I remember Pastor Ravi Zacharias speaking with mourning and lament in his voice over his beloved India. He was sharing the story of a cult that participated in the extremes of self-will after drinking the blood of snakes.
The cult would enable one to ask for anything they wished for after having taken the blood, and the story he was sharing was of the request for immoral relations with an infant. The infant was granted as requested in the presence of the cult "community"
and abused as their demonic ritual and cult practice dictated. He spoke with such sorrow and pain of knowing Satan's grip upon the land of his ancestors by natural birth. When i think of it now, i think it was courage, too.
Not a story to swap as a boast of self-righteousness: "oh, our country was host to this missionary or saw this miracle or has sent this many workers of the gospel to plant this many churches.."
Instead, a story shared by a PoC immigrant of Indian heritage, 'dissing' his own people with a story that would be certain to bring revulsion to the memory of any who heard it.

How is this courage?
It is because the model minority stereotype long existed in a context of media control and blackout of uncomfortable news. There are so many intangible benefits to color and race that has high reputation & likewise costs to ill-repute that have nothing to do with the individual.
To live in the immigrant context of under-representation is still to be by virtue of existence and spectacle of living presence over-representative in the social imagination regarding the under-represented people.
Not that there aren't other Indians in American media, but simply far less than their true numbers of 1 billion+, that would engulf the American population at least three times, would really suggest about the world or global society.
Yet to bring to mind the type of thing that makes Americans cringe (perhaps the closest i can think of is the practice of eating dog or silkworms in Korea or anything that moves in China) regarding sin, places a pockmark on the ever-desired perfect face of American beauty.
I've eaten dog before and found it deeply wrong one time and not meaningful another. I've gone to Korea as someone born here and thought that all Koreans look alike, and i've returned after some years and thought that all white Americans look alike.
Culture defines sin through taboo, while Christians define sin through not believing in the Son of G-d and depending entirely upon the love of G-d by the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Zacharias went ahead with attacking both currents at the same time, castigating culture and biblical sin, while pointing the finger directly at his own cricket-loving heart and beloved motherland.
How the Spirit must have been working in him powerfully as he grappled with the sordid information! Yet the spirit in which he shared, with vulnerability, compassion, and lament, granted an antidote for the poison to jingoistic ethnocentric nationalism that his words entailed.
He stood as a PoC immigrant and also a dead man walking in terms of nation and race, and the type of self-mortification he bore reminds me of the Apostle Paul mourning for his fellow Hebrews still boasting in the circumcision and law,
even if instead of an ace card of superior holiness from which to trample others, it is an inversion and a throwback to unsavory historical memories of humiliating colonialism and the mockery of Indians,
just like PoC around the world were commonly viewed by British or Canadian missionaries during the "civilizing mission" (bar of soap in the one hand and Bible in the other), as unwashed heathens.
I want to remember his courage, and this together with a love for the souls of India his people, in the name of Christ. Actually, i do not believe his profession to be a sign of the greater corruption or wickedness of India as a nation or people than that of the other nations.
Where India has had its long indentured servitude to Britain for long centuries and been given independence, slavery to sin and the spiritual powers of darkness has no national boundary or earthly jurisprudence that can truly save.
The pedophilia cases of the Roman Catholics, perverse media corrupting children in Japan, Koreans with "democratic" online groups hooking high schoolers, and immoral and irreligious or satanic rings in England and the United States' elites w/power and impunity are well-known.
It is just being the early one to speak about humans acting inhumanly that is one of the hardest things sometimes.
I truly believe that it is only love that gives men moral courage. When i saw the lies of Satan and how they had been used to deceive me and ensnare me, there was frustration and crying out and dependency upon the Lord, but my love for others was limited.
When i was slowly but surely set free by the power of the blood of Christ, i was granted not only grace to live and do everyday living (hmm.. maybe everything but - i'm kind of a loner and just fine being alone, so quarantine has not been very meaningful this way or that)
but i was also given a heart to love what i couldn't really imagine mattering to me before Christ. Other people didn't matter so much since i was more of an observing type. But i learned to pray for people, and wait for G-d to work.
I learned how much i had held grudges only once i really started to practice the forgiveness taught in the Lord's prayer. Just saying the words, "I forgive so and so" was often a true physical struggle to have them leave my lips.
