Baptist Press reports on "diversity in India"

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Mon, 13 Dec 2004 10:46:20 -0000

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Baptist Press reports on "diversity in India"

 

 

[This report is from the Baptist Press and deserves to be critically

evaluated. It gives an insight into the missionary church planting

strategies of the notorious Southern Baptist Church - moderator]

 

 

http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=19672

 

 

 

BP NEWS, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2004

 

 

 

Beyond Hinduism and masses in poverty, India also is a nation full

of

diversity

Dec 7, 2004

By Erich Bridges

 

 

 

EDITORS' NOTE: "That All Peoples May Know Him" is the theme for this

year's season of prayer for international missions in Southern

Baptist churches across the country. For the next five days, Baptist

Press will feature stories and photos that highlight the challenge

of

reaching the masses in India with the Gospel. The national goal for

this year's Lottie Moon Christmas Offering is $150 million -- every

penny of which will be used to send missionaries and support their

ministries. The International Mission Board relies on the Lottie

Moon

offering for 51 percent of its annual income.

 

 

MUMBAI, India (BP)--Where can you find thousands of millionaires,

and

nine of the world's richest billionaires?

 

India.

 

Who makes more movies than Hollywood?

 

India -- by far. "Bollywood," the vast film industry based in Bombay

(now Mumbai), churns out about 1,000 pictures a year, roughly twice

as many as Hollywood. Hindi movies burst with melodrama, action,

sexy

stars and big musical production numbers -- and gross $3.5 billion a

year in worldwide ticket sales.

 

Which nation boasts the world's biggest democracy?

 

India. And it still works, as demonstrated by this year's stunning

upset victory by the underdog Congress Party over the ruling Hindu

nationalist alliance.

 

Which country now counts more than 24 million Christians -- nearly

19

million of whom are evangelicals?

 

You guessed it: India.

 

If your most vivid impressions of India come from old National

Geographics and Rudyard Kipling's jungle stories, update your mental

file with these facts:

 

-- India's 1.07 billion people -- second only to China in total

population -- are 80 percent Hindu. But more than 130 million

Muslims

call India home (some estimates range above 150 million). That

rivals

the combined population of all countries in the Arab Middle East.

 

-- Indian teenagers spend $3 billion a year on fashion accessories.

 

-- The Indian middle class (those earning $2,000 to $4,000 annually)

now numbers 300 million -- larger than the entire U.S. population.

It's expected to approach 450 million within the next five years.

 

-- Massive rural-to-urban migration will likely double the

population

of India's cities within two decades. That's equal to "all of

Europe,

all of a sudden, needing water, sanitation, drainage, power,

transportation, housing," says an Asian Development Bank official.

 

-- Want to tap into a youth movement of gargantuan proportions? No

fewer than 555 million Indians are under the age of 25.

 

-- Indian universities produce more than 1.5 million graduates each

year.

 

-- The booming Indian economy was forecast to grow 8 percent this

year as Indian industries match or surpass some of the world's top

producers.

 

-- India has some 200 million English speakers. The nation's vast

collection of peoples also speaks several hundred other languages

and

dialects.

 

-- Three Indians made Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most

powerful and influential people this year: Bollywood superstar

Aishwarya Rai, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and IT

industry mogul Azim Premji (reputedly the world's fourth-richest

man).

 

Make no mistake: India still faces enormous problems of poverty and

need. The poor in some 800,000 towns and villages still account for

the great majority of the population. About 300 million people live

on less than a dollar a day. As many as 3,000 Indian farmers in a

single state (Andhra Pradesh) have killed themselves over the last

six years because of debt and drought.

 

India has the world's largest number of working children (up to 115

million); many toil in sweatshops. At least half of the population

cannot read. Meanwhile, many of the graduates pouring out of the

nation's universities can't find decent jobs. Despite economic

growth, too many applicants are competing for too few positions. The

government counts 40 million jobless workers, while the vaunted

Indian info tech industry employs fewer than 1 million.

 

But India has made amazing progress on many fronts -- economic

expansion, education, technology. Its scientists, academics,

computer

specialists, entrepreneurs and entertainers are challenging -- and

often surpassing -- the best other countries can offer. Expectations

are soaring.

 

`DIVERSITY IS INDIA'

 

Here's a tip to avoid cultural schizophrenia in India: Realize that

you can find anything you look for there. Staggering wealth and

appalling squalor. Showbiz fantasy and harsh reality. High-tech

companies and age-old cottage industries. Instant business deals and

molasses-slow state bureaucracy. Mega-cities and remote forests. The

latest trends and ancient traditions. Go-go capitalists and

doctrinaire communists. Holy men and atheists. Intense spirituality

and crass materialism. Hindus, Muslims, Jains, Sikhs, Christians,

Buddhists, tribals.

