Back to School

Having a bit of unexpected flex-time, I decide to join Doug Johns in auditing a class having to with implications of the Gospel for Indian society and culture. Doug is a Presbyterian minister from Canada and a long-time friend.
I am a tad late getting to the classroom. The windowless doors are always closed as classes begin. So I had to crack it open to be sure I was in the right place. Yes! The professor nods for me to come in. I do so and try to slip into the nearest tablet arm.
But—this is India. Doug Johns is in the front row and he stands to his feet. (Most of us do it that way—what a silly phrase!) The students rise. I motion them to sit down. No way. Two jump up to find a better chair for me. They cart it over and motion for me to sit there. I do so. Only then do they all sit down again.
Within a few minutes in comes another pastor—Tim, from California, and his “sparkly-braces” 14 year old daughter, Sheridan. They had been delayed—someone wanted to greet them along the way. Again we all stand. Two students rush to the empty classroom nearby and cart in two chairs for the guests. In a moment or two, all settles down again to the lecture.
I later asked Doug why he had jumped to his feet as soon as he saw me peering in from the hallway. “O—I just noticed what happened when the professor came in and copied the protocol!” I must say Doug is a study in quick learning.
Now the lecture is resuming.
He is asking what pastors and churches are supposed to do.
Win people to Jesus, they reply.
What about the culture at large? Not our focus.
Professor Samuel points out that the culture affects the individual believer so deeply that that cannot be our only focus. He illustrates his point by asking about what Christians put in Christian magazines when advertising for a husband or wife. All the students know the answer.
“Mr. and Mr. X seek a wife with traits X, Y, and Z for their son, 24. Applicants must have a good appearance, age 19-24, who (among other things) is a firm Christian and high caste.” (The same for ads seeking husbands.)
Is this scriptural, he asks.
No. But the point is made. Individuals may be converted to Christ but they are still shaped by the culture—in this case a caste-based culture. So we must study the culture if we are to serve the Gospel faithfully.
Another example shows that even good intentions can often hinder the Gospel if the culture is not critically examined.
Some Christians seek to reach out in Jesus’ name to a rural village. What do you need, they ask the villagers, who caucus and agree that they could use a better road and a well. The women have to walk several miles each day to get water. So they show Christian charity and improve the road and bore a well.
A few months after completing the project they return to see how things are going. Families of low caste living on the edge of the village are still walking miles each day for water. How can this be? The village leaders explain. We cannot drink water from a well that is used by those low caste people who clean latrines and haul away garbage.
Despite good intentions, these Christians had not done a critical analysis of the culture. They had not talked to the low caste members of the village at all. But they were supposedly following Jesus, who put the rights of the poor and oppressed at the heart of true faith. But the church in this case unwittingly favored those in power who oppress the poor.
Another example.
Well-intentioned missionaries from Britain came to India many years ago and built schools and hospitals, thinking that it would trickle down to all the people. But for the most part it served the upper castes, making things worse. Today Indian Christians own vast amounts of land and thus are wealthy enough to do much for the downtrodden. But the churches look like the culture—class separated from class.
An example of how land value can soar here. This college was built on land that was then a mango orchard. They purchased about 20 acres in 1986 at a cost of $5000 USD per acre. Now an acre here costs $500,000, a 100-fold increase in 23 years.
And just as in the USA, pastors can build big churches with palatial buildings and obscene salaries while the poor grow ever more desperate.
Professor Samuel bears down on his final point to justify this course in Church and Culture.
Social structure needs to be part of our concern along with individual conversion lest the world keep us in its mold to the discredit of Christ. The mission of Jesus and of the Apostles required a commitment to transform the culture not just save the individual. There can be no discrimination of rich and poor, educated and unlettered, male and female, elite and commoner. The epistle of James alone makes that point indelibly clear. “God chose the poor of this world…to possess the Kingdom he promised to those who love him. But you dishonor the poor, while the rich drag you off to court and speak evil of that good name which has been given to you.” James 2:5-7 “You must never treat people by their outward appearance, saying to the wealthy ‘You take the best seat here’ while telling the poor man to sit on the floor by my feet.’” James 2:1-4 Such discrimination is evil. Yet we allow it in our assemblies even today.