As my heart was molded and shaped in this way, to care about things that i couldn't have imagined caring about and loving people however the Lord would give me leading to, i began to learn what love is in a heart and mind filled with concrete.
Love was never intuitive, and still isn't. Only obedience, having a thought, then asking if that was the Holy Spirit, and then doing what the Spirit led in, very often with requests for Scriptural promises and verification as i went,
would give me the words or prayer that were actually needed in a time that were often just.. well, without question, had nothing to do with me.
I remember seeing a video of Pastor Zacharias where he was asked a question about the status of the Roman Catholic church - whether it is a cult. He was uncomfortable at the question, and protested a bit jokingly at being put into a position of being trapped.
He took a lot of flak for speaking at a Mormon event before that, & his defense was basically that he did not bless their doctrines. Once a public figure, serious mistakes tend to follow for a whole career, even though i do not know any he made in terms of his teaching.
But the point of Roman Catholics' status as a cult is primarily on the issue of their teaching. Nearly all of the Vatican's errors stem from the singular interpretation of Peter being given the keys to heaven and earth by Christ;
from this one point apostolic 'celestial' authority to rewrite Scripture, much less interpret it, is given full justification with the approval of the office of the Vatican.
But Christ calls Peter 'Satan' in the same evening; giving this Peter the keys to heaven and earth is going to be a bit hellish one way or the other.
Clearly, the context matters, and it is the origin of the voice speaking through the vessel of Peter in his yet maturing faith that must be discerned, else the Mormon teaching that Satan is Jesus' brother is held valid and evil is called good. Impossible.
Peter clearly confessed that Yeshua is the Anointed One, Son of the Living G-d, and Christ said this confession was not from Peter, but from above. Then this confession of faith - seeing Yeshua not by measure of flesh but by the Spirit -
is the key to Peter's establishment as rock upon which to build the church. The faith of Peter is the rock, not the man. It is doubly deceived to see Peter by measure of flesh and to judge this as spiritual in a (self-congratulating) worldly crowning as an emperor
in a dubious chain of papal emperors, known for their fallenness and corruptions through centuries upon centuries. Peter's perception was blessed because he was spiritually seeing Christ, (just as Paul would learn to)
yet men would spiritualize Peter's vessel, which was still fleshly rather than seeing the spirit behind his words? He was yet in need of Christ's atonement! His declaration of self-willed presumption to fight to the death for Christ is condemned as Satanic
soon afterwards, following his body instead of discerning the spirit behind his words would lead to the same errors that he made - denying the courage to bear the cross in favor of placing a painted cross upon human strategies and weapons of war -
precisely the mistake that they have done and continue to do. Incidentally, weapons to kill others are so precious and dear to heart that the Roman Catholics are happy to baptize them - literally lifeless objects like cannons meant for bloodshed -
are both named and baptized. The spirit-filled confession (and endurance in it!) is key, and that too with the witness and knowledge of the goodness of G-d Immanuel in fulfillment of the prophecy - the flesh is merely a vessel, and remains so.
Indeed the gift is not unique! Paul testifies that he bears both Christ's wounds, & the mind of Christ, & makes clear that the whole body of saints is to be raised up into the fullness of divine glory and riches, growing into the Head Himself, Christ.
Yet Roman Catholics declare themselves the one true church and all others condemned and submit all "Christendom" to their politically linked religious/ascetic hierarchies conmingled with different european aristocratic bloodlines and favored families bound up through its history.
Christ Himself did not condemn or stop those who were not following him but were teaching in His name, but rather allowed them to be tested by their fruits.
The single teaching of the Roman Catholics raising up Peter as a head disciple in a chain of papal succession (and this when he welcomed the teaching and even the public personal rebuke of Paul)
is used to justify the entire 'priestly' hierarchy wherein men are to listen to their priests above and beyond the Scripture which Christ spoke, submitted to in fulfillment of, and made new in the testimony of His blood to be written upon the heart.
A class of Christians are set as priests and others left to wander, and deals are made with foreign leaders for a meaningless and gospel-free ecumenism, now that crusading with painted crosses on equipment used to slaughter people is a bit taboo.
