BY ABDUL HAKEEM
BANGALORE— Noted evangelist, Douglas Beam, celebrated the completion of his evangelistic series yesterday in Bangalore. Pastor Beam, as he prefers to be called, spent ten days preaching his Euro-centric version of Seventh-day Adventism and was pleased to report of several conversions from his campaign. For those listening to his message, Beam was considered a “liberator” who shined “new light” on their previously “uncivilized” state of ignorance.
The evangelist captured his audience’s imagination by first discrediting their six thousand year old faith tradition as the “devil’s religion”.
“I told my audience that becoming an Adventist meant winning the first prize in the lottery of life. That’s why they ought to feel privileged that, ME, an Adventist, was willing come here and shine God’s light upon their sad existence. The truth I preached will reverse years of accumulated, fallacious tradition,” boasted Pastor Beam proudly.
The audience listened attentively as he shredded their cultural values, proclaiming most of them as “tradition”, “pagan” and “ungodly”. His preaching and biblical interpretation also revealed the unabashedly Western lens with which he read the Bible.
Beam expounded on the role Europe and the United States played throughout prophetic time and the function these two powers would play in the last days while ignoring the influence of other countries such as China, India or Japan on the global stage because they didn’t fit his biblical worldview.
The evangelist also insisted on calling his evangelistic campaigns, “crusades” due to its emphasis on the “spiritual battle” Christians find themselves in. While aware of the term’s loaded meaning, considering the tension between Christianity and Islam, Beam dismissed these concerns as attempts at political correctness.
He continued by discussing the dangerous role that the local culture played in furthering the devil’s work and provided an alternative which he claimed was biblical and therefore true.
“I informed them that Indian food is too spicy and isn’t consistent with the style of Western cooking which I’m used to so Indian Adventist converts must therefore change this unsavory aspect of their lifestyle. I then shared them how their musical instruments were used to worship the devil and was therefore illegitimate as a means to worship the true, Almighty God which I worship,” continued Beam.
Food and music weren’t the only items on Beam’s agenda.
“The clothes have got to go as well. God doesn’t care if an Indian considers the sari as reverent. Their traditional garb is hardly clothing at all and doesn’t cover much. Ellen White clearly defined appropriate women’s clothing. Besides, wouldn’t most self-respecting Indians want to look like the civilized world anyway? Likewise, men should wear suits to church. I don’t understand this need to wear their Indian man costumes. We all know that the suit and tie are standard forms of church wear and have been for the past hundred years of Christianity.”
Not everyone was pleased however, with some locals complaining that Beam wasn’t welcome in the first place.
Sandeep Singh, graduate of the Indian Institute of Technology complained, “Doesn’t he know that most of us are educated? This isn’t the nineteenth century. Guys like Beam are culturally insensitive and intellectually shallow. He comes here like a celebrity, preaches, and then tears families apart with his message. What’s worse, he leaves after several days while most of us have to deal with the damage. We never wanted your ‘gospel’ in the first place- one man’s gospel is another man’s trouble.”