These future leaders are not going to find it easy to stand against centuries of caste that curses their nation. The great Ghandi knew caste was evil but in the end even he refused to stand against it, for he deemed it necessary to keep India, India.
To its credit, when this college starts a school in various towns in these hills where the Hindu gods reign supreme, it presents a different application form from other schools. Applications ask for the name, address, income level and religion of the family enrolling their child. But they have struck out the box that asks for “caste.” Some parents write it in themselves since caste is crucial here. Such a form is rejected and returned to the parents. The Christian school wants to be blind to caste distinctions that dominate the Indian mindset.
Parents often ask if their child will have to sit next to a low caste child. They do not like this. “We do not consider caste in this school. We follow the Christian God who loves all equally and does not allow such distinctions.”
Since the Christian schools are excellent in comparison to the competition, even Hindu families accept the policy that does not guarantee their child a privileged position.
So they are going through what the USA experienced when our schools were integrated some fifty years ago.
“Save souls; transform society.” A worthy lesson for church leaders here in India.
It’s good to sit and listen to a fine lecture and to meditate on how Christians in America need to model the Kingdom of God in which there is neither religious or secular, make nor female, privileged nor poor, for all are one in the Lord.

My Children

This is now my seventh teaching tour to India. I suppose that makes me a veteran. That word means the Old One. On this campus I am by far the oldest, with the venerable founder, Uncle George, a distant decade and one half behind me. So Uncle G and Dr. G, as we are called, represent the wisdom that comes from long experience. Such as it is….
Perhaps you wonder why everyone in authority here may be referred to only by his initials but always has a title of some sort. Indian tradition insists that any one with grey hair who is “somebody” has a title—doctor, pastor, professor, etc. The founder and his wife are honored with the title Uncle and Auntie. I wonder if the reason is that Uncle’s surname is Chavanikamannil—quite a mouthful. In my case, Gustafson is to their ears just weird. So it's just "Uncle" and "Dr. G."
Now—getting to the point.
I sometimes meet students who were in my classes years ago. Two of them bring joy to my heart—Kalpana, recently married, and Dalmesh recently blessed with a child. Each of them regards me as a father in the faith who added value to their education. It is very humbling to think that this poor kid from Boston could have an influence on young adults in far-away India.
I understand now why the aging apostle would four times refer to the younger generation as “my children.” Check it out in the letter of First John.
Scene One
Kalpana and her identical twin sister, Archana, were in my ethics class here five years ago. Married to Bonny a month ago, Kapu (her childhood nickname) and her handsome husband were feted last weekend here on campus, where Kalpana, being a faculty kid, had grown up since age eight.
Before leaving for their ministry in Delhi, Bonny and Kalpana came to say goodbye to Uncle G. As we chatted, she mentioned a few things that she still remembered from the ethics class. I asked her if the class had been of any benefit in real life. What could she say when set up like that? Still, her positive answer seemed sincere. Bonny is a wheeler-dealer evangelist type. He was given a few minutes for his remarks at the reception. After a minute of profuse thanks to all the family and friends, he couldn’t help but segue into an appeal. He sounded just like Billy Graham did in 1950. Passion. “Why are you here in Bible college? To get adulation? To have a secure income from a church? To please your parents? Or are you willing to die for Jesus in the villages and towns in these Christ-less hills? Close your eyes. Raise your hand if you will here and now re-commit yourself to God’s will.” That sort of thing. He was not about to lose an opportunity even in a setting where everyone is a Christian heading for ministry.
Back in Delhi he has found ways to get the message into schools and colleges and even the public square by featuring musicians. It reminded me of Soulfest. He gets a rock band into the huge malls in Delhi. Everyone gathers around for the music. Then the stars tell how they got out of drugs or whatever because Jesus rescued them. Amazing! In a place where a preacher would be clapped in jail, a “rock star” can give his testimony between sets. He has a radio talk show. This guy is a dynamo for the kingdom. And our Kalpana is there to reach out to women and girls. They are actually planting churches and starting schools for slum kids—in the style of St. Paul: "that by all means I might win some." (I Corinthians 9:22)
My time with them flew by. I asked them if it was true that they met on Facebook. Bonny blanched and was about to defend his honor when Kalpana, having sat in my classes for two weeks, just laughed and said they had been true to the Indian style of courtship—the parents are central, not the Internet.
