Tiki for Jai Ram

“How should we advise him?” Santosh asked Shanti. 

“I don’t know,” replied Shanti. “If he keeps the tiki, people will think he is still a good Hindu when, in fact, he has become a Christian and taken baptism. But if he doesn’t keep the traditions, he will alienate his family and the whole village!” 

No part of the Bible had yet been translated into this language of South Asiawhen Santosh and his wife, Shanti, had arrived in the area. After a few years in which they became fluent in the language and built good relationships with local people, they were ready for the task of translation. As they searched for a reliable language assistant, they eventually thought of Jai Ram, a young man who lived in a nearby village. Jai Ram had been born into a highly respected traditional Hindu Brahman family. As a child, he was taught the customs of his family and his parents hoped he would become well settled in life. They made sure he received the best education they could afford, and Jai Ram was a good student who was well liked in his community.

On graduation from the local college, Jai Ram was looking for work and so agreed to help check the first draft of the Gospel of Mark which Santosh and Shanti had translated into his native tongue. It was during this work that the story of Christ gripped him, and he decided to become his disciple. At first, declaring his new path of devotion was not problematic. 

“So long as you continue to follow our customs, babu,” his mother said, “it doesn’t matter who you worship.” 

Three years had passed. Now one of his close relatives had died, and his uncle had just visited his home to tell them. This meant that the Death Feast would soon be held in the deceased relative’s village to honour him. In that Brahman tradition, the family of the deceased hosts large feasts on the eleventh and twelfth days after the family member has died. It is believed that the more people they feed on these days the more spiritual merit accrues to the person who has died and the better the quality of life they experience in their next reincarnation.

Jai Ram was troubled. He would be expected to come to the Death Feast to show respect for his dead relative. Before the feast he would be expected to have his head shaved in the traditional fashion of a relative of the deceased, leaving a tuft of hair at the back of the head - a tiki. Could he do that now that he was a follower of Jesus? Furthermore, what should he do about the feast? Could he miss the feast without it being considered terribly disrespectful? Dishonour would be brought on his family. 

In the morning, the young man walked over to the next village and set to work on the translation as usual. Over lunch he discussed his problem with Santosh and Shanti.

“Why don’t you attend the feast but not shave your head?” suggested Santosh.

“But,” replied Jai Ram respectfully, “that would be even worse than not going at all, as it would be showing disregard for an important part of our traditions.”

“Then why don’t you just have a barber shave your wholehead and not leave a tiki?” asked Shanti. “That way everyone will realize you are not a Hindu anymore because you won’t have a tiki.”

“But there is nothing in the Bible condemning keeping the tiki, is there?” asked Jai Ram.

“True,” said Santosh, “but doesn’t the Bible tell us to avoid even the appearance of wrong? What I am inside should match what I am outside.”

“What about any other rituals?” asked Santosh. “The head shaving is just the preliminary part. Won’t you also be expected to join the others at the ‘holy area’ by the pond, where the priest reads from the Hindu scriptures, and offer flowers, incense and sweets to the gods?” 

“I know,” sighed Jai Ram, “and my family would be very unhappy with me if I bring shame on them by not participating.”

“Could you go along to the feast but skip being involved in any rituals?” asked Shanti.

“Of course, being there and taking part in the feast is the main thing,” replied Jai Ram. “I could try to explain that I can’t take part in the actual religious rituals. But nobody’s done that before. There is bound to be opposition. It will look like I don’t respect my elders.”

“Look, we’ll pray about it tonight and we’ll talk about it again in the morning, Jai Ram brother,” said Santosh.

That evening, as Jai Ram wandered back to the village, he agonized about what he should do. He remembered that even the apostle Paul had shaved his head (Acts 18:18). He wondered what he could do without compromising his own convictions and conscience. To make it more complicated, however, the following week, he was scheduled to give some instruction to a group of new believers from a Hindu background. They would be sure to realize what he had done, when he turned up with just a few days’ hair growth. Maybe they would thinkhe had compromised his faith even if his conscience was clear. Would this cause some of them to stumble in their faith?

Santosh and Shanti also discussed the situation late into the evening. They realized this decision also had repercussions for them. If Jai Ram upset everyone in the village by his actions the villagers would assume they had instructed him that he should not follow their customs. Would this ruin their relationship with the village and discredit their work? On the other hand, if he did indeed shave his head in the traditional way and this became known among believers in the nearby town, would it ruin the relationship and trust they had with other believers and church leaders?

There was no easy answer. Santosh and Shanti agreed that the issue really came down to the significance of the head shaving and tiki, and that of the feast. In the morning, they would walk over to the village, go over the biblical principles with him and see what he did.

Some Thoughts on Conversion

Recently I had some discussion on Twitter on how we use the terms 'conversion' and 'convert' so I thought I should follow it up with a blog post. What does it mean to be converted? Is conversion the same thing as regeneration? We often use the term conversion without thinking. Here are some thoughts on why we should be much more thoughtful on this issue.

