Archives for March 2013

Children, this post is especially for you. I have attached some pictures of wildlife found deep inside Ahmedabad, a city of over 5 million people. I captured all of these sights on roads in between where I sleep and where I teach. Plentiful numbers of cows fill the streets along with a million mopeds and motorcycles.

So here is a question for you: How can cows be as common as cars? More to the point, how do these cows survive without a blade of grass anywhere for miles? Can you guess? Answer: the Hindu people consider cows to be holy, even gods. So whenever a person feeds a cow they believe (wrongly) that they receive a special blessing from the gods. The prospect of blessing motivates 5 million people to fill the faces of these four-footed beasts, even when their own mouths are empty. (It also provides further incentive for not crashing into one – you’d be cursed forever.) I also wondered about who reaps the benefits from this enterprise (besides the ones mooing) – typical capitalist. The people who own the cows get the milk, while all their neighbors foot the feed bill. Now lest I make this sound too rosey, most of these cows look pretty grim (as the pictures reveal) and many spend the day eating scraps of garbage in order to survive.

Include camels and horses in your list of familiar friends along the byways. A couple of less common sights include the picture of the monkey, which I saw this morning about 100 yards from where we stay, and the picture of the saddled elephant, which I also saw this morning for the first time. The Hindus consider both of these animals to be sacred, as well.

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.” (Romans 1:22, 23)

Children, idolatry breeds spiritual insanity in every soul. Is it not obvious? The cows (their gods) depend on the people for survival. They cannot exert enough “divine” power to even eat, and yet the Hindus are captivated by superstition and slavish fear that the gods will bless or curse them.

Remember these lessons next time you sing Psalm 115.

And remember the words of the Apostle John: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” (1 John 5:21)

Thank you for your sustained prayers for the labors here. I apologize for my silence over the last few days. I experienced a couple days of rough health, some of which I probably made worse, but I will spare you the details. Mercifully, it did not prohibit my ability to teach and preach on Saturday and Sabbath. I felt much better yesterday morning (Mon.) and increasingly so throughout the day, for which I thank the Lord! Today I am perfectly peachy. The days are full and exhausting, though the labor is delightful. We leave around 8 a.m. and return around 6:30 p.m. I spend the brief evening gearing up and going over the material for the next day. Unlike at home, I am usually asleep by 9:15 p.m. I am up around 5:00 a.m. with breakfast at 7:15 a.m. and back at it again. I will do my best to keep the posts coming for the remainder of the week.

The Lord continues to provide help and grace in all of the classes: physically, mentally and spiritually. During one of the classes yesterday the Lord gave an extra measure of spiritual unction in teaching, so that I was nearly oblivious of the interruptions of translation. I actually thought at the time about the fact that the Sabbath had passed back in the U.S. and that prayers had been offered for this very blessing. The men are serious and studious. Given the long hours of instruction, you would be impressed by their sustained attentiveness. They are obviously hungry. The task before them in conquering India for Christ is daunting and the opposition is fierce. I consider it a profound privilege to serve them, to “wash their feet” and to strengthen their hands. They are on the front line in ways that we cannot comprehend in the U.S.

The tentacles of Hinduism penetrate every nook and cranny of Indian society. One of the countless festivals ends today and the government provides free transportation by bus and train to return everyone home. As you drive through the streets you are bombarded by people engaging in religious rituals and acts of superstition on every side. I probably could not count fast enough to tally the number of shrines and temples we a pass to reach our destination every morning. On the tiny side street in front of this building you find four shrines in about 100 yards. While it is easy to note, I find it challenging to comprehend the extent of delusion and bankruptcy.

Only 2.5% of the populace claim to be Christian, half of which are papists. Of the remaining half, many are either theologically liberal or mere nominalists. In other words, biblical Christianity constitutes only a drop in the Indian bucket.

Now hold in your mind both the inky darkness and the scarcity of gospel light — and let me transport you back to the pages of the New Testament. Picture this: “Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry . . . Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.” (Acts 17:16, 22, 23) Two millennia later, we behold the same herculean task, and we proclaim the same glorious gospel, and cling to the same resolute promises. “I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” (Ps. 2:8)

I ended my Sabbath as you began yours. So I did my level best to attend the 10 a.m. service at GPC via the live webcast, though unsuccessfully due to technical difficulties with the Internet. Even the one second bursts every sixty seconds were enough to increase my homesickness. You remain much in my thoughts and prayers.

It is lunchtime on Tuesday here, which means most of you are dead asleep in the middle of the night. We are 9 1/2 hours ahead of you. May the Keeper of Israel continue to be you portion.

