In this post, we endeavor to understand the work of the Holy Spirit within the Indian spiritual context – the challenges that indigenous Indians face and how the Holy Spirit can be called upon to act on their behalf or come alongside as a helping hand to pronounce and glorify the name of God and his son Jesus. After a comparative study of Hinduism and Christianity, we do find that there are a number of similarities, in this post – Spiritual concepts in both Christianity and Hinduism.

However, spiritual concepts absent in Hindu religiosity that are innate to Christianity, and celebrated in the Christian tradition as life-giving are the following.

• The all-encompassing love, surpassing understanding, not as a reward for good works.
• The eternal union of God and God’s people as a consequence of baptism.
• The familial concept of God as the father, with all believing Christians united as brothers and sisters in Christ.
• A book of life, called the Bible, from which all Christian theology and doctrine is derived.

Holy Spirit, Indian Christian theology, and its applications

Roji George rightly says:” The two important interrelated aspects in the formation of an effective missional community are the content of the gospel it preaches along with its significance in a particular sociocultural context and the way the significance of the Holy Spirit is recognized in fulfilling its missional call and purpose of existence in the world”. The Holy Spirit fulfills his missional calling as much as he called upon, and in the Indian context, the Holy Spirit is the only power that exists for a Christian to call upon in time of need. Prayers and hymns, meditating on the word, and fasting – all magnify the union with the Spirit. Most Christians in India engage in spiritual struggles and warfare, relying on one’s knowledge of the word of God, and their spiritual maturity to carry the day. We track down four different instances where the Holy Spirit is or should be relied upon more as the only source of comfort in a spiritually plural and perverse society.The power of the Spirit judiciously applying the power of the gospel is a critical and essential aspect of Indian Christianity.

a.The Holy Spirit’s work in the atonement of sin.

In Hinduism, atonement for sin is deeply intertwined with the concept of karma and dharma. Individuals seek to balance their karmic debt through righteous actions and spiritual practices. Various rituals, such as prayer, meditation, and acts of charity, aim to cleanse impurities and restore harmony with the divine. Additionally, the notion of reincarnation allows for opportunities to rectify past wrongs in subsequent lifetimes. Ultimately, sincere repentance, devotion to God, and the pursuit of enlightenment lead to spiritual liberation (moksha), transcending the cycle of birth and death. Thus, atonement in Hinduism is a journey of self-purification and spiritual growth towards ultimate liberation.

In this world, everyone with the remotest awareness of spirituality is convinced of sin. It’s an obvious part of living, where sin and suffering are rampant. But the witness of the Holy Spirit not only convicts us of sin but, more importantly, provides the answer for it. Lausanne covenant: “We believe in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Father sent his Spirit to bear witness to his Son; without his witness ours is futile. Conviction of sin, faith in Christ, new birth and Christian growth are all his work” .

In Christianity, the Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers of sin by illuminating their hearts and minds to recognize their separation from God. Through inner conviction, individuals become aware of their moral failings, prompting a sense of guilt or remorse. This spiritual conviction serves as a catalyst for repentance and turning toward God. The Holy Spirit’s work in convicting sin aims to lead unbelievers to acknowledge their need for salvation through Jesus Christ, facilitating a transformation of heart and a desire for spiritual reconciliation. It’s through this conviction that the Holy Spirit draws individuals into a relationship with God. Jesus atoned for the sins of all, so there is no need for Hinduist atonement practices anymore – the crux of the gospel is also the dire need of Hinduism. This seems far too simple, but it is true. Sin consciousness is a natural force toward the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If this message has not worked, it means it has not been said enough. In today’s instance, as has been the case since the independence of the nation, too many legal and technical impediments thrown in against Christians to assuage Hinduist sects have created roadblocks and rivalry. Is there an option out? Yes, by Christians living out their joyful mandate and letting their lives be not only a living presentation of the gospel but also a irritant to the powers-that-be, as it has always been, since the first century.

Says Stephen Bevans, “A community that demonstrates, by its ethical integrity and joyful vitality, what it means to live in relationship to the biblical God may well be an irritant and a threat to the authorities of this world. But it can also be—and often is—a community that by its very life is fascinating, that makes people curious, that causes respect and admiration; in short, it is attractive”. How beautiful are these words! Where there is sin consciousness and the awareness of the culpability of self, there is need for conviction – made readily available through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We are mere witnesses to it. Every person needs and deserves to live without the burden, where their “very life is fascinating”!

b.The Holy Spirit’s work in destroying spiritual bondage.

