Rev. THOMAS JOHN

Book Review

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sun, 06 Apr 2025 12:35:00 +0000

Prof John Kurien

Thomas John, 2025: At the Foot of the Cross: Meditations on Lent, Passion and Resurrection, CSS Publications, Thiruvalla, pp. 149. Rs. 240

Rev. Thomas John's book is a compilation of thirty brief, deeply spiritual, and highly relevant meditations focusing on Lent, yet offering profound insights for our troubled times. These meditations are a rediscovery of Christ through the reinterpretation of the author's own striving to make sense of his faith in the light of God becoming human and being crucified on the cross.

For a lay, middle-class Christian senior-citizen reader like me, this compilation, though theologically complex at times, illuminated the multi-dimensional implications of the author's call for 'holy worldliness, demanding responsible action.' It helped me re-examine and reinterpret the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

We live in troubled times—war, rising economic and social inequality, environmental disasters, and escalating hatred and bigotry. How have humans, placed by the Creator to live in harmony as stewards of all Creation, become its primary destroyers?

Reading these meditations provide a fresh perspective, reminding me of the vanity of my consumptive lifestyle and my failure to take responsibility for others and nature. Fasting or giving up luxuries is empty if I do not reverse unjust, oppressive relationships and 'break every yoke' that prevents love in action. The meditations are organized into three sections: Lent, Passion, and Resurrection.

The section titled Lent takes us through Jesus' final days: turning water into wine at Cana, encountering the rich young ruler, healing the man with leprosy, forgiving and healing the paralytic, driving out demons, responding to the faith of Bartimaeus, the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, washing the disciples' feet, and the Passover meal. These events call the Church to be, as theologian Bonhoeffer said, a fellowship that 'exists for others... not dominating, but helping and serving.' We are introduced to this being-for-others as 'Cruciform existence.'

The section titled Passion offers a fresh and deeply insightful meditation on the meaning of the Cross and the seven words spoken from it. The Cross is not merely a theological concept but a historical reality to be lived daily. We are often told that human sinfulness crucified Jesus, but a closer look reveals it was 'principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world'—forces still at work in individuals and institutional structures today. As the author notes: 'On the Cross of Christ, we find the strongest criticism of religion as a system that is organized against God with its laws, rituals, sacrifices, and priesthood.'

The seven words of Jesus on the Cross are poignantly described as reflecting his solidarity with broken creation, his endurance of suffering, and his victory over worldly powers. The crucifixion was not the end of Jesus' life but the fulfillment of his mission. The first three words express concern for others, the fourth and fifth emerge from the abyss of god-forsakenness, and the final two affirm his solidarity with the Father's will.

The section titled Resurrection challenged my assumption that the Cross was a momentary defeat and the Resurrection the real victory. The author concludes: 'Resurrection does not do away with the Cross; rather, it affirms that the way of the Cross—the way of suffering love, responsibility for others, and care for creation—is the most legitimate path to living meaningful lives and liberating the world.' The Cross is the victory, and the Resurrection is its visible proof and public vindication.

Some final thoughts. I highly recommend this book to young Christians searching for authentic faith in turbulent times. In an era where many feel disillusioned with institutional religion yet yearn for transformative spirituality, Thomas John offers neither easy answers nor superficial comfort but presents the profound paradox of the Cross as both judgment and hope.

For a generation confronting climate crises, systemic injustice, and global instability, these meditations reveal how Christ's passion speaks to our world's deepest wounds. The call to 'Cruciform existence' is especially relevant for youth—challenging us to move beyond religious consumerism toward a faith that takes concrete responsibility for others and for creation.

What emerges is not a theological treatise but a compelling vision of discipleship, where the Resurrection empowers us to live the Cross today—turning Lenten reflections into lifelong commitments to justice, mercy, and radical love. This is the book I wish I had read as a young Christian. It deserves careful study by youth groups, campus ministries, and all who seek to follow Christ meaningfully in our broken yet redeemable world.

(Prof John Kurien is a member of the CSI St. Mary’s English Church, Kozhikode and Retired Professor, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum)

For Copies, send a text message via WhatsApp to: +91-8921380556

The City in Ruins: An Ecumenical Vision Betrayed

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 07 May 2024 04:50:00 +0000

Rev. Thomas John

(Recently, a Division Bench of the Madras High Court appointed former judges, R. Balasubramanian and V. Bharathidasan, as administrators of Church of South India Trust Association. It was the desperate plea of the laity for a framework under the civil procedure code, outlining the terms of service of Synod members that had compelled the court to take on this administrative role. Surely, the court will address the mismanagement of church properties and resources, and the authoritarian and arbitrary manner in which clerical authorities administer their responsibilities. But, what of the spiritual decay that has set in? As the faithful of the church, shouldn’t it be our responsibility to shoulder and address? Can we salvage the witness we have been called to bear of Christ’s love, renew ourselves and truly become a church?

This is an article that had been originally written and published in October 2011. Over the years, its relevance has only become further amplified. It urges the laity to assume their central role in the church and assert their power to change things around. It argues that the congregation should be the centre and focus of being a church in the world. The one, holy, catholic, apostolic church is found in all its fullness in the life of the local worshipping community. Hence, it is only the right ecclesiology and the right missiology that can save CSI from its present predicament.)

It has come to be recognized across the board by the Indian nation, or for that matter by the world over, that true democracy can be realized only through devolution of power to the people through self-governing institutions at a very local level of community organization. The 73rd amendment Act of 1992 requires Panchayati Raj institutions to be endowed with adequate responsibilities and powers so that they may be enabled to function as “institutions of self-government”. Sweeping legislations are being made across the various states in India to follow up on this amendment. But, this change in perspective and understanding has not yet influenced the thinking of church leadership in India, especially in regard to the nature of church polity and administration. Although, some of the recent judgments of the Supreme Court of India have forced the Syrian Churches in India to decide their disputes taking the majority view of the congregations, thus acknowledging the supremacy of congregations over the prescriptions of Patriarchates and Catholicates.

In this backdrop, it is important to look at the turn of events in the Church of South India (CSI) which have somehow made the episcopacy and the diocesan polity into instruments for arbitrary and ruthless exercise of power over the congregations. The congregations no longer have any say in matters regarding the appointment of their pastors and the alienation of their valuable properties, often bequeathed to them by the missionaries or their ancestors. The episcopate, abetted by an authoritarian, caste-ridden and patriarchal cultural ethos, has become dictatorial. Bishops consider dioceses as their fiefdom; constitution is given a go by and constitutional bodies have been made to subserve the interests of the bishops through a mystique of divine power, arbitrary exercise of “ecclesiastical authority” and threats of punishments, and dolling out of largesse. Power has become concentrated in the hands of a coterie, undermining democratic functioning of elected bodies. Thus, corruption and mismanagement of church properties has become institutionalised.

The CSI has a church polity in which pastorate committees, except for the chairperson, have very limited autonomy or administrative powers. The chairperson of the pastorate committee can only be a member of the ordained clergy (the presbyter in charge) and whose primary loyalty is to the bishop, from whom he derives his power. The Governing Principles of the CSI Constitution, while acknowledging the role of the pastorate committees as having general oversight of the pastorates, gives the dioceses the right to lay down “the manner and limitations of their oversight”. While all the administrative functions of the pastorate committee are delegated to the chairperson, all the spiritual duties are listed under the tasks of elders such as “helping” the presbyter, “visiting” the sick, settling disputes, “read lessons”, “help the pastor in conducting of Divine service”, "collection of subscriptions and contributions”, “zealous in spreading the Kingdom of God” and so on (Constitution of the CSI North Kerala Diocese). The constitution has effectively turned the people in the pew and the pastorate committees into ciphers. The latter have no say even in the “arrangement and introduction or removal of furniture inside the church”. The clergy change every three to four years and yet, those permanent members of the congregation who have laboured for the construction of the church, and contributed to its growth immensely for many years must silently suffer the hubris of a new pastor who, with the blessings of yet another new bishop, push “furniture”, people and tradition around according to their whims and fancies with callous disregard for the members in the pew and the pastorate committee.

While the Governing Principles of the CSI Constitution very feebly affirm, “every pastorate shall have certain authority within its area, shall have certain responsibilities in Church Discipline, and shall have an opportunity of expressing its judgment both as to the appointment of its pastor and the selection of candidates for ordination from that pastorate”, in reality, the constitutions of the dioceses do not treat them with any sense of rights and dignity nearing what is described therein. The next layer higher up in the hierarchy is that of the bishops and the dioceses. In the diocesan structure the bishops are given extraordinary powers. They, in turn, transfer this to the clergy ensuring that they remain loyal to the bishops rather than to the pastorates and the people who support them financially by their subscriptions and tithes. However, there is no clearly laid out procedures by which a bishop can be made accountable either to the diocesan council and related bodies or to the Synod. Thus we have 22 fiefdoms which are ruled autocratically by a monarchical episcopate against the intentions and wishes of the founding fathers.

This situation is further complicated and worsened by the involvement of a subservient clergy and other employees of the diocese in decision making bodies. They become easy prey to threats and inducements. Transfers and postings in congregations and other institutions have been an important means of manipulating them to slavish obedience to the dictates of the bishops. Erosion in the standard of the clergy in their theological formation, general education, astuteness and moral fibre has also come to shape the subservient role and the sycophancy surrounding episcopal authority.

Vast assets, both landed properties and institutions, inherited from the missionaries at prime locations come in handy to the bishops to bolster their arrogance and dictatorial ways. CSI Trust Association (CSITA) is credited with the task of holding in trust the valuable properties bequeathed to us by the missionaries. The assets that the congregations have procured either as landed properties or church buildings and other commercial ventures are also given over to the CSITA. But then, the CSITA act without any authorisation from the local congregations, collude with the bishops and alienate valuable assets of the congregations when its role is solely to manage the properties on behalf of every member of the church and its congregations.

By its own admission in the income tax returns, the CSITA acknowledges that it is only “a bare and passive trustee”. A bare and passive trustee is one in whom property is vested simply for the benefit of another person till such time the cestui que trust claim possession of the property or deal with it as per his direction. As such, the CSITA cannot be a party to alienating lands and other assets of the church. While this is the real fact, the bishops and the Synod have been deluding the congregations and its members by its authoritarian ways and acting as if the CSITA can do whatever it pleases with the assets of the church and therefore have the right to alienate them at its will. However, the CSI constitution is very explicit in the understanding that it is only with the full consent of the congregation that the executive committee or the property committee can initiate any action to sell or lease any property of the trust. When it comes to properties that we have inherited from our forefathers or the missionaries, we are morally bound to use it for evangelistic purposes for which they have bequeathed them to us. However, today, instead of seeking new and relevant ways of evangelism and service to the community, the properties are perceived only in terms of its real estate value as in the case of Ahab, while the Christian attitude should be that of Naboth who had refused to alienate his vineyard for attractive terms of exchange, since the land was invaluable to him as “the inheritance of my fathers” (I Kings. Ch. 21: 14).

The injustice becomes more evident when one observes that a local community buys a piece of land and builds up a church and associated infrastructure; then, comes an “upstart” bishop touting his authority and scepter of excommunication to cow them to submission and to establish his will on them, be it a matter of posting a pastor, dismissing an elected committee without adequate reason or consultation, or even making an ecclesiastical visit without invitation or information and against the will of the congregation. These are things that really happen against the wishes of all those who have worked for the church union.

