14. Fashionable Christianity
Chapter 14
Fashionable Christianity
Francois Coillard, missionary of the Zambesi, wrote: “The evangelization of the world is a desperate struggle with the Prince of Darkness and with everything his rage can stir up in the shape of obstacles, vexations, oppositions, and hatred, whether by circumstances or by the hand of man. It is a serious task. Oh, it should mean a life of consecration.”
These were words often quoted by Amy Carmichael. It would be impossible to exaggerate her sense of the seriousness of her calling, and, by contrast, of the apparent superficiality of much in India that called itself Christianity. “The saddest thing one meets is the nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions are younger. . . . The church here is a ‘field full of wheat and tares.’”
Since long before Amy’s arrival in India conflict and competition had torn the Christian churches. Caste was a primary factor. The missions that since 1947 have together formed the Church of South India drew their church members largely from three barely compatible groups: the high caste Vellala landowners, the lower caste Paraiya field laborers (Gandhi called them “the people of God,” the current term is “depressed classes”) and, in the southern districts, the intermediate-caste Nadars or palmyra climbers. The work of certain foreign missions, the Salvation Army for one, was limited to lower castes. It is not to be wondered at, given the position of the Untouchables, that they were tempted by what Christianity seemed to offer: an identity hitherto denied them, a dignity and an equality not only with other Indians but even, in spiritual terms, with those Christians who represented power—the British of the raj. These were the “loaves and fishes” that drew the crowds. Who among them actually had “ears to hear” the words of the Master? This was the burning question.
Missionary social activities were not Amy’s cup of tea. How to justify the time spent in this way? It was like making daisy chains while people were plunging blindly over a precipice. Once when the ladies were doing their fancy needlework and the men were reading missionary papers for discussion the question was asked whether anyone knew of an Indian who would work without pay.
There was a dead silence. The lady near me was busy matching her silks. All the others went on with what they were doing. Not one, so far as I could see, was astonished or shocked by such a question. At last one of the men said, “I must confess I don’t.”
But I felt as if a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of that pleasant company. It wasn’t that I thought the question referred to those who could not work unless their expenses were paid. To have one’s expenses paid if one had not money of one’s own is apostolic. No, it was not that; it was that no one in that room knew of any who (whether they had pay or not) were working purely for love of their Lord, who loved Him enough to work for love’s sake only . . . I had half expected that in the moment’s silence that followed we would be on our knees in shame and contrition before God. For if such things were true, whose fault was it? But no, the discussion passed on to something else and there was a buzz of conversation, that was all. I went to bed that night in much perplexity of spirit.
She longed to become one with the people. “‘He made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant.’1 Pray that we may get down to the bottom of that verse,” she wrote home. “Then we shall be in a position to ask our Indian brethren to come down and join us for Jesus’ sake. Pray that we who are His sworn soldiers abroad may throw our kid gloves to the winds and FIGHT!”
Compared to the sari, the beautiful dress of an Indian woman, Amy’s own wardrobe seemed ludicrously elaborate, impractical, and, worst of all, a dreadful distraction for the Indians, as it had been for the Japanese. It might even be dangerous for her. If she wore a sari she had a measure of protection by being less conspicuous in a crowd. She tried not to be prejudiced in favor of one dress over another; “it is only a surface matter after all.” But she was not yet free to adopt Indian dress except on rare occasions. It simply “wasn’t done.”
Because Bangalore’s climate, although one of the most healthful in India, was considered too hard for Europeans to bear year-round, it was customary for British residents to resort to the hills in April and May. Missionaries generally followed suit. To Amy this was an indefensible waste of time and money. She had no intention of going, but was forced to join the party of three women to the Nilgiris. If they rode in sedan chairs, as was expected, thirty-six coolies would be needed, eight for each chair, twelve to carry the baggage. Amy and the doctor chose to ride ponies. They went to Kotagiri (“hills of the Kota tribe”), where there were forests of fir, fresh mountain air, and pure mountain water.
As she had ridden her pony Scamp on the beach of Millisle, Amy rejoiced to gallop Laddie on the quiet roads of Kotagiri.
Oh, that you could see us as we tear along, our solar hats discarded, if it is evening, our hair, or mine at least, flowing free! We are called the mad riders of Kotagiri, and I don’t think we much mind. This evening we came upon the elite of the little place, residents and visitors, congregated on the road. There was the good old Bishop and his sister, and the Bishop-to-be, his wife, and various old ladies and middles, and perambulators enclosing babies, and a dog or two. The small crowd parted with alacrity as we shot through, and we caught a fleeting glance of a gaze of astonishment and horror. There are two very mild old gentlemen who are fond of taking their walks abroad round the hill we consider our cantering-row. We delight to amble sedately past them, then, a yard or two ahead, break into our wildest gallop, and they remain behind in a state of apoplectic pie Once I ran over a man. I did not mean to—he wouldn’t get out of the way and one can’t stop short in mid-gallop. Lilian reported him not hurt, only somewhat surprised. All this will be over soon. When one is ready for work a bullock cart will be the order of the day. Just now I take it as an extra good gift which helps to keep me strong for the months of grind before me.
Amy, interested more in vocation than vacation, had taken along her helper, dear old Saral (her earlier helper having proved untrustworthy). This was a new departure. A British resort, remote from the sizzling plains three thousand feet below, was designed to provide refuge not only from the plains’ flies and smells and heat, but from its hordes of the poor and the ignorant. It was, above all things, freedom from contact with any Indians of any station whatever that most Britishers prized. This, to Amy, was a freedom earnestly to be avoided. “My Missie is as my child to my heart,” Saral said, and Amy refused to be separated from her. This caused consternation. Was this young Irish upstart going to have the old woman actually share her room? She was. And if Saral sleeps on the floor, why should I have a bed? was her argument. No, no, they could not hear of it. Amy gave in, for “our quarters are so very close together any vagaries would be speedily detected.”
