On a recent Saturday evening more than 30 families gather at the Plainsboro home of Jabastine and Selina Moses. Children play upstairs while well dressed men and women sit in rows of folding chairs in the living and dining room. A potluck dinner waits in the kitchen.
They are gathered for a Bible study led by Reverend Dr. Christopher Solomon and his wife, Sarah, who travel from the Bronx, New York, to lead the congregation.
At this session, Reverend Solomon leads an interactive and often boisterous Bible study in the living room. Rows of chairs continue into the dining room. For those who cannot find a seat, a live stream is broadcast on the plasma television in the family room. The topic during Lent has been the Ten Commandments. This evening the focus is on the Fifth and Sixth Commandments.
While talking about the Sixth Commandment (“Thou shalt not kill”), Reverend Solomon comments on its relevance to current issues, mentioning the conflict between the U.S. Supreme Court’s law and the Bible’s law regarding abortion.
He also speaks about euthanasia — the right to die. A congregant asks how the Sixth Commandment applies to the decision she and her husband had to make about taking her brother-in-law off life support. Reverend Solomon says, “There is a difference between ending life and ending treatment. When God is sustaining a life, nobody is in a position to say that life is not worth living.” Decisions must be ethically and biblically the right one, he adds.
After the study, the congregants enjoy a potluck dinner. Mac and cheese is ready for the kids. For adults, though, it is not your typical church picnic fare. There is an array of Indian dishes, including sambar, a spicy soup particular to South India, where Christianity has historically thrived. Everything is vegetarian, says congregant Sharon Rajarao, explaining that the no-meat observance during all 40 days of Lent is specific to Indian Christians. Pointing to the curried fish, she clarifies that like Catholics around the world, Indian Christians consider fish vegetarian.
Those gathered at the Moses residence are the members of the Asian Indian Christian Church (AICC). The Bible study sessions are held every Saturday during Lent, the 40-day period of self-reflection and fasting between Ash Wednesday and Easter. The families come from all over New Jersey, and for the past 12 years have traveled to different members’ homes for meetings. Earlier this year the congregation found a permanent home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, about 35 miles north of the West Windsor-Plainsboro area.
AICC’s congregants are examples of the vibrant Indian Christian community in West Windsor-Plainsboro. While people typically associate India with Hinduism, Christianity has deep roots in the subcontinent.
Rachel George, a West Windsor resident, explains that Saint Thomas, one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, traveled to the Malabar Coast in 52 A.D. to spread Christianity. She says Saint Thomas is believed to have been martyred in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in an area now called St. Thomas Mount. A tomb at St. Thome Cathedral commemorates the apostle.
Saint Thomas brought the ancient Hebrew language of Syriac — a language related to Aramaic, which was spoken in the time of Jesus — to the region. At some of India’s oldest churches, George says, liturgy continues to be sung in Syriac. These earliest Christians are known as Saint Thomas Christians or Syrian Christians.
Later waves of missionaries from Portugal, Italy, Britain, and the United States brought other Christian influences. Indian Christians congregated in South India until the 20th century, when they dispersed all over the country as well as the rest of the world — including West Windsor and Plainsboro.
George says that the branches of Indian Christianity mirror the divisions of Christianity in general. In addition to Syrian Christians, Christians from India may also be Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists, Pentecostal, Lutheran, and Presbyterian. Within these divisions are a myriad of other branches. Roman Catholics predominate in India.
George, who originally belonged to a Syrian Christian church, has found a home at NextGen Church on Windsor-Edinburg Road, where she is program coordinator.
Indian Christians in the WW-P community have found a number of area churches to join, including Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, Love of Jesus Indian Church, and Princeton United Methodist Church. Those who have joined American churches, however, have discovered that the practice of Christianity here can be quite different from the religious tradition they experienced in India, and balancing culture and faith is not always easy.