To a large extent, the shape episcopacy has taken in CSI is unimaginably more authoritarian with accumulated vested interests than that of the Eastern churches. These churches have a long history of hierarchical episcopate, but surely, hierarchical ordering in itself need not be authoritarian. As the bishops in the Eastern churches lead the life of an ascetic, a sanyasi, particularly, opting for a life of celibacy, in theory, these bishops are expected to confine their role to more theological and spiritual matters rather than to temporal concerns of property development and transactions. Moreover, an election to the bishopric is subject to multiple layers of screening process. The church would have a list of celibates from whom they could elect a presbyter to bishopric. From this list, shortlisting is undertaken by a screening committee, carefully scrutinising all aspects of the life of a clergy before he is presented before the Sabha Mandalam for voting for bishopric. This rigorous process of screening and shortlisting helps to ensure the integrity of those who are, then, voted to the office. Of course, this is not to say that, in practice, even the above mentioned process has not been subject to manipulation. In CSI, there is no such screening process. Even presbyters who do not have a basic B. D or M. Div theological degree and have character anomalies can contest and get elected to the panel for bishopric and then subsequently be nominated to this office by political manoeuvring and payoffs involving huge sums of money.

There are bishops in CSI who have only a B. Th degree, but then, go around prefixing ‘Dr.’ to their names. While, in the earlier days, the CSI was known for its educated clergy both in secular and theological education, today the situation is just the reverse. The Eastern Orthodox/Jacobite Churches and the Marthoma Church generally have a well educated clergy, often trained in their own best theological seminaries. As a result, our standing in the ecumenical world has been considerably diminished. We do not have the kind of clergy or episcopal leadership as that of the stature of Bishop V. S. Azariah who could set the ecumenical agenda of his day and command the respect of an ecumenical community.

For the Eastern churches, more prominently the Marthoma Church, dioceses are not significant entities except for administrative management. Each diocese will have a bishop and associated councils and administrative structures; but they cannot be fiefdoms of a bishop. In theory, they remain accountable to the central authority constituted in the person of the Metropolitan, the Synod (the bishops’ council) and the Prathinidhi Mandalam, which is the apex body of the church, consisting of “the Metropolitan, all other Bishops, Vicars General, representatives of clergy and parishes, representatives of the recognised institutions of the Church, representatives of those who have become members of the Church as a result of the missionary work of the Church and persons nominated by the Metropolitan.” (Constitution of the Marthoma Church) Particularly important is the fact that 65% of the membership in the Sabha Mandalam is from the laity and only 35% from the clergy. There are several layers of checks and balances. The laity, being in the majority, are expected to play a significant role in matters of administration and policy decisions (though in practice, this may not always be the case). The clergy-laity proportion even in the Malankara Syrian Christian Association is 1:2. But, till recently, the clergy-laity proportion in the diocesan councils and other administrative bodies of the North Kerala Diocese and of many other dioceses of the CSI have been highly skewed in favour of the clergy. When there is a predominance of the employees of the diocese in decision making bodies, either as clergy or employees in institutions, the chances for those in authority influencing them with threats and inducements will be very high. In the Marthoma Church, the transfer of clergy does not rest with the diocesan bishops, rather with the Metropolitan in the Synod.

Many things that have been happening in the CSI are against the protestant and reformed tradition and the enlightenment and democratic ethos that were associated with these historical movements. Democracy rests on two pillars: (1) the utter depravity and sinfulness of human beings and (2) the dignity of each human being as created in the image of God. The first, the deprived and sinful human condition affirms the fallibility of human beings and all human authorities, which, as a result, requires checks and balances within any system of governance. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton). Power of any human authority has to be checked and kept under control and democracy is believed to hold a promise in this direction.

Second, the Christian and biblical affirmation of human dignity is exemplified in the fact that human beings are created in God’s own image with certain inalienable rights and that no human being can be considered ‘worthless for whom Jesus Christ died’. Hence, democracy again is believed to hold the promise that every member of the society is respected and his/her views are heard. It is this democratic tradition that is being negated when a bishop repudiates the CSI constitution and takes on to himself “ecclesiastical authority”, which neither our tradition nor the constitution expect them to exercise. The Moderator and the Synod intervene only under extreme circumstances and by that time, enough damage may have already been done. Most often, the Synod and the Moderator cannot intervene as their credibility and moral stature would be worse than that of the diocesan bishops and their cronies. They also suffer from the same malignancy.

Once Synod elections are over, the Moderator and the General Secretary have a free hand in managing the affairs of the Synod without much checks and balances. Often Synod elections are fiercely contested with huge sums of money changing hands. Then, the newly elected executive committee and the Synod officers collude to ensure that their efforts are amply rewarded. Moreover, they remain far away from the people and the public glare except as people who are revered for the high office that they hold and the ‘divinity’ associated with it. They, then, elect themselves as the CSI Trust Association, and preside over the plundering of valuable assets passed on to them to the negation of their role as trustees. Recently, it has been the agenda of the bishops to initiate a number of “development” projects, a misnomer for engaging in activities by which they can regain the capital that they have transferred for nomination to bishopric. This involves starting self-financing professional courses such as B. Ed, Dental and Nursing Colleges, leasing out buildings and properties in prime locations, developing shopping complexes, and outright selling of lands, again in prime locations. This has come to the point where a bishop openly proclaims that the CSI is on a mission to explore the potential for a business venture in tourism. Appointments of teachers and admission of students are also occasions for illegal gratification.

The casualty is mission and evangelism, which is glossed over for developmental activities. Majority of Dalit parishes in rural areas have been lost to us through pastoral neglect. The schools and colleges of missionary days remain unattended and uncared for. The concern for equity and empowerment of the poor and the down trodden have been completely sidelined to accrue crass financial gain through self-financing institutions. Dalit has become a word used more often to attract foreign funds rather than a focus for solidarity, for social justice and liberative action. When the mission in education, the only cultural instrument that can provide equity and empower people, is turned into commercial ventures to benefit the elite of a given society, all the tall talk of mission in education become a sham and the memories of the missionary stalwarts who paid by their lives to establish such centres of knowledge especially for the most vulnerable sections of the society stands desecrated. Unity, renewal, mission slogans with which many of us grew up have ceased to be part of the vocabulary of the church; the people in the pew are left to fend for themselves and poached by all and sundry evangelists who come with bags of dollars. Even bishops fall prey to them. The CSI is also faced with the daunting task of convincing the people in the pew that they are the church and they are the “royal priesthood”, and more than being serviced by the clergy, they have a role in the world of “proclaiming the good news of the gospel and driving out the demons”. They are kept under submission by a mystique of divine power. The sacraments and the “full privileged membership” are considered means of salvation without which they are destined for perdition, rather than means of empowering oneself for the task of Christian witness in the world. The clergy intentionally furthers a theology and biblical interpretation that legitimises this perception of discipleship and the church being in the world as a religious community for its own salvation. This is further buttressed by the casteist and feudal world view and the related spiritual notions and practices that are very much part of the cultural milieu. And for a majority, church also means “favours”, once doled out by the missionaries and today by their counterparts in the persons of bishops and
clergy.

There is nothing much to salvage except to ask the judiciary to put in place an officiating administration for an interim period and during which a commission constituted with the involvement of the partner churches may go into the various aspects of the structure and functioning of the CSI. And then, based on the commission’s recommendations, the CSI prepare itself for radical restructuring. One direction in which this change can be envisaged is by stressing a more Congregationalist polity with its associated recognition of the theological emphasis on the priesthood of all believers and of the various gifts, ministries and operations which are given to us by the Holy Spirit for “building up the church”. Congregationalists played a prominent role in the formation of the CSI in 1947, and they also became part of the United Church of Canada and of the Uniting Church in Australia. The strong convictions concerning the sovereignty of God and the priesthood of all believers have led many of them to adopt a theological and social liberalism, and to participate in the ecumenical movement. The promise of a revival among the laity, their active and decisive involvement and participation in the life of the church and also their public witness in the secular world are inherent in a Congregationalist polity. The ordained ministry, in a Congregationalist polity will not easily be corrupted by any vestiges of “priesthood” and “priest craft” and will give way to an understanding of their role as that of an “elder”.

The history of congregationalism would reveal a strong emphasis on evangelism and a new political and social radicalism, a reaching out to the poorer sections of the society, an emphasis on democratic form of administration, and freedom from “dead works” and dead structures of religion to serve the living God. It acknowledges the rights and responsibilities of each properly organised congregation to determine its own affairs, without having to submit their decisions to the judgment of any higher human authority. Congregationalist polity is often criticised for its laxity in not sticking to right faith and practices arrived at through a more collective and corporate decision making process as it has been done in a diocesan/Synod polity. However, a diocesan/Synod polity is no guarantee that right faith and practice would be arrived at through collective consensus and that they would always be strictly adhered to. In the last 63 years of the CSI, no crucial matters of faith and practice have ever come up for serious debate or resolution in the dioceses or Synod except that of women’s ordination. The CSI is least concerned about right faith and practice. One of the former moderators of the church had his hands laid on a lay preacher from another sectarian church without the sanction of the Synod executive committee and consecrate him as a bishop without any consequence to his office. Another CSI bishop, who had been part of the same action, was later elected/promoted to be the moderator of the CSI. Moreover, it is also a fact that a Congregationalist polity never stands in the way of a confederation or convention of the congregations to deliberate on such matters and lend itself to seeking God’s will in community with the leading of the Holy Spirit as in the case of the Jerusalem council (Acts 15: 119)

The congregational emphasis could be kept in balance with a Presbyterian polity in the office of episcopate. During the negotiation for church union,the South India Union of Churches (SIUC) faction, which comprised of the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians, was very much concerned about the shape that episcopacy would assume in an authoritarian, hierarchically ordered and caste-ridden society like India. Their worst fears have come true and the Episcopal and Anglican traditions have completely taken over the manner and content of the church’s presence and witness in the world and have become a source of much corruption in high places. The suggested changes are not easy to come by. The entrenched forces of evil, injustice and oppression will not easily give up their “ecclesiastical privileges”. And a change can be effected only with much zeal and suffering equaling the one that was shown during the union negotiations. With majority of the members being indifferent to what is happening in the church except the respectability associated with it, a popular uprising cannot be expected at the moment. But a spiritual revival under a charismatic leadership or a sustained effort by a remnant prepared for the long haul, bearing the cross, could be a promising prospect that can change history around. In any case, all this calls for a complete overhaul and a radical restructuring without which CSI will have no future. It is already dead spiritually and is stinking. Repentance and Prayer in “sack clothes and ashes” by a fearless and committed group of laity, a remnant, is the need of the hour.

Hope and pray that the spirit of Christ would sweep over us all and make us live. Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I; send me!’ And he said, ‘Go and say to this people: “Keep listening, but do not comprehend;keep looking, but do not understand.” Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.’ Then I said, ‘How long, O Lord?’ And he said: ‘Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is utterly desolate; until the Lord sends everyone far away, and vast is the emptiness in the midst of the land. Even if a tenth part remains in it, it will be burned again,like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains standing when it is felled.’ The holy seed is its stump. (Isaiah 6: 8-13)

Death of Mission Schools: Towards a Christian Perspective on Education In the Era of Commoditization of Education under Neo-liberalism

noreply@blogger.com (Sans) — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 12:30:00 +0000

‘Death of Mission Schools’ represents the end of an era of missionary work of Protestant missions in the field of education and the values and witness they represented in a largely non-Christian world. This sort of being in the world as a Christian has often been described as ‘Christian Presence’. While being a negligible minority, the nascent Christian community that the missionaries had nurtured, with the mission schools and hospitals at the centre, became the visible face of Christ in the public life of the equally nascent independent nation-states like India and Taiwan, and wielded disproportionate influence over the social and political life of the respective countries in Asia, at times, even shaping their understanding of nationhood. The word ‘death’ definitely implies a sense of loss and nostalgia about the past, but it is inevitable; but how do we carry forward our educational mission in a radically different political, economic and social scenario informed by neo-liberalism.