Uncle George invited Pastor Doug and me to join a circle of prayer, laying hands on this beautiful couple and commending them to the care of our Lord as they keep laying down their lives for Him.
Yes—cast your philosophical bread upon the waters and it will come back to feed your soul later on.
Scene Two
Waiting for supper yesterday I decided to walk in the gardens here in the cool of day. The sun had just gone to its rosy-tinted bed. The moon and Mars were holding hands in the purple of gathering dusk.
I chanced on a figure walking toward me. As he drew close enough to recognize, I (miraculously) had his name come to the surface.
“Dalmesh!”
“You remember me!”
“O yes. You sat just to my left in the front row in class two years ago. I remember you well.”
The reason I recall this so vividly has to do with his story.
He was one of the first to enroll here from the caste know as Dalit. They are not perhaps the lowest of the low in India. But they are definitely among those who used to be referred to as the Untouchables.
That designation comes from the rules of the caste system. People are born into a caste on the basis of their deeds in past lives. The law of karma says you are rewarded for your good deeds and punished for your sins. Low castes are destined to serve the higher castes. If one does this without complaint, what goes around may come around in a future incarnation such that you rise to a higher level. If not, your soul could go down a notch or two. After a million cycles you might climb to the top caste, check out, and find release from the curse of re-birth.
As a result of this way of thinking people in the Brahmin priestly caste must guard their purity. They do not pollute themselves by contact with Dalits like Dalmesh. They will not deal with him. And he is required to take care lest his shadow fall on them. National Geographic had a telling article on the Untouchables of India several years ago. It will horrify you when you read it.
So Dalmesh had come to the college here to study for ministry. Christ makes no distinction of gender, ethnicity or class, as we all know—we are one in the Lord.
Do you recall how hard it was for the apostle Peter when God in a vision sent him to meet with and even eat with a non-Jew named Cornelius? Peter’s first cry was one of horror. “Not so, Lord, I have never eaten anything unclean!” But God says we are not to regard as unclean that which he has purified through Jesus Christ, the universal Savior.
Likewise Dalmesh was finding it hard to find open acceptance here. Sure, everyone is Christian. But we all carry our cultural baggage, too.
So when I was lecturing on the ethical demands of the New Testament regarding total equality in the church, Dalmesh was nodding while others shifted nervously in their seats. He added a touch of reality to our discussion. It was a teachable moment.
Other faculty later told me that Dalmesh has been completely integrated into the life of the college.
And now here in the dusk of a day in October, he beams with joy as he tells me is now married and living in the faculty block of apartments. His wife had a boy by Caesarean section and they were told not to have more kids. But they are pregnant again and trusting the Lord, the Great Physician.
The aged apostle remarked how his children have an advocate with the Father so our sins are forgiven. He warns them that the end is coming near and we should display courage under pressure. Then he shifts his term of endearment to “my friends.” He admonishes us to love one another, to guard against false prophets and false gods.
Most of us never know what effect we have on those around us. Sometimes God opens a window to us to see how seeds have grown and produced a good harvest.
Thanks be to God.

Doug Defies Death in Dehra Dun

The sun is slipping slowly toward the horizon. The air is sweet and still.
“Would you like to visit Dehra Dun, Doug? I am going to the Centrum to buy a new cell phone and you could see the sights downtown,” says Uncle George, our host. I think I detect a bit of slyness in his broad smile.
But Doug sees none of this subtlety. He nods his head, “all eager for the treat—his face is washed, his clothing brushed, his sandals clean and neat.” (Apologies to Lewis Carroll here.)
We buckle up in the tiny van, Johnson the driver. Uncle George and I are in back. Doug is in shotgun—to get the full effect of the terror he is soon to experience.
The Shahastrada Road to town is busy. Cows and dogs, people walking along the edge, cycles zipping along, cars, trucks, and buses. Johnson weaves noisily through the traffic, sharpening his skills for what lies ahead.
