Thursday, December 18, 2025

It is the 18th of December 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Oooh Boy, do I have a character for you today- a mysterious and foreign character who, according to one of his biographers, was one of the most famous men in all of India at the height of his popularity in the 1920s.  

He’s a character we might best understand as an Indian parallel to the popular and enigmatic Sister Aimee Semple Macpherson at the same time out here on the West Coast- and like Sister Aimee, this man and evangelist, Sadhu Sundar Singh, mysteriously disappeared. Unlike Sister Aimee, he never reappeared.

Sadhu Sundar Singh was born in 1889 in the Punjab region of India (that is, very north, in the shadow of the Himalayas) and was raised in the Sikh tradition (s-i-k-h, pronounced ‘sick’ but because that’s a homophone in English it is customarily pronounced “Seek”- you may pronounce it as you wish). He claims to have studied the Bhagavad Gita as well as other Hindu and Islamic religious texts. He would attend a local school run by Anglican missionaries- one account of his life suggested that his mother knew that with the British taking over the subcontinent, it would be useful for him to be at least conversant with them and their beliefs.

But starting, at least in 1902, Sundar’s life started to fall apart with the death of his mother. He began to search for religious certainty- reading through the texts, attempting prayer- but all for naught. The story of his conversion, although altered at different times, comes to a head in December 1903. Let me read from an account: "I planned to throw myself in front of the train that passed by our house." For seven hours, Sundar Singh prayed. "O God, if there is a God, reveal thyself to me tonight." The next train was due at five o'clock in the morning. The hours passed. Suddenly, the room filled with a glow. A man appeared before him. Sundar Singh heard a voice say, "How long will you deny me? I died for you; I have given my life for you." He saw the man's hands, pierced by nails. That occurred in the middle of the night on this, the 18th of December in 1903.

Sundar would come to believe and be baptized. His family was appalled. And as the fantastical- not necessarily untrue- but wild stories start to grow, there is one that he was invited to a family party where his food was secretly poisoned. He cuts his traditionally long hair, travels to Lahore to study with the Anglicans- but a composite of the figure develops that shows him to be… well… peculiar. He wouldn’t wear the attire of an Anglican priest- instead wearing the yellow robe of a Sadhu (a Holy Man- he kept that as part of his name- Sadhu Sundar Singh). His critique of the missionaries echoed others- that they were imposing as much foreign culture as they were Christianity. He became something of an iconoclast in that he didn’t fit with the missionaries, nor did he fit with his native Sikhs. By 1911, he had resigned from his Anglican ordination and decided to spend his life as an itinerant missionary and preacher. He would write occasionally- mostly mystical and somewhat derivative works- but became known for his spectacular stories of near escape, traveling through Tibet and then much of the world. He had stories of being saved by clandestine Indian Christians unknown even to native Indians.  There are elements of the miraculous and signs and wonders which could be scrutinized- and have been- the most charitable approach to them might be to simply call them “unverified” and move on- they may have occurred as he reported them, or something like that.

 His criticism of both the Indian indigenous religion and the Western form of it, as he saw it, made him a sought-after speaker. He had long wanted to travel to Tibet, but he was turned aside in 1923 and 27 when trying to get in, but was eventually successful in 1929 when he seems to have- but then, disappears. He had both eye and heart troubles- he was also a man who seemed to have desired death, that as a martyr or otherwise.

He was a celebrity, a curiosity, a zealous convert whose lack of formal training led to some, well… curious blending of traditions, and his mysterious death fueled even more curiosity. Today we remember the man, the ‘Sadhu’ Sundar Singh, who dated his conversion, a remarkable one, on this day in 1903.  

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and some Gospel goodness from Galatians 3:

23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

26 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of December 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by making a nice chicken curry sandwich and red curry soup for dinner… for reals- Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.