It is important that we distinguish between the missions of the early modern period, represented pre-dominantly by Catholic missions, and the missions of later centuries represented pre-dominantly by Protestant missions. The early missions, which reached out to the entire world in the 16th Century, initiated by the Spaniards and followed by the Portuguese, were adjunct to a crass materialistic project of colonization and hence, it often entailed a forceful conversion of ‘heathens’ to Christianity. Mission followed the ‘conquistadors’ and often became the ideological means for supporting and providing legitimacy for conquest, though we find certain lone voices among the missionaries who questioned such ‘missionary conquests.’ As the reading of the Bible and interpreting it were the special prerogatives of the ecclesiastics and anathema to the laity, intellectual engagement with and assent of the native population, who were considered lesser than humans, was least important for the early missions. They had other persuasive devices to deal with conversion to Christianity.

But from the 18th century onwards, the European and American missionaries that came to our lands, those like George Leslie Mackay in Formosa, Benjamin Bailey and Henry Baker in Kerala, and a host of others, brought modern education as opposed to what might have been practised as education in the respective countries. They conceived education as a means for introducing Jesus Christ to the local population and enabling them to acknowledge his lordship. For these missionaries, who were largely from Protestant backgrounds, Bible and reading of the Bible were central to understanding Christ and the good news in Jesus Christ. Hence, primary education was directed toward helping the local people to read and write. It was more an exercise in developing their local dialects, formalizing and systematizing them so that they would be able to read the Bible and learn more about Christian faith and communicate the same to others both through speaking and writing. The Bible, being the central pillar of Reformation faith, was the main weapon in the armoury of Protestant missionaries and its translation into local languages became a necessity for them. One of the first things that the missionaries did was to learn the local language and where there were no scripts, develop it. They codified the grammar and word meanings, and therein, contributing significantly to the development of those local languages. In the process they also introduced Christ and Christian values; the Christian Religion and the Bible became the main weapon for inculturation among the native population.

At this point, I must take a caveat so that I will not be misunderstood as supporting colonization or giving a more than life-size estimation of the contribution of missionaries. We cannot paint all the missionaries or missionary contributions with a broad brush. Missionaries are not a monolith; they were individuals with their own theological and ideological perspectives, historical backgrounds, commitments and idiosyncrasies. We cannot also deny the fact that even well-meaning missionaries, despite their liberal and humanistic perspectives, often provided religious legitimacy for colonization and held orientalist attitudes and perspectives; they looked down upon the local people as second class citizens and perceived their way of life, their values and culture, societal structures, scriptural and linguistic traditions with disdainful eyes as primitive, heathen and godforsaken. All missionaries to a greater or lesser degree wore orientalist glasses. Yet, many of them, in their educational enterprise and evangelizing mission, became transformed by their encounter with local culture and felt obliged to contribute significantly towards transforming the local culture and language with solidarity and respect.

The colonizers had an educational philosophy that is explicitly meant to co-opt the local people into being agents of their agenda of both colonizing their countries and their minds; they wanted a set of educated middle class, proficient in English language and western culture, who will serve as middlemen for their economic and political designs. This ideology was explicitly stated by Lord Macaulay, the British politician and bureaucrat in India who is largely responsible for introducing English as the medium of instruction for higher education in India.

He understood his mission as one of ‘civilizing’ Indians, of creating a class of educated people schooled in western philosophical traditions and scientific knowledge. For this purpose, he considered proficiency in the English language an important prerequisite. He states: ‘We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.’¹

Macaulay believed that this cultural transformation of an Indian elite is a moral right of the British. This became the dominant paradigm of higher education in India and continues to be so even in the neo-liberal age; the only difference is that today, higher education has become one of shaping a class of people who would loyally and efficiently work for multinational corporate entities. Probably, this would be too harsh a criticism of Macaulay. Today, no one can remain on an island of his own and the English language acts as a medium that connects most of us. A total reading of his works may lend us to believe that he is asking for a more cosmopolitan culture. This requires more study and research. But moving away from the person, we are to assume that often colonial objectives and the missionary objectives converged, but missionary objectives added something more that would transmit the social implications of the gospel message. Many heard it and became pioneers of national movements for liberation from the colonial rule.

Missions in the 19th century were products of revolutionary changes that were happening in the churches in Europe and America, though it was part of a capitalist expansion. Enlightenment values of liberalism, humanism and scientific temper had its influence in the theological thinking of the churches, in its ‘reading’ and study of the Bible and ethical practices associated with it. This spiritual awakening and revival within denominations found its expression in a renewed interest in mission, reaching out to the rest of the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. They also had implications in understanding Christian life and mission in the larger society, resulting in questioning slavery, inhuman labour conditions, the deprived status of women, and other such indignities suffered by human beings raising questions regarding human dignity and human rights. Evangelization started to take on the project of humanization. Most of the missionaries who came to Asia in the 19th century were imbued with this Christian Humanism and naturally, their educational enterprise while being rooted in Christ and the gospel, was not merely a project of proselytizing, but also humanizing the native communities with gospel and enlightenment values. Mission Schools and colleges were windows for the local people to enlightenment values of individual freedom and individual rights, rationality, scientific temper, toleration and freedom of thought and expression.

Mission schools, especially primary schools, were inclusive; it was for all in the community. While it may sound normal and ordinary, in a caste-ridden society like India, where certain groups of people, who are considered ‘untouchable’ by birth and denied the right to education and human dignity, it was a revolutionary act of liberating those who otherwise were under the yoke of slavery. Again, missionaries started schools especially for girls, who were often excluded from the public space by patriarchal systems. While I am speaking out of my reading of the history of missions in India, I presume that this is true with regard to the history of mission schools elsewhere in Asia. Many of these educators tried to understand their respective societies and tried to respond to the dehumanizing aspects of a given society through their educational efforts, however skewed (occidental) their perception might have been about these realities. Many of them stayed on, worked and died in their respective ‘mission fields’. In short, the mission schools were examples of liberating and humanizing mission. The primary school education was in local languages, and this had led to the development of local languages; this is a subject which I have already dealt with at the beginning of this paper. ‘Grammar schools’ were started to help students to learn English language and thus, a transition to the College education.

Now let us turn to the missionary efforts in the field of higher education in Asia. The colonial powers needed an English educated manpower (educated in the language of the colonizer), who was trained in the ways of the colonizer and the nations of the west, who would be capable of meeting the economic, cultural and political aspirations of the colonizer. So, the colonial powers were ready to extend a helping hand to mission initiatives in higher education. Proselytization was not a compulsion for neither of them; they were trying to replicate the liberal arts and science education practised in their respective countries based on enlightenment values of humanism, openness to new ideas and a rational and scientific temper. Mission in the field of higher education also had a bias towards the elite in the respective societies, especially the intellectual elites (in India, the high caste Hindus) and they saw educating them a means of infusing Christian Values, if not converting them to Christianity. Christian Colleges provided an opportunity for the native literati to encounter Christ and Christian values. Moreover, the colleges were training grounds for native Christian Leadership.

The missionaries emphasized that the colleges should remain cosmopolitan in character, including people of all faith. In fact, the majority of students were from other faiths. Along with Christian education, they also provided an option for moral education to students from other faiths. They facilitated residential life-giving maximum scope for better student-teacher interaction outside the classroom, extra-curricular activities for wholesome development of persons. Christian higher educational institutions provided an opportunity for encountering Christ and Christian style of life and be a “Christian presence”, like yeast, salt and light. They recognized in Jesus Christ, the prototype of a new humanity, while not keeping conversion the main mission of their educational enterprise.

While many youths from these colleges were recruited to civil/administrative services of the imperialist regimes; many imbued with the revelation that they had of Christ and Christianity, became vocal champions of reforms in their respective cultures. The outcome of this sort of missionary intervention in India’s cultural life was well articulated by Dr M. M. Thomas in his book, The Acknowledged Christ of Indian Renaissance.² Encouraged by enlightenment values, which also had its deep roots in Christian religion, many went into the nationalist movement and later became national leaders of pre and post-independent India, which might not have been an avowed concern of the missionaries. It is the disproportionate influence of a negligible minority of Christians and Christian missions in India, especially through such cultural means as education, that prompted Dr M. M. Thomas, one of the stalwarts of ecumenical movement of yesteryears in Asia, to produce his seminal work, Salvation and Humanization.³

According to Thomas, a mission was to be understood within the broader perspective of the struggle for humanization, the historic destiny founded in the fulfilment of human rights and social justice. Salvation would be eschatological, but the eschatological framework had to embrace the task of humanization of the world in a secular history. Therefore, he maintained that humanization is an integral part of the Christian message of salvation, and it was intrinsic to salvation.

Missionary contribution in education was one that paved the way for humanization, an integral part of salvific work in Jesus Christ. Humanization is the act of making human beings and social structures authentically human, the prototype of which is found in the person of Christ, the one who took responsibility for his own creation and was ready to pay the price for it by giving up his own life; the one who was described by Bonhoeffer as ‘the man for others’.

Today, the educational mission, a legacy that we inherited, is in a deep crisis of identity. What is Christian about Christian colleges and universities, in the midst of a plethora of institutions that have sprung up as commercial ventures to cater to an emerging job market and crafted to serve the interest of a neoliberal global capital? To understand this crisis and find ways to reinvent our identity and be a truly ‘Christian presence’ in the 21st Century, in our own unique contexts, we need to be aware of the economic, cultural and technological underpinnings of what we describe as globalization.

From an economic point of view, it means market determinism, less government, freedom for private investments and enterprises; the state should move away from education, health and other essential services that provide a social security net for the most vulnerable in our societies. (1) Market determinism is essentially competitive, leaving individuals and communities to the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest. (2) It is exclusionary; only those who have any asset - economic, cultural or personal - either to sell or buy have any participation in the market. (3) In a market, everything is reduced to commodities which can be bought or sold, which can be exchanged. Capital, mammon, rules supreme.

Cultural implications of this neoliberal economic order further involve a change in the valuation of life; materialism, consumerism and individualism thrive. Fulfilment and meaning of life are sought in one’s possessions and having material things in abundance, but contentment and happiness continue to elude human reach. We fail to realize that there are invaluable things in life, which are gifts, freely given to us by God - water, air, community, possibilities of mind and body and the ecosystem. We fail to enjoy them but strive to sell them and buy happiness. These bounties of God are now for sale, compromising our very life that is sustained in a delicate web of inter-relationship, which we call an ecosystem.

Further, human beings are treated as human resources rather than human potentials. Hence, education, more than discovering their potentialities and allowing them to flower and flourish for the good of fellow human beings and the earth and one’s own self-fulfilment, becomes a means of shaping oneself to the requirements of the job market; we shape ourselves to serve our neo-colonial masters. Calling and vocation ceased to have any meaning even for Christian students. Vocation is a Christian term denoting the discovery of one’s ultimate destiny and living one’s life to fulfil that destiny; every Christian and for that matter, every human being must hear that call, that call for self-transcendence. It is this ability to hear the call (God’s call) that distinguishes human beings from animals - the ability for self-transcendence. It is this call that had prompted many missionaries to come to our lands and work unreservedly in the fields of education and health, demonstrating through their own life the good news of Jesus Christ.

In the context of the above mentioned cultural shift, education is seen both by the students and the management, as a good investment expecting good returns. Hence, a new generation of private colleges and universities are sprouting like mushrooms all over the world and students with good financial backgrounds are willing to buy education for exorbitant cost. Thus, education becomes a commercial enterprise. Another aspect of this cultural shift is the definition of education as a private good rather than a public good. Since it is a private good, it is argued that state need not invest in education; those who profit from education should invest, either as students or management or multinational companies. With these cultural and conceptual underpinnings, education has become a commercial activity, rather than a ‘cultural action for liberation’, retrieving and flourishing our humanity.

The third aspect of what is referred to as globalization is the revolutionary advancements in communication technology which has dramatically altered the way we conduct our life; no area of life is left untouched by it and surely that is the case with education too. It has reduced the world to a global village; anything that happens in distant parts of the world is brought live to the living room of anybody in another part of the world. Naturally, we expect the citizens of the world to come together with greater amity and work together to solve problems and create a better world. While this is a possibility of gigantic proportions, what we witness today is something akin to what we read about the tower of Babel in Genesis 11; they tried to fortify themselves, create a name for themselves and remain as one nation with one language; but their language got confused and they were dispersed ‘over the face of all the earth’. Instead of unity what we witness today is the eagerness to wipe out differences and bring about a sort of forced uniformity.

