A Former Higher-Caste Hindu Leads a Growing House-Church Network and Dispels the “Flawed Perceptions” South Asians Often Have About the Gospel
Every month after a joint worship service, the members and friends of International Community Church share a fellowship meal.
Anyone who spends more than a few minutes with New England Baptist house-church pastor, seminary scholar, and author Paul S. Biswas will soon discover that he was born for exactly the ministry he leads in Greater Boston.
A native of Khulna, a strategic industrial port city in Southwestern Bangladesh, he was raised in a “very Orthodox” Kshtriya-caste Hindu family. Most residents of the South Asian country’s third-largest city follow Islam.
In a country where, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA, whose figures come from the World Religion Database [2020]), most residents (89.81%) are Muslims and a much smaller number (9.38%) follow Hinduism.
It is accurate to conclude from that data alone that most Bangladeshis have never encountered the authentic Christian gospel. In fact, the same ARDA report states that very few (0.56%) are considered Christians, and that tiny percentage is divided almost equally between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
“Converts... face the most severe restrictions, discrimination, and attacks in Bangladesh. Fearing attack from extremists, they often gather in small house churches or secret groups,” according to Open Doors, a ministry to persecuted Christians, which ranks Bangladesh twenty-fourth among the fifty countries it tracks on its annual World Watch List of nations “where following Jesus costs the most.”
“Pray for leadership for the churches” of Bangladesh, urges Operation World, an online resource for prayer information about the world. (Their print editions have been read since 1964 and are referenced widely by churches and ministries.) Earlier evangelism movements in Bangladesh “brought thousands of people into the Church. But the lack of trained, godly leadership eventually left many believers with a weak and shallow faith.”
“Poverty limits the number of full-time ministers and theological students, but churches also lack spiritually mature lay leaders. In Bangladesh, as in any nation, robust discipleship processes would go a long way to solving these challenges.”
A Hindu’s Life Now Surrendered to Christ
With the details of his cultural background established at least briefly, it can be called a miracle of faith that Biswas read the Bible and eventually committed himself to Jesus Christ on July 23, 1972. “I had inquiries. The Bible answered all my questions, and I surrendered my life to Christ.” At that time, he was especially changed by faith after pondering two New Testament passages:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NIV).
“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 NIV).
Paul Biswas
When Biswas was busy writing to universities in the United States about post-graduate degree possibilities in the United States, he received a “good response” from Timothy Tennent, then a professor of Missions and World Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.
The seminary, Biswas said, was “looking for a person from the South Asian region who had at least twenty years of cross-cultural ministry work.”
He was already developing a house-church ministry and doing evangelism in Northeastern Bangladesh among Indigenous unreached people from nearby Myanmar. “I started work among two people groups, and they were becoming Christian,” when the letter from Gordon-Conwell arrived inviting him to enroll in the seminary and move to Boston’s North Shore.
Biswas, who is now 72, said he replied to Tennent (who later became president for fifteen years of Asbury Theological Seminary before joining the faculty of Beeson Divinity School in January). “In a country like Bangladesh, coming from there to the USA is not a matter of [a] joke,” Biswas wrote Tennent.
“I don’t have money, but I strongly believe if I have a desire, God can fulfill my desire.” They each prayed about the invitation for a “couple of months” before Tennent wrote Biswas with a renewed invitation and an offer of a “full tuition scholarship.”
Biswas considered the offer, continued to pray about the matter, and talked with his wife, Elizabeth, about relocating to New England. Following another six months, he made a “final decision” and wrote Gordon-Conwell that he would accept the invitation, but he said he was still uncertain about how he would cover living expenses in “very expensive” Massachusetts.
Ultimately, the couple decided to move to New England in 2002, and Biswas graduated a year later with a Master of Theology (ThM) degree in Mission and Intercultural Theology.
He then continued his studies online at William Carey International University before transferring to and receiving a Doctor of Theology (ThD) degree from Promise Christian University, and a Doctor of Ministry (DMin) degree from California Graduate School of Theology (now Haven University).
Since 2018, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Christian Thought at Gordon-Conwell, where his expertise includes Missions and Intercultural Studies, Christian Apologetics, and Comparative Religions.
