Things quickly got real when a group of Southern Baptist pastors squeezed their way into a small area with crowds of Hindu faithful to watch the ritual slaughter of goats at the Kali temple in Kolkata, India. Those of us with cameras were swatted with batons by temple security guards adamant that we not capture images of the beheadings.
That scene, combined with earlier scenes of idol worship and ritualistic cleansing in other South Asian cities, was a clear reminder of why these pastors had journeyed here. The Old Testament was played out right in front of them, real and tangible — even brutal. But they had come to tell South Asians that the fulfillment of the gospel in Jesus changed everything — for all of us.
“We as believers, we understand that the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God — [our] Lord Jesus Christ dying on the cross — is the best and is the only one sacrifice that has been done in history,” said Humberto Gonzalez, minister of First Euless en Español, a Spanish-speaking ministry of First Baptist Church, Euless, Texas. “So we don’t have to kill more animals. Jesus died for all of us.”
Effort for a religious experience
Gonzalez reflects the sentiment from his pastor colleagues who traveled to South Asia from African-American, Korean, Chinese and Hispanic Southern Baptist congregations across the United States. Each person on the team was profoundly impacted by seeing the effort people go to for a religious experience at the Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim places of worship we witnessed on this trip.
The experience serves as a reminder that being part of a New Testament church doesn’t involve building earthly establishments to get God’s attention or requiring a priestly caste system to beg Him for redemption for the rest of us. The joy of our faith is that we know we already have been redeemed by Christ. We are part of the kingdom of God, no animal sacrifice or candles needed to atone for our sins — just placing our faith in Him.
Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church, New Orleans, who also was on the trip, said, “Too many times we get so interested in building our own kingdoms in our city, in our state, but we’ve got to look at the bigger picture. Again this is one sacred effort: all of us coming together to impact the world, not just our city, not just our state, not just our nation, but to impact the world.”
There are more unengaged, unreached people groups (those without an active gospel witness) in South Asia than in the rest of the world combined. But the kingdom of God is growing in South Asia despite the sheer number of people spiritually lost and dying without access to His good news.
After visiting areas where there are churches, Pastor Joseph Chan, of Arizona’s Tucson Chinese Baptist Church, was impressed with the growth in South Asia through the Holy Spirit’s leading and the obedience and perseverance of Christian workers and local pastors.
“It seems that when things are difficult, when the environment is not as friendly or maybe to some extent hostile, that’s where the kingdom of God and the gospel flourish even more so.”
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