When the great missionary statesman E. Stanley Jones went to India, he discovered that Christ indeed had been offered to India, but not Christ alone. So often there were other issues or culturally bound institutions that obscured Christ, and he vowed that in his own preaching he would focus on Christ alone-that he would not become sidetracked with the non-essentials and with extraneous points of interest. He said: “I would not mention the non-Christian religions. I would not speak to Hindus or Muslims, but to persons- persons in spiritual need. Jesus Christ had met my need, and he could meet theirs. It would be a head-on presentation of Christ, combined with a witness that he had met my need, so he could meet theirs… The Christ I presented would be the disentangled Christ- disentangled from being bound up with Western culture and Western forms of Christianity. He would stand in his own right, speaking directly to the needs of persons as persons without any entanglements.”

Following one of this evangelist’s messages, a Hindu principal of a college stood to make the closing remarks- remarks that indicated he had understood and received the message Jones was seeking to convey: “Jesus has stood four times in history before the door of India and has knocked. The first time he appeared in the early days, he stood in company with a trader. He knocked. We looked out and saw him and liked him, but we didn’t like his company, so we shut the door. Later he appeared, with a diplomat on one side and a soldier on the other, and knocked. We looked out and said: “We like you, but we don’t like your company.” Again, we shut the door. The third time was when he appeared as the up lifter of the outcasts. We liked him better in this role, but we weren’t sure of what was behind it. Was this the religious side of imperialism? Are they conquering us through religion? Again, we shut the door. And now he appears before our doors, as tonight, as the disentangled Christ. To this disentangled Christ we say: ‘come in. Our doors are open to you.’

We must not entangle Christ with Western Christianity or Eastern gods and goddesses. Christ can stand in his own right. As Reinhardt Bonke, the great evangelist said: "Christ is the lion of Judah, and all what you have to do is to open the cage and let the lion out." Present Christ in its simplicity without any entanglements. The simplicity of Christ and his message is appealing to any race or caste, especially to the masses of India. India contains the largest block of unreached people in the world. India also has a 36 million Christians, a sleeping giant. If they are awake, everyone in India will hear the Good News.

Let me give you an example from the scriptures. When Jesus was speaking to the church in Smyrna, He said: "These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again". Its tutelary deity was the 'Sipylene Mother', a local phase of Cybele. Their tradition believed that Cybele went to the depths of death, but was risen to new life. Even though Jesus knew this myth of theirs, He did not make a mention of that, but he just presents the truth about Him that He died and rose again. In the same way, we must present the truth of the gospel, and avoid mentioning the names and philosophical ideas of the gods and goddesses of other religions that may be sensitive to our hearers. There is no point in giving them the rose to smell after we cut their noses.

The church in India needs to rediscover Jesus Christ. Unless He becomes precious to us, how can we make others to receive Him? We need to be transformed by His love and power. No sincere seeker of India should say that "I love Christ, but I do not like his company".

When we go to the court to settle our differences and let a non-Christian judge to settle our problems we disgrace our saviour. When we let the non-Christian newspapers publish the sins of our leaders, did we not fail? When we throw mud on each other, we send a mixed signal about Christ who taught us to love our enemies. When our church gatherings and conferences need to be protected by police, we misrepresent Christ in this world. We cannot preach one thing in the convention and behave differently in our conferences. It is high time we repent, before the Lord of the church, lest He will come and remove our candlestick(Revelation 2). Then it will be utter darkness. If the church becomes dark, how dark our nation and our continent will be. We should do everything within in our power so that India will not shut the door against Christ because of us.

Let me conclude this article with an incident that I read in the biography of Sadhu Kochoonju, who was the beloved evangelist, whose life and songs are still an inspiration to us. He had a great burden for the poor and the needy, and through his simple life, he became a legend in the Indian Church history. One day he saw a boy walking on the road. It was a windy day and heavily raining. This boy had no umbrella. He found out that he had nowhere to go. This servant of God brought him under his umbrella and took him to his house. He made arrangements for him to take a good bathe and gave him clothes to change. They gave him a full stomach of meal and arranged for him to sleep. The unusual hospitality and love of this family created suspicion in this boy, and he thought maybe they are going to sacrifice him to their god or something. Though he was tired, he could not sleep. In the night Sadhu came to his bed and sat there and blessed him. Then he became more suspicious and he was preparing to die. He was so scared. But because of his tiredness and a full stomach, he quickly slept. In the morning when he awoke, he met everybody and he was so thankful and he shed tears of joy. Later Sadhu Kochoonjupadeshi wrote a short story about “Christian Love” based on this incident. I hope we all will have a little element of compassion towards the needy down trodden people before we present Christ to them.(dkunjumon@hotmail.com)