But the organization is big enough that people will do the gospel in it too, and others will do everything but the gospel, amd the secret orders will do their psyops and ascetic practice, and in india they will bring in elephant idols to parade them through their cathedrals
and in america they will be so offended by the thought because the roman catholics cook a different happy meal here, where there are still enough bible-keepers that they don't take quite the same liberties.
They're fine playing both sides and are perhaps the original Hegelians (world-conquering-spirit-worshipping, nominal and mostly disbelieving but often knowledgeable Christendom - knowledge of faith is intimacy, theology is a playground for demons without discernment beyond talk).
It's the institution and hierarchy and core doctrine that are the issue, not the people who don't know any better or who are actively reforming within. Remaining silent about the crusading, and other corruptions that happen,
is i think a complicity that has led some to leave conscientiously as strong atheists (most of the most common arguments young atheists maintain are squarely aimed solely at the fruits of historic Roman Catholicism)
sadly destroying themselves because of the doublespeak and predations of an institution with millenia of sociopolitical power exercised with the absolute impunity of a self-dependent claim to celestial authority. https://mobile.twitter.com/144ksongpatch/status/1262922803470311426
How much of British imperial legacy in India defines the culture in supporting foreign interests against domestic, & how much of past favoritism shown to British traders & citizens nearer to the metropole is the source of India's penchant for violent repression today?
This as opposed to attributing the violence as entirely of Hindu origin or attributable solely to the caste system or some racist theory expanding on the cult that originated the word "thugs."
Whatever the true origin, the video here attempts to address the contemporary culture of police violence in India, and does so without any ethnic or regional characterizations.
Is the empire of rule of Britain simply replaced by American dominion? Clearly the nationalist element is stronger and Americans have no religious say, but economically and politically the advantage to compete rather than engage in trade with China seems to depend
much more powerfully on America's opinion on the matter than a fundamental cultural divide. It's worth questioning, because the establishment of political alliance has implications for the culture here.
When our boys are able to go abroad to India & live it up like gods w/impunity, & then come back home, it will affect our hearts and minds & souls & capacity for intimacy in relationships here, just like any other country we maintain a deep political & hierarchical relationship.
There was a recent lawsuit against the behavior of a South Korean company in India that reminded me of what Dow Chemical had done with impunity (chemical fire with great harm to Indians) some decade(s) before because of India's hunger for investment.
It's the kind of accountability that should be common sense and standard for everyone - is it a double standard that would continue w/today's America, or is it India learning to assert herself?
It is relevant for American Christians also, because as we pray for those who are being persecuted for the faith, we hear the reports of violence & brutality without understanding the culture or the implications of our own national power relations in the conveyance of the gospel.
How can our political alliance with India keep from learning the brutal attitudes reflected in this study for our own young men and officers while also yielding an environment that will protect the work of the gospel of Indians by Indians?
"Munshi accepted Jesus as Saviour and embraced the Christian faith. Later, he left the Naxalite group and began studying the Gospel to carry out missionary work."

“The Naxalites left flyers next Tado’s body claiming he was a police informant,” George explained to Asia News.
How many Americans sons in high political position pull this caste claim?

"The group of people in question were in violation of the 10:00 pm curfew rule. Upon being confronted by Yadav, the MLA's son allegedly said. "I'm son of an MLA, I can make you stand here for 365 days."
Thailand instead of India, but the economic questions may not be entirely dissimilar: $100,000 + travel & hotel expenses to get away with vehicular manslaughter of law enforcement. Does an inheritance of 20 billion dollars means you can get away with tens of thousands of murders?
https://twitter.com/4christiannews/status/1287064527369052161
The power of the gospel is that once the truth is known - whatever the language or artistic understanding that sets it in context, insomuch as it does not add to or remove from the Word itself - it
(the knowledge of innocent but willing, holy, & perfect sacrifice) is a communal & individual possession - that each hearer can buy & keep, incorporate & convey in perpetuity. It is at once conviction &
tenderness of mercy, promise of personal sustenance to bear one's own cross, & sustaining hope in the Divine validation of the worthy offering of self to the glory of resurrection & eternal life.
Pastor Zacharias' vulnerable sharing of the personal horror of the snake cult that invited the ritual worship of self-will comes to mind
as I read about American men tracing their roots - trying to go "deeper" than the heritage of Christians fleeing persecution to the preceding history of American black slavery's start in Jamestown, 1619.
