“I felt that a history of the churches in Nepal
from a Nepali perspective would be worthwhile. This book is the outcome of that
felt need.” So Dr. Rongong states in the introduction to his book. Dr. Rongong
tells a story of an indigenous—or what some might call grassroots—Christian
movement. While histories of foreign missions in Nepal, and the more prominent
Nepali churches, have been written, Rongong focuses on the stories of smaller
churches and how they independently conducted Gospel work in Nepal’s various
towns and villages from 1951 to 1990 in the midst of persecution and Nepal’s
first experiment with democracy, commonly known as the Panchayat years. Yet he
also includes chapters on recent developments, such as Nepal emerging as a secular state and how this development has affected the relations between
Nepali Christians and their country.
Dr. Rongong is well qualified to write such a
history. A Nepali originally from Kalimpong, India, Dr. Rongong is a pastor at
Nepal Isai Mandali (NIM), also commonly known as Gyaneshwar Church, one of the
original churches in Nepal. He holds a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction from
Southern Illinois University (which he received while on a Fulbright), and has
had a distinguished teaching career within the country, including several posts
at Tribhuvan University. As a result, while he is a well-known church leader,
he is also respected in several civil and government sectors within Nepal. This
work—171 pages in length—is published by Ekta Books, a large Nepali publishing
house that primarily provides educational and curricular materials, and is
currently priced at an affordable 250 rupees (approximately $3).
Interestingly, Rongong does not dive immediately
into the Church’s story in Nepal. He first gives an overview of the country of
Nepal—geographic features, early history before Prithvinaryan Shah’s
unification, and characteristics of Nepali culture and politics today—and a
brief summary of the early history of Christianity, focusing on the Protestant
Reformation. This beginning places the story of the Church in Nepal within both
the larger context of Nepal’s history and culture, and the global history of
the Christian Church. Rongong recounts these historical developments within
Nepal: with Prithvinaryan Shah trying to unify Nepal into one country, the
Capuchin missionaries present in Bhatgaon (now Bhaktapur) and Kathmandu—who
worked there at the invitation of the (now overthrown) Malla kings—represented European
policy more than Christian religion to this new ruler. Another religion in and
of itself was threatening, since Prithvinaryan justified the existence of Nepal
as a nation through the Hindu religion. When Rongong does begin the story of
the Nepali Church specifically, he spends quite a bit of time on India—for like
the democratic genesis of Nepal, the Nepali Church began in India in the late
19th century. Previous to Nepal opening its borders, Nepalis who
converted in India attempted to go back to their towns and villages to share
the Gospel, only to be escorted back to the country’s border. After the
overthrow of the Rana regime and Nepal’s first experiment with democracy began
in 1951, Nepali people who had encountered the Gospel abroad came back to Nepal
to begin churches in their home towns and villages. The middle part of
Rongong’s work is devoted to many of these individual church histories.
A large focus of Rongong’s work is on church
persecution. While he weaves several individual instances into the specific
histories of Nepali churches, and acknowledges that this persecution only made
the faith of Nepali Christians more genuine, he does critique the oversight to
persecution that Nepali government and civil officials have often given. While
religious freedom has been a value since the inception of the democratic
movement in Nepal—he mentions that one of the four stars on the Nepali Congress
party’s flag stands for religious freedom (pg. 42)—it has been a long battle to
obtain it. While he focuses on Christian persecution, Rongong more widely
mentions the intolerance that Hindu Nepal has extended to any non-Hindu
religion—including Muslims and Buddhists. Rongong expresses frustration that
various Nepali officials with whom he as interacted (1) believe that all Nepali
Christians are “rice Christians,” who have changed their religion because
expatriates pay them money, despite evidence to the contrary, and (2) believe
that there is full religious freedom in Nepal. Rongong recounts this particular
instance: “It is difficult to believe that many educated and comparatively
liberal people sincerely believe that there was full religious freedom in
Nepal. The author confronted one of his colleagues who attended a United
Nations Conference in New York and delivered a speech in which the person said,
among other things, that there was full religious freedom in Nepal. Following
the person’s return from the Conference the person was presented with
statistics of Christians who were either in prison or on trial. The person was
very surprised but refused to believe the evidence presented to him” (pg. 105).
Discussing the growth of the Nepali Church as attached
to historical and political developments is a strong point of Rongong’s work.
While the impact of Hindu nationalism on Nepali Church growth has been treated
in other texts, Rongong provides more recent information on how the Church has
fared since the second Jana Andolan (People’s Movement) in 2006, and especially
since the dissolvement of the monarchy in 2008. These political reforms made
Nepal into a secular federal republic. While peace, reconciliation and state
rebuilding continue today, with Hinduism no longer an official marker of Nepal,
the cultural and religious diversity of the country came out into the open. As
a result, Christians and their religious practices have become more visible. For
example, Christmas was made into an official holiday in 2008 (and the new
Nepali President joined the Christmas Day service at Gyaneshwar Church!), and
Christian leaders sent suggestions to the Constituent Assembly for the
country’s new constitution. Among these suggestions were (1) honoring religious
freedom, (2) providing a cemetery for Christian burial, and (3) declaring Good
Friday and Easter Sunday as national holidays (!).
Rongong’s assessment of foreign mission work on
church growth in Nepal is balanced. He points out that, because of the
government restrictions on foreign missionaries, they were basically limited to
providing medical, educational, and community development/infrastructural needs
in the country, provided through INGOs like UMN and INF. While these foreign
workers joined Nepali churches, and became active members, church leadership
remained in Nepali hands. After the first Jana Andolan (People’s Movement) in
1990, some of that changed as Nepali churches made connections with
denominations outside of Nepal, and Nepal became more available to traditional
foreign mission work.
This book is not intended to be a scholarly work—Rongong
says in his introduction that readers looking for such a work will be
disappointed—but as a record of Church growth in Nepal from an insider’s point
of view. I think second and third generation Nepali Christians will find this
book a helpful reminder of their heritage and wider place in Nepali society and
history—and because this book is written in English, it will most likely be
widely read by the urban, educated, middle-class youth that are now integral to
the Nepali Church. I would also highly recommend this work to foreign Christian
workers new to Nepal, as a readable introduction to the Christian heritage that
is present in this country.