To this point, Priya Pakianathan, a member of AICC and Princeton Alliance Church, says the way her children experience Christianity at Princeton Alliance creates challenges and opportunities. The family has attended Princeton Alliance since they moved to Plainsboro 15 years ago.
A Presbyterian Anglican whose grandfather was a pastor, Pakianathan says that in India, God was a domineering, unforgiving patriarch. When you entered a church, she recalls, there was reverence and fear. The Bible was learned by rote, something she appreciates as she has gotten older because it is “a reference that always surfaces.” In India, she says, “the structure of church was not conducive to self-exploration.”
For her children, though, the church is not intimidating. The service at Princeton Alliance welcomes congregants with Christian rock played by the church band. The sermon is supplemented with projections of verses from the Bible using modern language. “Thou” found in the original King James Bible is replaced by “you” from the New International version.
Plainsboro resident Sharon Rajarao, a Protestant and an active member of Princeton Alliance and AICC, says that the move to a modern service turned off many traditional Indian Christians who were used to attending something more solemn and, among women, practicing head covering. Some complained the music was too loud.
During a recent sermon at Princeton Alliance Pastor Josh Dean suggests that attendees reach for the Bible in the rack in front of them, rather than requiring this. Pakianathan says that though her children may have less rote knowledge of the Bible, their approach to Christianity is for the purpose of living a practical life. Her children, she says, accept little without explanation. “Maybe this is the whole nature of being American.”
Reflecting on her own evolution as a Christian through her years at Princeton Alliance, she says, “Christianity is not simply head knowledge anymore, but a deep conviction inside me.”
For the Love of Jesus Indian Church, faith and culture change little when transplanted in the soil of Plainsboro. For the past eight months, this congregation of five families has held services on Sundays at 2:30 p.m. in a rented space at Gospel Fellowship Church on Plainsboro Road. The congregation is led by Pastor Moses Pandian, who has a second congregation of 22 families in Edison.
The Love of Jesus Indian Church is non-denominational, and all congregants are Tamil speakers. “Language,” Pandian says, “gives the congregation character.” Services are conducted both in Tamil and English.
Says Pandian: “Whatever we observed in India as good moral character prevails here. We keep the Indian culture in addition to the faith we have in Christ. We don’t smoke, drink, see movies.” He adds, “Western Christianity does not have a fear of God.”
Reverend Susan Victor of West Windsor finds little tension between her experience of Christianity in India and how she practices her faith in her new home. For Victor, “faith tradition takes precedence over cultural tradition.”
Victor was ordained by the United Methodist Church and is a deacon at Princeton United Methodist Church. She is also a licensed case worker and serves as the director of counseling at Womanspace in Trenton.
She studied seminary in India and felt distinct restrictions because of gender. At Princeton United Methodist Church, she says, “I feel a sense of freedom and acceptance,” and most importantly, she adds, her church embraces diversity.
For Victor, faith is at the core of a triangular relationship that relates to the individual, God, and community. In West Windsor, she says, “We are part of the community we live in and through serving the community we enhance the place where we live.”
Easter Services, Sunday, April 20.
Asian Indian Christian Church, 172 Springfield Avenue, Berkeley Heights. www.aiccnj.org. 4 p.m.
1st Presbyterian Church of Cranbury, 22 South Main Street, Cranbury. www.cranburypres.org. 10:30 a.m.
Love of Jesus Indian Church, Gospel Fellowship Church, 626 Plainsboro Road, Plainsboro. www.lojindianchurch.com. 2:30 p.m.
Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, 177 Princeton-Hightstown Road, West Windsor. www.popnj.org. 8:30 and 11 a.m.
Princeton Alliance Church, 20 Schalks Crossing Road, Plainsboro. www.princetonalliance.org. 9:30 and 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m.
Princeton United Methodist Church, 7 Vandeventer Avenue, Princeton. www.princetonumc.org. 11 a.m.
Windsor Chapel, 401 Village Road East, West Windsor. www.windsorchapel.org. 9:30 a.m.
