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The Christ of the Indian Road
By E. Stanley Jones
The Abingdon Press
New York Cincinnati
Copyright, 1925, by
E. STANLEY JONES
All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition Printed September, 1925
Reprinted October, November, and December, 1925
January, February, March, April, and June, 1926
CONTENTS
CBAPTEB PAGE
Preface 1
Preface to the Sixth Edition 3
Introduction 7
I. The Messenger and the Message 17
II. The Motive and End of Christian Missions 29
III. The Growing Moral and Spiritual Supremacy of Jesus 53
IV. Jesus Comes Through Irregular Channels— Mahatma Gandhi’s Part 67
V. Through the Regular Channels — Some Evangelistic Series 81
VI. The Great Hindrance 101
VII. The Question Hour 123
VIII. Jesus Through Experience 138
IX. What or Whom? 154
X. Christ and the Other Faiths 169
XI. The Concrete Christ 181
XII. The Indian Interpretation of Jesus. . 189
XIII. The Christ of the Indian Road 201
PREFACE
Perhaps a few words of caution may be help-
ful to the reader. To those familiar with India
the title of this volume may lead the reader to
expect the book to be what it is not — an Indian
interpretation of Christ. It is, rather, an attempt
to describe how Christ is becoming naturalized
upon the Indian Road. The Indian interpre-
tation of Christ must be left to later hands.
To those who have no first-hand familiarity
with conditions in India another word of caution
may be given. The author has tried to be scrupu-
lously careful not to overdraw the picture. He
has let non-Christians themselves largely tell the
story of the silent revolution in thought that is
taking place in India. But even so, the American
and English reader must be careful not always
to read into the statements of the non-Christians
the full content of his own thinking. In that
case unwarranted implications may be drawn
from them.
Christian missions have come to a crisis in
India. A new and challenging situation con-
fronts us. If we are to meet it, we must boldly
follow the Christ into what are, to us, untried
1
2
PREFACE
paths. In any case Christian missions are but
in their beginnings in India. With adjusted
attitude and spirit they will be needed in the
East for decades and generations to come.
My thanks are due to Dr. David G. Downey,
who, owing to my return to India, has graciously
undertaken to read the proofs and to see the book
through the press.
At the request of the publishers the spoken
style has been retained.
The Author.
Sitapur, U. P., India.
PREFACE TO THE SIXTH EDITION
Some of my readers have observed the absence
from this book of certain notes usual in mission-
ary textbooks. Where, they ask, are the child-
widows, the caste system with its compart-
mentalized and consequently paralyzed life, the
six million sadhus roaming through India find-
ing little and contributing less; is Hinduism
only a philosophical system — is there not a pop-
ular side with its 330,000,000 gods and goddesses,
its endless pilgrimages and rapacious priests at
each stage, its worship of demons and gods of
questionable character; has the purdah system
been abolished ; has the appalling illiteracy
amounting to ninety-three per cent been wiped
out? Have these dark lines hitherto so common
in the picture, faded out? Is it all sweetness
and light?
No, these things are still there. But I have
left them out of the picture for three reasons.
First. India is aggrieved, and I think rightly
so, that Christian missionaries in order to arouse
the West to missionary activity have too often
emphasized the dark side of the picture. What
they have said has been true, but the picture has
not been a true one. This overemphasis on the
one side has often created either pity or con-
4
PREFACE
tempt in the minds of the hearers. In modern
jargon a superiority complex has resulted. I
do not believe a superiority complex to be the
proper spring for missionary activity.
Eastern travelers in America, picking and
choosing their facts, can make out a very dark
picture of our civilization — the slums of our
cities, the lynchings, divorce statistics, crime
statistics unparalleled in other cities of the
world, and so on. They have, in fact, done so.
As Americans we have resented it as being an
untrue picture. Then as Christians we should
do unto others as we would that others should
do unto us.