The neo-liberal economic policies have come a full circle that many of its votaries such as the US and the many European nations are trying to protect their economy against global market forces. This produces narrow nationalist jingoism and irrational hatred of minorities and expatriates. The ‘global village’ created by the advancements in information technology, instead of producing global citizens, are creating ghettos and bigots.

The capitalist and neoliberal design are to create one world, homogenize the world and integrate it according to the designs of the global capital. This would mean the domination of this one world and one culture over all the others. Besides, in regard to communication, while we have instant information about what is happening in a distant part of the world, we have less understanding and knowledge about what is happening to one’s own neighbour and in one’s own backyard; interpersonal distance is increasing. In the process of transferring human intelligence to machines, somewhere along the line, humans have ended up losing their humanity.

While I have mentioned some of the problems of this technological revolution, I do not want to underestimate the immense possibilities and prospects this offers for humankind, particularly education. I thank God for the gift that God had given to me through this technology to continue my education and learning at this age of my life, opening before me new vistas of learning and being useful to my community. Information technology has been radically altering the way we do education, mainly its acquisition, delivery and application. There is no paucity for information; in fact, we are faced with an information overload. The challenge in education is to help students with a schema, a cognitive structure for selecting, analyzing, classifying and organizing information into knowledge systems that can be stored, transferred and shared; these systems, through further interaction, create bigger knowledge systems useful in understanding and solving the problems of humankind and the world. Education is knowledge creation and each educational institution is part of a knowledge society; a society that, through greater interaction with other constituents of the society and its concerns, generate new knowledge to better human conditions and the world. In a knowledge society, education is not restricted to the college or university; education is also not one of imparting information. It is the task of helping students to learn the skills for learning so that they become continuous and lifelong learners.

Having said this, while there is a lot of tall talk about education being knowledge creation and colleges being knowledge societies, education has become plagued with narrow references to shaping of human resources to a high-value product in the job market, often ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of life and devoid of the core value of having a sense of responsibility for one’s fellow human beings and the earth. However, we just can’t ignore this shift in the perception of education and we must be able to translate what this means for the Christian identity of our educational institutions.

Rediscovering and Reliving our Christian Identity: Christian Presence in Higher Education

What is our identity and role as Christian institutions in the coming decades? I will encapsulate all that I want to say in two words, ‘Christian Presence’.

Referring to Christian presence in higher education, in 1963, Late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, one of the missionary stalwarts, made the following statement in a lecture he delivered at Thambaram to a gathering of the principals of Christian colleges:

‘A Christian College is not primarily a place where the gospel is preached and people are converted. It does not exist primarily to strengthen the Christian Community. It is not simply a contribution to national development. It is – or ought to be – a place where, under the impulse of the love of God, there is offered to all who desire it that kind of training of the whole person which is congruous with God’s revelation in Christ of the true nature of manhood, and is appropriate to the needs of India at this stage of world history.’⁴

Later, the Madras Christian College took inspiration from this declaration to frame its mission statement:

‘The Madras Christian College with the inspiration of the love of God offers to people of all communities education of the whole person which is congruous with God's revelation in Christ of the true nature of humanity, and is appropriate to the needs of India and the world.’⁵

Referring to William Miller of the Madras Christian College, late Dr M. M. Thomas observed in one his lectures in Union Christian College, Aluva:

The hope was that “even when no direct conversion ensues, much of the spirit and influences of Christianity will cleave to the rightly educated youth, whatever may be their future situation in life”.⁶ In other words education in Christian colleges would be a force for the transformation of society in the light of Christian values and act as a cultural preparation for the claims of the gospel.

How can the Christian colleges be a Christian presence in the given realities of our societies?

1. Christian presence is a highly loaded theological concept. It was a term very much used in the 60s. It means that we eschew an aggressive, dominating and conquering attitude. We are called to be in the world, but our being in the world is to serve, enrich and infuse the world with the values of the kingdom. Proselytization is not our agenda, but to share the good news in Jesus Christ with our self-emptying, kenotic, and incarnational form of our presence in the world.

Medium is the message; the management and the administration of the college and teaching-learning experience, student-faculty relationship, its resource mobilization and social networking should reflect the kenosis, self-emptying and incarnational model that we find in Christ. The cross symbolizes this model of solidarity and taking responsibility for the other. Many missionaries have shown us the tremendous transforming and humanizing power of this model of doing mission in the area of education. St. Paul defines incarnation in the following verse: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor so that you through his poverty might become rich.”⁷

It is a way of solidarity, endurance/resistance and self-giving; the people and community around us experience it not by being very vocal about it, but by living it out in all its simplicity. Our Christian presence in the realm of education should be cruciform and as such, it cannot follow the models promoted by the neo-liberal, market economy principles. ‘Light dispels darkness and darkness has not overcome it.’ (John 1:5)

2. This form Christian presence, while not being aggressive, domineering and assaultive, It resists and offers a prophetic alternative. Unfortunately, I do not see this happening. In many South Asian/South East Asian countries, where the Christian communities are a minority, the churches and the institutions are more eager to take advantage of the opportunities provided by privatization to establish educational institutions that are run as commercial ventures. Instead of parroting the phrase, ‘everybody does it, why not us’, we should be able to offer an alternative in terms of institutional management, administration, financial sustainability and teaching-learning experience to the neo-liberal paradigm and be a model that conforms to the values of the kingdom.

3. In spite of the vast changes in the goals of education, we must/can hold on to ‘the Liberal Arts and Science tradition in Education.’ Our challenge here is to offer ‘that kind of training of the whole person which is congruous with God’s revelation in Christ of the true nature of man/(human)hood’ as described by the Late Bishop Newbigin. This calls for providing an education that emphasizes a general understanding of diverse disciplines, rather than a narrow focus on one discipline alone. While one could have a major discipline requiring concentrated attention, one can’t be oblivious of the trans-disciplinary character of knowledge itself. This education needs to incorporate experiences beyond the classroom. It should work on learning groups on vital issues of a given society; it should encourage divergent thinking and inspire the development of values that are personally satisfying and socially relevant, in keeping with God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. It is here that we find the role of service-learning, social outreaches, issue-based ethical discussions, Student Christian Movement, and various other clubs and societies. UB constantly refers to whole person education, rightly so. Our job is to help them discover themselves, embrace challenges in life, explore multiple perspectives and venture out into the world to find their place in the larger design/plan of God for the world.

4. We cannot turn education into a commercial venture; even in the citadel of capitalism, the USA, education is a charitable activity; we may follow a business model, but we cannot run it as a business. One of the challenges that the developing world faces in higher education is the massification of education. There is an increasing clamour for admissions to colleges and universities by the hitherto marginalized communities as a means of improving their life and livelihood opportunities. Meanwhile, there is a strong tide towards privatization and commercialization of education that is increasingly going against them, restricting their access to colleges and universities. This situation demands that we open our gates to marginalized sections of our community by more affirmative actions and scholarship programs so that the marginalized experience the liberating and humanizing message of the gospel. We must consciously work to eschew our elitist bias.

5. Massification throws up a lot more challenges apart from financial constraints. Most often, those from the marginalized communities are first-time learners and are often threatened by the demands of higher education. They need remedial education; personal attention, closer accompaniment by the teachers and a little more handholding. The administration and teachers must understand their calling as extending the love of God as we see in the mission of Christ. The challenge here is one of inclusion; Jesus’ ministry was one of inclusion; including those who were excluded by a social structure and religious establishment.

6. This demands that we have a faculty that is not only academically excellent but also imbued with the love of Christ, willing to go the second mile, and taking up their task as God’s call, a vocation. Besides academic knowledge, they should be equipped with relational and interpersonal skills so that they can reach out to each other and to one’s students. Christian faculty should be helped to develop a faith that is intellectually cogent, socially relevant and morally uplifting. They should be able to give leadership to Christian nurture programs. We must encourage increasing opportunities for faculty-student interactions outside the classroom and develop a secular and cosmopolitan fellowship within the campus.

7. Christian character also means that we aim for academic excellence both as faculty and students. But this excellence should be worked out in relation to the crucial issues that our society and nation face at this point in time. Knowledge creation should not be an isolated activity that takes place within the college or university, but something that happens in interaction with faculty, students, other stakeholders and the larger society. This means that the faculty and students should be exposed to social and global realities and concerns. These issues or concerns have a dimension that transcends any particular academic discipline and hence, it must have greater inter-disciplinary collaboration.

8. University is a community of scholars, teachers and students, who deal with and open to a universe of ideas transcending narrow boundaries of caste, class, gender, and nationality. Especially in our globalized world, which is made possible by the digital revolution, we cannot ignore the challenges and possibilities of internationalization of education. Hence, Christian colleges and universities must deliberately work towards establishing greater international linkages to work together, learn from each other and solve crucial issues that we face locally and globally. For corporate globalization, knowledge is capital and a commodity that they would purchase and guard for themselves so that they can make enormous profits. Our objective and collaboration are to make knowledge serve life, an instrument of love. Our concern for internationalization of education stems from our concern for building global solidarities that would resist corporate globalization and offer an alternative to it. We do not want to use our knowledge to create a tower of Babel, but a Pentecostal fellowship where, as a global community, we understand each other and care for each other.

9. The immense possibilities that information technology has opened up must be made use of for knowledge creation and exchange, and play our role as a knowledge society for creating a better world in a skewed knowledge economy. ‘Digital divide’ should be a concern for us. Moreover, we are aware of how this technology can be used for dividing and destroying lives and communities. As a Christian and educationist, I would say that our role is one of participating in the building up of ‘a city whose architect and builder is God.’(Hebrews 11:10) As teachers and students, those who come out of our educational institutions should have discovered their role in this project of God. This project is very much related to this world and its concerns, very much intrinsic to our daily prayer, ‘Thy Kingdom Come.’

I would like to illustrate my concern for our role in Higher Education with the following quote from one of the members of the Student Christian Movement of yesteryears, S. P. Raju. It is a parody of Romans 1:1 - “I try to say with St. Paul: Raju, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an engineer, separated unto the Gospel of God in the evangelism of irrigation research for growing more food and bringing reduction of hunger, and in being a ‘laborer together with God’ in the project of answering the prayer ‘Give us this day our daily bread’. (Rom. 1:1)

We must be prepared to think out of the box – outside the dominant paradigm provided by the neoliberal economic rationality. Christians are a negligible minority in this part of the world. Still, we can play a significant role in ‘baptizing the nations’ (‘make disciples of all nations, baptizing them’: Matthew 28:19), as Late Dr Russel Chandran of the United Theological College, Bangalore would say.⁸ We are called to be ‘the salt’ and ‘the light’ of this world; we are called to be a minority, but a relevant minority that embodies the values of the Kingdom.

I am glad that Chang Jung Christian University in collaboration with UB has taken this initiative to call a consultation on this topic. But, for me, it is too late. Damage has already been done. But we still can strive to retrieve whatever is left in our mission. I wish and hope that the participants of this consultation would further break my thoughts down to concrete actions in your respective institutions, cultures and countries.

