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In the darkness of a July night, 200 villagers sat and stared at the makeshift movie screen alongside a river in Nanjanagudu, a rural community in India's southwestern Karnataka state. Six Indian men in their late 20s stood by the LCD projector they had brought to show a film about Jesus.

Ignoring the plentiful mosquitoes and mat bugs, Lakshmamma, 45, a dark-skinned Dalit woman in the crowd, winced as she watched Roman soldiers drive long nails into the body of Jesus. For the fourth time, Lakshmamma was watching Dayasagar (Ocean of Mercy), a gripping Indian-produced feature film about Jesus translated into 15 major Indian languages under the sponsorship of Dayspring International in Virginia Beach. As the film depicted Christ on the cross, Lakshmamma wept openly.

For the last quarter-century, Operation Mobilization (OM), Campus Crusade, Vimukthi Baptist Church, Dayspring, Gospel for Asia, and others have been penetrating the thicket of traditional Indian culture with compelling feature films about the life of Christ.

Dayasagar and the Jesus film, one or both available in 70 of India's 407 living languages, have won over large numbers of villagers. Dayspring says 19 million Indians have seen Dayasagar since 1979, and 7 million have made public Christian commitments. Campus Crusade says 500 film teams show the Jesus film to 100,000 Indians daily.

As a result, feature-film outreach has earned its place as a powerful tool for Christians in Hindu-majority India; it has also garnered severe opposition.

After the film ended in Nanjanagudu, the mostly illiterate audience listened to Prakash, one of the six missionaries who had shown it. "Brothers and sisters, you saw how the Son of God gave his life to pay for our sins," he said. Thirty minutes later, the gathering was dismissed and about 20 Dalits came forward to hear more about Jesus.

Dalits, trampled at the bottom of Hindu society, number about 300 million. Mostly landless agricultural laborers, they live in chronic poverty and experience widespread discrimination at the hands of elite, upper-caste Hindus. In recent years, Dalits have increasingly turned to Christianity and Buddhism to escape the Hindu system.

"In the Indian context of multifaith communities, propagating the story of Jesus is the wisest way to bring the people over to church," said Joseph D'Souza, president of All India Christian Council. "The chief task is to inspire an attitudinal shift and then bring them to the central idea of faith. Film evangelists in India are doing the initial part of paving the ground for a personal experience of faith."

Operation Mobilization has 140 field teams working with local churches to distribute literature and screen films. They introduce key Christian concepts, including the universal human need for salvation.

"After each show, 5 to 10 percent of viewers decide to choose Jesus as their Savior," said Kumar Swamy, director of OM's south zone. "We don't force them to change their names that identify them as non-Christians or shun their gods. In the course of time, they themselves do it." Swamy hopes to plant 1,000 new churches in southern India.

Each team conducts four screenings per week, traveling with a 40-pound power generator and related equipment. Teams have visited 85,000 villages, but 650,000 more villages remain on their list.

Campus Crusade for Christ has helped pay for film teams in India since 1983. These teams consist of three Indian Christians who show Jesus 100 times each year in remote villages. Their goal is to show the film to every one of India's 1.1 billion people.

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December 2003, Vol. 47, No. 12