Soft-Spoken Bengali Pastor Combines the Mind of a Scholar and the Heart of a Shepherd

The late Pentecostal scholar Gordon D. Fee, who taught for almost two decades at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, MA, once told an academic gathering at which he was being honored that he “was spurred on to scholarship in part when he heard a minister say from the pulpit, ‘I would rather be a fool on fire than a scholar on ice’”—which led Fee “to the conviction that it should be possible to be a ‘scholar on fire.’’’

Likewise, for those who listen carefully and ponder what he says, Paul S. Biswas, an adjunct professor at the same seminary, is also a “scholar on fire.” His commitment to Jesus Christ and his followers around the world has benefitted those who are members of his South Asian church, students in his world Christianity courses on Zoom, as well as Hindus and Muslims who are considering the claims of Christ.

A native of Khulna, Bangladesh, the soft-spoken resident of Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood possesses both the mind of a scholar and the heart of a shepherd.

At age 71, the scholar-pastor is not planning to slow down anytime soon. He has devoted nearly fifty years to Christian ministry including with the Greater Boston Baptist Association (2003-06) and the North American Mission Board (2006-15) as a church planting consultant for outreach to South Asians, especially Muslims in New England. Biswas has served globally as a conference speaker, organizer of seminars, writer, researcher, mentor, and seminary teacher in Asia and in the United States.

Since 2003, he has been affiliated with the Baptist Churches of New England; in recent years, he has been a trustee of its foundation board. As such, he has a hand in serving all the BCNE’s 380+ churches when they need a short-term financial boost to cover the cost of special projects and new ministry endeavors. 

“Dr. Paul Biswas brings significant wisdom to our Baptist Foundation of New England board. He knows how to take highly refined academic-level thinking and merge it with practical ministry skills. This special gift gives him a perspective that helps our foundation board make better decisions in what projects we support,” commented BCNE Executive Director Terry W. Dorsett. 

Consider a generous gift to the Greater Boston Special Projects Fund or one of the other funds. Go  online to: https://www.bcne.net/bfne-donate. 

Biswas is the founding pastor of the International Community Church-Boston. When he started the church as the Boston Bangla Church, his focus was clear from the start. “God gave me the vision to start the ministry among my own people.”

“At present there are more than 10,000 Bengalis living in the Boston area and more than 26,000 Bengalis are living in all of New England,” he noted. Bengalis “are the most unreached people group among the South Asian immigrants in New England.”

“God gave me the vision to start the ministry among my own people.”

After several years, other South Asian Christians expressed interest in joining the church, but they did not speak Bengali. “Then God spoke to my heart to expand the ministry,” Biswas stated. In response the pastor and his growing congregation decided to change their name to International Community Church-Boston (ICC-B).

They also revised their ministry strategy because they wanted to reach Muslims and other Hindus with the Gospel. ICC-B is a network of house churches. They meet in eight places in Greater Boston: Dorchester (two house churches), Quincy, Burlington, Sharon, Lynn, Lowell, and Cambridge. Members of the house churches use their respective languages and on the third Saturday of each month they gather for a joint worship service and fellowship in Waltham. The monthly meetings use English as the lingua franca.

The ICC-B’s reach extends beyond New England. The church partners with a South Asian congregation in Queens, NY, to share the Gospel with South Asian Muslims and Hindus there and on Long Island, and Biswas mentors some missionaries in New York who are working among South Asian Muslims.

Biswas was born and raised in a “very educated and elite family [of] very, very conservative” higher caste Hindus. He later converted to Christianity for theological and sociological reasons. “I could not compromise with the Hindu theology because they have the [belief in] reincarnation and you have to do your Karma, which [requires] good works. And if you do more good works, you will be saved sooner. You have to do good works and still you don't know [if the effort is sufficient]. But it is mainly by human efforts.”

The dictionary defines Karma as “the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence.” 

Soteriology in Hindu theology, Biswas said, differs significantly from that of Christianity, which teaches that “. . . all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24, ESV). 

Since 2018, Biswas has been Adjunct Professor of Practical Theology at Gordon-Conwell’s Campus for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME) in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood. He exchanged the large campus in suburban South Hamilton for the urban campus and the possibility of teaching students from around the world. Some 80 percent of his students learn on Zoom. 

His areas of expertise include missions and intercultural studies, Christian apologetics, and comparative religions, according to Gordon-Conwell’s faculty web listing. Biswas has done “extensive research focused on perceptions of Christianity held by Muslims, with the goal of effectively communicating the Gospel to them.”

Biswas is the author of numerous textbooks, all of which are in current use in Bible colleges and seminaries in the United States and other countries. His most recent book is Perceptions of Christianity Among South Asian Muslims in America (2020), which is based on his doctoral research. The book “consider[s] how flawed perceptions hinder the effective communication of the Christian Gospel in efforts to witness to Muslims in America,” according to the Amazon description.  

Biswas is writing another book in English on the ethics of Hinduism in the light of Christianity. His non-English titles include Comparative Study of Hinduism and Christianity (1998) and Challenges for Church Growth in the 21st Century in the Light of the Early Church Pattern (2001).

Biswas holds multiple advanced degrees including from Rajshahi University, Rajshahi, Bangladesh, (MA in Economics, 1974); Philippine Baptist Theological Seminary, Baguio, Philippines, (MDiv, 1986); Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, (ThM, 2003); and California Graduate School of Theology, Haven University, Garden Grove, CA, (ThD, 2017, and DMin, 2022).

Biswas is fluent in Urdu, Bengali, Hindi, and English, and has written many research papers. His research interest is in cross-cultural missions and evangelism, Christian approaches to Islam, world religions, and interfaith dialogue. 

In a significant development related to Biswas’s area of study, Gordon-Conwell plans to deepen their understanding and expand the reach of Christianity in East Asia. The seminary announced April 24 that an annual “East Asian Christianity Conference” will be held on the South Hamilton campus April 3-5, 2025. The conference will be held in future years in various locations across East Asia. Each conference will delve into themes such as the societal impact of Christianity in Asia, intra-Asian Christian development, and Christian vitality amidst persecution.

 A Massachusetts native and a New England Baptist since 1970, Dan Nicholas is the BCNE managing editor.