As we near downtown Dehra Dun, tensions mount. The ever present honking of horns rises in a great crescendo, like the squawking of a million seagulls at a landfill.
Uncle George repeats an Indian slogan—you can drive without wheels, but not without a horn.
Here we are at a parking lot, where we dicker over which patch of dirt we will occupy among the crazy quilt “patterns” of lined up vehicles.
On foot now, Johnson eases us into the fray as we jostle our way along the edge of the pavement, all the sidewalks being crammed with packing boxes, goods for sale and shoppers browsing at windows. Uncle finds his shop, where he will spend a half hour selecting his new cell phone. In this period of time he relates later how the clerks (in the upstairs of this hole-in-the-wall shop) sold five or six phones. The Indian economy is brisk in places like this, helping to float the world economy while Uncle Sam struggles.
Doug Johns and I stand on the sidewalk. Some kids are watching a flat screen TV at the appliance store. Smack Down is on—that totally fake stage play featuring brawny “wrestlers.” I will say to their credit that it is obvious they have practiced their stunts and grimaces with diligence. This shop, Doug notices, is about five feet wide and tapers about 20 feet to the end of the building. It has goods hanging from the walls, lining the aisle—enough to fill a spacious section in an American mall.
I turn to see that Doug—this Presbyterian pastor from Canada and once a pastor at West Congregational in Haverhill—is trying to photograph a telephone pole. He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anything like this.” A rat's nest of wires sprouts from the top, lining off in every direction to deliver power to the sprawling cubbyholes below.
Meanwhile on the street moves a steady stream of everything imaginable. The din of horns is deafening. Some must turn in this jungle of flotsam to head off on one of the five roads that converge here. Cars, cycles, and trucks lurch a few feet to gain a few yards, like a running back churning his way downfield. It is dark now. Some have no lights—but why let that bother you? We have been here nearly half an hour and there has not been one break in the flow of traffic—none. It’s like the waters of Niagara splashing noisily toward the plunging falls.
Ah! Here’s Uncle with his new phone in hand—finally.
“Would you like to take a few minutes to see the bazaar across the square?” I notice that sly grin once again.
“O yes!” Doug says.
“OK, just stay right behind Johnson!”
Off we go. Into the white water of traffic we plunge. Johnson has a long stride. So I fall in behind, trying to match his steps. Thread your way through the jungle. Cyclists honk as we cut them off. Our hands push the cars back, so to speak. I learn to walk across the traffic while brushing against the rear of the vehicle ahead, since other motorists, miraculously, seem never to actually strike the read end of whatever is in front of them.
Why not wait for an opening, instead of taking your life in your hands like this, you ask? You will stand on the curb forever, that’s why.
We make it to the bazaar—a street blocked to cars and buses. I take a deep breath. It’s wall-to-wall people on foot, but we have cheated death to reach this oasis of safety.
But wait. Where is Doug and Uncle George? Ah! Here they come. Doug, are you OK? His pink face seems a few shades paler. He is shaking his head, wide-eyed.
“I’ve never seen anything like this! I can’t believe we made it through. This is unbelievable. I’ve just defied death on the streets of Dehra Dun. No one at home is going to believe me!”
Maybe you won’t get to tell them about it, say I, helpfully. We have to make it back across. What’s the chances of our doing that?
After gawking at the street vendors roasting peanuts or selling treats, backed up by gaudily lighted shops with wares from “Bangles Galore” (sounds like an Indian city 200 miles to the south) to trendy outfits (western styles are invasive here among the younger set) to rugs and house wares—you name it.
Well—it’s time to defy death one more time. Can you handle it?
“Is there a choice?” Doug asks.
Actually… no. What goes east must go west, unless we wait until midnight and walk 6 miles to the college.
“Now you have experienced India.”
Uncle smiles that satisfied sly smile again.

Potus Bumpus

POTUS BUMPSUS
This is not a phrase from my faded memories of five years of Latin at the Roxbury Latin School in Boston. No. There we learned, as our first day’s assignment in Class VI (grade 7), that God would never bump us, because He was "Pater Noster, qui es in caelis…." Our Father in heaven.
