Bridging the Cultural Gap: A Case Study of a Church in Nepal

By Ole Kirchheiner

This is an abridged version of Ole Kirchheiner’s Regnum book, Culture and Christianity Negotiated in Hindu Society. Through an examination of the Nepali church the study pays special attention to the way ordinary Christians have been able to settle social and religious issues to live and work together with the traditional religious people of Nepal, and maintain a good family life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regnum Books International
• Release date: Aug 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781913363048

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction

Nepal is a picturesque country, landlocked between the two most populous countries in the world, India and China. India is primarily Hindu and the autonomous Chinese province of Tibet is Buddhist. The religious influences in Nepal over the centuries combined Nepalese traditions, Hinduism and Buddhism, animism/shamanism, ancestral and spirit worship, to create a Himalayan lifestyle that to many outsiders appears as a form of mysticism. No one ever colonised the country or any of the kingdoms except when they were all subjected to one king from Gorkha in 1769. The country is resourceful and the people hard-working, yet they face endless calamities: disease, landslides, poor electricity and water supplies, earthquakes, disappointing political rulers, trafficking, alcohol and drug abuse, and the massacre of the royal family.

In this country, a Nepali Protestant church has been established. The term ‘evangelical’ will be used to describe this kind of interdenominational mainstream church focusing on the main doctrine of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ’s atonement. Other significant characteristics are a strong belief in the Bible, while the vast majority adhere to believer’s baptism, conversion and a belief in healings. This charismatic-Baptistic style church, consolidated with strong pillars of faith during the Panchayat period, was built on the testimonies and the suffering of hundreds of believers, away from families, in jails or deported from home districts while some felt the need to leave Nepal. The church has Nepalese cultural distinctive characteristics although some, particularly urban churches, have western electronic musical instruments and some of the pastors will wear a suit and tie reflecting a Nepalese culture which seeks to imitate the west. But the Bible is in Nepali, the songs and most of the tunes are Nepali, the clothes they wear are Nepali, and the food they eat is Nepali. Church buildings, house fellowships and forms of worship service are Nepali. Despite the role of a small number of foreign missionaries nurturing the church from the 1950s, and despite the fears of foreign influence on the part of Nepal’s Hindu majority, the church in Nepal is overwhelmingly Nepali – in its leadership, in its origins and in its culture. Although this church is thriving, little has been written about