Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI190430A
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00:27 Welcome to Liberty Insider.
00:30 This is a program designed to bring you up-to-date 00:33 on religious liberty developments around the world, 00:36 not just in the United States, 00:38 and to discuss them in a way that can tell you 00:41 the underlying dynamic behind some of these developments. 00:45 My name is Lincoln Steed, Editor of Liberty Magazine. 00:48 And my guest on the program is... 00:52 I was going to call you professor, 00:53 but let's just call you Elder, pastor. 00:54 Pastor will help, yeah. 00:56 Kingsley Palmer, 00:57 a religious liberty leader 00:59 for the Seventh-day Adventist Church 01:02 and a good raconteur, to throw in a little French. 01:07 But let's not go to France, let's go to India. 01:11 Right. 01:13 You've had an interesting history 01:14 in England, 01:15 and living for many, many years in the US, 01:17 but for some time, you were based in India, 01:21 you taught in India. 01:22 Yeah, we taught in the '90s in India 01:26 at what is now known as Spicer University. 01:29 It was Spicer College at the time. 01:32 And that came about 01:33 because we were doing graduate studies in England, 01:36 and we had a three-month project, 01:37 my wife and I, 01:39 and we wanted to do it overseas in a place 01:42 where we could get an experience, 01:45 another perception. 01:46 And I'm sure you got an experience. 01:48 Oh, yes. 01:49 It changed my life when I visited India first 01:52 as a young person. 01:54 There's really no country like it. 01:55 I mean, every country is unique in its own way, 01:57 but India is just overwhelming to every sense. 01:59 It is. 02:01 And the sense that I'll start with 02:03 is India is the country of many gods, 02:07 the different Hindu deities, a myriad, 02:12 and the whole theology 02:15 and history that lies behind that. 02:17 And, of course, there's many Muslims in India. 02:21 There's just subtext of all religious activity, 02:24 and you can make a pretty good argument 02:27 that India was a focus of human development 02:30 in the world, not just, 02:31 what's it, Olduvai Gorge or whatever in Kenya, 02:36 it was with Louis Leakey, 02:39 but the history of India goes way, way back. 02:42 In fact, 02:43 some people that I think are pursuing 02:46 a rather dead end philosophical religious endeavor 02:50 try to say that Jesus was trained in India 02:53 in the hidden years and brought Indian philosophy. 02:55 That's an interesting one. 02:58 But I'm sure it was overwhelming to you 03:02 when you went to India from every level, 03:04 but on the religious level, 03:06 how did you relate to that 03:07 as someone from a Christian background 03:10 going to India? 03:11 Well, again, 03:13 we had an Indian community in England before I left, 03:16 so we had some kind of connection 03:18 to that community. 03:20 And when we went there, 03:21 I mean, what we saw was just absolutely eye-opening 03:28 in terms of being there and seeing the diversity 03:32 of belief systems that were in place, 03:35 and how they governed how people lived separately. 03:39 And each group was passionately connected 03:45 in defense of their particular religious persuasion, 03:49 so many... 03:50 Thousands and hundreds of gods 03:56 in the pantheon of Hinduism, 03:58 and then you had other religions, 04:01 and, of course, Islam, the Muslim community, 04:05 it was eye-opening, it was, I would say, 04:08 transformative and very, very educational, 04:11 although I was teaching 04:12 at a Christian, an Adventist University. 04:16 Over the years, 04:17 I've mentioned it on this program, 04:19 but are you aware of the writings 04:21 of Stanley Jones? 04:22 No, I'm not. 04:23 He was a missionary, nearly 100 years ago, 04:27 Protestant missionary to India. 04:29 I think he was from the US, 04:31 but I always read it 04:32 as though he had an English background, 04:34 but I believe he came from the US. 04:37 A book of his pretty much changed my thinking 04:40 if not my life. 04:41 He has a book called The Christ of the Indian Road. 04:45 And he went to India in several periods. 04:51 And the first time he went, 04:52 I think it was eight, nine years or whatever, 04:56 no success, didn't baptize anybody, 04:59 pretty much broke himself on the system 05:01 that you're talking about, 05:02 the many gods 05:04 and the totally non-Western way of thinking 05:06 on religious matters. 05:08 And he had a sort of mental breakdown even. 05:11 And it was the second time around 05:13 when he was conducting a discussion 05:16 with some Brahmins. 