CULTURAL
CHRISTIAN
BY NAMALI PREMAWARDHANA
I am likely near half-way across the world from you right now. If it’s the wee hours of the morning and you’re reading just before you hit the sack, then I am probably on a bus, jam packed with
sweaty people, swinging a rather big, maroon umbrella on my arm to shield myself from the
scorching afternoon sun. Or if you’re on the road, reading this off your phone screen, I’m likely
well asleep. Welcome to Sri Lanka for the next five or ten minutes.
Sri Lanka is an island less than half the size of Georgia off the south-eastern coast of India, the
“Pearl” of the Indian Ocean. We are, ethnically, predominantly Sinhala, Tamil, Burgher and Malay
practicing Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Atheism or Agnosticism or some philosophy.
Wikipedia will tell you we are a diverse culture, but I say we are a culture of diversity because we
absorb and appropriate any “differentness”. Buddhists worship Hindu gods, and non-Christians
“pray to Jesus,” too. I grew up in an Anglican school begun by British missionaries in the late 1800s.
We had a small chapel where the Christian students would meet each morning for a short service,
while the Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims met in other parts of the school to do their religious
devotion for the day.
For a Jesus follower declaring that He is “the way, the truth and the life” and that no one goes to
the Father except through Him, this is a difficult situation to be in. We are pressured not simply to
tolerate other religions, but to welcome it as part of our own culture. None of my closest girlfriends
that I grew up with are Christian; they are all Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. Many of the books I
read growing up featured little girls and boys who were “good” because they dressed in white and
“went to temple” to lay flowers at Buddha’s feet. Of the million-plus boys I’ve crushed on over the
years, one may have been Christian, but I don’t know if he knew Jesus.
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It’s not that Christianity is still “catching on” here. The oldest Baptist congregation in Sri Lanka just
celebrated their 200th anniversary last week, and the gospel has been preached in some form by
colonial missionaries since the 1500s. Along the coast one finds many century-old churches and
cathedrals built in a rich fusion of European and traditional Sri Lankan architecture. Some of these
majestic buildings are home to congregations of fisher people and farmers who bring up families of
sometimes four and five children simply by the strength of the beatitudes. Their daily wages are less
than what you and I would spend at Chic-fil-A for a decent meal. Then there are plush auditoriums
where women and men toting LV and Mont Blanc raise their manicured hands to hail Jesus. This is
not unbelievable to some of us who’ve gotten a good look at Atlanta.