He is the author of Perceptions of Christianity Among South Asian Muslims in America (2020), which, he wrote on his web page, “consider[s] how flawed perceptions hinder the effective communication of the Christian gospel in efforts to witness to Muslims in America.”
The book “further explores the sociocultural and ethnic differences among South Asian Muslims and the ways in which their perceptions of Christianity differ.”
He recently wrote a second book, “The Ethics of Hinduism in the Light of the Bible” (forthcoming).
Advancing the Gospel Among South Asians
“It is only by the grace of God I was able to overcome all the hardships and persecutions of my life,” Biswas told the Biblical Recorder in March 2009. As the oldest son in his family, he was given “extra respect and responsibilities. Rejecting Hinduism as the oldest son brings absolute family rejection, legal disownment, and persecution.”
Biswas’s father “became furious” with his son when, at age 21, he became a Christian. Biswas decided to change his last name from “Vishnu,” one of the major Hindu gods, to Biswas, which means “faith” in his native language, the North Carolina Baptists newspaper stated.
“Disowned by his father and kicked out of the house, Biswas would endure years of persecution, humiliation, hardship, and even physical torture because of his Christian faith,” wrote Mickey Noah, then of the North American Mission Board (NAMB).
Paul Biswas taught a Bible lesson at International Community Church’s youth group, on August 23.
In 2004, Biswas started a network of house churches in the Greater Boston area “under one umbrella” name of International Community Church. Today, there are seven semiautonomous groups meeting in homes each week. They gather as a larger group on the third Saturday of each month at Hope International Church, Waltham. After a two-hour monthly worship service, a fellowship dinner is shared.
The first of Biswas’s house churches met at the Craft House in Waltham, formerly a missions guest house sponsored by the Greater Boston Baptist Association (as it was called then). Other churches meet in Lynn, Quincy, and Burlington.
“I started the ministry among my Bengali people, and then I expanded my ministry through the vision” from God. He was a North American Mission Board church planter (2006 -2015) among South Asians, and in 2009 NAMB featured his ministry in the annual Annie Armstrong Easter Offering and Week of Prayer guide.
Biswas chose to start a network of small house churches rather than a “traditional church” because the traditional church model, he noted, “does not work effectively in our culture, especially among the new believers and the nonbelievers. Hindus and Muslims feel very comfortable with a family atmosphere.”
Biswas added that some South Asians told him that they started going to “traditional Christian churches, especially [predominantly] White American churches, but nobody cared for them, and even sometimes nobody talked to them.” They feel very comfortable in a setting when they can ask questions and talk.”
Big Plans for the House-Church Network
Biswas has published online a big, God-inspired list of plans for his network of churches. He wants to reach many South Asians in New England who are not already being reached by Evangelical churches and ministries.
He affiliates with the Baptist Churches of New England (BCNE), which he also serves. A longtime resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, Biswas “possesses both the mind of a scholar and the heart of a shepherd,” the New England Baptist News Service reported in a May 2024 profile that focused on his role as a trustee of the BCNE’s Baptist Foundation of New England. He continues to serve the BCNE network of churches as a foundation trustee.
Biswas wrote online that there are more than 250,000 South Asians living in New England, the majority of whom are Hindus or Muslims, and 98% of whom are unreached by the gospel. The majority are from India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
He is actively seeking ministry partners to help him fulfill plans to:
Plant ten more house churches
Organize ten outreach Bible study groups among seekers
Mobilize churches for partnership and support, and
Equip and mentor volunteers from ten established supporting churches
When the Biblical Recorder reporter asked about his house-church ministry in Boston and about the difficulties he sees in reaching out to Muslims and Hindus with the gospel, Biswas replied that “As for Hindus, that’s my culture and background, so it’s not too difficult. Hindus think of Jesus as a god. I don’t find it difficult to reach out to Muslims, especially in the US.”
“It’s much harder back in Bangladesh... but here Muslims hear [the gospel] and are responsive. It depends on your approach.” They especially appreciate being invited to Christmas gatherings. That’s the “best time to share the gospel with Muslims,” Biswas noted, “because they also believe in the virgin birth of Jesus.”
“It’s important to speak to [South Asians] in their own heart-language and to know and understand their culture,” he said in the 2009 story. Language is a strength for Biswas. He understands Hindi and Urdu, and speaks Bengali and English fluently.