Diamonds in India - a huge piece of ice about to be carried by motorbike through the streets of Mumbai
I continue to unpack Indaba India- I expected to find diamonds in India remember, I did, they cut sharply, trust me... (another day on that one.)
I found there for the most part a faith that busied itself with gospel-business whilst sharing its streets peaceably with its Muslim and Hindi neighbours... or at least all seemed peaceful from where I was positioned.
Amongst my Indian comrades there were a series of theological and spiritual positions comparable to positions here.
Where faith was inculterated, it was vibrant and alive, where faith was imported in terms of the supa-structure and church buildings were so English that they even bedecked the front steps with foam snowmen at Christmas, I was less sure.
But this expression of the faith is one we find in many of our Cathedrals, accessible to many, traditional in format.
Authentic, to something, yes. Needing to be so... perhaps.
In its Englishness, it was noticeably Christian but why not mine deeper and live an Indian Christianity? Perhaps because for those leaving Hinduism, the break needs to be complete, inculteration holds too many significations of the gods of old, the gods left behind.
...and so Christianity is marginal in North India - three in a hundred people. ...and yes, I forgot - frequently... and we practised our hymn on the train and thereby witnessed in the public space and I sang once in the back of a taxi, about Jesus and his revelation ... I prayed publicly too.... as I say, I frequently forgot...I was not actually proselytising though.
... and did the people proclaim in the public space, as they did in the underground in New York and in a yellow cab, where I heard more about Jesus than I had all that day from the African-American taxi-driver with his zealous biblicism?
No, they did not.
The Muslims did though, through megaphones, five times a day and in rallies underneath my window from where I gazed out on hundreds of doubled-over, white-robed men. One of our party crossed their grounds and was told to skedalddle - sharpish. She was also a woman.
What does Anglican proclamation look like in India?
It looks like widows homes and orphanages, a reaching out with practical actions to the marginalised, a manifestation of God's preferential treatment for the orphan and the widow. It was humbling.
...and the preaching - a calling us back to the moment of our calling... to our first love... to a personal decision and relationship with Jesus - simple, uncomplicated, gospel, evangelistic.
... and the expectation - a God of the impossible...of transformation...personal testimonies amongst my Indian brothers and sisters of the miraculous.
... and could I survive in India? Probably not. Perhaps engaged in Slum mission with the Oasis trust - a book about which I read on the aeroplane on the way out there... but as an Anglican - no!
I would be in trouble - frequently. I would need to pray harder and longer for the gift of patience. I would want to as fervently proclaim the God of the heavens and the earth as my Muslim brothers and sisters proclaim Allah!
I would be locked up, silenced, marginalised - living out an authentic faith then? - yes, highly likely.
You may find there's a class element to the maintenance of English-style churches; there certyainly is in West Africa. The more educated people tend to go to the historic churches, while the working class are more likely to join 'spiritual churches'.
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