on the plane yesterday i read e.stanley jones gandhi:portrayal of a friend. some of you may remember my enthusing about the christ of the indian road [and here and here], stanley jones seminal work. well geoff and sherry who gave me that book also gave me this one and it’s taken me this long to get round to reading it…
it’s a wonderful read and both jones and gandhi are astonishing. i want to just quote a few extracts from the book as they speak for themselves. the first is an exchange between jones and gandhi that i quoted before…
"How can we make Christianity naturalized in
India so that it shall no longer be a foreign thing identified with a
foreign people and a foreign government, but a part of the national
life of India and contributing its power to India’s uplift?" He responded with great clarity:
"I would suggest first of all
that all of you Christians, missionaries and all begin to live more
like jesus Christ. Second practice your religion without adulterating or toning it
down. Third emphasise love and make it your working force, for love is central in Christianity. Fourth, study the non Christian religions more sympathetically to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more
sympathetic approach to the people."He constantly said to the Indian Christians and missionaries: "Don’t talk about it. The rose doesn’t have to propagate its perfume. It justs give it forth and people are drawn to it. Don’t talk about it. Live it. And people will come to see the source of your power."
jones reflecting on interpreting christ in india:
Jesus is the gospel. We therefore bring him to the East and West and say: Take him direct. You don’t have to take our interpretation of Christ, except as you find it helpful in forming your own. Go straight to the gospels to discover Jesus anew, and if you show us a better interpretation we shall sit at your feet. The system which we have built up around Christ in the West may be useful and helpful as embodying a collective experience, but it is no integral part of the gospel. Create out of your own experience the corporate expression of that experience. Christ is universal but he uses local forms to express that universality. We expect you in india out of your rich cultural and religious past to bring to the interpretation of the universal Christ something which will greatly enrich the total expression. Especially now that Gandhi has lived and died we think you can interpret Christ in terms that are lacking in the West.A movement that was fighting the West was showing to the West its own Saviour in a new way. A Hindu summed it up for me in these words. " We Hindus and you Christians should change sacred books. The Bhagavad Gita gives philosophic reasons for war while the New Testament teaches peace, and yet we are more peace minded and you are more war minded. If we change sacred books it would suit us both better."
the power of gandhi’s commitment to non violent resistance and truth changed everything. one of my favourite stories is gandhi’s remarkable fast in delhi in 1948. there was tension and fighting between hindus and moslems. he announced that he would fast until hindus and moslems agreed on 8 things. all eight things were in the moslems favour. i won’t list them here but they were pretty full on. after 6 days the hindus and moslems agreed to the terms and the whole atmosphere changed. how much do we need that kind of love of other faiths and cultures today?…
Thanks for posting that Jonny – it spoke directly to my heart and where I am struggling. More and more I am disinclined to speak and more inclined to be in the hope that when I do speak the words I use come from the life I live. That make any sense? Anyway, thanks. Much appreciated.
William Beer gave me a copy of the Christ of the Indian Road when I left college in 1992. I need to re-read it again, but when I first read it I struggled with many things in the hyper-fundi atmosphere I was in!
E. Stanley Jones is one of my seminaries (asbury theological) favorite sons. If you really dig Jones you should read about his best friend from Asbury College who was also a missionary in India, Bishop J. Waskom Pickett. They were really different but both very inspiring. Pickett’s biography is called “The Road to Dehli” here at Amazon.http://www.amazon.com/Road-Delhi-Bishop-Pickett-Remembered/dp/8187712112
Hi jonny,
I’m glad you like E stanley Jones as I’ve mentioned him a few times on my blog. The last quote by him was:
I am an ordinary man doing extraordinary things because I ‘m linked with the extraordinary. But apart from this I am very ordinary. And worse. A woman put it this way: ‘Apart from the Holy Spirit, Brother Stanley would be a mess.’ She was right. But with the Holy Spirit I am not a mess, but a message, for I have a message. This is not boasting. It is witnessing, witnessing to Another. To say anything else would be a false humility which is concealed pride.’
Blessings
I’ve been pondering how to reply to this. Without doubt the ideas in the exchange are really excellent.
But having lived in India, I question how much more peace-loving Hindus really are – especially with the way Hindusim is now manipulated for political and nationalistic reasons and the consistent pro-Hindu violence against minorities (and women).
There IS some great inculturated work going on in India, but sadly there is a lot of importing of Western Christian culture by Indian leaders themselves. I recall with sadness a conversation with a stunningly dynamic minister whose big lament was the lack of funds to buy, of all things, an overhead projector. HIs reasoning was that with that his church would be “free to worship like you do in the west.”
This is excellent stuff, thanks for the quotes you posted – got to get the book.
very informative piece. if you’d like to read more about how the gita inspired gandhi, check out http://www.gitananda.org/about-gita/index.php
just reading your blogs on gandhi. thanks u so much. i’m indonesian, just interested to read about jones. Gb