lausanne

The website of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization contains a variety of occasional papers which deal with important topics concerning missions and apologetics. The papers are available in .pdf format (so you will need Adobe reader). You'll find a listing of the papers at this site:
http://community.gospelcom.net/Brix?pageID=13890
One particular paper you may enjoy is entitled "The Uniqueness of Christ in a Postmodern World and the Challenge of World Religions." As pastors deal more and more with the challenge of ministry in a pluralistic culture, this kind of resource is helpful to prepare us for effective engagement with other religions. You'll find this paper at: http://community.gospelcom.net/lcwe/assets/LOP31_IG2.pdf
(Free Adobe Acrobat reader required, available at www.adobe.com.)
Here's a brief excerpt from the section of the paper that deals with the Christian's approach to Hindus: "The most important point of entry for the Hindu to the Christian faith is, first of all, less the reflected permeation of Christian dogma, but, rather, spiritual experience. For it is the "bhakti", that is, the love of God and God's exalted nature, which, along with the way of conduct, placed even before all knowledge, according to Hindu understanding, is considered the most important way to salvation. Asceticism, meditation, and spiritual exercises play a predominant role. Hindu spiritual guidance by gurus is less interested in theological insights than it is in psychological sensitivity. Akhilananda says in his lecture on "The Hindu View of Christ": "Indians have cultivated all throughout the centuries the technique of religious exercises and have developed a comprehensive psychology of the highest order, based on all the functions of the human mind whether they are unconscious, conscious, or metaconscious". Typically, it is, in fact, in the rational and overly rationalized West today that a new longing for spiritual experience has appeared, which opens many people up for East Asian religiosity. Therefore, we must discover and develop anew from the New Testament, what it means to "Be in Christ",which plays such a central role in Paul's letters. Without a convincing profound dimension of the relationship to Christ and lived out practice of faith, Christianity will always appear to Hindus as cold, superficial, and empty. . . .
"If one looks for famous Christians who have had a very attractive and convincing influence on Hindus, one will run across the names of Sadhu Sundar Singh, the ascetic and itinerant preacher, and Charles Freer Andrews, missionary and theology professor, who made a name for himself as "Gandhi's brother" and "friend of our country", as well as the American missionary Stanley Jones. What all have in common is the distinctively consistent imitation of Christ. They were transparent "epistles of Christ" pointing to Christ and they differed in their ethical behaviour from the mere socially acceptable existence of other representatives of the West.
"A story is told of Stanley Jones (1884-1973), which underscores in an excellent way the Christological difference in the meeting between Christians and Hindus. After one of his missionary sermons in a small Indian town, a Hindu scholar come up to Stanley Jones and explained to him: "What the white missionaries can tell us is really nothing new, because we Hindus have a culture several thousand years old. Everything can be found already in our venerable Sanskrit writings. Therefore, I ask you to give me the opportunity, after your next speech, to clarify this fact to the audience." Stanley Jones agreed to the suggestion. He preached the gospel as he always did in which he presented Jesus as the crucified one to the people. The Hindu scholar was then called up to the front to present his criticism. He appeared unsure of himself and quite confused, until he finally just uttered one sentence: "We don'thave such a person!" (in Hinduism). He then walked off the stage quickly. This statement confirms the admission that, while profound human wisdom lies in the Hindu writings, this truth still cannot comprehend the unique form of an unmistakable man from Nazareth, who revealed Himself on the cross as the Saviour sent by God for all mankind."