05:19 And one of them said to him, he says, 05:21 "I don't want the God of your Western culture. 05:26 I don't want your Western God." 05:29 And so Jones thought quickly, 05:31 and he described the Jesus like a holy Man in India 05:35 living among the common people, 05:37 walking down the street, connecting with them. 05:40 And he says the Brahman thought, 05:43 and he says, 05:44 "I could learn to love the Christ of the Indian road." 05:48 And I'm sure... 05:49 Yes, and it is true. 05:51 You know, one of the things... 05:53 of the many things that I learned 05:54 from my time there, 05:56 you have to go to places 05:58 wherever you go with an open mind. 06:00 You have to... 06:02 In your engagement, in your discussion, 06:03 and we have a lot of students, 06:05 some were former Hindus, 06:06 Muslims, they were transitioning. 06:09 Of course, I taught in the theology department, 06:12 and it was interesting to sit and listen 06:14 to how they understood the concept of deity, 06:18 why they served who they served 06:20 or what they served 06:22 and try to introduce the God of the Jesus, 06:27 the God of the Indian road. 06:30 And that in itself was transformative for me 06:34 and informative. 06:37 The sad thing about it is, and I see elements of it here, 06:40 looking back, 06:42 is that we've almost gone down the same road, 06:45 where you have the caste system, 06:47 the separations of people, 06:49 depending on the social strata, 06:53 and it being used to separate them, 06:57 okay, and subjugate them. 07:02 Yeah, 'cause the cast system is more than separation, 07:05 it's to box you in that you can't move outside that. 07:06 And to suppress. 07:07 Yes. 07:09 In many ways, in the West, we have a type of caste system, 07:12 we call it class. 07:14 They call it caste. 07:15 And while I was there, they taught... 07:19 I discovered that they taught Christianity 07:22 as a philosophy 07:24 and not necessarily as a religion. 07:26 I had a problem with that, coming from the West, 07:28 but I had to adjust my understanding 07:31 and my teaching methods to encompass 07:36 the different viewpoints. 07:37 And there was always something to be learned from them 07:39 even if I didn't totally agree. 07:42 I argued that it was not a philosophy. 07:45 This is a way of life. 07:47 This is equality, this is fair treatment, 07:49 this is anti-discrimination, and that's what you get. 07:53 So I taught that, 07:54 and I would ask some of my students, 07:56 "why did you become a Christian?" 07:58 And the stories were very, very informative. 08:02 But I'm sure you came up against it in India 08:06 as in many other countries 08:08 that there was a recurring tendency 08:11 of Christian missions 08:12 to offer sort of a better life here and now, 08:18 and they were tangible positives 08:20 to becoming a Christian. 08:21 And often people became a Christian 08:23 for here and now reasons, 08:25 and, you know, it was called you're a rice Christian 08:27 'cause you get more rice. 08:30 Where it seems to me, in India, they were correct. 08:34 Not so much that Christianity is a philosophy, 08:36 but it's a different philosophical view 08:38 of the universe. 08:39 Right. 08:41 I don't think the cosmology 08:44 of the Old Testament 08:46 and Jesus represented that in the New Testament, 08:49 but that cosmology is not the same 08:51 or easily integrated with the Indian view of, 08:54 you know, the religious Hindu view 08:57 of everything, 08:59 you know, reincarnation, 09:00 and multiple gods, and the battles. 09:03 Well, it's true, we have war in heaven. 09:04 But still, it's just another reality. 09:08 And some of them, as you move from state to state, 09:11 was so completely different from what the others did. 09:14 And so you had all these independent states, 09:18 which were almost like separate kingdoms 09:20 or separate governments pushed together, 09:23 forced together. 09:25 As you well know, India is a continent, 09:26 but it's not a... 09:28 It's subcontinent, yes. 09:29 Yes, it's true, it's not a continent, 09:31 but I mean, it's a continental reality, 09:35 the huge landmass there, 09:37 but it's not one people's, it became one because, 09:41 you know, England ruled that large area. 09:43 Several hundred years. 09:45 But it's a false distinction, in some ways, 09:48 but in India and Pakistan and even Afghanistan, 09:51 and at least, 09:52 that is a common sort of culture, 09:54 but huge travel differences, even religions. 09:58 But what we did discover while we were there 10:02 with these different divergent belief systems in place, 10:06 and here we are, a Christian university, 10:09 Protestant, actually trying 10:12 to bridge the gap and the divide. 