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In the centre of India, in a city called Nagpur famous for its santaras, or tangerines, the Church of Scotland was running Hislop College, named after Stephen Hislop, a Scottish missionary who had worked in areas surrounding Nagpur for eighteen years until his death by drowning in 1863.
David Moses, a Harvard PhD and Hislop’s head from 1941, was the first Indian in that position. Struck by Lawson’s embrace of jail, Moses, who was looking for a man of God who would also help Hislop’s students with sports and athletics, asked if the prisoner paroled in 1952 would serve in Nagpur for three years as campus minister and coach. A three-year Methodist Missionary Program would fund the appointment.
A natural athlete who had enjoyed his sandlot sessions, Lawson was more than willing. Here was a totally unexpected chance to study Gandhi further and enter into the climate in which he had conducted his nonviolent forays. Also appealing was the opportunity to live for a while outside the US, in another culture, and to look at his beliefs from a new vantage point.
More clearly aware than most of his compatriots that the world was larger than the US, Lawson had also internalised a fact...