectancy. Nothing has touched me more in my contact with native Christians than to feel the directness, simplicity, unquestioning trustfulness of their prayers even in times of greatest adversity.

The native Christian possesses a mystic temperament. The inhabitants of that land, through many centuries of training, have become natural mystics in religion. This national heritage the native Christian retains; and properly chastened and directed by Christian truth and faith it will add depth, beauty and power to his religious life. Under these conditions I shall have no fear of mysticism in the Christian Church in India. Deep spirituality and a yearning after the hidden things of religion is more natural to the East than to the West. The West is practical and worldly; the East is mystical and other-worldly. The native Christian, at his best, is manifesting some of this spiritual power. He takes naturally to the Pauline emphasis upon the life “hid with Christ in God,” and to the mystic union which exists between Christ and His own.

It is here that the native Church in India is, I believe, to show an inspiring example to the Church of the West. If the Christian of India is not to be as [pg 139] practical or indeed as spiritually sane as his brother of the West, he will probably illustrate more of the hidden mysteries and power of the spiritual life. In this respect the spiritual power of the East and that of the West will be, in their separate emphasis, mutually complementary.

The Indian Christian, true to his native temperament, is and will continue to be strong in the so-called passive virtues, and weak in the positive or aggressive ones. Patience, meekness, gentleness, endurance—these are the graces which preëminently adorn him and which give colour and shape to his religious character. Here, again, his life will be very different from that life which has characterized, thus far, the Western Christian. The masculine virtues of assertion, boldness, aggressiveness have characterized the West. We have been strong and continue strong in that aspect of our faith which we associate with the words assertion and attack. The West has, true to its environment and training, developed Christian character mostly, I will not say exclusively, on the positive side of life. The equally important passive virtues we of the West have much neglected if not despised as weakness. The East is even today manifesting the blessedness, and the native Christian will increasingly illustrate, the beauty and potency, of the passive virtues—of the spiritual element of endurance and non-resistance. He will show to us that a true and perfected character—a character molded after that of the divine Exemplar—must have also, and with equal emphasis, the sweet and feminine passive graces of life as an essential element. In India today the Anglo-Saxon is wont [pg 140] to speak with contempt of “The mild Hindu.” That mildness which we are too apt to despise contains the germs of that half of Christian character which is too largely wanting in the spiritual life of the Anglo-Saxon and which the Christian Church of India will increasingly illustrate and gradually seek to respect, honour, and ultimately, to adopt.

Thus, speaking broadly of the native Christian of India today we find him almost as much a product of heredity and environment as he is of Christianity. He holds out Christ before himself as his ideal of life, and His words as the all-satisfying truth. He seeks in His redeeming work rest and salvation of soul; but many of the deepest yearnings of his heart come to him through old channels worn out by his ancestral faith. Hinduism gives more or less of colouring to his religious thought and aspirations; and not a few of its forms and ceremonies are retained, but filled with a new Christian content, and are utilized to aid in the development of Christian life. Even as the Jews of old entered into possession and appreciation of Christian life through Jewish rites and ceremonies, so do native converts enter Christian life through Hindu forms today. From the necessity of their thought and being they utilize not a few of the processes of the old, in order to acquire and enjoy the blessings of the new, faith. This cannot be avoided nor do we desire that it should be avoided.

House Of A Missionary In India.

A Village Christian Church.

The study of the Indian Christian character in its peculiarities and tendencies is of importance, because, as I have said above, I believe it is to affect our conceptions of life in the West. At the present [pg 141] time not a few of the religious vagaries which infest our land such as Christian Science and Theosophy, have chiefly come to us from India. At least, whatever of philosophy they may possess, and all of the occultism and mysticism which they court and magnify, are thoroughly Eastern and Indian. And from the popularity of such movements in this land it would seem as if the boast of some men that Hindu thought is invading the West is partially true. But the invasion which I desire and expect, in the not distant future, is the invasion of an Oriental Christian thought, Christian life and Christian character. This will come in its time as truly as, and much more fully than, the other has come, and it will do this country as much good as the other is now doing evil.