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With the ebullience of youth, convinced that the future belongs to them, several suggested that the Christian missionaries begin to move the other way—from East to West. "An Asian Christian who has lived among Buddhists would be much more useful than American ministers," argued Ceylon's Dr. Daniel T. ("D.T.") Niles. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin of the Church of South India told the Assembly that he hoped "that the churchmen of Asia and Africa, having studied the spiritual situation of some of the older churches, will be moved to send missionaries to Europe and America to make the Gospel credible to the pagan masses of those continents who remain unmoved by the witness of the churches in their midst."
Dr. Masao Takenaka, 36, professor of Christian social ethics at Kyoto's Doshisha University, deplored the prevalence of what he called the four Ds of Christianity: "divided, dependent, derived and dated." Cried he: "I cannot conscientiously sell such Christianity to my dearest friends. Modern man is sick and tired of hearing propaganda. He is anxious to meet people who will participate in his struggle. I feel the presence of Christians in the secular world is very important." Dr. Takenaka brought up a problem that was raised again and again among the younger churches—that of making Christianity indigenous to the East through syncretism, the deliberate borrowing from other religions. "We have the long-established art of flower arranging in Japan," he said, "and I once asked a lady who was a famous flower arranger to portray the Crucifixion in flowers. It is syncretism to arrange flowers to represent Christ, but we do not make the mistake of worshiping the flowers."
Christians are old hands at this kind of syncretism; the Christmas celebration is an absorption of the Roman festival of the Saturnalia. D.T. Niles, 53, general secretary of the East Asia Christian Conference and top spokesman for the Asian churches, put it neatly: "The Christian Gospel is a seed. If you sow it, you get a plant. The plant will bear the mark of both the seed and the soil. The trouble with the missionaries was that they brought Christianity to us as a potted plant. Now we are breaking the pot and putting the plant in our own soil."
And what do his people want from the World Council? D.T. burst out: "Action at the local level. Everywhere the Asians and Africans are saying that the ecumenical movement has declared certain principles, found certain things in common. Now let's go do something about it, instead of messing around with what other principles we can find. There's all this business of study, study—and nothing happens! Urgency! That's the one thing we're after. What gives us this sense of urgency? Because we are under pressure from our environment. The church must become part of the world. God doesn't love the church—God loves the world."
The Africans were just as eager for the church to play a vigorous social role. Said Nigeria's George A. Ademola, M.D., lay leader and son of an African chief: "I don't believe in saving souls imprisoned in miserable bodies."