In Deep in India
(A Report by Michael Cassidy on a Research Trip in 2009 to Investigate the Growth of Christianity in India)
In 2009 Michael Cassidy and two other African Enterprise team members travelled around India for two weeks with the intention of trying to understand how it is that the Indian church had grown from 15 million to 75 million in 12 to 15 years. In Deep in India is Michael’s fascinating and instructive journal account of their encounters and what came forth from them. The trip was birthed out of a desire to understand how to meet the ministry needs and the discipleship challenges of the 400 million professing Christians in the continent of Africa, this vast multitude often labelled as having “a mile wide and an inch deep” Christianity.
The problem seems to be that in many countries where there are so many Christians, those countries nevertheless remain in political turmoil, even conflict, in economic declension, in social upheaval, in moral failure, and family breakdown, and gripped by the kind of promiscuity which has made Africa generally and South Africa specifically the worst situations on the planet for HIV/Aids. In other words, the challenge of discipleship and reformation is simply enormous within the Christian Church of this continent.
The African Enterprise group focused on finding answers to the following key questions:
- What kind of training does the Church on the African continent need?
- Are our seminaries really biblically, theologically and practically equipped to prepare students for the enormity and depth of the ministry challenges around us at this time?
- Can Christians move beyond personal blessings and soul winning, both critically important of course, to societal reformation and community transformation?
- Is the Church today capable of bringing about the kind of societal reform such as happened during the Wesleyan Revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Britain? Is this being replicated anywhere in our world at this time, whether in micro or macro?
- How can the Gospel be spread in contexts of contemporary religious pluralism, neo-paganism and the post-modern loss of absolutes in both matters of truth and morals?
If you are asking any of these same questions then this book is for you.