Second. Indians themselves are now alive to
these evils and are combating them. The impact
of Christian ideals upon the situation has
created a conscience in regard to these things
and we can trust India to right them as she is,
in fact, now doing. The fact is that racial lines
are so drawn that India will probably deal more
drastically with her evils if she does it from
within than if we foreigners were always insist-
ing upon it. As a Turkish lawyer said to us
regarding the reforms in Turkey, “The things
which we have done in four years no outside
power or government could have made us do.
We are surprised at it ourselves.” The secret
was that they did it.
Third. I have tried to lay the foundations for
PREFACE
5
Christian missions deeper than upon particular
evils found in a particular race. Taken at their
very best, pagan men and systems in East or
West need Christ. I have said to India very
frankly: “I do not make a special drive upon
you because you are the neediest people of our
race, but because you are a member of our race.
I am convinced that the only kind of a world
worth having is a world patterned after the mind
and spirit of Jesus. I am therefore making a
drive upon the world as it is, in behalf of the
world as it ought to be, and as you are a part of
that world I come to you. But I would not be
here an hour if I did not know that ten others
were doing in the land from which I come what
I am trying to do here. We are all in the same
deep need. Christ, I believe, can supply that
need.”
Another word should be added in regard to
another seeming lack of emphasis. I have not
emphasized the mass movement among the low
castes because this book has been the story
growing out of my own sphere of work. My
work has been more connected with that mass
movement in mind described in these pages than
with the mass movement among the low castes.
In spite of its obvious weaknesses and dangers
I am deeply grateful for and rejoice in this lat-
ter mass movement in which there is a turning
of these dumb millions to Christ. In spite of
6
PREFACE
statements to the contrary, this movement is
going on with unabated force. Since my return
to India a friend showed a petition signed with
thumb impressions by eighteen thousand of
these people who desired to come into the Chris-
tian Church. But my emphasis has been upon
what I knew best growing out of experience.
A further word concerning the attitudes I
find on my return after an absence of nearly two
years from India. I find India even more open
and responsive than when I left. The mass
movement in mind goes on in silent but un-
abated vigor. As the physical atmosphere be-
comes saturated with moisture and heavy to the
point of precipitation so the spiritual atmos-
phere of India is becoming saturated with
Christ’s thoughts and ideals and is heavy to the
point of precipitation into Christian forms and
expression. As to when that will take place
depends upon how much Christlikeness we can
put into the situation. As the leading Arya
Samajist in India recently said to the writer,
“Everything depends upon * the Christian
Church.” It does.
The Authob.
INTRODUCTION
Clearing the Issues
When the early evangelists of the Good News
were sent out on their own, they returned
and told Jesus “what they had done and what
they had taught.” This evangelist must add a
third to what he has done and what he has
taught — what he has learned. It will not be
primarily an account of what has been done
through him, but what has been done to him.
Running through it all will be the perhaps un-
conscious testimony of how, while speaking to
India, I was led along to a simplification of my
task and message and faith — and I trust of my
life.
Recently at the close of an address a friend
remarked, “He has probably done some good to
India, but India has certainly done a great deal
for him.” India has. In my sharing with her
what has been a gift to me I found that I had less
than I thought I had — and more.
I thought my task was more complex than I
now see it to be; not less difficult but less com-
plex. When I first went to India I was trying
to hold a very long line — a line that stretched
clear from Genesis to Revelation, on to Western
7
8
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
9
Civilization and to the Western Christian
Church. I found myself bobbing up and down
that line fighting behind Moses and David and
Jesus and Paul and Western Civilization and
the Christian Church. I was worried. There
was no well-defined issue. I found the battle
almost invariably being pitched at one of these
three places: the Old Testament, or Western Civ-
ilization, or the Christian Church. I had the ill-
defined but instinctive feeling that the heart of
the matter was being left out. Then I saw that I
could, and should, shorten my line, that I could
take my stand at Christ and before that non-
Christian world refuse to know anything save!