@TomCotton has quoted American founders to say without saying that slavery was a "necessary evil" in history. Is this the reality of saying "daddy" to young men -many beneath the age of presidential eligibility & including a teenager - https://twitter.com/144ksongpatch/status/1280297729248247809
for having signed a document ("The Constitution," wickedly held as sacred as God's Holy Bible) because of the profitability of hiding
behind these men who inked the document hides personal responsibility w/in the profiteering excuse of their own participation in the oppressive work? https://twitter.com/arlenparsa/status/1168189409549803524
Granted, the eldest was 70 years old, but Freemason Benjamin Franklin has also not been what he once appeared: https://twitter.com/144ksongpatch/status/1216710110799511552
To be clear, the point here is not to orphan "whiteness" in some kind of execution firing line either, but rather to ensure that all men,
including white men, are not "adopted as sons" into a brotherhood that is not the fellowship that has been purchased once for all by the perfect blood of G-d's only begotten Son.
The abandonment of the Puritan heritage & the work of the Baptists (giving the open social marker of adoption into the fellowship of saints) to hark back to Jamestown would seem odd for a white person to mention publicly,
as it is not even in explicit embrace of the contemporary "virtue" of secular tolerance, but it is a response to political support of American Africans seeking their own ethnic cosmology & forefathers of flesh within the history of life on this continent.
This, in both cases, inevitably leads to the establishment of Jamestown, Virginia as the "true" American origin story. Why this appears in this thread about Canadian Indian immigrant Reverend Ravi Zacharias is simple - the self-willed, snake blood drinking, infant raping cult he
nobly confessed his lamentation over, like the Apostle Paul in Romans 11, has its mirror image in the fullness of time in the American story, including the hunger of famine having the aristocrats of Jamestown literally eating their boiled leather shoes, snakes, & each other.
Is it an import from India, or just a fake from Russia? Maybe will seed copycats regardless https://twitter.com/SaraBGibson/status/1289579393166106624?s=20
If this is the spiritual 'upgrade' - power, vanity, & glory according to the flesh from white Christendom instead of repentant turning to the faith unblemished, the commonness of everyday brutality, especially towards Christians, police force or no, will escalate
both broadly & heavily until men reach the ends of themselves in violence & idolatry as all restraint is cast off. The faithful will persevere to the end, & much innocent blood will be shed the deeper this culture of prejudice permeates the open limelight.
It is not that there is no sense of spirit, nor even a lack of a strong sense of virtue, but that idolatry of clan & ethnicity & fleshly boasts of brawn & beauty will extend even beyond what America has defiled itself with in the idolatry of judgment by appearances, such that the
sense of self-denying service of all will be completely waylaid, & the love of grace & truth in humility will be pinched & squeezed & shunned out of existence as every bruised reed is crushed & broken as men go in the way of the Gentiles, lording one over one another.
i agree with @MattSlick's assessment regarding the importance of rebuking ecumenism with the Roman Catholic Church for doctrinal reasons (& held this reserve on watching that video a while ago as well) -

https://carm.org/ravi-zacharias-and-roman-catholicism-texas-am-veritas-forum
it is regretful that the now-deceased Pastor Zacharias did not weigh in heavily against the Vatican in the given moment recorded as legacy, & even more unfortunate that he did not publicly repent of this mistake before he passed.
I understand his having already gone quite some distance as an immigrant pastor as this thread mentions, in addition to great apologetics work most know & Mr. Slick mentions, & finally a remarkable knack for remembering long quotes.
I would that he had had the time to speak about these matters & even about the matters of the LDS/Mormons he was also controversially associated with for having spoken at their invitation on location (without any transgression in doctrine -
the point about the Mormons is not that their errors are obvious on the face, since they just use the same KJV bible on the one hand, it is their additions to Scripture & rewriting of history that are hidden under the surface that are expensive to rebuke). As another minority
person of color Christian with immigration in my immediate family, i can say it would be nice if the rebuke for these societally pervasive institutions (along with Freemasonry) were upheld & spoken against for error by more
white american pastors in the limelight instead of strange partnerships with men like Jordan Peterson. I wonder if he simply could not afford to make the statement regarding the unbiblical teachings of the Vatican even if he had wished to.
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