In northern India, on the road between Delhi and Agra (home of the Taj Mahal), we stopped at a large Hindu temple. A sign on the gate instructed us to leave our shoes in a rack so we walked stocking-footed across a courtyard to enter the white stone temple. Inside, past women cleaning the floor with straw brooms, we found a series of stalls featuring shrines to the various and multiple Hindu gods. A donation box stood near the door; on it a sign directed “Persons taking meat, fish, egg and wine are requested not to put in money.” As we walked back to the hut where our shoes had been deposited, we heard the slapping footsteps of a young man who ran after us, shouting the message he must have felt was the most important thing he could say to non-Hindus: “Try to be a . . . vegetarian!” Is that Hindu evangelism?
Christians share a better message: the Good News that Jesus lived a sinless life as our representative, died at the cross as our substitute, and rose from the dead as proof that God accepted what he did on our behalf. On that basis God forgives our sin. Peter and John summed up the impetus for Christian witness: We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard (Acts 4).
(The ELS relationship with The Lutheran Mission of Salvation – India is conducted by the Asia Committee of the Board for World Outreach.)
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Steve Petersen