 

Hundreds of India's ethnic, religious and caste groups live in

geographical or social isolation from each other, looking at the

rest

of this vast "nation of nations" with curiosity or suspicion. Many a

south Indian, if set down somewhere in the north, would be as

bewildered by the customs and languages as someone from the U.S.

heartland parachuting into Scandinavia.

 

In other places, particularly the cities, different peoples and

cultures mix and mingle in seemingly countless combinations. Mumbai,

India's largest city, is a world unto itself.

 

With more than 17 million people jammed into a 180-square-mile

peninsula, Mumbai is the financial capital of India, the film

capital, the organized crime capital, the AIDS and prostitution

capital. It is the home of India's most expensive real estate -- and

Asia's biggest slum. You can live under plastic tarps on the

streets,

as multitudes do, or dine with old money at the exclusive stadium

cricket club (joining fee: $30,000).

 

On Mumbai's sidewalks and crowded commuter trains, you can rub

shoulders -- or trade elbows -- with stock traders wearing cell

phones and $1,000 suits, beggars, college students, Muslim women

covered by black burqas, Punjabis, Tamils, Kashmiris, Bengalis,

Assamese, Gujaratis, Keralites.

 

On one bustling street, a plush mansion built as a set for Bollywood

movies stands empty, while at least 100 squatters live in lean-tos

along the outside wall. "That's Mumbai," shrugs one resident.

 

That's India.

 

"Diversity is India," observes a leading Christian strategist who

lives there. "You can lose yourself in all the challenges and

unlimited horizons for missions in this country. You could pour a

thousand lifetimes into India and never exhaust it."

 

But even a thousand lifetimes dedicated to spreading the Gospel

won't

make a real dent in India -- unless they are lives focused on

multiplying disciples and churches.

 

Of all the surprises and superlatives of India, here are several of

the most important:

 

-- India's 24-million-member Christian community is growing, but

remains a small minority of the national population of 1.07 billion.

 

-- India and its immediate South Asian neighbors have more than 200

people groups with populations exceeding 1 million.

 

-- Nearly half of the world's unreached people groups live in India

and the South Asian region. They have yet to be touched by the

Gospel

in any significant way.

 

-- India alone is home to 14 different "super-mega" people groups

(more than 10 million members each) who are currently "unengaged" by

a church-planting movement strategy. In other words, Christians are

not yet focusing on any of these groups in a way that will result in

growing, self-sustaining church movements. Just one of these ethnic

peoples, the Rajput, totals 40 million souls.

 

-- South Asia, which includes India, has half of the world's Last

Frontier population -- more than any other region.

 

'AS INDIA GOES, SO GOES THE GREAT COMMISSION'

 

The three global "giants" standing between the body of Christ and

the

fulfillment of the Great Commission in our day are China, Islam and

India -- each with a population of more than 1 billion.

 

Two of these three meet in South Asia: India -- and the nearly 400

million Muslims living primarily in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

 

"As India goes, so goes the Great Commission," contends the

Christian

strategist. "And how is India doing? Not that well, quite frankly.

Not because it's inaccessible -- because it's neglected. If this is

truly the last of the giants, God is giving it to us on a silver

platter. It is a friendly place, an inviting place.

 

"There is no excuse for not getting the Gospel out here. I'm

overwhelmed at the openness."

 

That assessment seemingly contradicts frequent reports of

persecution

of Christians in India, resistance to evangelization and the

resurgence of Hindu extremism. True, violent opposition is very real

in certain areas, but it's often a reaction to the Gospel's spread --

 

which persecution can't stop.

 

India's (and majority Hinduism's) renowned spiritual tolerance also

lives up to its reputation in many ways, both as bridge and a

barrier

for the Gospel.

 

"India skipped modern," observes a Christian worker. "It has always

been postmodern."

 

How so? The philosophical idea that many paths lead to God or truth

probably originated in India -- and now strongly influences the

West.

It challenges the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ to lordship, but

opens many doors in India to talking about Him.

 

In the cities, at least, Christ's followers can readily gain a

hearing in the noisy Indian marketplace of ideas. In the more

traditional and resistant villages, growing numbers of believers are

boldly proclaiming the Good News.

 

"We've seen so many people come to Christ, so many churches started -

-

hundreds, maybe thousands of new churches," says the strategist.

 

"This is an incredibly responsive place. We just need more people

implementing church-planting movement strategies. That means moving

from planting an individual church and bringing a few people to

Christ to saying, 'What's it going to take to see a movement that

sweeps through a people?'

 

"In God's economy we have a vital role to play: a role of

encouraging, training and multiplying ourselves through hundreds and

thousands of national partners."

 

It's already happening in some places, like the huge north Indian

state of Uttar Pradesh, where more than 5,000 house churches have

sprung up in less than two years.

 

It will happen in many more places, because wherever the light of

Christ is lifted up, He draws people unto Himself.

 

"Our job," says a believer, "is to turn on the light, turn on the

light, turn on the light!"

--30--

Erich Bridges is a senior writer with the Southern Baptist

International Mission Board.