Spiritual voodoo, black magic, and related practices embody a complex tapestry of beliefs and rituals rooted in various cultural traditions. Voodoo, originating from West Africa, intertwines spiritualism with folk magic, often involving rituals to commune with spirits, both good and evil. Black magic encompasses a spectrum of occult practices aimed at influencing events or individuals through supernatural means. The results could be benevolent or malevolent – as demanded by the  practitioner. These practices evoke both fear and fascination, often associated with taboo or forbidden knowledge. Despite misconceptions and misue, practitioners often assert a connection to spiritual realms, emphasizing intentions of healing, protection, prosperity, or personal empowerment. To say that this concept of Spiritual voodoo and black magic is common in the undercurrents of Indian society is an understatement. Everyone knows its lurking in the background, and it is a matter of time before you run into it. In my own experience, me and my family became aware after my father passed away suddenly, at a young age. After some searching for Gurus and performing rituals, the complete measure of the underlying causes were revealed. Unless my mother had turned to Jesus, we would have certainly died, the entire family.

Episodes like these are far too common in middle to lower classes of society, and people, along with their families, are left languishing in spiritual bondage. Spiritual bondage refers to a state of an individual being trapped, restricted, or controlled by negative spiritual forces or influences. While one might also argue otherwise, those who are familiar with it can relate the effects back to evil spirits, demonic oppression, or negative energy. Spiritual bondage can manifest in various ways, including feelings of hopelessness, fear, addiction, health, material loss, loss of relationships or being unable to break free from harmful patterns or behaviors. It can impact every area of a person’s life, left only to the imaginations and motives of the shaman performing the rituals. It often sets as a barrier to spiritual growth, inner peace, and personal fulfillment. Breaking free from spiritual bondage typically involves spiritual practices, such as prayers, meditations, rituals, or seeking assistance from spiritual leaders or healers inside Hinduism or even using Muslim shamans and spiritual practitioners.

Where does the Holy Spirit come in the picture? In Christianity, the Holy Spirit is believed to be the divine presence of God actively working in the lives of believers. The Holy Spirit is considered a source of comfort, guidance, and empowerment. When individuals find themselves in spiritual bondage, they can seek the help of the Holy Spirit in several ways:

• Conviction and Awareness: The Holy Spirit can bring conviction and awareness to all areas of bondage in a person’s life, helping them recognize and acknowledge the need for action and change. Awareness is half the battle, just like deception. If you were not aware that you were deceived, then you were deceived. The moment you are aware, deception has no power over you. Awareness can come early for some, or it can come too late, as in our family’s instance.
• Strength and Empowerment: Through prayer and seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance, individuals can find strength and empowerment to resist negative influences and overcome spiritual bondage. The blood of Christ is the full measure of power surrounding a believer, protecting them from the evil spirits and their effects, as much as one believes in it.
• Renewal of Mind and Spirit: The Holy Spirit can renew the mind and Spirit, bringing transformation and freedom from harmful thought patterns, behaviors, and spiritual influences. It is easy to set oneself into vengeful acts of retribution, resulting in an endless cycle of occult practices and spiritual voodoo spanning lifetimes and generations. For lack of a better term, I call this ‘spiritual debauchery’ – the knowing and willful indulgence in the occult, with or without their choice, that in turn demolishes relationships, families, marriages, and children altogether. It sets brother against brother and father against the son. If one can Christianize, then they are well and able to overcome this bondage through renewing their mind, helping them skip the cycle of engagement in the occult.
• Guidance and Direction: Believers can rely on the Holy Spirit for guidance and direction in navigating their spiritual journey, including discerning between good and evil influences.
• Intercession and Deliverance: Through prayer and faith, believers can ask the Holy Spirit to intercede on their behalf and bring deliverance from spiritual bondage, trusting in God’s power to break chains and set them free. There isn’t enough said about renewing the mind before interceding for oneself, one’s family, and loved ones. At the corporate level, Pastoral prayers to protect families from the occult are pretty common on a Sunday morning. Or any day of the week if the situation is dire. Deliverance ministries are a peculiar skill in the Indian context, practiced by a few discerning and spiritually mature Christian leaders. Apart from these, in a general context, people are left to find more information about deliverance from Western spiritual pundits like Derek Prince and Benny Hinn. Derek Prince, himself born in India and having practiced the faith there, has a lot of spiritual insights and helped me as a young Christian to work out some of the nuances of my newfound faith at a critical juncture.