With all Christian affection,
Pastor Rob McCurley

Errata: First of all, I need to correct a misguided statement I made in an earlier post. I discovered today that my assumptions about the distinctions of dress among Indian women were without any warrant (Hindu v. Muslim dress). The truth is that most women wear the same kind of clothing, regardless of their religious background (with the obvious exception of the very conservative Muslims who wear the familiar garb that we would see even in Detroit or another US city). When the women cover their heads with a scarf it is to shield them from the sun, and when they cover their faces (especially on motorcycles and mopeds) it is protection against the dust and pollution. I wrongly assumed they were Muslims. Islam only occupies minority of the populace in contrast to Hinduism. Regarding dress in India, I am impressed with the universal commitment to modesty among both men and women, and while the culture differs significantly from our own, their wide use of colorful fabric is quite beautiful.

Speaking of Islam, during our layover in the Dubai airport I discovered that they broadcast over the public intercom the Muslim prayers at their set times, five times a day. We heard a man (in Arabic) saying the formal prayers in a sing-song fashion, while everything seemed to stand still. We were sobered to see the stronghold of Satan over the people, and I could not help but imagine how incredible it would be to hear instead grace-filled, God-exalting, Christian prayers over a loud speaker in Dubai or anywhere else in the world. They are already accustomed to an established national religion. We need to pray for the public recognition of the true religion and of the crown rights of our Redeemer. This is an aside, I was surprised by the difference between JFK and the Dubai airport. The filth at JFK leaves you reluctant to set down your bags, and they provided no signs anywhere (literally) to indicate how to find my connecting terminal. When I followed the directions people gave me I ended up in a parking garage outside the airport! Dubai is even more spiritually barren than JFK, but it was beautiful and spotlessly clean.

Back to India. You observe shrines to idols along the streets, poverty stricken people sleeping on sidewalks, countless shanties and old dilapidated buildings everywhere. But the spiritual poverty outstrips the physical poverty. Randy and I ventured out into the streets for a saunter yesterday afternoon. It is hard to describe the difficulty of even crossing a street without getting killed. Then we had little girls running along side us, pulling on our pants and begging for a little money. I wish I knew enough Hindi to be able to say to them in the words of Peter, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee” (Acts 3:6), and then to be able to tell them that the living and true God can give them what their countless Hindu gods can never supply. It should move us to pray all the more earnestly for the cause of Christ in this nation.

I’ll give a couple more tid-bits for the children before I close. Hindi is the national trade language, but it is not the first language that people learn nor the primary language they speak at home. Each state has its own language — completely different language, not dialect. It is common for school age children to learn three languages: the mother tongue of their state (which is Gujarati in Ahmedabad), Hindi and English. The two main leaders at the Bible training facility both know four languages. You will be happy to hear that the man who will be doing the translating has flawless English grammar and a command of vocabulary equal to most Americans, including theological vocab. The accent aside, you would think English was his first language instead of his third or fourth.

You will also be thrilled to hear that when I asked Wilson, the director of the training center, about his favorite authors, he immediately said the Puritans. Then he went on to list various Reformed writers of the past that he values most. Given the fact that few pieces of Reformed literature have been translated into Hindi, they read Reformed writers in English and then teach the truths to students and pastors who only have Hindi. In the next few posts I will write more about the training facility, the staff, and the pastors attending the classes. I also hope to post a few pictures of these men and the facility.

You are all dearly missed and much in the thoughts and prayers of your pastor.

As far as I am aware, no significant security risks exist in posting updates about the labors here. While Christianity is an extreme minority, and substantial political opposition and hostility to the Christian faith is rising, the Bible training facility where I am teaching is very visible to the public. At present, India is relatively indifferent to Christians teaching other Christians about their own faith. The problem comes when you proselytize Hindus and/or try to persuade other Indians to convert to Christianity. Then the hammer comes down. Since Hinduism already has umpteen zillion gods, they are happy for us to have ours — as long as we do not interfere with the worship of their idols. In other words, they are more like America than we might think.

The increase in political opposition to Christianity stems from the fact that many Hindus are turning to Christ, and thereby undermining the influence of the Hindu dominated government. The common man on the street views Christianity as distinctively western and as a white man’s religion. Apparently they exhibit shock when they are told that Christianity began in Asia.

The religious profile in Sri Lanka differs greatly from India. I will find out when I get to Sri Lanka whether any precautions are necessary for posting to the blog.

In India, 80% are Hindu, 13% Muslim, 2% Christian, 2% Sikhism, less than 1% Buddhist.

In Sri Lanka, a close neighbor to India, 70% are Buddhists, 12% Hindus, 10% Muslim, 7% Christian.

May the Lord increase the faith and fervency of our prayers for the advance of his cause in this land. “Thy kingdom come.”

Warm Regards,
Pastor Rob McCurley