Bible on conversion

Modern English translations of the New Testament (I have only looked at NIV, ESV, NLT, and NASB) use the word ‘convert’ or its cognates to translate several different words (8 times in NIV, 7 in NLT, 5 in ESV, 3 in NASB). But a quick analysis of the Greek words that are translated convert or converted shows that the English words are being used in ways that do not match the Greek:

• In Matthew 23:15 and Acts 2:11, 6:5, and 13:43 the NIV and NLT use ‘convert’ to translate proseluton (from where we get the word proselyte), referring to a Gentile who had become a Jew. (The AV & NASB renders it as ‘proselyte’ in all four cases and the ESV likewise in the first three.)
• In Acts 15:3, Romans 16:5, 1 Corinthians 16:15, and 1 Timothy 3:6, rather than use the word proseluton, Luke and Paul use various expressions to describe someone who has come to Christ. They seem to be at pains to distinguish what has happened to someone coming to Christ with what had happened to someone converting to Judaism. So, they use words that would ordinarily be translated as novice or firstfruits. But both NIV and ESV render the words as ‘convert’, ‘converted’ or ‘conversion’ in all four cases. The NIV is making no attempt to distinguish the experience from that of those who joined Judaism. (The AV uses ‘conversion’ only in Acts 15:3; the NLT is like the AV; the NASB is as NIV and ESV except in 1 Corinthians 16:15.)

This begs the question why the translators of some modern versions have opted to render several different Greek words as convert. The NIV makes no attempt to distinguish the experience of those who have come to follow Christ from that of the proselytes to Judaism. I suggest that they have bought into a modern conceptual framework of religions.

Comparative religions

The discipline of comparative religions emerged in the mid-19^th century alongside that of anthropology, sociology and psychology. Till this time, the study of religion was largely construed of as one of reflection on one’s own religion. But the 19^th century witnessed major advances in travel and trade, as well as the development of the modern missions movement. The unprecedented encounter with hitherto unknown religious traditions, coupled with the growing power of rationalist thinking led to the emergence of this discipline in the universities. Now the way societies thought, worshipped, lived their lives, in short, their traditions could be compared across the world. Religion became plural – religions. But how many are there and how are they distinguished from each other? Can we group them together and can we discover how it is that different groups believe similar things and carry out similar rituals? And what do we make of our own tradition? Are Roman Catholicism and Protestantism different religions or two versions of the one religion? Can we speak validly about conversion from one to another?

Probably the most obvious thing about religion around the world is that it is social: people do religious things together. So, are there as many religions as there are societies? The biggest challenge came in trying to sort out Eastern religions. Let me ask you a question: are you comfortable talking about Christian Hindus? William Carey was. But almost no one talks in such a way anymore. So, what has happened?

The whole development of the study of religions has led to the creation of religions. So, Christian and Hindu have become two mutually incompatible categories. And as social groups in South Asia as well as elsewhere are massively important to the people, religion must, of necessity, be a characteristic of a social group. And conversion must be the requirement to change from one social group to another.

Social change

But social change is not a requirement of discipleship to Christ in the Bible. Paul instructs the Corinthians thus: “…each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him” (1 Cor 7: 17, 20, 24).  And to make sure no one says, “Well that was just for the Corinthians,” the apostle adds, “This is the rule I lay down in all the churches.”

Even if the new believer does not say that he has changed religion or community, his actions will speak louder than words if he rejects his family traditions.

So, I argue, let’s be very careful how we use the word conversion. Maybe we shouldn’t use it at all—certainly not in situations where it will be misunderstood.

See a fuller discussion in Mark Johnson, “The Yatra in Christ”

At the Foot of the Snows

Review of At the Foot of the Snows: A Journey of Faith and Words among the Kham-speaking People of Nepal, by David Watters with Steve and Daniel Watters (Seattle, Engage Press, 2011, 375 pages, £9.43).

In the spring of 1990 the Peoples' Movement for Democracy ushered in a new era of political and religious freedom to the country of Nepal. I had been out of the country for a year due to what we might call a difference of opinion between myself and the immigration authorities. I was set to reenter when the movement reached its height and the army opened fire on a huge protest killing fifty unarmed protestors. Within 48 hours the king capitulated to the will of the people and a multi-party constitutional monarchy was reinstated. Two days later the border opened and I got on a bus and crossed the border from India. The change of view on the part of the authorities was astonishing. I began planning how we might make the most of that new openness while it lasted and four months later three trucks that were having to leave India were headed up to the border laden with good literature. Up to this time it had been impossible for us to import literature into the country. Now they just waved the trucks through, papers duly signed. One of those trucks stopped off at Duncan Hospital on the Indian side of the border to pick up a box of 400 Kham New Testaments that had been sitting at the hospital for five years waiting for this moment. This book is the story of how that NT was translated, and what a great story it is.

David and Nancy Watters entered Nepal with their three-year-old son Steve in 1969. Daniel was born soon after, while David and Nancy were learning the national language. They had joined a well-equipped team of linguists who had secured a written agreement with the government to map the minority languages of the country, reduce them to writing and establish their grammars and linguistic relationships. Their purpose was to translate the Word of God so that all the peoples of Nepal could read it in their heart language. David and Nancy were led through extraordinary providences to a little known group called the Kham, a people living in the West of the country in the high valleys 'at the foot of the snows'.

The narrative moves swiftly, though perhaps somewhat choppily, through the initial forays into the area, establishing a home in very difficult conditions, identification of a language helper, and the labour of a lifetime in learning the language and translating the NT. All the while, in the background, are the momentous changes going on in the country which came to have a huge impact on both the translators and the people.

This is a story of hardship, discouragement and pain, and faith, endurance and joy. In turn I was moved to tears and elation at the way the Lord led the Watters and answered their prayers, and I have been deeply challenged about my own faith and commitment. This is the best missionary biography I have read in a very long time. Get yourself a copy and have your vision stirred and your faith stretched.