William Carey Chapel and Calcutta Bible College

Calcutta, India

I was invited to deliver my course, The History of Protestant Thought, at Calcutta Bible College at the site of the William Carrey Chapel founded in 1809. I’d never been to India and was looking forward to this opportunity. But really I had only faint ideas of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). This city is like no other and caught me completely by surprise. I was not prepared for what I was to encounter.

Everywhere I turned in the five-to-ten mile circumference of the heart of the city where I was staying, I beheld a level of poverty I had never seen before. Everything happens in open view on the street, save female life and male-female mingling. Everywhere I looked I saw bodies loosely and barely clothed, men and boys sleeping, bathing, shaving, playing Caroms, slaughtering and butchering animals – in short, all the duties and details of personal life occur in the open on the street. The shops were for the most part very tiny. Many were cubicles, hole-in- the-wall artifices the size of a medium kitchen stove. Inside these a man sat in the lotus position and a man sold his wears – eight or ten things. These little shops were everywhere.

To be sure modernity is coming to India fast and furious but Kolkata is not in the lead. It has 18 million people squashed together in its urban center. To me urban Kolkata was like a giant open infected sore. But rather than nauseating me, it enchanted me. It is repulsive and exotic at the same time. While so many of the men on the street were a sore sight, the police were dressed to the nines in well-pressed uniforms, handsome young stalwarts. And the women are all dressed in their native saris of brilliant exotic colors. Everywhere there are shrines to one or more of the 37 million Hindu gods. I was fortunate to arrive on a very important four day Hindu holiday where once every year certain deities retire from their ease, come near to humans and through a frenetic dance hold communion with mortals. But to realize and enter this communion one must enter an ecstatic state through dance and ritual and song.

Inside the small campus of the William Carey Calcutta Bible College life is different. One complex houses everything – library, administration, dining and food preparation, dorm rooms and the principal living quarters. The 200 year old Carey Chapel stands separate and beside it a fine old manse for the pastor.

But it is the 100+ students that make this place special. Equally divided between male and female they come from all over India to get their education. With all seriousness, struggling to get good marks -most unsure how they are going to pay their tuition and where they are going to serve- they devote years to their Masters and Bachelors programs. When they finish, some become pastors or work in ministries connected to the church but many focus their energy on mission work.

India is a Hindu dominated culture and mission work is paramount. The church lives for the most part on the fringe of culture often unwelcome and in some areas sorely persecuted without hindrance from the government. Similar to the house church movement in China, mission work is the wheel that turns every other wheel in ministry and ministry training. But in secular China there is great increase these days in the church where as in Indian Hindu culture, mission efforts labor long and hard for a few against great odds. Hinduism holds a stupor on the minds of the masses.

One student, Bikram Jena, a senior MDiv student who attended to my daily domestic needs devotes several months a year doing mission work to hill people in the far north. Once a year after the academic term ends, he loads up his backpack and takes the train to the far north and when transportation ends he strikes out and hikes two weeks into a remote area where he lives with tribal people. Unable to speak their language he uses pictures and a very few basic words to communicate. He also brings medicine and his knowledge of basic health and sanitation to help them. The challenge he faces with these primitive tribes is not Hinduism. It is language and it is the need to find and train leaders who can carry on his work after he leaves.

My teaching experience with the students was good. The senior students discussed my approach and returned a thumbs-up verdict. Unfortunately the school, whose historic roots are deep in the American Baptist and English Baptist mission outreach societies of bygone years has, of late, been forced to look for new support. And as Dr. Dunn often quipped “he who pays the piper calls the tune.” The absence of American Baptist’s support threatens to lower their educational standards and place this historic work into the hands of very conservative foreign Christian groups.

Calcutta Bible College as I found it, is a school in need of new leadership, new vision and funds. The students are there hungry to learn and serve at great sacrifice and zeal, but in my estimation they deserve more and better. Most of the students need financial help in an economy where a little from Europe or America goes a long long way. Many are there on a wing and a prayer. As in China, my class did not withhold their affection. The guys and the ladies were warm and hospitable and very interested in sharing and learning and hard put to let me go. Their spirit energized me and encouraged me.

My work with Theologians Without Borders is on a volunteer basis and underwritten by friends and family. If you are so moved, please support this work. Contributions can be sent to me at 154 Grand Street, Suite 5- 10, New York, NY 11201. If you would like to receive the History of Protestant Thought lectures please contact me via email.

In friendship and warm regard,

Dr. Daniel

Hangzhou, China

What follows is my reflections on teaching the History of Protestant Thought in my second engagement in China, outside Hangzhou. My students are working on their bachelors and masters degrees in Theology.

