A Movement that Keeps Multiplying, by Victor John with Dave Coles (IJFM 38:1-2, Spring/Summer 2021, pp. xviii + 209) —Reviewed by H. L. Richard
This book is about a church planting movement in North India, straddling the borders of the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But, in fact, Bhojpuri Breakthrough is more focused on a parachurch group that claims to be the originator and main support of the Church Planting Movement (CPM). Each chapter until the last two is about breakthrough, including the opening “Before the Breakthrough” up through “Breakthrough in Caste” and “Breakthrough among Muslims” to chapter 11, “Breakthrough in Leadership Development.” The closing two chapters deal with principles of the movement and frequently asked questions.
This is a multi-authored book (nine contributors, all local parachurch employees, mentioned on page xv, along with the co-authors). A careful read of the book raises more questions than it answers, as this review will demonstrate. Very little data is presented that would enable a reader to draw his own conclusions, and very little missiological analysis is present in the volume. The tone of the book is decidedly promotional, including a fundraising hook at the end.
There are both errors and highly dubious statements in the book, but this review will highlight two issues of central importance, caste and the role of money. Some errors were introduced as the result of generalizations that are far too broad: for example, the statement on page 4 that the British opposed missionaries because missionaries associating with the local people “caused embarrassment to the British Raj.”¹ A worse error on page 6 is surely an editorial problem as no one could possibly think (about missionaries) that “instead of using the local Hindi word for God they used the English word for God;” the context of the statement suggests that this was a problem up through the 1990s.² Anti-Hindu errors also appear; on page 21 there is a claim that in past centuries the firstborn son of Dalit (untouchable) families had to be drowned in the Ganges River,³ and that textual references to pouring molten lead into ears “would kill the person, but that’s what was done; it’s written in their scripture.”⁴ South Indian Christians are also brutally caricatured as we are told on page 23 that “They have a very distinct division between the churches, with high-caste churches and low-caste churches that never interact with each other.”⁵ A last example from page 122, “India has 92 different cultures.”⁶
Perhaps the most astonishing claim in the book is this: “If the high caste in our area are only 2 percent or 10 percent of the population, that same percentage is also reflected in the churches. . . . God is at work in all the castes” (24). If this could be documented and demonstrated it would be revolutionary to all church growth and church planting movement thinking, which since J. W. Pickett’s 1933 study of Christian Mass Movements in India have always recognized the central place of sociological groups (castes) in movements to Christ. Has any church anywhere in the world ever achieved what is claimed here, a perfect cross section of every strata of society?
This seems a clear case of saying what people (particularly gullible Christians in the West with their lack of understanding of India) would want to hear. Other examples of statements that would fall into this category are: “in this movement each person is being discipled and mentored” (23); “practically everyone who has partnered with us has been happy, healthy and successful” (159); “most of the leaders in the movement spend three to five hours a day in prayer” (193); “shallowness comes from either ignorance of God’s Word or a person knowing more truth than they obey. Discovery Bible Studies prevent both of these” (199–200); the principles outlined here “will work anywhere” (200). Finally for this list, on page 12 it is suggested that the movement really began when the Bhojpuri New Testament was released. But, in fact, Bhojpuri is traditionally a spoken rather than a written language. Even now, Bhojpuri churches use Hindi Bibles for preaching rather than the Bhojpuri version. Serious research is needed into the effectiveness and impact of the Bhojpuri Bible.
Returning briefly to the caste question, on page 28 there is a claim that “I consider it important to teach believers from all castes to meet and worship together, even while being sensitive to local customs.” “Local customs” will be vastly varying among the various castes, including significant differences in language/dialect; to mix all varieties of castes and simultaneously be sensitive to local customs is simply not possible. This seems confirmed on page 123 where we are told that “the movement has spread in a variety of ways to different language groups, different geographical areas, multiple caste groups (within those language and geographic areas), and different religions” (emphasis added; page 151 suggests that “the homogeneous unit principle . . . can sometimes be useful” but “we’ve used the language and culture to reach people and let them form their own groups”).
There are multiple passing references to money throughout the book. Page 32 mentions a church meeting of three to four hundred people in a community learning center; whether that building is owned or rented and who is paying the bills is not mentioned. Page 43 refers to a slum ministry where funds were given to provide soccer uniforms and shoes and balls. Page 48 refers to a need for funds for a Christmas program, but the group was told there are no funds. Page 100 says fifty children are sent to school in every city where there is children’s work. Page 104 tells of hiring a full-time worker, but page 159 says
a movement cannot depend on salaries and money. A movement has to depend on God and bi-vocational leaders. If we started paying leaders, it would kill the movement (and we don’t have the money anyway). (cf. 173)
The situation is that staff are hired for social service work and training movement leaders (56) but local leaders are not paid. There are also training centers with “a systematic set curriculum” (162). Page 177 brings some of these tensions together:
Most leaders in movements work bi-vocationally. We don’t pay pastors or hire leaders. . . . Rather than thinking in terms of full- time versus part-time workers, we see everyone as a worker in God’s Kingdom. . . . In fact, some of us who live as itinerant mission workers rightly get support for doing ministry.
