Culture Quote of the Day - Christ on the Indian Road

E. Stanley Jones went to India as an evangelist in the early 20th Century. When he arrived there, and began interacting with Indian Hindus, he began to change, to see them, himself and his role differently. His book, Christ of the Indian Road, presents his journey and his transformation.  I see him as a great example of how to engage, as followers of Jesus and people who want to bear witness to him, to introduce others to him, with those of another culture, another civilization, even another religion.

Here's a taste of where he ended up, in his relationship with India:

“[The Christ of the Indian Road] had caught their imagination.  He seemed so intimately theirs.  He seemed to have come in from the Indian Road and had sat upon the floor with us there in the quietness of that Indian twilight.  In the discussion we talked of India and her need.  I did not talk to them as though India were foreign to me, for it was no longer so.  I was born in the West and love it, but India has become my home; India’s people have become my people; her problems, my problems; her future, my future; and I would like to wear upon my heart her sins if I could lift her to my Savior.  I told them I wanted to be thought of as at least an adopted son of India.”

“To know him, to introduce him – this is my task.  There is a beautiful Indian marriage custom that dimly illustrates our task in India, and where it ends.  At the wedding ceremony the women friends of the bride accompany her with music to the home of the bridegroom.  They usher her into the presence of the bridegroom – that is as far as they can go, then they retire and leave her with her husband.  That is our joyous task in India:  to know him, to introduce him, to retire – not necessarily geographically, but to trust India with the Christ and trust Christ with India. We can only go so far – he and India must go the rest of the way.”