I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians

[Jonesy]

Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

...The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time.

--Mohatma Gandhi.

I can't find it properly sourced online. It's heavily quoted and taken as fact that he said it but to *whom*. Who was he addressing when he said "YOUR".

I wouldn't ever doubt that a statement was Gandhi's because it was provocative, but this sounds a bit tin-eared even for him. It has a "you people" quality. Furthermore, its anti-materialistic challenge to Christians to give more sounds perfectly suited for a "we need a new roof" sermon. I guess I'm not ready to scream FALSE!, but I wonder if anyone knows when he actually said it and in what context.

NB: It's really easy to find the quote improperly sourced online.

[Bonnie]

A 1926 review [1] by the Reverend W.P. King (then pastor of the First Methodist Church of Gainesville, Georgia) of E. Stanley Jones's The Christ of the Indian Road (published in 1925 by The Abington Press, New York City) includes the following,

Dr. Jones says that the greatest hindrance to the Christian gospel in India is a dislike for western domination, western snobbery, the western theological system, western militarism and western race prejudice. Gandhi, the great prophet of India, said, "I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity." The embarrassing fact is that India judges us by our own professed standard. In reply to a question of Dr. Jones as to how it would be possible to bring India to Christ, Gandhi replied: First, I would suggest that all of you Christians live more like Jesus Christ. Second, I would suggest that you practice your Christianity without adulterating it. The anomalous situation is that most of us would be equally shocked to see Christianity doubted or put into practice. Third, I would suggest that you put more emphasis on love, for love is the soul and center of Christianity. Fourth, I would suggest that you study the non-Christian religions more sympathetically in order to find the good that is in them, so that you might have a more sympathetic approach to the people.

I'm not so sure that Jones actually attributed to Gandhi the line "I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity" in The Christ of the Indian Road (it doesn't appear, for example, in the snippet view of Jones's work that's available on Google Books), but it's possible that Jones or his work somehow, perhaps unintentionally, served as the origin for the belief that Gandhi had said as much. The line itself may have been a pithy distillation, offered by someone else, of a thought attributed to Gandhi. In any event, the phrase, with its attribution to Gandhi, is at least as old as February, 1926. And it seems to have been quite a hit amongst various American theologians in the decades that followed. (Tough to know whether Jones, during his lectures in the United States, ever attributed that precise sentiment to Gandhi.) In any event, it would probably be helpful to check The Christ of the Indian Road to see how accurately King offered up text from the book.

I got nothing on the rest of the alleged quote (because I really didn't look for it), except the thought that it likely evolved in a similar fashion, as a perhaps uninformed rephrasing of text that had appeared in one of Jones's books (perhaps the text that King presents, above). (It seems to me that a line attributed to Gandhi that contains "your Christ" would be older than the remainder of what you shared with us.)

-- Bonnie

[1] The Atlanta Constitution, 7 February 1926, p. F14.

[Jonesy]

Originally Posted by Bonnie

A 1926 review [1] by the Reverend W.P. King (then pastor of the First Methodist Church of Gainesville, Georgia) of E. Stanley Jones's The Christ of the Indian Road (published in 1925 by The Abington Press, New York City) includes the following,

I'm not so sure that Jones actually attributed to Gandhi the line "I love your Christ, but I dislike your Christianity"

No - me neither - the quote you provided makes it sound like it is the same apocryphal line - "I like your Christ. I dislike your Christians" but from 1925. Guess maybe it had been around for awhile even then.

Gandhi wrote on Christianity. (Published today as _Gandhi on Christianity_.)

If you use alot of imagination I guess you could find an "I Like your Christ, I don't like your Christians" message but looked at objectively I would say that the larger message of those writings was (paraphrasing) "I reject most of what Christ said and only agree Christ's teachings that support the point of view that I already had been espousing before I ever read any of Christ's teachings" and (paraphrasing) "All major religions of the world are equal. There is one God and all major religions lead toward him. Religion is a personal matter and should not be given to prosletizing."

So - still not properly sourced. A little closer. Thanks.

[Brad from Georgia]

Gee, the quote is sourced to a review by someone from my home town.....