Overall, the Holy Spirit serves as a powerful ally in the Christian faith, offering comfort, guidance, and divine intervention to those seeking liberation from spiritual bondage. But, the vast array of theological discourse engaging with the spirituality of Asia, specifically India, does not even hover near this topic, let alone engage with it fruitfully. Jesudas, tracking down Christianity in South Asia, rightly says: “Doing theology in Asia would require us to locate the Christian gospel in the context of Asian religiosity and the struggles of the Asian people for full humanity and in a situation in which the church would identify itself with the struggles of the people for spiritual and social emancipation”. And who is the one tasked in doing it? Who is one relating to, documenting and teaching the “struggles of the people for spiritual and social emancipation?”. We speak of only one Spirit, whereas in the Indian context, a “plural” pneumatology would be very well applicable – the “meaning, role and effects of other spirits” as opposed to only the Sprit of God.

c.The Holy Spirit’s work in culture and casteism.

Casteism has been the bane of Hindu society for more than 2000 years. Stuck in the vicious cycle of birth and death and a life being discriminated against and conformed to grounds of birth, people of lower castes have no way of escape. There have been marginal recourses out of this cycle – by inter-caste marriage and reservations in government positions, but things have not changed for the better in the past several decades, even after the government enacted laws nullifying its harmful effects. Hindus from the caste system are against government attempts to set aside a certain percentage of positions in the administration (22.5%) and legislative seats (85) for those from scheduled castes and tribes. The society at large is an intense practitioner of the caste system, to the extent that professionally educated and successful Indian diaspora in Western nations still choose to engage and marry within their community and caste. While societal stigma runs deep, the spiritual liberation of lower caste Indians is a matter of re-conforming the identity of the person from the inside out.

Because of this highly stratified caste system, Protestant and Catholic missionaries of yesteryear have attacked it in its own terms – picking and choosing whether to preach to the lower castes or win over the upper castes, thereby transforming entire societies through the power structures that be. Of the early Jesuit missionaries, Francis Xavier focused on the latter group and Robert de Nobili chose the former. This differential application of the power of God is its own undoing, as it is said, “because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes”.

Tillich provides better reason and rational for the Spirit’s work within the spirit of a human being. “The relation between the Spirit and the spirit is that the Spirit breaks into the human spirit and drives the human spirit out of itself” . Tillich describes this process as “infusion” and “inspiration.” In doing so, a new person is born from within without disrupting the structure of the centered self. This might sound complicated and distant, but in fact, it is not. The new creation is the best work of God in us through the work of the Holy Spirit after baptism in Christ. The human being, being comprised of a spirit, a soul, and a body, is known, to answer Castelo’s question –“Do humans have a spirit and/or a soul, or are they simply bodies and minds?”. To explain why would be outside the scope of this exercise. The human Spirit replaced by the Spirit of God entering in the form of a dove, in the case of Jesus, is a cataclysmic spiritual event, unseen to the eye but changing the person on the inside. Is this the kind of transformation that the Dalit or a person of lower caste needs to alleviate themselves from the drudgery of their own birth? Spiritually, it is the only way out, as is evidenced by Jesus reply to Nicodemus. It is impossible for a human to enter into a mother’s womb to be re-birthed to enhance their destiny, but through the Spirit, in the Spirit, all things are possible, even a new creation, a new and renewed mind, well able to be transformed through spiritual inculturation of the Word of God. Much has been said against converting Dalits, but there have been unscrupulous practitioners of the Christian tradition who use monetary incitements rather than rely on the pure, enabling work of Christ through the Spirit to bring about change.

The resultant social order will be mutually beneficial for all human beings concerned, as Vishal Mangalwadi rightfully puts it – “India’s present decline stems from the assumption that human beings are capable, without God, of creating and sustaining a free social order forthemselves”. Curiously, Jeyaraj says, “As ‘blood is thicker than water’, nearly all South Indian Christians remain caste-conscious”. This might be the case with some, but not all. In the case of the large segments of Christianity in urban contexts, caste- consciousness does not exist anymore after becoming Christians. A fellowship formed around the church and its members, negates the consciousness – but the work of the Holy Spirit giving them new identities needs to be received and appropriated spiritually.  But there might be exceptions to every rule. One expects caste consciousness to be more of a rule in rural contexts where caste defines the part of town one stays in, where one gets buried, the nature of professional work, and even one’s personal acquaintances. Lack of opportunity and access keep new Christians where they are, sometimes even having adverse effects as the powers-that-be impose enhanced punishments for changing religions.

d.The Holy Spirit’s work in creating a unified self-sustaining church.

