Article
"Religion? Huh! I don't need it."
January 4, 2019
It was a hot Sunday morning as I sat on the privileged chair of the guest speaker with eyes closed trying to evaluate my sermon’s relevancy to the five hundred strong, vociferous crowds who were expressing their emotions syncing with the lyrics of the worship song being sung expeditiously. Suddenly a gust of sway jerked me out of my self-absorption as I saw a dapperly dressed young man walked past me to snuggle himself into the already taken front line of the chairs usually reserved for the privileged members of the church. As the worship continued, I tried to sneak a surreptitious glance at the young man who looked utterly confused but had his eyes fixed on the pastoral team and me. His strange disenchantment towards the boisterous worship team at the stage and his penetrating eyes towards us had me squirm within my heart as it dawned on me that he is probably here with an ulterior persuasion. After some time as I was called to give my sermon, I realized that the quizzical eyes are scanning every move that I am making and his visible facial grimaces betrayed his uncomfortable reception of the sermon I was delivering.
As the service was over and I was escorted down the hall to be perched in a comfortable chair with a cup of hot tea, I saw this young man hurrying down the stairs to reach me before anyone else. Pulling a chair to sit closest to me, the young man asked a question that I had never encountered before and neither thence, “Do you believe everything that you said so vehemently today?” Though shocked at the question I allowed myself a moment to gain composure and replied a resolute “yes.” And he retorted back, “I don’t” then bent his head down in silent cogitation before blurting out, “Religion? Huh, I don’t need it.” As the conversation ensued, I realized that he is an engineering student who was trying to navigate through scientific skepticism and the contradictions of the teachings of different religions in India. He had lived close to these religions as his father is a Hindu, mother a Muslim, his sister a converted Christian, and his closest friend being Sikh.
Commendably he rejected the popular Indian aphorism that all religions are fundamentally the same. But he wondered how to arrive at the truth if all religion though unequivocally claiming to be true are fundamentally contradicting each other while science seems more and more convincing in its tirade against all religious claims. This was not the first time I had encountered these questions having shared the Gospel to scores of people, but this was the first time I faced a person who was so well versed with almost all the claims of different religions. I allowed him to draw his conclusion with penetrating questions before formulating my response.
He with amazing acuity said, "I find no reasons to believe in the afterlife, and this negates the need for religion as all religions are built on the premise of life before and after my present existence. Secondly, I don’t need religion for the present life because science and co-related fields of knowledge have given all that I need for the current reality."
By the grace of God I was able to deal with all the objections to religion that he had, and by the end of the evening, he went away with the pleasant statement, “You have helped me to see that there is existential validity in claims of religions and that the claims of Christianity are worth examining. And I will study more. Thank you.”
This is the face of the new urban India where there is an absolute rejection of all religions as not needed. The present quandary is: how do we present Christ meaningfully to a crowd that believes they do not need religion? I find the answer in the concept of goodness and justice as no human society or a person can live an amoral life. Every Indian writhes in angst with the turn of every page of the daily newspaper and cries with anguish when injustice, crime, and pain opens its diabolical mouth in his own nest or around his vicinity. Every moment of “privation of good” staggers him to stop and mull, “What on earth is happening? Why is happiness not the foundational definition of the world?”
It’s the portrait of Jesus on the Cross that urban India needs. Because the cross is the meeting place where love and justice kissed each other and where righteousness and goodness found its true fulfilment. May the cross find its right expression through the life, deed, and words of its preachers. Amen.
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