During those past months God has brought some wonderful new friends into my life, who have taught me many things about India and its way of life. The friends came into my life when I moved from the institutes guest house in the Abids district of Hyderabad to an apartment the institute has in the Nampali district.

In the Nampali apartment I live with an Indian couple, Abraham and Sarah Pediny their two and half year old son Isaac (Sarah is the Student/guest coordinator at HMI while Abraham is an HMI M.Th. student) and three other HMI M.Th. students , Koshy, (A Church of South India Pastor) Samson, and Jose. HMI’s Assistant Director the Rev. Thomas Ninan (a Church of North India Pastor), who I would describe as my best friend here in India lives in an apartment two floors above us.

At first I thought it would be hard adjusting to living in a three bedroom apartment with seven other people, eight when Thomas visits; but it has not because we care for one another and the place has family atmosphere to it and when we all get together we can go into the late hours of the night with theological discussions or just having fun learning from one another and laughing.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Nampali is how spiritual the Indian people are regardless of their religion. This was very noticeable my first day in Nampali when I was awakened at 5:30AM by the Muslim call to prayer from the mosques surrounding the apartment building.

I again saw this spirituality when Thomas took me to observe a Kawali (Kavali) which is a Muslim service where songs of lament, praise, thanksgiving and prayer are sung.

Thomas, who preaches in the different Christian churches in Hyderabad, has taught me a lot about the Christian church in India and its theology and spirituality by allowing me to tag along with him to the different churches where he preaches and introducing me to various church officials. He even let me go with him to a Christian Ashram ( Ashram is an Indian word for working rest and Ashrams are kind of Indian retreat centers for prayer and reflection where many of Indian theological and freedom movements started).

One thing I have learned from Thomas through our travels and theological discussions is that the Christian church in India is going through a struggle right now. That struggle is for an Indian identity. Most of the Churches say they want to become Indianized by bringing in some form of the Indian culture like music, dance etc. into their liturgy but have not done so. The Churches are having a hard time doing this because members of other religions see Christianity as a western religion (even though it started in West Asia, as the Middle East is called here, and has been in India since the first Century when the Apostle St. Thomas came to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ) because of the missionary efforts of the 18th and 19th centuries. This effort is hampered because of the effects of the caste system and prejudices that are very much present here and unfortunately some of the Christian churches are governed by high caste families who do not want change or to allow the lower castes to have any power. This task is made even harder by the church itself when it refuses to admit its mistake of not spreading the Gospel of Christ after the first Century A.D. and allowing missionaries from the west to take over that role.

In my next article I hope to discuss this topic in greater detail along with the implications of India’s caste system and the possible impact of India’s upcoming Parliamentary elections and the implications they might have on the Christian church in India

In Christ’s Service,

Rich Hahn