10:13 And not only that, 10:15 you had students from other countries 10:17 that were there, 10:18 who were more in line with what we teach 10:20 in the West in terms of religion. 10:22 But in the state of Kerala, 10:25 and it's reported and it's understood 10:27 that one of the disciples namely Thomas 10:29 went to Kerala and introduced Christianity. 10:33 And Kerala, beautiful place, had high literacy rate, 10:39 upwards of 85%, and that was several years ago, 10:43 the standard of living was better, 10:44 and all those other things. 10:46 And it was a demonstration, 10:48 I think, a really powerful demonstration, 10:50 economically, socially or what have you 10:53 of what happens when Christianity, 10:55 rightly applied, can be transformational. 11:00 Moving around and having an open mind as a teacher, 11:05 because you go to teach, but you also have to be taught. 11:08 The sad thing about it was when we got there, 11:13 that we were not distinctively 11:15 the stereotypical Anglo missionaries. 11:21 It was a bit of a shock. 11:23 That might have helpful. 11:24 It was very beneficial. 11:25 It was more of a blank slate, find yourself. 11:27 Yes. 11:29 Yeah, and so we discovered that, 11:32 from the standpoint of our own experience, 11:34 you know, having to experience 11:36 the societal inequities that we suffered, 11:41 we were able to engage with the community. 11:45 We always had children at the house 11:48 every single weekend. 11:51 Muslims, we had Eritreans, and we had Somalians, 11:54 we had Christians, we had all kinds of... 11:57 And they came together for the time 11:59 that we were there, 12:01 and we still have, all these years later, 12:03 remarkable and memorable experiences. 12:06 And the kids are in touch with us, but yes. 12:08 You were talking about what happened in Kerala. 12:10 And it is worth remembering in the Christian context, 12:14 Seventh-day Adventist, correctly, 12:16 are committed to proclaiming the gospel, 12:18 and we see an endpoint, 12:20 you know, the gospel to all the world. 12:22 But it's worth remembering 12:23 that it went to all the world pretty much in one generation. 12:27 Thomas, and then we know in the British Isles and so on. 12:31 So the end of all things is not dependent 12:34 upon some checklist of countries 12:36 that we're taking Christianity to. 12:38 It was taken very quickly. 12:39 And it did make a difference in some countries. 12:42 But you're talking about spiritual change. 12:46 Again, with Stanley Jones, 12:47 I'm reminded of another one of his books. 12:51 He tells spending time with Gandhi at his ashram, 12:55 and they discussed spiritual matters 12:57 and Gandhi famously... 12:59 Many people know the quote he said that, 13:01 you know, Christianity was fine, 13:02 but he didn't like Christians. 13:04 You know, they weren't exemplifying the principle. 13:06 But when they spoke about finding god, 13:08 which is a spiritual quest everywhere, 13:11 whether you're Christian, Muslim, Hindu, whatever, 13:13 people try to find god. 13:16 And Gandhi says, "Yes, you can find god." 13:18 But he says, "No, it may take ages, 13:21 and no miracles are to be expected." 13:24 And Jones said 13:26 that he went back to his room that night, 13:27 got down, and prayed fervently, and he says, 13:30 I don't know about what he says, 13:31 but he says, "All I know is I need to find God, 13:34 and I need a miracle in my life." 13:36 It's interesting that you mentioned Gandhi 13:38 because Gandhi also said 13:41 when it comes to the way 13:43 that religion was taught through missionaries, 13:48 and intentionally, unintentionally, 13:50 one doesn't know. 13:51 But he said, "I like your Jesus, 13:54 it's the application of your religion 13:55 that I don't like." 13:56 It's the variation of the same quote, didn't... 13:58 Christians were not exemplifying Christ. 14:00 Exactly, and we did see some of that, 14:04 you know, in terms of how they perceived us 14:08 coming from the west, 14:10 you know, they considered their civilizations 14:14 being a lot longer developed 14:16 and been around a whole lot longer, 14:18 and so there was some suspicion even... 14:22 The charge is always easily given. 14:25 I don't think we should be as scared of it 14:29 as we sometimes are, 14:31 but there shouldn't be a total dislocation 14:33 between the God you present and the faith that you live. 14:38 But, of course, none of us can be Christ on Earth. 14:41 We'll take a short break, 14:43 and we'll come back to talk a little more of India 14:47 and other religious viewpoints 14:50 and how we can function in a global world 14:53 with religious diversity. |
Revised 2019-04-19