On the bullet train from Beijing to Hangzhou we sped along at 220 mph. Standard fare was sold out so I bought a first class ticket and lounged in a large red easy chair sipping tea and snacking on munchies. The trip was a pure delight. I reached Hangzhou early and decided to lay low and rest for a couple days before checking with the school. Hangzhou is huge, one of the many giant cities, population: umpteen million, bursting-its-seams in China. I didn’t know where to stay, so I blindfolded myself and threw a dart at a city map. I landed right smack dab in the middle of the garment district. There isn’t 5 square miles in all of China where more buying and selling of garments and fabrics occurs. From my room on the 6th floor I looked out the window. On the streets below, going and coming in every direction, were carts hauling bundles of every size — from that of a nap sack to a Volkswagen. The bundles were awkward, clumpy burlap and nylon wraps being carried and conveyed by every means imaginable. Homemakers traveling to Hangzhou from other cities of China could be seen lugging their bargains in the same streets where corporate tycoons where wheeling and dealing. (I thought my brother-in-law Geevy probably had his man somewhere here working deals).

On Sunday, I set out for the school located in a church an hour out of the city, with my guide and interpreter. Getting a taxi to take us one hour into the countryside was no small feat. And here was my first clarification about Chinese culture. All dealing between parties in China works on the same principle of the internal combustion engine. Heat is generated, an explosion occurs, the energy released from the explosion is channeled so as to motivate – move the process forward and then this process is repeated over and over until the deal is sealed. And women are equal players in this method with men. The demur Chinese damsel is a myth! “Hell hath no furry” better describes this species in this context. Chinese street ethics is one of controlled conflict. Nothing is gained by reason and easy agreement or consensus. Conflict and opposition with burst of fury and anger, real or imitated, are necessary to get the job done. (I think Hillary Clinton would do well to take a page from my observation). A few times I thought my young female interpreter, in order to bring the cabi to submission, was going to box him up around the ears but then I realized this was business as usual. I don’t smoke, but I was thinking as I road along in the back seat a bit anxious by the furry of retorts exchanged, that I could use a smoke to relax.

The countryside village where the school met for classes it was nothing like the situation outside of Beijing. Zhejiang province is the richest of all China. Inside the adjunct teaching building of a large beautiful church on the edge of Dragon’s Gate (the birth Place of an Ancient King some 1700 years past) the school enjoyed spacious modern classrooms, living quarters and dining facilities. But none of these belong to the housechurch seminary group I had come to serve. They were merely granted the use of the space by the local church group. Local believers in the village called Dragon’s Gate had aligned with a wider movement spreading through China roughly translated as The Truth Church and built the large beautiful church you see in the picture.

When the authorities discovered they were building a church in this famous mountain retreat town, home to not a few elite tourists, they showed up at the site and forbade them from continuing to build. But when they left, the church proceeded to lay the bricks. When the authorities showed up again they were angry and fined the church 70,000 rmb and forbade them again. The believers paid the fine and proceeded. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The full story detailing the reversals and challenges these believers met along the way toward bringing their vision to completion is amazing. Now the pastor’s dream is to build a formal full- fledged seminary in the facility adjoining the church.

My teaching experience in Hangzhou/ Dragon’s Gate was equal to my Beijing experience. As the week progressed, the confidence of the students strengthened. Here again I encountered a zeal and devotion the likes of which can scarcely be found in the church of Christ anywhere at this time. In my class of about 27 students there were 8 from the far Northwest near the Mongolian border. In this area Islam remains very strong and also the authorities continue to repress Christianity except for the very few Government churches that exist. One student spoke of her mother, who for 25 years has been visited by the authorities in her home and many times arrested and a few times suffered beatings. A young man in the class residing 20 miles from Mongolia who graduated with honors from the best university in the northwest turned down a job to be the superintendent of the middle school district in his city so as to spend all his energy building and pasturing house churches. His father’s brother is the most prominent Inman in the district and the family has turned against him and cursed him. His uncle, the head Imam in the area is known as possessing magical gifts and powers reputedly similar to those Pharaoh exhibited when he turned Moses staff’s into a snake. Using his magic he placed a hex/curse on his nephew and his marriage so that they would remain childless which seemed to be succeeding for last 6 years until this year the couple succeeded in conceiving and then to the jubilation of the believers in the area the couple gave birth to a beautiful baby boy shortly before I arrived. All the students had stories and not a few had collided with the authorities either they themselves or their parents. All who were studying, equally divided between male and female, were studying to be effective missionaries.

The entire house church movement is driven by a mission ethic. Going into the ministry means becoming a missionary, learning leadership skills, organizational skills as well as gaining a Biblical and theological understanding of the church’s message. One woman pastor I heard about has 4000 members under her care in umpteen housechurches, each with 15 to 20 members meeting in homes scattered along the China – Mongolian border. The lay base of this church movement, cradled in homes and explicitly shaped as a missionary endeavor, is the secret of its success. “Jeannie” [the church once trapped inside a government controlled and supervised organizational structure] has escaped from its captivity and cannot be put back into the bottle and the leaders of the housechurch movement know this and are becoming increasingly free and bold in the face of the political leaders.

