Lifting up key Bible scholars in South Asia

Dr. Angukali Rotokha is a writer, teacher and leader in a sensitive South Asian country who received her PhD with support from Langham Partnership. As a female theological leader, Angu is a pioneering voice for the church in South Asia.

We recently talked with her about her work and the impact of equipping key scholars.

Conversation edited for length, clarity and security.

Tell us a little bit about the context in which you live and work. What are some of the challenges that you or other Christians face?

So religious tolerance has really declined. It’s at an all-time low. So there is a very systematic and ongoing violation of religious freedom, and it’s not coming from individuals or any private groups acting on their own. Rather, it’s coming from the government itself, and that is what makes it extremely dangerous for everyone. 

There are also places like where I am from, a Christian majority state [within the country]. There, the challenges relate more to discipleship. There is nominalism and there’s complacency. 

But it’s not all bad news. For instance, a state that was previously called the graveyard of missions is now seeing people coming to the Lord in quite significant numbers every day. This last August, I met a girl who had recently and secretly become a Christian. Although right now she’s in another city, we are still in touch. So even though there is opposition, there are people coming to Christ. 

Although things are getting increasingly difficult, there are still many opportunities, both in terms of evangelization and discipleship as well.

Could you share about your work as a Langham Scholar and how having a PhD has helped in the ministry that the Lord has given you?

My ministry has always primarily been preaching, teaching and writing. 

In terms of my writing, helping the church and Christian students, let’s say for one, the South Asia Bible Commentary. This South Asia Bible Commentary is aimed at pastors, who work at the grassroots level. These people who work at the grassroots level often prepare sermons and Bible studies with very limited to no resources. They don’t even have access to libraries because they are often working in rural settings. So this commentary is like a mini library for them. It’s written in a very readable style, drawing upon very local examples and parallels. It engages with issues and problems that we face as Christians in South Asia. 

The other work that aims at helping seminary students is the work I co-edited called Exploring the Old Testament in Asia. What we have increasingly realized over the years is that students in our seminaries read resources written by authors from a very different context, which is great and they gain so much information, they have all this knowledge. What happens is when they graduate and they get involved with the people in their own context, they very often have no clear idea how to biblically address the issues that they suddenly face in the ministry context, like polytheism or leadership and power, because many Asian cultures are very hierarchical in that sense. 

So how do we confront them? Or how do we speak the truth to them? Like how do we do that? Or prosperity gospel? Poverty is a huge part of Asia. So when the prosperity gospel comes in, it’s very easy to be drawn into that. So how do we address that? What about nationalism and violence? As Christians, like how do we respond to these issues? Often these are things that people from our own context have to address. So what we hope to do with this book is to show the way to the coming generation of Bible teachers and preachers and academics—that a faithful reading of the Bible can also speak very powerfully to our various needs and contexts.

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Why is this work important?

Langham is doing such critical work in supporting and training local scholars and leaders, because people get trained and then they come back and then they provide leadership to churches, leadership to seminaries. Langham Scholars are leading various ministries and contributing to local theological thinking. So if the goal for all of us is to have every nation and every people see Christ as their own, then by supporting people like us, Langham is contributing toward making Christ local to each community. 

So there is this downstream effect, where one Langham Scholar is influencing so many other people, there’s a sort of a ripple effect which I hope will engulf the whole nation one day.

Who encouraged you to become an Old Testament scholar?

Initially people around me encouraged me to do a PhD. And one of them is actually Dr. Havilah Dharamraj, who is also a Langham Scholar. When I started teaching, I realized that I needed to be more qualified in order to teach and write more effectively. So yeah, people like Dr. Havilah encouraged me to get a PhD. And when I started working, I realized that she and some other people were nudging me in the right direction. So yeah, I’m like a second generation Langham scholar.