Critics call the Churchome pastor’s reply to a friend unbiblical. Scripture’s account of the Samaritan woman sets the conversation beside a different model.
By EEW Magazine Online Empowerment Editors
Churchome pastor Judah Smith speaks from the stage. (Churchome/Facebook)
When Jesus sat down at Jacob’s well in Sychar and asked a Samaritan woman for a drink, the conversation soon turned to worship. She raised the old dispute between her people’s mountain and Jerusalem. Jesus told her the hour was coming when the Father would be worshiped in neither place, and He spoke to the Samaritans’ error directly: “Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22, KJV).
He told her the Father seeks those who worship in spirit and in truth, and when she spoke of the coming Messiah, He said, “I that speak unto thee am he” (John 4:26, KJV).
Jesus took her questions seriously, lovingly corrected what she had wrong and revealed Himself to her as the Christ. She left her waterpot, went into the city and told the men, “Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?” (John 4:29, KJV). John records that many Samaritans from that city believed in Jesus because of her testimony.
A woman from a people who, in Jesus’ words, worshiped what they did not know became a witness to her whole town, and the Savior left His church a model for meeting religious confusion with truth spoken in love.
That model may help explain why Churchome pastor Judah Smith’s account of a conversation with a Hindu friend has stirred so much backlash. During an Oct. 19 episode of Miracle Mentality With Tim Storey, Smith recalled his friend telling him, “I’m still Hindu, but I follow Jesus.” Smith said he replied, “Cool, bro. You think I care?”
Churchome pastor Judah Smith speaks from the stage. (Instagram/@judahsmith)
Ministers and commentators have criticized the remarks since the Christian discernment site Protestia posted the clip Thursday. Preacher and political activist John K. Amanchukwu called Smith’s comments “the unbiblical take of ‘Pastor’ Judah Smith.” Set beside John 4, Smith’s indifference to his friend’s claim to remain Hindu is hard to ignore.
In the episode, titled “Honor the Path God Has Laid Out For You,” Smith described friends in Los Angeles who are drawn to Jesus but wary of organized Christianity. “I can’t find a buddy in L.A. who doesn’t want Jesus,” he said, according to ChurchLeaders, which reported the backlash Thursday. He said that when he tells them about “the man that gave me beauty for ashes,” a phrase from Isaiah 61:3, his message is, “You can call yourself whatever you want, bro. It’s just, you gotta meet Jesus.”
After recounting his friend’s statement, Smith addressed the label. “I don’t think we’re going to get to Heaven and Jesus is like, ‘You gotta take the title “Christian,”’” he said. “That wasn’t even a title given by Jesus. It was given by observers. I think the point is just following Jesus.”
He also predicted “a sweeping, global Jesus consciousness” and said “technology’s gonna play a great role” in spreading it. The episode description promotes a coming “Jesus Consciousness Revolution” for “Christians and non-Christians alike.”
On the name itself, Acts 11:26 records that “the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch” (KJV). The Greek Christianos appears three times in the New Testament, in Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28 and 1 Peter 4:16, and Jesus did not assign it during His earthly ministry. Peter later wrote, “Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf” (1 Peter 4:16, KJV).
Romans 10:9 ties salvation to confessing Jesus as Lord and believing that God raised Him from the dead, and Ephesians 2:8-9 credits salvation to grace through faith.
For many Hindus, the identity reaches beyond religion. In a 2021 Pew Research Center study of religion in India, 34% of Hindus said being Hindu is solely a matter of ancestry or culture, 36% called it a mix of religion and culture, and 26% said it is only about religion. The survey covered adults in India and does not describe Smith’s friend.
An 82-foot statue of the Hindu deity Shiva stands at the Nageshwar Jyotirlinga Temple near Dwarka in Gujarat, India. The temple is one of 12 Jyotirlinga shrines dedicated to Shiva. (Veena Nair/Getty Images)
Missions scholars have debated for decades whether people can follow Jesus while keeping another religious identity, a question known as “insider movements.” In a 2013 Christianity Today cover story, missiologist Timothy C. Tennent, then president of Asbury Theological Seminary, described believers who trust Christ while remaining inside Hindu and Muslim communities.
He cited theologian Herbert E. Hoefer’s earlier research, which estimated roughly 160,000 “Jesu bhakta,” or devotees of Jesus, in Tamil Nadu. Among the questions Tennent raised was whether baptism is chiefly a public profession of personal faith or also requires joining a visible worshiping community.
Ayman S. Ibrahim, then a professor of Islamic studies at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, reviewed a 2015 anthology of pro-insider writing for The Gospel Coalition and called the paradigm “theologically dangerous and missiologically incorrect.” His review focused mostly on Muslim contexts and also objected to churches affirming a Hindu or Sikh socioreligious identity. Smith did not describe his approach as an insider strategy.
Jesus set the terms of discipleship in His own words. “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me” (Luke 9:23, KJV). In John 8:31 He said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (KJV), and in Matthew 28:19-20 He commanded His disciples to baptize the nations, “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (KJV).
The apostle Paul described conversion as a break from other worship. He commended the Thessalonians for how they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (1 Thessalonians 1:9, KJV).
In the published excerpts, Smith did not say what his friend meant by remaining Hindu, whether the friend still takes part in Hindu worship, or what the friend believes about who Jesus is. Smith also did not say whether he considers the worship of other deities compatible with following Christ.
On the identity of Jesus, the New Testament’s claim is exclusive. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6, KJV). Standing before the rulers and elders in Jerusalem, Peter declared, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, KJV).
At Jacob’s well, Jesus answered a confused worshiper with truth about worship and a revelation of Himself, and a whole town heard. Smith’s public account of his friend’s claim to remain Hindu ends with “You think I care?” The clip does not show whether the conversation ever went further.