November 17, 1999
Rankin: Response to
prayer guides shows 'blindness'
___LOUISVILLE, Ky. (BP)--Reaction to the Southern Baptist Convention's Jewish and Hindu prayer guides demonstrates how the world is "spiritually blind" to the gospel, according to Jerry Rankin, president of the SBC's International Mission Board.
___Rankin addressed the issue while visiting Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., Nov. 8.
___Earlier this year, the IMB produced prayer guides to aid Christians in praying for Jews and Hindus. The guides drew national media coverage as well as criticism from Jewish and Hindu leaders.
___"We have come to realize the blindness of our world as never before in the last few months," Rankin said. "We are told there are 800 million Hindus in the world. We probably heard from half of them. They are absolutely irate, demonstrating before many of our Southern Baptist churches all throughout the nation of India and Nepal--totally offended that somebody would be so arrogant as to claim access to truth and to care enough that the eyes of the world be opened to know the truth that we know in Jesus Christ."
___Despite this negative reaction to the prayer guides, Rankin said, God is opening doors to foreign countries like never before in Christian history, and countries such as Iran, North Korea, China, Cambodia and Tibet are now accepting missionaries.
___These are "places we would have never imagined" missionaries going, he said. "But more than that, they're finding a people not resistant to the gospel, but are finding God's Spirit moving in mysterious ways."
___Meanwhile, a coordinator of interfaith evangelism for the SBC's North American Mission Board said in an interview he fully expected the negative reaction to the prayer guides.
___As a native of India and a former Hindu, N.S.R.K. Ravi knew better than most what the response might be.
___What the controversy has illustrated, Ravi said, is the growing dominance of philosophical Hinduism on the worldwide stage--particularly its influence on western New Age philosophy.
___"By traveling the country for five years, I could not have raised this much awareness," said Ravi, an associate on NAMB's interfaith evangelism team.
___"God in his sovereign wisdom is going to do something good out of this. At least our people will be aware of the increasing Hindu population in the United States and their influence on society and religious belief and be able to pray for them more effectively."
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