Indian Awakening
Standing strong when the enemy assaults
Many are aware of the explosive growth in the underground Church currently taking place in Iran. Far fewer are cognisant of the remarkable spiritual awakening occurring simultaneously in India’s north-west Punjab state, bordering on Pakistan. The Rt Rev Joseph D'Souza, bishop and moderator of the Good Shepherd Church of India, and Christian and Dalit rights activist, claims that “incredible … revivals are taking place” among Sikh communities.
The power of God in Punjab
Wonderful answers to prayers and unexplained miracles are recurring features, as are accounts of divine deliverance from drug addictions and diseases, and entire families receiving visions from Christ.
D'Souza says it’s a purely indigenous, Sikh revival that is clearly not the result of Western missionaries operating in the region. While the movement is mainly taking place among poor and marginalised communities – i.e. Dalit Sikhs – it has touched society at all levels, including the wealthy and powerful.
Tired of centuries of the oppressive caste system, many Dalits have started looking to Christianity for the hope and fulfilment that Hinduism fails to offer them.
Tired of centuries of the oppressive caste system, many Dalits have started looking to Christianity for the hope and fulfilment that Hinduism fails to offer them. Small churches are springing up on the rooftops of many villages.
Striking statistics
The 2011 census reported only 1.5% Christians in Punjab (and a similar number of Muslims). That figure has increased in the past decade to at least 10%, and some claim even higher. This is causing enormous concern to Hindu leaders across the state, and there are increasing reports of attacks against Christians.
The United Christian Front is an evangelistic group with a presence in a remarkable 8,000 of Punjab’s 12,000 villages. According to its president, there are close to 1,000 churches in the north-west Punjab districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur alone. He says 60-70% of these have sprung up in the past six years.
There are close to 1,000 churches in the north-west Punjab districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur alone.
Many Sikhs who turn to Christ remain cultural Sikhs rather than forming a Christian sub-culture. While most Christians in the state use the surname ‘Massih’ to indicate their allegiance to the Church, many of the new converts don’t change their previous names.
Blessings in Bangalore
Striking church growth is not confined to India’s north. The Rev. Paul Thangiah is pastor of an Assemblies of God church in Bangalore, in India's southern Karnataka state. An immense hunger for God has seen his congregation grow to a staggering 35,000 people, a success Thangiah puts down to time spent by his congregation in intensive prayer and fasting.
His church now has eight satellite campuses throughout the country. Thangiah claims that “multitudes are having encounters with Jesus and giving their lives to him. The sick are being healed, demons are being cast out and a multiplication in the church is happening across India”.
Widespread movement
Such blessings are by no means contained in these two districts. Unprecedented numbers of people have turned to Christ all over the Indian subcontinent during the past twenty years.
In particular, more and more of India’s 140 million+ Dalits are following Christ than at any other time in the country’s history. India’s Church now reputedly comprises over 70 million members. That makes it the eighth largest Christian population in the world, just behind the Philippines and Nigeria, bigger than Germany and Ethiopia, and twice the size of those claiming Christian allegiance in the United Kingdom.
India’s Church now reputedly comprises over 70 million members. That makes it the eighth largest Christian population in the world.
The 2001 Indian census placed Christians at just over 2% of India's population. Reliable research puts the figure at over 6% while many in India put the figure as high as 9 or 10%. India’s Christian population has traditionally been most concentrated in the far north-eastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur and Meghalaya, along with Kerala in the far south and Goa in the south-west.
Shillong revival
Dramatic revivals have occurred in some places, notably at Shillong in the small northern state of Meghalaya in 2006.1 At a gathering of Presbyterian believers in April of that year, suddenly “the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and about 300 people were so overwhelmed by the presence of God that they fell unconscious to the ground, with thousands more being greatly affected. People were repenting of their sins and crying out to God for mercy. The next day 300,000 attended from all the synods of the Presbyterian Church of India”.
“The Holy Spirit fell upon them, and about 300 people were so overwhelmed by the presence of God that they fell unconscious to the ground, with thousands more being greatly affected.
Quickly reports flooded in of the Holy Spirit being poured out in many different locations, with thousands of churches being greatly impacted. The revival also spread to the neighbouring states of Assam and Mizoram.
Persecution of believers
Despite significant breakthroughs, there are still around 2,000 unreached people groups in India, over five times as many as there are in China, the next most unreached nation. India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan make up the largest concentration of unreached humanity in the world.
The Indian church is growing at a rate three times that of India’s Hindu population. The explosion of interest in Christianity over the past two decades has caused enormous concern to many of the country’s one billion Hindus. Christians are regularly vilified in the press, and are marginalised and discriminated against in their communities and workplaces.
India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan make up the largest concentration of unreached humanity in the world.
Indeed, an often violent and carefully orchestrated targeting of Christians exists in many parts of India, including use of social media to spread disinformation and stir up hatred. Groups like Barnabas Fund and Open Doors have been documenting horrific stories of abuse against Christians in India for years – shocking stories that never get reported in the mainstream media.
Many Hindus vilify Christians as not being true Indians because they have allegiances that lie outside the country, and assert that the country should be purified of their presence.
Anti-conversion laws
Close to a dozen states have already introduced strict ‘anti-conversion laws’, and this number is likely to rise further – despite there being no data about forced conversions taking place. There are no fraudulent conversions, no known cases of ‘coercion’, and no outside forces looking to destroy a culture.
Indian Christians are not involved in any sort of illegal activity; they are simply practising their faith within the guarantees afforded to them by the constitution. God is doing the rest. Anti-conversion laws cannot stop a divine movement.
Indian Christians are simply practising their faith within the guarantees afforded to them by the constitution. God is doing the rest.
The challenge for the Church
And so we find another situation where remarkable church growth is being accompanied by persecution of believers. This has been a recurring theme in China over several decades, and is very much the current scenario in Iran.
While Christians in the West are increasingly facing discrimination from a vociferous secularist society, we haven’t been at the receiving end of physical persecution – at least, not yet.
But the challenge is: should such times come – and they may well be approaching – is our commitment to Jesus Christ of such stature as to withhold relentless attacks on our faith?
Or do our values and lifestyles so blend in with secular society that groups antithetical to Christianity would have little cause to vilify us?
Endnotes
1 Mathew Backholer, ‘Revival Fire - 150 Years of Revivals, Spiritual Awakenings and Moves of the Holy Spirit’, 2010.
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