Gandhi and Christ

[ayani]

i would like to post from a small article i read today- i found it really interesting.

my neighbor and good friend is a Christian who grew up in India, and was raised Hindu. we talked about Gandhi this morning on the way to work, and i'm interested to know what you all think of this- Christian and non-Christians alike.

Mahatma Gandhi is one of the most respected leaders of modern history. A Hindu, Ghandi nevertheless admired Jesus and often quoted from the Sermon on the Mount. Once when the missionary E. Stanley Jones met with Ghandi he asked him, "Mr. Ghandi, though you quote the words of Christ often, why is that you appear to so adamantly reject becoming his follower?"


Ghandi replied, "Oh, I don't reject your Christ. I love your Christ. It's just that so many of you Christians are so unlike your Christ."


Apparently Ghandi's rejection of Christianity grew out of an incident that happened when he was a young man practising law in South Africa. He had become attracted to the Christian faith, had studied the Bible and the teachings of Jesus, and was seriously exploring becoming a Christian. And so he decided to attend a church service. As he came up the steps of the large church where he intended to go, a white South African elder of the church barred his way at the door. "Where do you think you're going, kaffir?" the man asked Ghandi in a belligerent tone of voice.


Ghandi replied, "I'd like to attend worship here."


The church elder snarled at him, "There's no room for kaffirs in this church. Get out of here or I'll have my assistants throw you down the steps."


From that moment, Ghandi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity, but would never again consider becoming a Christian if it meant being part of the church.


How we treat those others tells people MORE about what we believe, and what following Jesus means to us than all tracts we pass out, or all the fine semons we deliver.


very true, this...

[gnomon]

I hope I'm not the only one who finds the line of reasoning in the story irrational.

[Rolling_Stone]

Originally Posted by gnomon

I hope I'm not the only one who finds the line of reasoning in the story irrational.

You are so far.

[zenzero]

Friend Ayani,
Born in India but sorry to state that this story of Gandhi was unknown to me so far.
Even if it be true personally it is irrelevant.
God is one for all humans and makes no differnece to what religion one follows.
Religions are but diffrent ways of reaching the same goal.
Personally born in a hindu family have visited churces, gurudwaras, monasteries, temples all for experience only.
Personally am neither a hindu, christian, buddhist, sikh or anything.
Just a human being and appreciate and try and understand all the religions or ways or paths [whatever it may be called] BUT do find that religious institutions themselves have very less understanding of the real teaching of their own teachers or after whom the religions are based.
Finallly it is the human mind that makes the individual human perceives things as it wants and creates all differences like a christian mind would appreciate everyone to follow christianity so on and so forth without understanding that in the final analysis it makes no difference as the goal of all religion is to get the individual to be enlightened.
Love & rgds
n.b. It was mere bad luck that Gandhi faced astubborn man in front of the church that day. Am sure if that man was not there the history would surely have been different as he would not have been popular in India at that time when Hindus and muslims were at loggerheads due to british policies and a chriostian mediating would never have been tolerated by either.

[Bouncing Ball]

Originally Posted by gnomon

I hope I'm not the only one who finds the line of reasoning in the story irrational.

No you are definatelly not. I think it's really weird to look at what others do to determine what you believe. If you believe all that christianity has but don't like it's members, you still believe all that christianity has.

Peopl who choose a religion for it's members should join a sportclub or so..

[gnomon]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Ball

No you are definatelly not. I think it's really weird to look at what others do to determine what you believe. If you believe all that christianity has but don't klike it's members, you still believe all that christianity has.

Peopl who choose a religion for it's members should join a sportclub or so..

Glad I'm not the only one. It's been my experience that it's taboo to disparage Gandhi.

Of course, I don't know if I even believe the quote as being a statement by Gandhi though I've heard the sentiments come from...well to be honest...all of us at some point in time.

[Halcyon]

Originally Posted by Bouncing Ball

No you are definatelly not. I think it's really weird to look at what others do to determine what you believe. If you believe all that christianity has but don't like it's members, you still believe all that christianity has.

Peopl who choose a religion for it's members should join a sportclub or so..

That was kind of the point he made, he accepted a lot of what Christianity the faith had to offer, but rejected Christianity the organised religion because of the hypocrisy of some of it's members.
We can assume that Gandhi realised that not all Christians would have been like that south african man, but that that experience was enough to show him an aspect of the Church of his day that he greatly disliked.

[Bouncing Ball]

Originally Posted by Halcyon

That was kind of the point he made, he accepted a lot of what Christianity the faith had to offer, but rejected Christianity the organised religion because of the hypocrisy of some of it's members.
We can assume that Gandhi realised that not all Christians would have been like that south african man, but that that experience was enough to show him an aspect of the Church of his day that he greatly disliked.

Somehow I would expect Ghandi would see a religion as a way of thinking and not a club of people with rules.

"Ghandi said, he decided to adopt what good he found in Christianity..."
from this moment he is saying that it is christianity as belief that he can't follow in it's whole. And you are right, as this says nothing "bad" about the thinkingline. The good could be everything except the people or his incident..

"How we treat those others tells people MORE about what we believe, and what following Jesus means to us than all tracts we pass out, or all the fine semons we deliver."
But in the content of the story I see this as rejecting the religion itself for it's people.
If you would see this sentence as a standalone however, I agree with you.

[Seyorni]

Gandhi always insisted that he was a perfectly ordinary person who decided, one day, to eschew all prevarication and follow truth wherever it lead. He said anyone could do this in a moment. It was only a matter of choosing to do so.