CONVERSION OR CHANGE
OF LABEL ( Page 2) |
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| Pearl Buck the novelist grew up in China as the daughter
of an American missionary. Her father had succeeded in converting
many Chinese and had quite a congregation. Pearl reports of a conversation
with him where he wonders if he had done any good at all. According
to him those who were good Chinese before baptism continued to be
good after the ‘conversion’ also. Those who were bad before
the baptism remained so even after. She then recalls the special case
of a person who was a thief before baptism and who later stole from
the church coffers. Pearl’s father was one of the few missionaries
who noticed the difference between a change of label and conversion. |
| Voluntary Conversion |
| Today many people leave their mother church to join
another because they have suddenly found out something wrong with
their church. They feel proud of the fact that they are not following
their parents’ faith blindly but that they had been smart enough
to sort out such important problems of life and to make their own
correct choice. They rarely recognise the fact that they had been
the victims of peer pressure or that they had been converted by others
influencing or brain washing them. Such people also feel that the
church or group to which they now belong is the perfect church without
any problems at all. |
| While in Lesotho, I entered an office where four of
my colleagues and the principal were in a heated argument. Seeing
me, they all wanted my opinion on the issue – what to do when
you find that there is something wrong with your church; should you
or should you not leave the church and join another? My reply satisfied
every one but the principal who had recently changed his church. I
told them that there are imperfections in all the churches due to
the fact that human beings run them. Every church and every religion
gives you the same chance of salvation. What is important is not your
membership of a church or a group but the way you lead your life.
If you find something wrong with your church you can and must try
to rectify it from within, by being an active member and leader in
it. Talking evil of it from the outside or crossing the floor of religious
affiliation as in politics is not the solution. |
| Gandhi’s Conversion |
| Bryan, a Canadian missionary in South Africa once told
me of an interesting experience he had in the seminary. They were
given an assignment to write an essay on ‘The greatest Christian
who influenced me’. Bryan made Gandhi the subject of his essay.
He supported his choice on the following grounds. |
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Gandhi, though never baptised, was a Christian because
he lived according to the teachings of Christ. |
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He put the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount to practice both
in his private and public life. |
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Gandhi was the one who brought home to Christians the importance
of the Sermon on the Mount. |
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Gandhi was ‘converted’ to Christianity if you take the
word conversion to mean a change of ways instead of a change of label. |
| For his essay Brian got an F- symbol, the lowest in
that batch. If he had chosen Hitler instead of Gandhi, he might have
got at least a D, I guess, as Hitler was a ‘Christian’
and he did a ‘good job’ of crushing the Jews who crucified
Christ. I agree with Brian that what makes a person a Christian is
not just the statistical label but the way the person leads his life.
Based on this criteria Gandhi was one of the greatest Christians to
walk on this earth. Gandhi’s friends and followers included
some European missionaries. One of them asked why he did not accept
Christianity as his religion? Gandhi replied in his characteristic
way. “Your mother may be more beautiful than my mother. That
is no reason for me to leave my mother and accept yours as mine. I
love my mother dearly even if she is not as pretty as yours.” |
| The Way and The Truth |
| Whenever I talk of the God-fearing people of other
religions and that many of them lead a much better life than some
Christians, my Christian friends ask me how I understand the words
of Christ, ‘I am the Way and the Truth’. My answer to
such questions is this: I believe these words of Jesus. But we must
take them in the context of space and time. A prophet is a person
who, standing on a mountainside, points to you a stream and says that
if you go through the stream you will reach the ocean. If you go uphill,
against his instruction, you won’t reach the destination. It
does not mean that on another mountain another river will not lead
you to the ocean. All rivers lead to the same ocean. Even so all religions
lead to the same God. Only thing is that you must go down the stream
and not upstream against the current. |
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