One doesn’t have to read very far between the lines to know that such financial policies and practices produce tension, resentment and division. Such topics are not helpful in promotional literature, but a peek is given on page 198: a strategy of Satan is to provoke comparison, like “He’s succeeding; I’m not. He got a motorcycle, but I didn’t. He’s building his house; I’m not.” (There is a negative reference to other Christian organizations “enticing leaders to join their staff through financial offers,” this in the context of ministry to Muslims, 155.)
Reticence related to finance is maintained until the final statement of the book, where the last of the frequently asked questions is about supporting the work, and a web link is provided. That web link takes one initially to just a sign-up page, but from there into the world of high-powered fund-raising (“train a leader for only $96 per year”) and phenomenal claims of millions of converts (“our vision is that thirty million people will come to know Christ by the Books and Missiology 77 year 2018;” this obviously needs an update). This type of hype easily gets into the wrong hands and brings a backlash against local Christian workers who are sincerely and humbly seeking to serve Christ. Promotion in America often harms the cause of the gospel.
One may question whether a missiology journal should even review a book like this. But serious missiological analysis is necessary related to the current fads over movements. Better data is needed than this type of book provides, but until that data is available, it was thought worthwhile to examine some of the claims laid out in this study.
Endnotes
1 This is far too broad a generalization about the British approach to missions. From 1813 missionaries were allowed in India and received much imperial favor, particularly for their educational enterprises. The British Empire was vast, even within India, and many local authorities at various times and places were zealous believers who supported missions within their role in the political setup.
2 What local terms to use for God was a constant point of discussion, not resolved even to the present time. I have written on this at https://www.ijfm.org/PDFs_IJFM/33_1_PDFs/IJFM_33_1-Richard.pdf.
3 This is far too broad a generalization. For an account of William Carey’s responses to infanticide, with some estimates of the prevalence of the practice, see https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ministry-in-killing-fields/.
4 There are a number of references to pouring molten tin or lead or hot oil into the ears of recalcitrant (by some authority’s definition) low caste people, such as the Dharmasutra of Baudhayana 12.4 (Dharmasūtras: The Law Codes of Āpastamba, Gautama, Baudhāyana and Vasiṣṭha, ed. and tr. Patrick Olivelle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 98, or the Laws of Manu 8.272 (Manu’s Code of Law: A Critical Edition and Translation of the Mānava-Dharmaśāstra, ed. and tr. Patrick Olivelle, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2006), 182. The practice of this, however, is another matter. Ludo Rocher, in his paper on “Inheritance: Dāyabhāga” in The Oxford History of Hinduism, Hindu Law: A New History of Dharmaśāstra, elucidates a “principle of textual interpretation” whereby “distinguishing ‘injunctions’ (vidhi), which have to be taken literally, and broad statements that hyperbolically underscore general principles (anūvāda)” plays a crucial role (eds. Patrick Olivelle and Donald R. David, New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 170. This pouring of lead into ears is clearly the latter hyperbolical affirmation of a principle, not a practice that was, or was intended to be, literally carried out.
5 There are notorious caste problems in all the South Indian churches (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant and Pentecostal) but this broad generalization is truly a caricature of a complex scenario.
6 The claim of ninety-two cultures sounds clear and scientific, but there is no agreed definition that clearly distinguishes one culture from another. The 1961 Indian census claimed there were 1,652 mother tongues (http://www.languageinindia.com/aug2002/indianmothertongues1961aug2002.html), but the Anthropological Survey of India in 1992 concluded that there were only 325 languages, showing again the difficulty of defining what a language or culture is. But one would expect at least 325 cultures when there are 325 languages (in fact there are surely many more cultures than this in India), so the figure of ninety-two is perplexing.
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The current fads regarding movements require serious missological analysis.
- H.L. Richard is an independent researcher focused on the Hindu-Christian encounter. He has published numerous books and articles including studies of key figures like Narayan Vaman Tilak (Following Jesus in the Hindu Context, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 1998) and Kalagara Subba Rao (Exploring the Depths of the Mystery of Christ, Bangalore: Centre for Contemporary Christianity, 2005).