China is changing! The emerging greatness of the nation is being met with an emerging church also great in zeal, spiritual strength and potency- a rapidly growing church. I could not help thinking “China’s emerging power and greatness is being paralleled by the emerging power and growth of the church and this phenomenon has occurred in history before. Our own American climb to greatness as a nation in the 18th, 19th century was accompanied by Great Christian Awakenings that swept across the land. But in this setting great ostentatious evangelical revivals are not possible nor perhaps fitting and advantageous. The subtle development of the church inside small home settings, diversified, decentralized, nondenominational befits the political situation and is I believe truer to the primitive impulses of the Christian way. Where are the heroes, the great charismatic personalities, the dazzling movers and shakers effecting Christian religious change? At the risk of sounding sacra religious inverting the meaning of the demoniac’s godless retort “my name is legend and we are many” describes this godly phenomena. The few authorities still true believers, the one’s who still brew and drink the ideological monopolistic kool aid are saying in frustration to themselves, Where is the head of this thing,? Where is its heart? feet and hands? that we may take possession of it and bind it?

This second session, my lectures were better. I found the students hungry to understand the Church’s historical truths in a way which transcended the passing on and memorization of information – their typical mode of learning. I taught them ideas and insights and connected the dots between the truths that gave birth to the Reformation and the changes that came along in the wake of the 16th century. I showed that Luther was a radical thinker and his grasp of the Gospel was revolutionary.

One fellow in the class, the senior alpha male among his peers who sat on the very corner in the back row, daily challenged me. His nickname was Socrates. Each class he brokered questions regarding my teaching. In good humor I consistently took him on, but with restraint. On the last day he held nothing back feeling that my interpretation of Luther was giving away the store and failing to do justice to the law and the Bible – quoting Matthew 5:17. I was ready for him as those of you who know my religious exodus of past times might guess and I began working through his complaint ultimately ending my response with John 5:39, Galatians 4:1-7 but not without opening the meaning of Romans 3 – where it asserts that faith establishes the law.

On Sunday, two days later, when I was about to leave he sought me out and said he needed time to talk. With considerable humility he proceeded to confess that the organizing matrix for his understanding of Christian truth was now undergoing serious revision. He went on to state that Luther’s insights had got inside his thinking and things were not coming back together as they once had. I could see he was standing in a new discriminating relation to his faith and Scripture. Socrates, the man with rhetorical questions seeking to foil me, was caught in the grip of a new insight and in the end he couldn’t quite get the old wine back in his original wine skin. I love this experience and have a special feeling for this man. Before leaving both of us agreed we needed to take a picture together. (Which unfortunately was taken on Sunday before I left when many of the students were missing away for the weekend.)

By the time I had completed the course I was utterly exhausted lecturing 6 hours a day and working mornings and evening besides preparing my work and engaging students one on one. Assured of no responsibilities for Saturday and Sunday I was preparing my mind for a little repose before traveling on. As it turned out I was pulled into a full schedule of events on Saturday and Sunday. Speaking before the church congregation on Sunday morning, a surprise invitation/demand, a last minute SOS was sent for my interpreter who showed up to take her place along side me on the platform in an old sweat shirt, tired, not too happy to be summoned, but proceeding to deliver flawlessly, although I fear by then sick and tired of hearing my voice and unraveling my strange use of words. My Sunday homily “By the Providence of God Dragon’s Gate [the name of the town] Becomes the Door of Grace [the formal name of their Church] – the victories of the past are but the Prologue to the future.

Stay tuned for my next Report # 3 coming out of Calcutta [Kolkata] India – Calcutta Bible College on the campus of the William Carry Chapel established by him in 1804.

And if you are so moved do not hesitate to send a little donation to the address below. My entire fall Asian endeavor is my free will offering underwritten by family and friends as much as possible. Soon several of my History of Protestant Thought lectures will be available online.

In friendship and warm regard,

Dr. Daniel

Beijing, China

Dear friends and family,

In this report I want to share with you my first experiences teaching the History of Protestant Thought outside Beijing, China. Over a year ago Malaysia Baptist Theological Seminary contacted me and asked me go to China and teach students who are working on their bachelors and masters degrees with MBTS through an extension program. Pastor/ Ph D’s are still a little hard to come by in the East. I will be teaching in various locations from September to December. The students I taught in China are in the China Gospel Fellowship, a particular strand of the widespread house church movement now growing quickly all over China.

On September 3, my interpreter took me meet the pastor of a house church outside of Beijing, with about 300+ active members. His name is pastor Zhang, he is also the founder and principal of a college he created to train teachers, pastors and missionaries. Zang has been preaching and building congregations all over China for over 30 years and more importantly everywhere he goes, before he leaves, a new house congregation emerges.

