India

At a historical art exhibit, I read that the images on display were intended for private devotion. Would it have been subversive of me to pray?

I can’t quit thinking about Yakub. In my purse I have a print clipping that includes a photo of the 12-year-old boy staring into the camera with a copy of Steve Jobs’s biography held high over his head. I pull it out from time to time and imagine Yakub at work.

What is it about Western culture that makes it so difficult to taste God? Why would we rather prove propositions than experience the holy?

For over a thousand years, Christian communities flourished in India. Their first real identity crisis? The arrival of European Catholics.

The Vietnam War forced Protestant ethicists to consider Catholic teachings about war, and I learned much from Catholic colleagues. My outlook was also changed by ecumenical contacts of another kind.

Eighty percent of the Lutherans in India are women, and 80 percent are Dalits--the caste at the lowest rung of the social ladder.

Reli­gious freedom has
become a potent rallying cry. That is an excellent development—provided
we avoid turning the issue into a partisan weapon in the confrontation
between Chris­­tianity and Islam.