A “TWILIGHT RELIGION”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18549, 9 May 1922, Page 4

A “TWILIGHT RELIGION”

AN INDIAN CRITICISM 0F MODERN ' CHURCHMEN. ‘ HOW THE ORIENTAL FEELS, (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, March 14. An Indian priest, Ethelred Judah, in a letter to The Guardian, says ho has road with much interest and some concern tho sermon recently preached at Oxford by tho Rev. H. D. A. Major, and he ventures to question Mr Major’s assertion regarding missionary work in India—viz., "W© see tho disastrous effect of the Church’s neglect to remove the things that are shaken in tho situation in the foreign mission field. . . . It is common knowledge that missionary progress in India is at a standstill among the educated classes of that land.” He alo . referred to the '’statement of a missionary that so far as tho educated Indian _is concerned Christianity is only a “twilight religion.” 1 ‘"AN INFIDEL.” "If _ (writes Mr Judah) tho progress of Christianity is arrested for "the present, any student of the Orient would see that it can never bo attributed ’to the cause Modern. Churchmen, allege—that v .Christianity is a' shaken faith. The Indian, : whether Hindu or Mussulman, is deeply religious. To him God is all-powerful, and he would not blaspheme God by trying to penetrate into the mysteries of religion, the appreciation of which is obviously a matter of faith. Though religion in; India has taken many forms, the Oriental lias never suffered from materialism, which would appear to him to be’ the curse of Europe. ' While in England the Modern Churchman is busy analysing God and questioning the Virgin Birth, or the Resurrection of our Lord, the Hindu or Mussulman is bewildered, and calls him; an • infidel. EMOLUMENTS AND DOCTRINjE. “ To an Oriental, however intellectual, the above would present no difficulty. It would seem to me that the English .missionary who talks of a ‘twilight religion' is really manifesting hia own lack of faith ,and it is the men of his type- allowed by the various societies to go - abroad who have driven away the ever-seeking and anxious Indian from finding truth in Jesus. Nay, the whole movement of the Modem Churchmen, _ which is exhibited in its true perspective in the .recent conference held at Cambridge, has for years past helped to stay the progress of Christianity among the intellectual Orientals. Tho one thing that now puzzles the Oriental is that, while the Hindu- priest or Mussulman Maulvi would, upon, relinquishing any part of his faith, cease to retain his office as priest or Maulvi, yet in the English Church ho finds these Modem Churchmen draw comfortable emoluments from a Church the doctrines of which, they maintain, they cannot hold. Another reason would seem to be that from the very earliest times in the histoiw of missions in India the Occidental missionary, not only aimed at, but managed to denationalise the Indians _ who, from time to time, embraced Christianity. WHEN THE INDIAN CHURCH*WILL BEA LIVING POWER. , “ The Oriental of to-day feels that the institutions, methods, and .literature through which Christianity is carried to him are incongruous. The whole mode of worship and Church ‘administration are so insistently kept Western, that even the educated Indian Christian with growing enlightenment is driven away from faking any active part m the work of the Church. Instead of tho Church in India being a power for directing the’national aspiration so deplorably misguided to-day, it is only regarded as one of many septs. What we need in India is the willingness on the part of those responsible to allow the Indian Church to grow more and more on lines suitable to -the Indian mentality, and as far as possible to welcome, the Indian priest as co-partner, instead of which he is regarded in most places .‘a mere subordinate.’ When once the Englishman has realised that however long an experience he lias had with the' Indians, it is the Indian himself who can fathom the minds of his own countrymen, we can expect the Indian Church to be, what it should he, a living power.” ' i