She carried on with her Tamil lessons, and took Saral out visiting the Kota tribespeople, aborigines who lived as simply as aborigines anywhere, in houses which seemed hovels to the new missionary, eating strange foods, following strange ways. “Not one has as yet, we hear, been brought to Christ, yet He loves them and He died for them.” Saral spoke to them in her simplest Tamil. When a woman of the tribe died Amy and Saral went to the burning.
They had the Death Car there. . . . They piled the faggots round it. They lighted them, and a wild, wild wail rose up to the God who looked down and saw it all. Then the horn blew loud and long, and as the fire flamed, one part and then another caught, and as the terrible sound which they called the head-split cracked through the crackling of the wood, they seemed to put all the dread and horror of it into one intense yell.
Why do I tell it so? Why break through the pleasant scenes of home with this bit of the fiery barbaric? Why! Because it is true! It is true! It has gone on like that for thousands of years. It is going on today. Is there nothing in it which speaks? Has it not a voice for you? A voice, yes, and a Cry. The cry God heard when He said long ago, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me f rom the ground. Some of you are not much giving, not much caring.
From Kotagiri she went to “Ooty,” short for Ootacamund, another little paradise of English order and cleanliness in the hills, with shaded streets, comfortable bungalows staffed by sashed and turbaned servants, gardens redolent of jasmine, heliotrope, and roses. Here she stayed with Mrs. Hopwood, mother of the Miss Hopwood described by Malcolm Muggeridge when he visited her some twenty years later:
A zealous evangelical lady of some wealth who maintained a house named “Farley” to accommodate missionaries on furlough. . . . We knew little of her own family circumstances, but she spoke sometimes of traveling about Europe with her mother, and attending musical festivals. Music was her only “worldly” interest; otherwise she considered all forms of entertainment as belonging to the Devil’s domain. Hymn-singing was a permissible indulgence of her taste for music, and whenever possible she threw herself into it with tremendous zest, often, in her own house, providing the accompaniment as well on a small harmonium she had. She must have been rather pretty when young, and even in late middle age, when I knew her, she had still a grace and charm and gaiety about her . . . I can see her now with her energetic step, going about the garden and in and out of the house; the chains and bracelets she was given to wearing jingling and tinkling with her movements. Always busy, always breathless, always smiling.2
The young Miss Hopwood, a missionary to Muslims herself, took Amy to visit the Todas, another aboriginal tribe who lived in “a collection of beehives.” The two ladies climbed a tree overlooking the village and talked of the desperate need for workers.
Miss Hopwood, zealous and evangelical, was not more so than her new friend Miss Carmichael. Amy rang the bell one morning to gather the servants for prayers. The cook’s small boy, pointing to the bell, said, “It’s a god.”
I looked at the thing, it had a scratched face on the handle, and the face, he declared, was Ram’s. I think the young scamp meant nothing more serious than a bit of mischief, but I knocked the bell handle off and pushed it into a fire which was burning near. He could never say that again! They all looked on, servants and coolies, and nobody said a word. Would a god let me do that? I asked them, and walked off, carrying the battered bell.
Walking on the hills with Saral she discovered three stones under a tree which Saral said were heathen idols. “To see those stupid stones standing there to the honor of the false gods, in the midst of the true God’s beauty, was too much for us. We knocked them over and down they crashed and over they rolled forthwith. Oh the shame of it! It makes one burn to think of His glory being given to another.”
Naturally there was an Anglican church in Ooty, “depressingly English,” Amy said, with the usual Gothic arches and stiff pews. The governor of Madras, in gray frock coat and top hat, attended when on holiday there, and occupied the front pew which was reserved for him and his ladies. Indians who for one reason or another could not be refused admission were restricted to the pews at the back.
Far more to Amy’s taste than riding to the English church in a proper carriage was trundling in a bullock cart to the convention held especially for missionaries. There she felt at home at once, away from the scenes of “fashionable Christianity” which were to her so strange and saddening. They sang the old Keswick hymns. “There was almost a Keswick feeling in the air. But the best of all was seeing the missionaries, specially the Tinnevellyites. Real Soldier-Missionaries.” Among them was a man Amy had been hearing about: Thomas Walker. “Oh, he’s a man by himself, very extreme, you know, a bit narrow-minded, but a scholar and a very fine man,” was what she heard. She formed a mental picture: white-headed, rather cantankerous with wisdom and learning written all over him. She had taken along her Tamil grammar in case the addresses should be dull. When Walker spoke, her book remained closed. He was thirty-six years old, jet-black hair, dark, earnest eyes, a nervous gesture, wisdom and learning in evidence, but not a trace of the petty narrow-mindedness she had imagined. Following the meeting she was introduced to him in Government Gardens. They talked of how she might best learn Tamil.
“I would much rather live in a mud hut with the people around me than among English people in a bungalow,” she told him.
“You could not stand it for long.”
“I would rather burn out than rust out.”
“That should be as God wills.”
There was not a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. “I don’t like you,” Amy decided, and withdrew into the deeps of herself. “I haven’t seen a Mr. Buxton yet,” she wrote to her family, “and I don’t expect to. There are not many on this side of the sea.”
She could have no idea of how her life would be linked to the Walkers.
1. Philippians 2:7.
2. Malcolm Muggeridge, The Green Stick, Chronicles of Wasted Time Vol 1 (New York: William Morrow, 1973), p. 122.