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1 Bureau of Education, “Minute by the Hon’ble T. B. Macaulay, dated the 2nd February 1835”, in Selections from the Educational Records, Part 1, 1781-1839, ed. Henry Sharp (Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing, 1920), 116.
2 M. M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of Indian Renaissance (London: SCM Press, 1969)
3 M. M. Thomas, Salvation and Humanization: A Crucial Issue in the Theology of Mission for India (Bangalore: Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, 1971)
4 ----
5 https://www.mcc.edu.in/index.php/about-us/mission-vision
6 "The Place of Education as a Missionary Agency" Report of the Allahabad Missionary Conference, London, 1873
7 2 Corinthians 8:9 NIV
8 “I Believe… “ Christian Faith Re-articulated, Russell Chandran, Student Christian Movement of India, 1993, P 63 & 64

(This is a paper presented by Rev. Thomas John at the Consultation on Revisioning The Role And Relevance of Christian Universities in a Multi-Religious, Secular Context organized by the Chang Jung Christian University, Tainan, Taiwan from October 15-18, 2018 with the support of United Board Of Christian Higher Education in Asia.)

A Tribute to KC

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 11:15:00 +0000

Sermon delivered at the funeral service of Rev. Dr. K. C. Abraham in St. Mark's Cathedral, Bangalore, 14 June 2016

We are here to celebrate a life well lived for the glory of God. KC was a senior friend to me before I married his sister. He and I grew up to what we had become through the Youth Movement of the Central Kerala Diocese of the Church of South India. He was handsome, bright and full of promises in worldly terms. He was a student of Mathematics who did his Bachelor of Science with distinction. But, about 60 years ago, he accepted the commission of Christ as found in John Ch. 21 “take care of my sheep.” KC accepted this specific call to become a shepherd.

KC may have achieved many covetable positions and laurels in life. But first and foremost, he was a good shepherd following the great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ. The Bible is rich with imagery of the shepherd. Yahweh is referred to as a shepherd in Psalm 23: “God is my Shepherd, I shall not want”. Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who would lay down his life for the sheep. Jesus also narrates the parable of the lost sheep and also comments on his mission as one of leaving behind the ninety nine in the open and seeking after the lost one till he finds it. Jesus also insists on the apostolic ministry as one of taking care of the sheep. KC, the young man, never thought of positions and honors, when he accepted the call to follow Christ as a pastor in the Church of South India in the Central Kerala Diocese.

He began his career as the Secretary of the Youth Movement of the diocese. He served in many rural parishes. Even after obtaining his doctorate from Princeton Theological Seminary, he was posted to serve in a parish in a remote corner of the diocese. He accepted the responsibility gladly and served that parish. It was then that he married Dr. Molly Abraham. The brightest spot in his several careers was his stint as the vicar of St. Mark’s Cathedral, which many of us have forgotten. He was a good shepherd, pastor, par excellence. It is not accidental that he spent most of his life preparing pastors for the church. His theological thinking, ethical reflections and political posturing and actions reflect this shepherd in him.

KC was a good pastor to his students, his colleagues, those outside of the church involved in secular movements for liberation. First of all, it is marked by his tender compassion and love, his empathy and willingness to step into the shoes of the other, be it anybody, and act in responsibility to help them; that has endeared him to many from different walks of life.

Second, his understanding of a shepherd was not confined to helping and serving those who are members of the Christian community. He believed and followed Christ’s insistence on God’s mission to those sheep “that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.” (John 10:16). His shepherding went beyond the bounds of the visible church. He related to secular groups and movements; he also believed that the church is called to carry forward God’s mission of extending God’s love and grace beyond the boundaries of the visible church. He was always critical and impatient with a self-serving institutional church, and constantly reminded the church of its mission to a broken and suffering world.

Thirdly, emanating from this self-understanding as a shepherd, pastor, was his commitment to those in the margins of society, whether they be Dalits, Tribals, women, mentally and physically challenged, the differently abled, the LGBT community or the mother earth, who is brutally treated and exploited without any qualm. He became an ardent spokesperson for the concerns of these groups and also brought them into the center stage of his theological and ethical reflection and action. Concern for justice and preferential option for the vulnerable are intrinsic to his theological understanding of the shepherd. The shepherd is not neutral. He is one who would leave the 99 and go after the one that is lost, whether it is willfully or of no fault of its own. God, as the shepherd is one who judges “between the fat sheep and the lean sheep” as we read in Ezekiel, Ch. 34.

This finally led him to a theological understanding and commitment to the biblical category of those who were described as strangers. It is a biblical refrain addressed to the Israelites that they should care for the widows, orphans and strangers in their midst as they were once strangers in Egypt. Living with and caring for Liza brought this aspect of church’s mission very poignantly to him and Molly Kochamma. They were led to a greater sensitivity and concern for the most vulnerable in our society, strangers in our society. God gave them the opportunity, during the evening of their life, to practice what they preach and devote the rest of their life in caring for Liza and all those who are strangers like her.

Unfortunately, we all consider the imagery of the shepherd as being neutral and passive. But KC through his life and work made it clear to us the dynamism and radical nature of the imagery of the shepherd. It is this self-understanding of himself as a shepherd, that made him radical in his thinking and action and become a votary of all those who seek liberation and fullness of life. He believed that the calling of the church is not to sustain itself as an institution and render services for its own members, but to be a community that extends its healing touch to strangers in our midst and to a suffering world. He reminds us that as pastors, our responsibility is not only to cater to the needs of its own members, but also become agents of what he describes as prophetic spirituality and extend their ministry of love and healing to those who are outside of our narrow communal entity.

KC endeared himself to generations of his students, parishioners, friends and colleagues both in the theological field and outside as a loving human being who related to them in humility, warmth and in such deep concern. Molly Kochamma can be proud and be thankful that she was given the privilege to be a companion to this man, sustain him, and challenge him to live out what he preached. We and the extended ecumenical community can be thankful for the gift of this man and what he has been by nature and grace to all of us and the theological legacy he had left behind which will continue to speak to us. May God give us the courage to carry forward this wider and deeper understanding of pastoral and prophetic ministry that is exemplified in such a beautiful way in the life of KC for the renewal of our church and extending the horizon of our theological thinking and action. We pray for Mrs. Abraham, Liza and their son Ajit who has the burden of carrying forth the legacy of his illustrious father who has left behind much for him to ponder.

(The photograph of KC posted in this blog has been taken from the Facebook wall of Ting Ting Lee)

Jesus Christ is Risen! Halleluiah! Yes, He is Risen Indeed!

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sat, 04 Apr 2015 06:39:00 +0000

I read a humorous story from one of the blogs in the net about a pastor who took his pastoral responsibility so seriously that he would move around seeking his lost sheep. This pastor once entered a pub and found three men sitting at the bar. He asked the first, "Do you want to go to heaven?" The man said, “yes”. The priest said, "Then go stand against the wall." He asked the second if he wanted to go to heaven. The man said, “yes”, and the priest told him to stand against the wall. He asked the third, "And you, do you want to go to heaven?" The man said, "no." The priest was taken aback; he asked, "What? When you die, you don't want to go to heaven?" The man said, "Well, yes, when I die. But I thought you were getting a group to go right now!" Many of us are like the third person in the story. We want to go to heaven when we die, not today.

What is the resurrection of Christ all about? What is Easter all about? Has it got any significance here and now, while we live on this earth? Or is it significant only after our death? Resurrection of Christ is not about a heaven after our death, but it is about living a life victorious over sin and death today. What are the implications of Christ’s resurrection for our life in the world, here and now?

First, it assures us that it is not all over yet. We are living in a world of sin and death. Satan and the princes of this world seem to have their free reign over this world; they seem to trample upon human lives and God’s beautiful creation. We feel hemmed in, unable to make any headway, lost and surrounded. Resurrection announces that they do not have the final say; the final say is for Christ and his people; it is for God’s kingdom. God, by raising Jesus, His son, from death, has unleashed the forces of a new life that works toward peace, justice and fullness of life. We have been given victory over sin and death. We read in 1 Peter 1:3, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead …” (1 Peter 1:3). We are filled with a living hope. It is not all over yet. In a world of sorrow, pain and ultimately death, it’s not over yet. Easter is indeed a forceful reminder that the human spirit cannot be confined. It does not deny the reality of death, but it offers us an assurance that death or death dealing forces do not have the final word.

With the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, the world has been shaken up, the new rule of God has been proclaimed, so that despite appearances, the world is in fact a different place, full of new possibilities, previously unimagined. Paul explains in Colossians the reality of being raised with Christ, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” (3:1-4) Even while we are on this earth, we can be part of this resurrection life of Jesus Christ, we have been given this experience of being raised with Christ, so that our minds and hearts are set not on earthly things, but on things that are above. We are controlled and guided by heaven; our citizenship is in heaven.

Second, resurrection provides us with a new meaning for our life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his “Letters and Papers from Prison”, writes about the meaning of Easter, “Good Friday and Easter free us to think about other things far beyond our own personal fate, about the ultimate meaning of all life, suffering, and events; and we lay hold of a great hope.” Life has a purpose and meaning beyond our personal successes and failures; God has a plan, a purpose for you and his creation. It may involve privations and disappointments, but whatever the cost, it will be worth it. Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. Eternal life begins now. "I am the Resurrection and the Life." You are part of a new reality, new life in Christ. While in that horrible prison, Bonhoeffer wrote, "As I see it, I am here for some purpose and I only hope I may fulfill it. In light of the great purpose, all our privations and disappointments are trivial." Life takes on a new meaning. Without this meaningfulness, we are as good as dead.

Death is not physical cessation of breath, but it is a state of having no meaning and purpose for living. If you are possessed with this meaning, death ceases to have any control over your life. Hence, in Paul’s first letter to Corinthians, he writes, ““Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (15:55-57) The sting of death is our fear of death. It is the fear of death that causes us to hold on to life and become selfish; it causes us to be forgetful of and indifferent to the sufferings of others; we try to secure our life in panic by hoarding and accumulating. We move away from our God given destiny; that is sin. But ultimate meaningfulness of life, which enabled Christ to declare on the cross, “it is finished”, drives away all fear of death; and death’s sting has been taken away, and we can now live a life victorious over sin and death. That is the experience of eternal life. That is the experience of true freedom.

Lastly, resurrection of Jesus provides us with the assurance that the way of the cross is the true path to all human and cosmic quest for liberation. We tend to think that the cross was a temporary defeat and that the resurrection was the real moment of victory. But, the cross was the victory and the resurrection was merely the visible proof and public vindication of the victory on the cross.

Resurrection does not do away with cross but rather, it affirms that the way of the cross, the way of suffering love, the way of being responsible for ones fellow human beings and creation, is the most legitimate way for living meaningful lives, for solving the problems of this world and for the liberation of this world. God, by raising Jesus from the dead, has given his stamp approval to the way that His Son, Jesus Christ, has opted, a way of dying to give life. Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.” Cross embodies this way, the way of dying to give life for others. It is a very costly way; it is not the way of miracles. “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed… but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.”(1 Peter 1:18-19).

Jesus did not shy away from any situation of human disfigurement and disintegration of life. Jesus acted in responsibility to his fellow humans and the earth; he refused to budge before the death dealing forces of his time, whether be it from religion, culture or politics. In this, he remained resolutely in solidarity with the poor, those who were pushed to the margins of our society. He brought them wholeness and healing. In short, “he took up our pain and bore our suffering”; He showed us love in action, not love in the abstract. This style of life, way of life, made cross inevitable. The cross remains as the embodiment of the power of love and its victory over all that disfigures God’s beautiful creation. Resurrection of Christ is God’s way of declaring the way of the cross as the only way to liberate this world. This message is powerfully encapsulated in the poem/hymn written by James R Lowell, titled “Once to Every Man and Nation”. The last stanza concludes as follows:

Though the cause of evil prosper, Yet the truth alone is strong;

Though her portion be the scaffold, And upon the throne be wrong;

Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own

Yet that scaffold sways the future’—Yes, Resurrection bears witness to it. Successive generations of Christians bore witness to it and even faced the gallows singing praises to God. And we, who are given the privilege to be part of this resurrection faith, are called to bear witness to this reality and experience its power to transform the world.

What is a world without finer expressions of love!

