{"id":40393,"date":"2016-08-29T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/"},"modified":"2016-08-29T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T00:00:00","slug":"how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"How All Cultures Can Domesticate the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British theologian Leslie Newbigin told the following story to illustrate how different cultures water down the claims of Jesus:<\/p>\n\n

\n

When I was a young missionary I used to spend one evening each week in the monastery of the Ramakrishna Mission in the town where I lived, sitting on the floor with the [Hindu] monks and studying with them the Upanishads and the Gospels. In the great hall of the monastery, as in all the premises of the Ramakrishna Mission, there is a gallery of portraits of the great religious teachers of humankind. Among them, of course, is a portrait of Jesus. Each year on Christmas Day worship was offered before this picture. Jesus was honored, worshipped, as one of the many manifestations of deity in the course of human history.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

But this wasn't a step toward leading people to faith in Jesus Christ. It was actually what Newbigin called "the cooption of Jesus into the Hindu worldview." He explains:<\/p>\n\n

\n

Jesus had become just one figure in the endless cycle of karma and samsara, the wheel of being in which we are all caught up. He had been domesticated into the Hindu worldview. That view remained unchallenged. It was only slowly, through many experiences, that I began to see that something of this domestication had taken place in my own Christianity, that I too had been more ready to seek a "reasonable Christianity," a Christianity that could be defended on the terms of my whole intellectual formation as a twentieth-century Englishman, rather than something which placed my whole intellectual formation under a new and critical light. I, too, had been guilty of domesticating the gospel.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3363,3424,3653,3671,3690,3825,3897,4060,4096,4149,4579,4658,4667,4794,4798,4887,5168,5212,5283,5284,5301,5303],"tax_ctp_topics":[388],"class_list":["post-40393","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-absolutes","tax_ctp_tags-apologetics","tax_ctp_tags-compromise","tax_ctp_tags-confrontation","tax_ctp_tags-conviction","tax_ctp_tags-doctrine","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-global-missions","tax_ctp_tags-great-commission","tax_ctp_tags-hinduism","tax_ctp_tags-outreach","tax_ctp_tags-pluralism","tax_ctp_tags-postmodernism","tax_ctp_tags-relativism","tax_ctp_tags-religion","tax_ctp_tags-savior-christ-only","tax_ctp_tags-tolerance","tax_ctp_tags-uniqueness-of-christ","tax_ctp_tags-witness","tax_ctp_tags-witnessing","tax_ctp_tags-world-religions","tax_ctp_tags-worldview"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nHow All Cultures Can Domesticate the Gospel - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How All Cultures Can Domesticate the Gospel - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The British theologian Leslie Newbigin told the following story to illustrate how different cultures water down the claims of Jesus: When I was a young missionary I used to spend one evening each week in the monastery of the Ramakrishna Mission in the town where I lived, sitting on the floor with the [Hindu] monks Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/how-all-cultures-can-domesticate-gospel\/\",\"name\":\"How All Cultures Can Domesticate the Gospel - 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