To sit and talk with him one doesn’t get it. He is a low-key, fussless, matter- of-fact guy, by all appearances average in gifts. He doesn’t come across as a powerhouse, smiles freely and is not overly verbal. It is clear that experience and faith has taught him to work, suffer the authorities, and keep building and organizing. God has blessed this man’s work and maybe its partly because he naturally down sizes himself. Outside Beijing he and his co-workers purchased land and built the little facility you see below.

The entire structure complex is shaped into a court with a open yard in the middle with the bordering structures on each side housing the dorm rooms, kitchen, dinning room, class rooms shower stalls and toilets. The entire length doesn’t exceed 120 feet long and maybe 80 feet wide. Everything happens in close quarters. Women’s lodging on one-side men on the other (no hot water so showers are very cold).

When I arrived and took possession of a guest room on Sunday 4th I didn’t realize exactly what I was in for. The entire week unfolded with a fussless order beginning at 6 am worship. I looked for visible leadership but really couldn’t find any. The principal was not there. Everything just happens, meals, worship, classes, leisure time (where among other activities washing clothes by hand occurs in the large row of facets along a trough bordering one end of the quad.) During the time I was there, I scarcely encountered any “staff” around.

I lectured 6 hours a day and the students exercising their destiny to become leaders made everything happen on time with as little leadership fanfare as can be imagined. In class when I referred to a passage in the Bible they would find it and read in unison with perfect cadence. It sounded like a well drilled regiment of soldiers marching in order. They started the classes with prayer one student would say the prayer and as s/he prayed there was a very slight pause between each phrase during which the entire group responded with a resounding Amen. They pray with gusto without pretense of piety and sang with spirit and power. Most of all they were about their studies, 110% present and accounted for! On God’s earth these are truly some of the most devout, non fanatical, mature and graceful Christians I have ever encountered! Most of the students are the sons and daughters (about 50 – 50 male female all in their 20’s) of believing parents – house church pioneers who have truly suffered not a little for their faith. The students are different then their parents – China and the house church has changed and is changing but their devotion is of the same sterling quality of their mothers and fathers.

From the beginning of the week they began to extend their confidence to me and opened up to learn to the historical and Gospel centered ideas things I was teaching them. As the week proceeded they sought me out to work through all kinds of questions some theological, some about the church’s relation to the government and how I thought they should relate to the authorities when they collide, others sought me out to talk with me as a pastor. By the time the end of the week came I was using every waking hour talking with them or buried away reworking and fine tuning my material for the next lecture discussion. When Friday night came they went out and bought a big fish and cooked it up and presented it to me because they finally figured out I was not a pork, chicken and beef guy. After the meal most of them wanted to humble me at ping pong – their national sport. Even so I almost held my own against their medium players which pleased some of the ladies. When Saturday morning came and I was to leave a group came to my room and wanted to talk before I left and we kept going tell my driver’s wife’s became a little discouraged about the prospects of her shopping plans so we ended and they sent me off with an out poring of gratitude and love.

The following are a few of my lecture topics which I worked on with them.

1. The Collision of Two Kinds of Authority: Struggling With The Dual Challenge Exchanged between Luther and Charles the 5th at The Diet of Worms in 1521 -Then and There and Here and Now. Luther said something important to Luther but Charles also said something to Luther both have taken on a history]

2. Luther’s Breakthrough and Its Ramification for the re formation of the Christian Religion

3.Luther’s Theology of Glory vs. The Theology of the Cross: The Weighty Seeds of Thought and Insight Given to the Church at The Heidelberg Disputation in 1518

4. What Luther and Calvin Joined Together Later Generations Have Put Asunder – well Sort of, Kind of, Sometimes, More or Less, all to often! [When Spirit and Spirituality Take on a Life of Their Own -What then?].

5. “The Children Ate Sour Grapes and It Set the Children’s Teeth on Edge”: Three Reformation Models of Church – State Relations Time Travel From the 16th Century to Barmen, Germany 1934.

If you would like any of these lecture/discussions simply email me and make your request. Within a few weeks they will be available. For the few who do not have access to email let me know by sending a letter to me at 154 Grand St. New York, New York 10013 USA. Some one is checking my mail and will send you the material.

Because the seminaries & colleges I am serving this Fall 2011 are fledgling under financed endeavors I have given my services, travel expenses and all and opted to attempt to raise my own backing. If you are so moved to help just send something to my office in New York [the above address] But do not conclude this letter is a fundraiser. This is just me keeping you my friends and family abreast with my work. Some how this is coming and will come together. As I write this I am off to Calcutta, India for another hitch. My second China report should reach you in about one more week.

In friendship and warm regard,

Dr. Daniel