Review
Sharing your Faith with a Hindu

Madasamy Thirumalai
Bethany House: Minneapolis, MINN, USA 2002

Reviewed By Rev. Dr. Elwin Johnson Rethinasamy
Mission Developer and Consultant, South Asian Ministries,
Atlantic District- Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, NY, USA

Published in Global Missiology, Review & Preview, October 2004, www.globalmissiology.net

Madasamy Thirumalai, a former professor of Linguistics in several universities in India, widely published author, is presently a professor of world religions and linguistics and the academic dean at Bethany College of Missions in Minneapolis, MN. In the introduction to this book, he has briefly shared about his own transformation from being a Hindu to knowing the Truth and the free gift of Salvation in Jesus Christ.

As a Lutheran myself, I am personally very taken by his view on true conversion which is also the same confessional position of the Lutherans. Thus he writes, “True conversion is accomplished by the ministry of the Holy Spirit and not by any human being or human books, including this one. Firmly believing in the work of the spirit, we will benefit by a non-technical presentation of the concepts of the Christian faith”.

The first four chapters are addressing very key issues of knowing who are the Hindus and varieties of Hinduism, Hinduism its growth around the world etc. The luxury of this book is not only the information about various Hinduism and its practices, it also challenges the reader in every chapter by explaining its limitations for a person being saved from his/her sinful nature and the need of knowing the truth that Jesus is the way, truth and the light.

In chapter five, the author urges every reader and encouraging us for a mandatory duty to share our Basic Christian Faith with as many Hindu neighbors as possible.

In chapters six to fourteen he has unearthed or documented the black art practices of Hindu mythological and traditional concepts on material objects with divine power, astrology, sacrifice, spirit possession, spiritism, magic, ancestral worships, traditions, superstition, idol worships, god and goddesses. He explains each of these practices at length and helps us to understand by referring and applying various Biblical passages which contradicts those practices that we may better understand and be aware of.