GDR, as I understand it, and yes I wish I knew more about the history of it all, the situation in India was not like the situation in Australia or Canada. Yes the Brits were no doubt "snobs and racists" as I already said, but India was an ancient established culture with a huge population, which I believe can't be compared with the natives of Canada or Australia -- or the US where we also have Reservations for the native population. The difference I have in mind is that the British didn't move into India to settle as was the case in Canada and Australia. Some did but as administrators, not settlers.
What I was trying to say, and maybe I AM off the wall about this, certainly unrealistic at least, was that a TRUE Christian spirit could have done GOOD for India rather than just exploiting their wealth, you know a spirit of SERVICE, of selfless HELP, and so on, could have done MORE than they did to bring the gospel (yes, that's essential) to build education of all kinds, to encourage enterprise and employ people of all classes in producing their own wealth, and all the rest that brings people into the modern age, so that eventually they could have been self governing the way Australia and Canada are. That's probably MOSTLY unrealistic not only because of British class barriers but INDIAN class barriers which are arguably worse than ever was the case even in England.
A Christian outlook, especially if the gospel WAS taught, would have worked toward getting rid of both sets of class distinctions. Yes, I'm sure it's pie in the sky but that's what I meant about a CHRISTIAN spirit, which is not a spirit of exploitation but more of a spirit of help. Of course it would have to have been built on the commercial interests of Britain nevertheless, but business doesn't have to be merely exploitative. Granny said he's sure all the Brits THOUGHT of themselves as Christians, but I WAS talking about a nonexploitative mission to be a blessing to India.
From what little I know the country is not MUCH better off economically OR socially now if at all. Are you familiar with the book City of Joy about the slums of Calcutta? I mentioned earlier the ministry to the Dalits I'm aware of, how the people in that region are the poorest of the poor by western standards. The indigenous ministers who are based in a much bigger organization called Gospel for Asia also get around either on foot or bicycle. Still the Dalits may be better off than those in the city slums, or who live on the city streets -- from which Mother Teresa took the dying into her hospitals (I'm no particular fan of Mother Teresa but she did make an effort to help the really sick and dying). The hordes of children who beg foreigners for money are reported on by visitors to India all the time.
It's hard to call all that any kind of economic improvement OR social improvement.
Oh I agree in theory about "quality of life" versus materialism but you know, the fact of the matter is that people who get material improvements in their lives themselves say they prefer it to their previous condition. It's hard to have "quality of life" without an education, living from hand to mouth, every year getting flooded out by the monsoons, and so on.
By the way, I have English ancestry too. MY grandfather, whom I never knew (because my father was the youngest of thirteen and by the time he married my mother at forty my grandfather had died), emigrated to Canada from London and homesteaded in Alberta. We visited that old ranch every summer for years, where one of my aunts lived, and the life was just as it had always been. The only nod to modernity was the wooden boxed wall phone that you cranked to get the Operator. There was a wood cook stove in the kitchen, the only source of heat for the small two story house, light was from hanging kerosene lamps and water had to be carried from the well on the hill in buckets. Of course the "plumbing" was an outhouse and porcelain chamber pots under the beds. You washed in a large bowl in the bedroom with water heated on the wood stove and lugged to each of the bedrooms in a large porcelain pitcher.
We helped my aunt milk the cows, gathered eggs from the hens, watched her kill chickens for dinner and tried to help her pluck them -- plucking chickens is NOT easy. And she let us help her make bread. Oh and she made butter in a big metal bowl that spun very fast when you cranked it. She actually had developed the muscles between the joints of every one of her fingers from the work she did to keep that place running.
It was great fun for a summer vacation. But what a hard life! All the other old aunts and uncles talked about how GLAD they were for modern conveniences after they'd grown up and moved away. You know, MATERIALISM. Don't put it down, it has a LOT to do with "quality of life."
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
He who surrenders the first page of his Bible surrenders all. --John William Burgon, Inspiration and Interpretation, Sermon II.
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