07-23-2006, 12:05 AM
Some extracts from "Addresses Delivered before the Sixth International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, Rochester, New York, <b>December 29, 1909, to January 2, 1910</b>" as it relates to India.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->......The awakening of India is the great fact that we face in Southern Asia, and that awakening is two-fold: first, within the Church; and second, without the Church, in the leavening of the life of the people, in the reaction of Christianity upon the non-Christian religions and upon the whole nation.
First, let us note the awakening within the Church. <b>Now I admit that India presents, with one possible exception, the greatest difficulty of any country in Asia. With its iron-bound social caste system, its subtle pantheistic philosophies, India presents a difficulty greater than Christianity ever faced in Pagan Europe, in Greece or in the Roman Empire. India will probably be the last country in Asia to be won. Yet even India is becoming slowly but surely Christian.</b> Take the census in the last ten years. While the population increased two and a half per cent, and the Parsees four per cent, the Jews six per cent, the Mohammedans eight per cent, and while the Hindus lost a fraction of one per cent, Protestant native Christians increased sixty-three per cent or more than twenty times the rate of increase of the population. <b>In the last fifty years, while our Roman Catholic brethren gained one hundred and eleven per cent, Protestant Christians gained eight hundred and fifty-seven; and even India is becoming Christian. </b>
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The strength of Hinduism</b> is its <b>pantheistic theology, and not its social system of caste</b>. The strength of Buddhism is the seductive power of its philosophy, not its externals of worship. Bishop Mylne, after twenty-one years in India, made a notable contribution to the science of missions in his recent book, "Missions to Hindus", and those who study it will see how the whole problem of method hinges on a thoroughgoing knowledge of Hinduism. <b>He shows that monism in philosophy, pantheism in religion, and caste in society are absolutely inseparable</b> -- "one homogeneous whole of ruthless and uncompromising solidarity." <b>Hinduism is no longer stagnant but active and uses the modern arguments and methods</b> in its attack on Christianity through the Arya Somaj and the Brahmo Somaj. An educated Hindu writes in the Fortnightly Review on "Why I am not a Christian"; and his arguments are worthy of careful study.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->......The awakening of India is the great fact that we face in Southern Asia, and that awakening is two-fold: first, within the Church; and second, without the Church, in the leavening of the life of the people, in the reaction of Christianity upon the non-Christian religions and upon the whole nation.
First, let us note the awakening within the Church. <b>Now I admit that India presents, with one possible exception, the greatest difficulty of any country in Asia. With its iron-bound social caste system, its subtle pantheistic philosophies, India presents a difficulty greater than Christianity ever faced in Pagan Europe, in Greece or in the Roman Empire. India will probably be the last country in Asia to be won. Yet even India is becoming slowly but surely Christian.</b> Take the census in the last ten years. While the population increased two and a half per cent, and the Parsees four per cent, the Jews six per cent, the Mohammedans eight per cent, and while the Hindus lost a fraction of one per cent, Protestant native Christians increased sixty-three per cent or more than twenty times the rate of increase of the population. <b>In the last fifty years, while our Roman Catholic brethren gained one hundred and eleven per cent, Protestant Christians gained eight hundred and fifty-seven; and even India is becoming Christian. </b>
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>The strength of Hinduism</b> is its <b>pantheistic theology, and not its social system of caste</b>. The strength of Buddhism is the seductive power of its philosophy, not its externals of worship. Bishop Mylne, after twenty-one years in India, made a notable contribution to the science of missions in his recent book, "Missions to Hindus", and those who study it will see how the whole problem of method hinges on a thoroughgoing knowledge of Hinduism. <b>He shows that monism in philosophy, pantheism in religion, and caste in society are absolutely inseparable</b> -- "one homogeneous whole of ruthless and uncompromising solidarity." <b>Hinduism is no longer stagnant but active and uses the modern arguments and methods</b> in its attack on Christianity through the Arya Somaj and the Brahmo Somaj. An educated Hindu writes in the Fortnightly Review on "Why I am not a Christian"; and his arguments are worthy of careful study.
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