Jesus Christ and him crucified. The sheer storm
and stress of things had driven me to a place
that I could hold. Then I saw that there isj
where I should have been all the time. I saw !
that the gospel lies in the person of J esus, that
he himself is the Good News, that my one task
was to live and to present him. My task was!
simplified.
But it was not only simplified — it was vital-
ized. I found that when I was at the place of
Jesus I was every moment upon the vital. Here !
at this place all the questions in heaven and earth
were being settled. He Avas the one question
that settled all others.
I still believed in the Old Testament as being
the highest revelation of God given to the world
before Jesus’ coming; I would inwardly feed
upon it as Jesus did. But the issue was further
on. A Jain lawyer, a brilliant writer against
Christianity, arose in one of my meetings and
asked me a long list of questions regarding
things in the Old Testament. I replied, “My
brother, I think I can answer your questions,
but I do not feel called on to do so. I defined
Christianity as Christ. If you have any objec-
tions to make against him, I am ready to hear
them and answer them if I can.” He replied,
“Who gave you this authority to make this dis-
tinction? What church council gave you this
authority?” I replied that my own Master gave
it to me — that I was not following a church
council, but trying to follow him, and he himself
had said : “Ye have heard it said of old time, . . .
but I say unto you,” so I was simply following
his lead, for he made his own word final even in
Scripture. I Avas bringing the battle up from
that incomplete stage of Revelation to the final
— to Jesus. Revelation was progressive, cul-
minating in him. Why should I, then, pitch my
battle at an imperfect stage Avhen the perfect
was here in him? My lawyer friend saw with
dismay that a great many of his books written
against Christianity had gone into ashes by my
definition. They were beside the point. But the
lawyer was not to blame for missing the point.
Had we not often by our waitings and by our
10
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
11
attitudes led him to believe that we did make the
issue there?
Our confusion was Peter’s confusion which
the Father’s voice and the vision of Jesus clari-
fied. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses,
representing the law, and Elijah the prophets,
talked with Jesus, the New Revelation. The Jew-
ish heart of Peter wanted to keep all three, and
put them on the same level — he wanted to build
three tabernacles for them. A voice from the
cloud spoke, “This is my beloved Son ; hear him”
— the law and the prophets are fulfilled in him ;
hear him. And when they lifted up their eyes
they saw no man save Jesus only. He filled their
horizon. He must fill ours.
Again, have we not often in the past led India
and the non-Christian world to think that our
type of civilization in the West is the issue?
Before the Great War was not Western greatness
often preached as a reason for the East becoming
Christian? This was a false trail and led us
into many embarrassments, calling for endless
apologies and explanations.
There is little to be wondered at that India
hesitates about our civilization — great and beau-
tiful on certain sides and weak and ugly on
others. While some of the contacts of the West
with the East have been in terms of beautiful
self-sacrifice and loving service, some of them
have been ugly and un-Christian. But that we
are not more Christian in the West is under-
standable when we remember in what manner
much of our Christianity was propagated in
Europe. Many of the evils which now afflict
the West came in with it. While it is true that
many of the first missionaries to the European
tribes were men of rare saintliness and self-sac-
rifice, nevertheless Christianity was not always
propagated by saintliness and self-sacrifice.
Take three illustrations that may show why
three great un-Christian things lie back in our
civilizations.
All Russia became Christian with Vladimir
the Emperor. He desired to become a Christian,
but hesitated, for, as being beneath his dignity,
he would not be baptized by the local clergy.
He wanted the Patriarch of Constantinople to
perform the ceremony — that would give the de-
sired dignity. But to ask him to come to do it
would be receiving a bounty at the hands of an-
other. He decided that the only thing consonant
with his honor would be to conquer Constan-
tinople and compel the Patriarch to baptize him.
He would then stand as dictator and not as
suppliant That was actually carried out. Con-
stantinople was captured and the Patriarch
forced to baptize him. Thus Russia became
Christian! Is it to be wondered at that dom-
ination still continues in the West in spite of
Christianity? It came in with it.
