Sundar Singh, John Sung and Future of Asian Christianity

Monday, Oct. 19, 2009 Posted: 2:36:36AM HKT

WHILE speaking at a chapel of a local theological college, I mentioned the names of Sadhu Sundar Singh and Dr John Sung. The looks I received told me immediately that a sizable majority of the congregation was asking "Sadhu WHAT" and "John WHO".

The same students would probably have had no difficulties rattling names like Kathryn Kuhlman, Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, John Stott, John Wimber, Peter Wagner, and others off the top of their heads. Yet the names of respectively the most influential Indian Christian ever lived and the greatest Chinese revivalist-cum-evangelist of the 20th century seem so strange to many!

Sundar Singh (1889-1929), or Sadhu Sundar Singh, as he is commonly known, came from a well-to-do farming family in Punjab. In addition to the high ideals of the Sikh religion, his own devout mother brought him up in the Hindu bhakti tradition. In his later years, Sundar Singh often said that his mother made him a sadhu (a holy man in India) but the Holy Spirit made him a Christian. He knew the Granth, Sikhism's holy book, and memorised the Bhagavad Gita by the age of seven!

At the local mission school, his rebellious spirit made him a most difficult student during Bible classes. He even led the local boys in stoning visiting Christian evangelists at the marketplace!

But the sudden death of his beloved mother when he was 14 brought about the great crisis of his life. For days he struggled. Nothing comforted him. In his anger he even burnt parts of the Bible. Finally one night he resolved that unless God met him, he would commit suicide by laying himself on the railway track. As he waited upon God, yet not knowing what to expect, suddenly a light appeared in his room. To his utter amazement, he saw Jesus Christ, radiant with glory, love and peace, looking at him with compassion and asking, "Why do you persecute me? I died for you …"

The consequence of his conversion was deadly serious. For the family and the Sikh community, it was a matter of highest honour. When every form of kindly persuasion failed to change his mind, he was forced to leave home. In the process he miraculously survived an attempt to poison him. Finally at 16, he was legally old enough to be baptised. Around that time he resolved to devote his life to preach the Gospel as a Christian sadhu. For the rest of his life, he lived in utter simplicity. Dressed in the ocher robes of an Indian holy man, he preached the Gospel throughout the Indian sub-continent.

One of his deepest burdens was to bring the Gospel to Tibet, the stronghold of Lamaistic Buddhism and the legendary "Forbidden Land". He made regular trips over Himalayan mountain trails, sometimes in terrible weather conditions, and often in face of intense opposition and persecution, towards this goal. In 1929 he attempted once more to reach Tibet. But he was never seen again!

John Sung (1901-1944) came from the home of a godly Methodist pastor. Even as a younger teenager, the "Little Pastor", as he was known, would assist his father in preaching. At 19, God wonderfully provided for him to study in America. A brilliant student, he sailed through his studies all the way to a Ph.D in chemistry in less than six years.

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Bishop Dr Hwa Yung