The Nicene creed describes the church, as “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”. This also is the fervent prayer of Christ for all believers, that we are to remain as one body, united and loving one another. Division among believers is a scandal in itself – “…it hinders the Spirit’s work of transformation in the world”. The model for Christian unity is the Trinity, that is, diversity in unity or unity in diversity as is popularly known. This is what is described as the Catholicity of the church, which means that it can never be achieved without the inspiration of the Spirit. The fullness of the Spirit is expressed in the local church, where people of all languages can gather and speak and are united in the Spirit. While Western churches have leaned towards a multi-congregational model in recent years – independent Caucasian, Chinese, Korean, and Taiwanese churches all congregating separately, Indian churches cannot afford to do so. The societal stratifications are far too numerous.  The congregation of all languages, races, castes, and creeds and positive regard for other local churches are some of the cornerstone aspects of unity in the Spirit. Yet, the examples of creating and progressing indigenous churches are far from being united or effective. Write Kim and Kim,

In order to present a united witness, in 1947, the year of independence, a merger of Congregational, Presbyterian, Methodist and Anglican churches formed the Church of South India, and provided the basis for similar schemes of union of Episcopal and non-Episcopal churches in North India (1970), Pakistan (1970) and Bangladesh (after 1971).

The Church of South India has been effective in its local context, from my own personal experience and engagement with them in Bengaluru, India. The parallel establishment in the north is the Church of North India, operating on its own accord. An earlier example is the National Church advocated by Lal Behari Dey (1824–1892) in close collaboration with the Free Church of Scotland.  Although he was unsuccessful, his efforts led to the launching of the “The Calcutta Christo Samaj” in 1877 by Kali Charan Banerji and J. G. Shome[18]. This was finally dissolved in 1894. Jesu Darbar also started in North India, has its detractors and personalities. The Mar Thoma Syrian Church and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church belong to the Eastern Orthodox traditions and are generally considered un-penetrable, even for fellowship and theological discussion, keeping themselves ever closer to themselves.

Writes Jeyaraj, “Christianity in south india is an urban phenomenon; Christians of every persuasion and their institutions jostle for space, adherents and financial revenue in major cities such as Chennai, Madurai, Vellore, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Trivandrum, Kochi and Thrissur. They conduct evangelistic meetings and make wide use of the modern electronic media to propagate their views. Yet beneath their speech of love and compassion can lurk a lust for popularity, public recognition, power and fame. Their theology often promises health and wealth for all; it no longer stresses the necessity of the renewal of mind and lifestyle”.

A positive illustration is the Bible Mission of Bro M. Devadas who was lutheran (1875‒1960), begun in 1938. Devadas “launched out to build an Indian church for Indian people to worship in Indian ways engaging with Indian realities and led by Indian leaders”. The Holy Spirit’s role in empowering believers to defeat the schemes of demonic spirits as they go about their daily lives was paramount in such a church. This has grown into a large movement, having deep roots in the populace, eclipsing secular gatherings in size. This is compelling evidence of letting the Holy Spirit have the final say in bringing believers together and practicing the religion without fear or fervor. Says Vinay Samuel, “The secular west destroyed the role of religion in refining society and is now paying for it. So the church needs to consider how to shape society by true religious cooperation”. Every religion has its positive motive force. In Christianity, it is God working within his people and being among them, as it was in the first century, as it should be today. God does not work through systems and organizations. The earlier we acquiesce to this thinking and let God have his way through the Spirit, the better it is for all believers and the sustenance of the church at large.

Conclusion

The Spirit’s journey of spirituality goes beyond the boundaries of an individual’s heart. We believe that the Spirit works in addition to the church in the larger society, both before and after the coming of the gospel – the very meaning of a missional Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not anti-culture; rather, he both affirms and confronts it at the same time. Bosch quotes Neibuhr: “Scripture without experience was empty, and experience without Scripture blind” . Trudging through the spirituality of India, even as a Christian, is not for the faint of heart. There is considerable reason for Indian Christians to remain aloof from the general population, which I accuse them – of not being missional enough. But dealing with it’s spiritual tapestry is only for the spiritually mature. As a nominal re-working of Niebuhr’s words, in India, scripture without experience will get you lost; experience without Scripture will leave you in bondage.