12
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
13
Another. The Saxons, a warring tribe of
Europe, were practically compelled by Charle-
magne to become Christians. They consented on
one condition. That condition would only be
known at the time of their baptism. When these
warriors were put under the water as a symbol
that their old life was dead, they went under-
all except their right arms. They held them out,
lifted above their heads. These were their fight-
ing arms. They were never Christianized! Is
it to be wondered at that war continues in the
West in spite of Christianity? It came in
with it.
Another. The Mayflower that carried the Pil-
grim Fathers to religious liberty in America
went on her next trip for a load of slaves. The
good ship “Jesus” was in the slave trade for our
fathers. Is it to be wondered at that race and
color 'prejudice still exists in the West in spite
of Christianity? It came in with it.
The East feels that these things are still there.
But standing amid the shadows of Western civ-
ilization, India has seen a Figure who has
greatly attracted her. She has hesitated in re
gard to any allegiance to him, for India has
thought that if she took one she would have to
take both — Christ and Western civilization went
together. Now it is dawning upon the mind of
India that she can have one without the other—
Christ without Western civilization. That dawn-
ing revelation is of tremendous significance to
them — and to us.
“Do you mean to say,” said a Hindu lawyer
in one of my meetings about seven years ago,
“that you are not here to wipe out our civiliza-
tion and replace it with your own? Do you
mean that your message is Christ without any
implications that we must accept Western civ-
ilization? I have hated Christianity, but if
Christianity is Christ, I do not see how we In-
dians can hate it.” I could assure him that my
message was that and only that. But this was
seven years ago. That matter has now become
clarified, more or less. It has become clear that
we are not there to implant Western civilization.
They may take as little or as much from West-
ern civilization as they like — and there is much
that is tremendously worth while — but we do
not make it the issue. The fact is that if we do
not make it the issue, they will probably take
more from it than if we did.
But the swift and often accurate intuitions of
the Indian have gone further. He is making an
amazing and remarkable discovery, namely, that
Christianity and Jesus are not the same — that
they may have Jesus without the system that has
been built up around him in the West.
A prominent lecturer, who has just returned
from India, says that this discovery on the part
of India of the difference between Christianity
14
INTRODUCTION
and Jesus “can be called nothing less than a dis-
covery of the first magnitude.” Let it be said
that the suggestion as to the difference is not
new, it has been said before. But the thing that
is new is that a people before their acceptance of
Christianity have noted the distinction and seem
inclined to act upon it. It is a most significant
thing for India and the world that a great people
of amazing spiritual capacities is seeing, with
remarkable insight, that Christ is the center of
Christianity, that utter commitment to him and
catching his mind and spirit, and living his life
constitute a Christian. This realization has
remarkable potentialities for the future religious
history of the whole race.
Looking upon it in the large, I cannot help
wondering if there is not a Providence in the fact
that India has not accepted Christianity en
masse before this discovery was fixed in her
mind. If she had accepted Christianity without
this clarification, her Christianity would be but
a pale copy of ours and would have shared its
weaknesses. But with this discovery taking place
before acceptance it may mean that at this period
of our racial history the most potentially spirit-
ual race of the world may accept Christ as Chris-
tianity, may put that emphasis upon it, may
restore the lost radiance of the early days when
he was the center, and may give us a new burst
of spiritual power.
INTRODUCTION
15
For in all the history of Christianity whenever
there has been a new emphasis upon Jesus there
has been a fresh outburst of spiritual vitality
and virility. As Bossuet says, “Whenever
Christianity has struck out a new path in her
journey it has been because the personality of
Jesus has again become living, and a ray from
his being has once more illuminated the world.”
Out of a subject race came this gospel in the
beginning, and it may be that out of another sub-
ject race may come its clarification and revivifi-
cation. Some of us feel that the next great
spiritual impact upon the soul of the race is due
to come by way of India.