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:10:00 +0000

The essential concern is one of freedom of individuals to hold their views and pursue their life style, whether it is sexual orientation, attitude to religion, having a drink of their liking, the question of who to love and how to express ones love. Modernity with its associated cultural phenomenon of enlightenment brought a new sense of individual rights and freedom; they brought freedom from the tyranny of the church in controlling all aspects of people’s lives, including that of science and intellectual thought. It is this consciousness of individual rights that became the bedrock of modern democracy and secularism. This is being assaulted from all direction. And, this is happening in a state that touts of its literacy, development and exposure to the global community.

Religious fundamentalism is raising its ugly head and all sorts of communal outfits are calling the shots and dictating terms to the political class both of the right and left persuasions. Both the political class and the religious obscurantists pay obeisance at the altar of mammon, the god of wealth. They cannot appreciate love, its finer manifestations, its tenderness, its giving in total self-abnegation; they only know violent intrusion with callous disregard for the other. That is what they call love; and in the dark of night they seek their illegal gratification. Since they do not know love, they become intolerant of all true and genuine expressions of it.

Is it a sin for two people to fall in love with each other? Is it a sin to be in a legitimate public space like a restaurant and share intimate conversations and enjoy their togetherness? Will driving them out of such public spaces to seek the privacy of a closed space in a filthy place sanitize our society and solve the moral degeneration that we face? Kerala is facing a rapid degeneration of values in all walks of life, much of them facilitated by those who pretend to be custodians of all moral virtues - the religious communities. Hypocrisy is their hallmark; their self-indulgent life style is masked by a veneer of religiosity; while they remain engrossed in individual piety, the public space is totally disregarded and left littered with moral ineptitude and turpitude. They take particular interest in keeping their private space clean; but they have no qualm in littering and dirtying the public space.

The Kerala society also suffers from sexual repression. They cannot acknowledge and appreciate one’s own sexual urges. Repressed sexuality does not remain idle. It expresses itself in such perverse behaviour including extreme religiosity, fundamentalism and sadism, in ways that we cannot often fathom. Intolerance and jealousy of all expressions of sexuality are such manifestations of repressed sexuality. To appreciate love, sex and many other finer aspects of life one should have a different sensibility than that of pure material calculations of life. This is fast disappearing from the social psyche of the Kerala society. The younger generation is more honest and are better equipped to appreciate friendship among sexes. Unfortunately, the older generation is still caught up in their repression and unable to guide them to more sublime expressions of love. Intimacy when enjoyed in lasting commitment to one another becomes a sublime spiritual experience.

Justice: The Biggest Casualty on the Cross

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 11:07:00 +0000

Subversion of justice continues and many more sons of men are “crucified”. Afzal Guru is one of the recent instances of such perversion of justice and crucifixion.

The religious fundamentalists and nationalists who looked for a scapegoat to vent their malicious hatred, the law and order forces that connived with the powers that be to frame him, the judges of the highest court in India who finally made a verdict to hang Afzal to appease the “collective conscience of society”, the general public who had no qualm in hanging this man in the name of national security and patriotism, and the media that made a scoop out of this perversion of justice and celebrated his hanging and those law and order forces that clandestinely executed his hanging are condemned in the cross of Christ.

We are all implicated in the cross of Christ for our active collaboration with an unjust society, our apathy in the face of gross violations of human rights and natural justice, our opting for expediency when we should have squarely dealt with realities, bending our knees before wealth and power and indulging in religious exercise and piety that are meant to hood wink the public.

How often Christians realize that they are followers of the one who was condemned a criminal and a traitor? Our rituals associated with the Holy Week can only mask this reality of the cross and make it more aseptic.

The King who Rides on a Donkey

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:45:00 +0000

The stage is set for the final encounter.

The hour had arrived for the world/mankind to make the ultimate decision, (to either acknowledge Jesus the King or to renounce Him). The time had come for Jesus to fight the great battle with, Satan, sin and death...

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem amidst the shouting of hosannas by the crowd was a meticulously planned coup, strategically choreographed to catch the Jewish authorities by surprise and to announce his kingship and his rule; one that would mock all the worldly rulers and worldly kingdoms. Jesus rides on the colt of a donkey with all humility to announce peace and justice, instead of war.

Why did I say that it was a meticulously planned out coup?

Jesus was beyond what Jewish and political authorities could chew; his rabble rousing was more than what they could tolerate. They feared that all this would invite Roman intervention in their domestic affairs. They also realized that Jesus’ actions would eventually hurt their political and economic interests. The Sanhedrin, involving chief priests, Pharisees and the elders finally came to the conclusion that it would “be better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” (John 11:50) Jesus was perceived as a threat to national security. So, we read, “from that day on they planned to put him to death. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews.” In John 11: 57, we read, “Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should let them know, so that they might arrest him.”

It is in this context that Jesus decided to go into hiding; and from there, he meticulously and clandestinely planned for his triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Moreover, to keep this a secret, he used signs and passwords. Read the narrative in Luke 19: 29 and following: “he sent two of his disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, “the Lord needs it”. Then, the owner would allow them to take it. In this narrative, isn’t it very clear that it was a pre-planned and clandestine attempt to expose himself and his mission without being caught by the Jewish authorities? Jesus did not want to play into their designs. But at the same time, he also knew that he would not be able to escape them.

This brings us to acknowledge the following:

Our Lord is one who was detested and perceived as a threat by the religious and political establishment of his days. They wanted to eliminate him. He was perceived as a threat to national security.

Jesus could not escape confronting the political and religious establishment that never cared for the sick, the poor and the downtrodden, who were in the margins of society. Jesus had his own design for the world; a world of love and peace. A Christian, if he is true to Jesus Christ, cannot but confront the same forces active in this world. Are you prepared to join him? We cannot ignore the political dimension of the gospel.

Lordship of Christ and the Kingdom of God he came to announce cannot be kept a secret or private matter; it has to be made public. Can we also join Jesus in this triumphal demonstration to make public God’s design for this world and God’s rule over this earth? That is evangelism. The password for us is “The Lord needs it”; Yes, Jesus needs you; Jesus needs us. Are we ready to be his bearers?

Jesus is a King, but he is a king with a difference. Jesus was openly placing before the world an alternative kingdom and alternative model of a king. “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Jesus himself made it clear that the kingdom he came to announce is different from this world. "My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world." (John 18: 36) Jesus is a king but he is a king with a difference.

Jesus comes not with power and pomp of the worldly rulers; he comes riding on the colt of a donkey in gentleness and humility. While the kings of this world come riding on horses which are the symbols of war and might, Jesus, the king, comes riding on a pony, without any insignia of power; he comes to establish peace. While the kings of this world come to destroy and plunder, Jesus comes to liberate and heal. Jesus is the prince of peace who will turn swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks. He did not come to conquer, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for the redemption of the world. His sword was love and his sceptre was peace. Do we want to acknowledge him as our king and organize our lives and our priorities according to his will?

Lastly, by this act, Jesus was mocking and ridiculing the kings and kingdoms of this world. Jesus was openly challenging them. Of course, as we find in the later chapters of the gospels, this triumphal entry into Jerusalem infuriated the powers that be - the high priests, the Pharisees and the Herodians; and eventually this lead him to the cross. Jesus was placing before the world an alternative way of designing and organizing the world. He presents before us an alternative political program in a way we cannot ignore. This alternative political program and its strategy were finally unravelled before us on the cross of Christ. Are we ready to take up our cross and follow him shouting hosanna?

It is right to praise you, Sovereign God, for the acts of love by which you have set us free. On this day Jesus entered Jerusalem triumphantly to suffer and to die and was greeted with branches of palm. Let these branches be for us symbols of martyrdom and glory. May we who carry them follow Christ in the way of the cross which leads to life; through Christ who lives and reigns in glory with you and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Thiruvambadi Speech

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 12:17:00 +0000

A speech I gave in October 2007 at Thiruvambadi, which remains a statement of my faith.

Corporate Globalization and the Indian Farmer

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 03:53:00 +0000

One of the most helpful descriptions of globalization is found in the Report of the Copenhagen Seminar for Social Progress in 1997. According to the report, globalization is a ‘trend’ and a ‘project’. The trend is the narrowing of physical distances between peoples and growing interdependence of countries resulting from astonishing advances in science and technology. The ‘project’ is global capitalism, or the application of the ideas and institutions of the market economy to the world as a whole. It is actively pursued by the United States and a number of other governments and implemented through such institutions as WTO, World Bank and other multilateral trade agreements. What is under our consideration is this ‘project’. This can also be termed as corporate globalization as this ‘project’ is essentially led and directed by multinational corporations to maximize their profit. They come to have unregulated political power, exercised through multilateral trade agreements and unregulated financial markets.

Corporate globalization restrains nation states from protecting the rights, interests and well being of its citizens; it reduces the functions of the state to that of protecting the interests of the investors, the corporations. It thwarts genuine democratic processes; it reduces democracy to periodic elections; moreover, once elected, the people’s representatives are made to implement the designs of WTO and World Bank, essentially the corporations. The US is trying to export this sham of democracy to the rest of the world with devastating consequences to peoples and economies. The corporations further feed on these disasters and make profit out of them.

The scope of this paper would be confined to how corporate globalization impacts the farming sector in India. About 60% of the India’s population, two thirds of India, lives on farming or farm related occupation, either as small and marginal farmers, or as farm labour. A marginal farmer would be someone cultivating (as owners or tenant or share cropper) agricultural land up to 1 hectare or 2.5 acres, and a small farmer would be someone cultivating (as owner or tenant or share cropper) agricultural land of more than 1 to 2 hectares. According to the Report of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector in India, 2009, 86% of India’s work force is in the unorganized sector which includes those who are self employed as small and marginal farmers, farm labour and those who run small retail shops. The report also reveals that despite the progress that India has made in the economic front, 77% of Indian population lives on less than 20 rupees per day, which is less than half a US dollar. Today, the attempt of the Indian state is to reduce this farm dependent population to 30% which means that the state is going in for corporatization of farming; which also means displacing large number of the farming population into joblessness and utter poverty.

Today, the Indian peasantry, the largest body of surviving small farmers in the world, faces a crisis of extinction. Increased cost of agricultural input, crop failures due to company supplied seeds that cannot stand hostile weather conditions, unpredictable weather changes due to global warming, fall in price of agricultural commodities due to cheap imports has set the stage for farmer indebtedness and farmer suicides. India has seen over a quarter of a million farmers’ suicides between 1995 and 2010. Noted journalist and rural affairs editor of the leading Indian daily, The Hindu, P. Sainath writes: "We have been undergoing the largest catastrophe of our independent history - the suicides of nearly a quarter of a million farmers since 1995. We are talking of the largest recorded rate of suicides in human history.” This is happening not by accident but by design.

The roots of this human tragedy can be traced back to what is touted as ‘Green Revolution’. Before the Green Revolution, farmers were cultivating varieties of crops, using varieties of seeds that suited varieties of climatic and soil conditions with minimum external inputs. Farming was more organic and sustainable. The Green Revolution changed this scenario; the farmers were told that their indigenous seeds were no good. And then, they were supplied hybrid high yielding seed varieties. The indigenous rice varieties that were resistant to floods and droughts and other climatic and soil conditions, were taken away from Indian farmers and stored in the Rice Research Institute in Philippines, which was funded and controlled by the Ford Foundation. The Indian farmers, then, were given the high yielding hybrid seeds which did not have much resilience, and therein increasing the risk of crop failure.

The company seeds needed more water, fertilizers and pesticides; they also could not be reused. A free resource available on farm became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. Added to this were the additional costs of fertilizers and pesticides. The excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides depleted the fertility of land, contaminated the earth and waters and poisoned the food system with deleterious consequences to the health of people. Further, they resulted in an increase in the cost of farm inputs. What the farmers cherished as a free gift of mother earth and bounty of God became a commodity. Human avarice has destroyed the integrity of creation and brought death and suffering to it. More than four decades later, the Green Revolution, which initially produced large quantities of wheat and rice, has reached a dead end, with failing yields of rice and wheat, and creating soil-related problems.

