Why Sadhu Sundar Singh Refused to Make Christianity Western with Rev. Dr. Richard Howell

Website: https://www.centerforchristianhistory... Instagram: Instagram: centerforchristianhistory Facebook: Facebook: christianhistorytoday Donate: https://www.centerforchristianhistory... Sadhu Sundar Singh became one of the most distinctive Christian missionaries of the early twentieth century by insisting that Christianity did not have to look Western in order to be Christian. Born into a Sikh family in Punjab, India, on September 3, 1889, Sundar Singh grew up in a religious environment shaped by Sikh and Hindu traditions. As a teenager he became fiercely hostile toward Christianity and even burned a Bible. Yet Singh later testified that a dramatic vision of Jesus Christ during a spiritual crisis transformed his life. He was baptized as a Christian at Shimla on his sixteenth birthday in 1905. Rather than adopting the dress and customs associated with European missionaries in British India, Singh chose another path. In 1906 he began living and traveling as a Christian sadhu, wearing the saffron robe associated in India with religious holy men and renunciants. This decision became central to his historical importance. Sundar Singh proclaimed an explicitly Christian message while presenting that message through a form that was recognizably Indian. At a time when Christianity in India was often associated with Western missionaries, colonial institutions, and European culture, his ministry raised an enduring question for the global church: how can Christianity take root within a culture without simply importing the culture of the missionaries who brought it? Singh traveled widely as an evangelist, preaching throughout India and undertaking difficult missionary journeys toward Tibet and the Himalayan regions. Accounts of his ministry emphasized hardship, persecution, imprisonment, physical suffering, and long journeys on foot, helping produce the description “Apostle of the Bleeding Feet.” His reputation eventually extended far beyond India. He traveled internationally and became a striking representative of Indian Christianity to Western Christian audiences who were accustomed to thinking of Europe and North America as the centers sending missionaries to the rest of the world. His significance, however, extends beyond the extraordinary stories surrounding his travels. Sundar Singh developed a distinctly Indian expression of Christian spirituality. His preaching and writings emphasized personal communion with Christ, prayer, sacrifice, discipleship, suffering, and the spiritual life. Works associated with his teaching, including At the Master’s Feet, helped carry his ideas to an international readership. His life therefore belongs not only to the history of missions but also to the histories of Indian Christianity, Christian mysticism, contextual theology, and the emergence of a genuinely global Christianity. Sundar Singh also remains a complicated figure for historians. Much of his fame was built through accounts of visions, miraculous deliverances, persecution, and remarkable missionary experiences. Christians and scholars have interpreted those reports differently, and separating the historical Sundar Singh from the devotional literature that grew around him is an important part of understanding his legacy. His disappearance adds another mystery. In 1929 he left on another journey toward Tibet and was never seen again. His ultimate fate remains unknown. To explore Sundar Singh’s life and legacy, Nick Walters of the Center for Christian History speaks with Rev. Dr. Richard Howell, President of the Caleb Institute and Vice-Chairperson of the Sadhu Sundar Singh Global Forum. The Forum is devoted to preserving and examining Sundar Singh’s historical and theological legacy, including his writings, missionary methods, Indian Christian context, and global influence. Dr. Howell has described Sundar Singh as “The Apostle of Bleeding Feet,” emphasizing the combination of mission, suffering, humility, and devotion that became associated with his life. More than a century after his ministry, Sadhu Sundar Singh remains an important figure in discussions of Indian Christianity and world missions. Was he primarily an evangelist, a mystic, an indigenous Christian theologian, or a symbol of Christianity’s ability to cross cultural boundaries? How should historians evaluate the extraordinary stories told about him? And what does his life reveal about the difference between Christianity itself and the Western cultural forms with which Christianity was so often associated during the colonial era? This full interview is presented by the Center for Christian History and This Week in Christian History, hosted by Nick Walters. Learn more about Rev. Dr. Richard Howell and the work of the Sadhu Sundar Singh Global Forum.