This was another "father—of planet earth—POTUS", the President of the United States, aka Obama the Magnificent. Air traffic control apparently closes all airspace anywhere his celestial chariots move—whether Air Force One or a hovering helicopter. Sort of the secular equivalent of Ezekiel’s creatures with all those eyes above and below along with six sets of beating wings.
Make no mistake, I am for the utmost protection of our president at all times, whether he is attending the United Nations or just taking Michelle and those bouncy girls of his to dinner and a Broadway show.
Hearing of the delay while still at Logan airport I rush to the desk at Gate A6, worried about missing my flight out of Newark to Delhi. “No problem, Sir,” she says, “it’s only for half an hour—you should be fine.” Whew! I would hate to spend a whole day in Newark waiting for the next non-stop to India. If POTUS bumps us for only 30 minutes, I can handle it with aplomb—whatever that means.
At the gate I meet a clone of Ross Kuehne (my son-in-law’s brother)—same face and beard, same quirky voice, same twinkly smile. He scans my ticket and bids me have a nice flight.
A mere 14 hours later I am in New Delhi. Five naps to the good keep me in a cheerful humor. BUT….
In India there is a new line as we exit toward the baggage belt (as they term it)—a counter with two guys wearing surgical masks! They take a form we had filled out on the plane asking if we’d had shots (for H1N1 swine flu). Are you coughing? Are you sneezing? I squelch a quip rising to the surface about the Seven Dwarfs and me being Dopey, not Sneezy.
Not until later did Doug Johns ask if I had seen the body temperature readout? No, I hadn’t—you’re joking. “No, there was a digital readout of your body temperature taken by infra red, to see if you had a fever!” Wow! Not a bad idea, since everywhere this plague is scaring health officials.
Now Doug is a long time friend—a Presbyterian minister from Ontario. Daniel, the host from New Theological College, and I waited for an hour after his plane from Toronto had landed and were about to give up on him, when he sauntered out of baggage belt area with a big red bag. Seems like someone had taken his bag off the carousel. He waited until only those sad pieces no one wants had gone by him several times, before he wandered to the far end and saw his bag on the floor about to be hauled to Lost & Found.
Soon we were off in a taxi for the Southern Hotel—a nice clean place, where we bedded down at 1 AM just in time to be finally asleep when the wakeup call came from the front desk. We had no time to spare for the breakfast that came with our $55 tab. John Varghese whisked us off in the predawn smog toward the train northbound to Dehradun.
It’s always enlightening to read the complimentary newspaper that comes with one’s ticket on the Shatabdi Express—that’s the name of the high class train—old but way better than the cattle car-like trains for the average Indian.
News item. Several teenage Muslims boys are in court for “love jihad.” Their strategy is to profess love for a non-Muslim girl, get her to marry if she will just convert to Islam. (This is real easy, since all you have to do is sincerely profess that there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet.) At least it’s non-violent. It reminds me of “flirty fishing” that one Boston area cult practiced in the 1970s, where sweet young things would use their charms to lure guys to their cult meetings.
News Item #1 A woman in Sudan has refused to pay a stiff fine for wearing “indecent trousers” and no headscarf. Since it was her first offence she would suffer only 20 lashes in the public square. Later someone paid her fine, keeping her out of jail for a month’s sentence.
News Item #2. An editorial claims that the much-ballyhooed Muslim population explosion is overblown. The conventional wisdom is that in many societies Muslims have about a 2.8 birth rate as compared to non-Muslim birth rates of 1.9 in Europe and 2.0 in the USA. If true this would mean Europe would be taken over by Islam within 20 years and the USA within 50. This editorial claims that the birth rate in most Muslim nations is about 2.1 or 2.2, which results in no loss or gain to speak of. How does one know what to believe any more?
Hours later we get picked up by college staff in Dehra Dun. At the college now we settle in to our comparatively luxurious accommodations in Uncle George’s house—he is the founder of the college. I meet the dean to cover details of my teaching assignment. It’s not what I was expecting—as usual. But it’s no problem—an Introduction to Philosophy course I have taught over 400 times. 35 students.
I better get busy catching up on sleep. I need to have a fully–charged battery: POTUS MAXIMUS, c’est moi. Otherwise I’ll be bounced from the Flat Earth Society (of London notoriety) to the Flat Brain Society.