Now let me narrate the story of the Second Green Revolution. This is the history of farming in India since 1990. India was forced to take the path of structural adjustments in 1990. This required India to open its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. Further, structural adjustment measures required the withdrawal of subsidies to farm inputs leading to cost escalation. While, on the one hand, input costs in agriculture steadily increased, the prices of agricultural products dramatically fell due WTO rules allowing cheap imports or dumping.

The WTO allowed an increase in agribusiness subsidies while preventing countries from protecting their farmers from the dumping of artificially cheap produce. For example, U.S. soya beans are cheap not because of cheap production but because of subsidies. The U.S government pays $ 193 per ton to US Soya farmers, which artificially lowers the price of the US soya beans. Due to removal of Quantitative Restrictions and lowering of tariffs, heavily subsidized soya beans flooded India's domestic market, prices crashed by more than two-thirds. Domestic oilseed production declined and domestic edible oil prices crashed. The prices of groundnut and other oil producing seeds crashed. Meanwhile, some farmers protesting against the collapse of their markets were shot down by the police. Further, Indian farmers were blamed for not being “competitive”.

In the history of seed alienation, 2004 seed bill passed by the Indian parliament is a mile stone. Ostensibly, this bill was about keeping a check on seed quality; but in reality it was meant to protect the interests of big business, keep farmers’ seeds out of the market and discourage small seed dealers and producers. It harmonized the Indian seed law with that of the laws around the world and to ensure that the Indian seed market is open to big business. It also allowed the registration of GM seeds, though stipulating clearance from the environmental ministry. A further modification of it is awaiting passage in the Indian Parliament to make it better suit the interests of big business.

Then came the new patent law passed by the parliament to suit the demands of TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights), which has significantly altered the earlier patent regime. The most important change introduced in the new patent law was the inclusion of the patenting of life forms. Plant species developed through GM became part of the patent laws. This further facilitated the alienation of seeds and total dependence of Indian farmers on seeds produced by corporations through biopiracy.

Biopiracy refers to the appropriation of traditional knowledge and genetic resources, particularly plant and other biological resources, specific to a people or region without permission from and with little or no compensation to the community and then, using them for profit. It is ironic that while they sell their seeds to the farmers, they take away traditional seeds from the farmers and store them in their seed banks without paying any cost to the farmers who originally used them. Monsanto and its associates have a market share of 43% for the sale of seeds in general and 93% market share for the sale of cotton seed alone. Despite India’s stringent regulatory frame work, Monsanto and its affiliates are exerting major influence to introduce ever greater number of genetically modified crops in India.

Serious ethical questions have been raised regarding the patenting of life forms. Earth and all that is in it belong to God. God is the creator of life. We are playing gods and threatening the integrity of creation by creating new life forms through means that are not natural, which also has serious implications for biodiversity and health of humans and other organisms. Furthermore, we claim ownership for that which truly belongs to God and use it for profiteering.

At present, the laws are stringent against GE foods and seeds. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) can only recommend the approval of GE seeds and foods and the final decision is taken by the government involving four ministries - of Environment, Agriculture, Forest and Wildlife and Health. Succumbing to the pressures of multinational corporations, the government has already introduced a legislation to create a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) in the parliament to stream line and make the sanctioning process more corporate friendly, compromising the farmers’ rights, India’s rich bio-diversity and the health of its people.

The role of United States in all this must be highlighted. Monsanto is one of the three corporations that represent the US in the advisory board of the India-US Knowledge Initiative (AKI), Wal-Mart and Archer Daniels Midland Co. being the other two. This was a deal struck by our Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh and the former President of the US, George Bush on 18 July 2005. What might be the interests of these multinational companies in education, research and knowledge dissemination in the area of agriculture in India is something to be pondered over. The joint statement between the two heads of states recognized the challenges and opportunities of modern-day agriculture, and it made a commitment to facilitate technology transfer, trade, and investment and bolster agricultural research, education, and extension through public-private partnerships. In other words, multinational companies with records of exploitation and unethical business practices world over will now decide the priorities of education, training, research and dissemination of knowledge between India and the US with Indian scholars and scientist acting as their neo-colonial agents.

As part of the AKI, the US government is pressurizing India to open its retail industry for foreign direct investment (FDI). The Indian retail industry is the means of livelihood for 40 million people in the self-employed, unorganized sector. The overwhelming portion of retail trade — 98 per cent — is through the unorganised sector, a euphemism for sales done through tiny family-owned shops, roadside eateries, kiosks at street corners, and hawkers and street vendors plying their wares on pushcarts. Wal-Mart is waiting in the wings for its entry into this retail market. You can imagine the consequences that Wal-Martization can have on the retail industry in India - the impact it would have on the livelihood of small retailers and small and marginal farmers.

The farmers' groups believe that the monopolistic buying power of the large retailers would further weaken the marginal farmers' position, resulting in lower share of value to them, dictating the production techniques and output by the larger retailers. This in turn would result in the destruction of diversity in Indian agriculture. FDI in retail sector, besides resulting in the loss of employment for small retailers (97% of the businesses are run by the unorganized small retailers), would result in manipulation of prices by these multi-national giants to the detriment of farmers’ interests and total lack of a level playing field.

Lastly, corporate globalization works through co-opting our intellectuals and scholars; through colonization of minds. Through such deals as US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative, in the name of collaborative research, Indian agricultural scientists and scientific establishments like ICAR, who are sustained by Indian tax payers’ money (public finance) will work for the American private monopolies in agricultural trade and retail industry like Monsanto and Wal-Mart. Let me close with a recent news item that came in the Indian newspapers that Ford Foundation is providing assistance for policy research and analysis to Members of Parliament in India. This kind of financial assistance often becomes indirect means of unethical lobbying. This has been a standard practice by which the US has furthered its corporate design across the globe. The assistance of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for researches in the area of GE should also be viewed in this light. Some of the apparently benevolent acts of corporations and their outfits can only be viewed with suspicion knowing how they have acted in the past as agents of the strategic design of exploitation and colonization. Corporate Interests often make their way through and justify their actions through benevolent acts of corporate social responsibility.

The way forward in resisting this onslaught lies in facilitating popular movements against GM seeds and foods; co-opting the health conscious Indian middle class also in this struggle; encouraging farmers groups to go in for more sustainable and organic alternatives; encouraging farmers to produce, preserve, and distribute traditional varieties of seed; encouraging them to go in for multi-cropping and crop varieties that would ensure food security and nutritional requirements; popularizing the threat posed by GM seeds and foods to the bio-diversity of the country; and pressurizing the state governments to declare their states as GM free: prohibiting the field trials of GM seeds.

Let me conclude. It is not individuals that we are dealing with; there is no point in any rich man feeling guilty about his inordinate wealth. As we read in the book of Ephesians, Ch. 6: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” that spread death and destruction over the whole creation. This requires that we put on the armaments of faith. It means exposing them and exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ.

Under the Shadow of the Cross

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 12:16:00 +0000

It is very important to take a step back from our highly competitive, fast-paced, over consuming, rat race and take a second look at ourselves and ponder over the meaning of life and where we are headed. Lenten season provides an occasion for that. The cross of Jesus Christ and his life that led up to it provides a frame for a proper perspective on our life and its pre-occupations.

First, during the Lenten season, fasting and abstinence from foods, provide us with an occasion to remind ourselves that life has a meaning beyond eating, drinking and satisfying our basic needs. While it is true that those basic needs are essential for life, we are reminded that 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' (Matt.4:4) This is often referred to as the spiritual dimension of human beings. Human beings have a special calling to live in obedience to God and in responsibility to his fellow humanity and the world of nature to which they are inextricably bound. St Augustine’s prayer exemplifies this very aptly: “Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.” We can smother this longing for an ultimate meaning and purpose in life by being busy with worldly matters and indulging in worldly pleasures, but it continues to burn in us as a smouldering fire and makes us restless.

Jesus reminds the crowd that followed him after the feeding of five thousand: “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.” (John 6: 27). ‘Food that spoils’ alludes to manna which God had given to the people of Israel in their journey through the desert. (Exodus 16: 13-21) They hoarded manna against the command of God. It bread worms and became foul; it was spoiled. ‘Food that endures for eternal life’ is the food in God’s dispensation that God provides equally to all and according to each ones need. There is no hoarding of food in God’s dispensation. There will be caring and sharing and concern for equity. During lent, we are given an occasion to remind ourselves of the vanity of our consumptive life style and what makes for happy life.

Moreover, it reminds us of our responsibility to earth and nature. God created us in his image so that we may image God to the rest of creation; in other words, we are expected to act as God’s representatives and stewards to the rest of creation. As Mahatma Gandhi said: “There is enough for everybody's need, but not enough for anybody's greed.” Lenten season gives us an occasion to reflect on and repent of our exploitative attitude and over consumptive life style and our failure to be good stewards of the resources of this earth. It is in this responsibility to the other - our fellow human beings and nature - that we become spiritual. The Russian thinker and theologian, Nicolas Berdyaev, has succinctly put it: “Bread for myself is a material concern, but bread for my neighbour is a spiritual concern." We have a responsibility to ensure that everybody else in the world has enough to satisfy their hunger. Our responsibility and concern should go beyond our self and our immediate relations to encompass all people in need and this beautiful earth, including the flora and fauna.

Fasting and abstaining from foods will not have any meaning unless we make a determined effort to reverse all exploitative, unjust, dominating and oppressive relationships. Isaiah 58: 6-9 describes the fast that is acceptable to God in the following words:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
To loose the chains of injustice
And untie the chords of the yoke,
To set the oppressed free
And break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
And to provide the poor wanderer with shelter –
When you see the naked, to clothe them,
And not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
And your healing will quickly appear”

We find Jesus Christ as the one who has taken responsibility for his fellow human beings and the rest of creation and paid the cost for it with his life. On his cross we find love in action. On his cross we also find reflected the terrible consequences of our sin; what it had done to one who came to give us life and life abundant; how we have forfeited our great inheritance as God’s own Children. But, on the cross we also find the out stretched arms that are always ready to embrace a ‘wretch like me’. And on his resurrection, we are given the hope and promise of a new life, a new creation, and a ‘new heaven and earth’.

Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Let us make this Lenten season an occasion for awakening the “spirit” within us and set it aflame so that from our life there would flow greater light and life to the world around. May we, thus, experience the power of his resurrection in our life and be agents of that power to a world subjected to decay under the power of sin.

Prayer

O God of our Lord, Jesus Christ, help us during this Lenten season to remember that we are mere dust and yet you have created us and shaped us in your image and breathed your life giving breath into our nostrils that we should image God’s love and care to the rest of Creation. We thank you for this election and calling of us to be your children and representatives. But we ask your forgiveness that we have often led our lives in forgetfulness of our election and calling; that your abundant life has been poured into earthen vessels. We pray for your grace to recommit ourselves to the path of the cross and thus dead to sin, we may rise to eternal life with you.

God’s Plan of Salvation (Luke 1: 39-45)

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 02:02:00 +0000

God comes to us and calls us to participate in his plan of salvation in quite embarrassing and unexpected ways.

Elizabeth and Mary were two magnificent women who were called to play their part in God’s plan of salvation. Elizabeth was not a young woman. After years and years of praying for a child, after becoming used to not having a child and after getting to the age where giving birth to a child was not a good idea, she becomes pregnant with a baby. In contrast, Mary was a very young woman. She too hoped for a child someday, when it would be appropriate, not now, not before she was married, not while she was still a virgin. So we meet two women who are pregnant. One of them is too old to be a mother and the other is too young. Scripture tells us that Elizabeth "became pregnant and for five months remained in seclusion" (Lk 1:24). As for Mary, she had no one to talk to because she was pregnant outside of wedlock. I am sure they wept together, laughed together, prayed together and encouraged one another during the three months they were together (Lk 1:56).When God comes to us, God shakes our lives and radically alters it in ways beyond our imagine; and it will surely have its pain and agony. It is not without cost.

