Culture and Communication Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Culture and Communication Research Paper - Essay Example Christianity is one of many religions which thrive in that country. The people are spiritually minded. Hinduism is the religion of the majority with 82% of Indians being Hindus. 12.1% of Indians are Muslims. Those officially following Christianity form a meager 2.3% (Census of India, 2001). For a follower of Jesus (which is what we mean from now on as 'Christian') it is a command and an obligation to share the gospel with others who do not know. According to Mark chapter 16 and verse 15, Jesus has commanded us to 'go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'. Yet in a country like India which is deeply entrenched in spirituality there are tremendous challenges to the credibility of the gospel message. We will look at the communication of this message primarily among the Hindus in India The popular perception in India is that Christianity was brought into the country by foreign missionaries who came along with the British East India Company in the early 1700s. The British eventually captured and ruled the country till the mid 1900s. As Wikipedia the online encyclopedia states about that time: "Imbued with an ethnocentric sense of superiority, often known as the White Man's Burden, British intellectuals, including Christian missionaries, sought to bring Western intellectual and technological innovations to Indians, ignoring the fact that the Indian Christian tradition went back to the very beginnings of first century Christian thought" (Wikipedia contributors) Hence although untrue, there is a sense that Christianity is a foreign religion. The fact that the West is predominantly Christian contributes to this perception. Money from the West that has traditionally come in for evangelistic and missionary campaigns also fuels the perception that the financial base of Christianity in India is abroad. As Astrid Lobo Gajiwala an Indian Christian activist writes, ".They just don't see Christians as Indians; they see us as an alien 'other', minions of a white, Christian world that is synonymous with spiritual and racial chauvinism (1998)." Language and attire incompatibility. It cannot be denied that western influence has permanently crept into Indian Christianity. Christian worship is conducted in many languages but English is predominant among them. The exceptions to this are the Tamil, Malayalam and Latin languages which may be more popular in the respective states (Latin is used in Orthodox churches). English has never been in the scheme of things for Hindu worship or religious literature until recently. Christian communities especially Roman Catholics and Goans have predominantly English names and western attire. The communication at home among these communities is predominantly in English. Songs and music Music used for Christian worship has its influence in the West. The songs sung in church are either hymns composed by English or American songwriters in English or contemporary songs again composed in the West in English. Churches depicted in Hindi movies usually have a church organ playing in the background. Local worship songs have begun to gain in popularity but this is a recent though