Elizabeth and Mary had many things in common: they were cousins, they were both in their first pregnancy, they both became pregnant through an act of God, God sent the angel Gabriel to announce both conceptions and births, and they both were given children who would play significant roles in God's plan of salvation. Both women submitted themselves to be vehicles of God’s plan of salvation. It is not a question of whether all things are possible to God; God does nothing without human cooperation. Remember that God wanted a woman’s womb and her willing submission to unravel God’s redemptive plan for us: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Are we willing to submit ourselves, insignificant as we may be, to play our part in God’s history of salvation?

God chooses what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chooses what is low and despised in the world so that no human being would boast in the presence of God.

We should know that most of history is written by and is about men. At least, it is written as if it were mostly the males, kings, bishops, philosophers and scientists who made all the breakthroughs and developments in history. But when God intervenes with the single most influential breakthrough in history, isn’t it interesting that his only human agents were two pregnant women, who from human standards poor and of no status in the Jewish society? We find no role for the arrogant male in carrying forward God’s plan of salvation.

Solidarity in God’s mission transcending narrow egotism and envy

The two women, pregnant at the same time, with babies destined to do great things, supported each other in fulfilling God’s plan of Salvation. There was no rivalry, no sense of competition, no contest about who had the best and greatest baby. In that culture and at that time and place, it normally would have been appropriate for Mary to pay homage to the elder Elizabeth. But Elizabeth, through the Spirit, recognized that she was in the presence of the mother of the Messiah. So she praised Mary and pronounced her blessed. Neither was there any competition between the two mothers nor any competition between their children. While Jesus referred to John, “Among them that are born of women there has not arisen a greater than John the Baptist” (Mt. 11:11), John’s attitude was that “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Both women and both their offspring had their unique and God given place and role in God’s plan of salvation. They fulfilled in solidarity and mutual respect.

Blessedness of giving birth to a revolutionary; being the agent of radical transformation

Now where can we see the paradox of blessedness of being the mother of the son of God? She was blessed but that very blessedness meant that a sword would pierce through her heart, some day she would see her son hanging on a cross. The piercing truth is that God does not choose a person for ease and comfort and selfish joy, but for greater tasks requiring enormous sacrifices. Can we sing like Mary and consider ourselves blessed for having children who have committed themselves to carry forward God’s redemptive plan, a plan that is fraught with revolutionary significance and dangerous consequences for oneself?

The redemptive plan articulated in the Mary’s song, the Magnificat, is about social reversals or transformation.Anyone who thinks the Good News of Jesus Christ is only about one's personal, individual salvation or forgiveness or justification or redemption will have a hard time reading this text.

“He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.” (Luke 1: 51-53)

Those of us who are proud, smart, powerful, of high status, and well-fed will find this a difficult text to comprehend. William Barclay points out, “There is loveliness in the Magnificat but in that loveliness there is dynamite. Christianity begets a revolution in each man, and a revolution in the world.”Any celebration of Christmas without taking into account this earth shaking transformation that God brings into this world in Jesus Christ can only be a sentimental exercise in piety, devoid of any transforming power either as individuals or collectives.

Greetings for a blessed advent season, Christmas and a New Year!

മ്ലെച്ചമാക്കപെടുന്ന ഒരു വിശുദ്ധ അവകാശം

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:03:00 +0000

തുടര്‍ന്ന് വായിക്കുക

മദ്ധ്യനൂറ്റാണ്ടിലെക്കുള്ള തിരിച്ചുപോക്ക്

noreply@blogger.com (Sans) — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:46:00 +0000

തുടര്‍ന്ന് വായിക്കുക

Religion: a Wasteful Exercise in Futility

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 04:38:00 +0000

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—

I cannot bear your worthless assemblies...

Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

Stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

Plead the case of the widow. Isaiah 1: 13-17

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1: 27

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. Matthew 25: 37-39

Jesus never wanted a cult/religion to be built around him or to be turned into an object of worship. He invited people to come and follow him. Today, we have a lot of worshippers of Christ and very few followers. He always sought the attention of people away from himself and to his heavenly father. The Hebraic religion, the religion to which Jesus belonged and also the God of Hebraic religion, Yahweh, whom he called as his father, were understood by Jesus as having nothing to do with cultic practices, but with an invitation to an ethical living, of which the primary concern is justice, an active concern for the least of these our brothers and sisters - the most vulnerable and oppressed in our society.

Jesus makes it clear through the parable on the last judgment that acknowledgment of him is not the criterion for ones passage to God’s kingdom. In fact, as far as the passage is concerned, even if one does not acknowledge Jesus but cares for the least of these brothers and sisters, he will find a place in the kingdom of heaven. Those named as “the righteous” in the parable of the last judgment cared for the least without recognizing Jesus. This is most evident in their reply: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ To which the response was: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Justice in the bible is not neutrality or giving everyone his due, but rather it is skewed in favour the poor, the orphan and the widow and the stranger. They are the most vulnerable and defenceless for whom God alone is the helper. That is the meaning of Eleazar-Lazar, one whose help comes from God alone. Justice is to defend the cause of the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Rationale for this preferential option for the widow, the orphan and the alien is set out in the context of a God (Yahweh) who is opposed to slavery and exploitation and his liberating action in history - liberating the people of Israel from their slavery in Egypt.

Deuteronomy 24: 17- 22:

Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this.

When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the alien, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this.

Jesus through the parable of the labourers in the vineyard had inverted all our understanding of justice. God’s justice was demonstrated in that the same wage was paid to all labourers irrespective of the hours of work they put in and those who had came last and worked only an hour in the vineyard were paid first. Jesus was living out the justice of God as he reached out and responded to the needs of the last, the least and the lost. Jesus understood his mission as that which extended to the sick and the sinners. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’, for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

‘Sinners’ in the gospels does not mean somebody who has committed a grievous ‘moral’ wrong, but those who, because of their lower socio-economic status in society, cannot fulfil all the ritual requirements of Jewish law. Shepherds, the poor, women, the handicapped, the sick and those that suffer from leprosy - they all constituted the community of sinners and outcasts in Jesus’ time. Jesus sent out his disciples with instruction to proclaim the good news that the kingdom of God had come near; to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons and preach the gospel to the poor. It is this mission that has been passed on to us.

How faithful are we in fulfilling this mission? Do we have the same compassion as that of Jesus or even that of our forefathers, in reaching out to the poor and the outcasts of our society? Even when the state insists that we follow the criteria of social justice in running our educational institutions, we take shelter behind our minority right to run them as profitable ventures, without any social commitment and undermine all efforts to provide justice to weaker sections of our society. As Christians we are very good in talking about love in such amorphous and sentimental language, but when it comes to practicing love, going beyond acts of charity and alms giving, through legislative measures that ensure equity and meeting the basic survival needs of the poor, we, as a Christian community, are the most reactionary.

Brazilian Arch Bishop Helder Camara once said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist." We refuse to delve into the structural aspects of poverty and deal with it. We leave righting of wrong relationships, working for justice and righteousness, to Communists, when the call to us is so sharp and clear,”seek Justice”.

We are today plagued by innumerable Christian churches and groups that turn Christianity into a cult that will meet their materialistic and selfish preoccupations. We are after Christ for his miracles and what he can do for us in terms of physical wellbeing and material prosperity. Nobody is there to follow him taking up their cross; to undergo the suffering that working for justice entails. Working for justice would involve more labour, study, intervention and confrontation on behalf of the poor, the widow and the orphan. We waste all our resources for building and maintaining church buildings, parish halls and top heavy, hierarchical ecclesiastical structures and other paraphernalia associated with them that we have hardly any money to spend for the orphan or the widow or the alien, for a suffering world. Thus, we have made Christian religion a wasteful exercise in futility; of priestly over-lording and wide spread corruption.

What is the point in changing one bishop by another or one dispensation with another, while the dispensation is that of religion? After all what we call Christianity is a religion that we carry around for our respectability. A white cassock or purple rob hanging on a stick easily becomes an object of veneration. It is immaterial who is behind the cassock; even if he be a crook of the first order, we will gladly have him to “confirm” and “sanctify” our decisions and significant events in our lives. We bent our knees before them and submit to their dictates and allow ourselves to be fleeced to have these significant events conducted in pomp and glory before the public with callous disregard for the spiritual significance of them. We allow ourselves to be enslaved and exploited by these religious structures. But if we throw off the cloak of respectability and divine sanction and have them celebrated in ways that would make sense to us, be spiritually uplifting, and sanctifying our lives and relationships, it would be an extremely liberating experience; but we are not prepared for it.

Essentially what Jesus did for us is to liberate us from religion - priesthood, temple, and sacrifices - what the writer of Hebrews describes as “dead works” to serve the living God. Jesus calls us not to be religious but to be responsible to ones fellow human beings and creation; to set right all our relations so that they would eventually be one of mutuality and caring, enhancing our life and the life of the planet in which we live. We are called to seek justice and seek that in our history. It is also to seek and find God in history and in the most deprived and vulnerable in history.

History and the human liberation in it are shaped by responsible decisions by human beings and not by miracle or by positing a God who would deliver for us what humans cannot achieve. The God of Jesus Christ and that of the Bible, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it, “is weak and powerless in the world and that is the only way in which he is with us and helps us. Matthew 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.” That is what we see on the cross - the man for others, who takes responsibility for fellow human beings and the rest of creation. Bonhoeffer’s conceptualization of a “religion-less Christianity” is something worth pursuing in the days to come.

Christileaks

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 13:01:00 +0000

Leaks expose the duplicity, subterfuge and the cruelty of the beast
Afraid of Truth, like Herod; “he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him”
At the birth of the one who has been born the king of the Jews.

We, who know where Christ would be born, remain where we are
Condoning in complicity the horrendous acts of genocide and torture
And then, counsel the poor to remain with peaceful protests.

When, those who do not know nothing beyond the stars foretold, embarked
On a perilous and long journey, we remain in our secure hide outs
Complacent and basking in our religiosity and sharing in the spoils of the beast

Remaining incognito the little child of Bethlehem still rules to “beat
Swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks; of the increase of his
Government and of peace there will be no end.”

In faithfulness to him, Christileaks we should become, making public
The secrets in high places, and the enigma of God’s rule and its healing and ostracizing power
Subverting and turning upside down the designs of the beast.

Thomas John

A Christian Perspective on Education

noreply@blogger.com (Sans) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:36:00 +0000

“Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"(Luke Ch. 2: 49)

(The following is a sermon preached by Rev. Thomas John during the divine service at Christ Church Elamkulam on Sunday, September 5, 2010)

Referring to the Christian presence in higher education, late Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, one of the missionary stalwarts, made the following statement in a talk he had given to a gathering of the principals of Christian Colleges in 1963 at Thambaram:

A Christian college is not primarily a place where the gospel is preached and people are converted. It does not exist primarily to strengthen Christian community. It is not simply a contribution to national development. It is – or ought to be – a place where, under the impulse of the love of God, there is offered to all who desire it that kind of training of the whole person which is congruous with God’s revelation in Christ of the true nature of manhood, and is appropriate to the needs of India at this stage of world history.

What is the goal of Christian presence in education? Why do we want to start educational institutions? What do we expect to happen from education? What do we expect from our children by sending them to “good” educational institutions?

Education, today, is used as a means of making students conform to the standards of our existing society and to the values, norms, wishes and expectations of the parents. It is a means of shaping ‘human resources’ to the requirements of a job market, without any regard for the students’ own aptitudes, interests and potentialities and contribution to the larger society. We as parents, and you as students, are only interested in getting a good job, “good” defined in the sense of fat salary and material comforts a job would provide.

The very description of education as “human resource development” is unacceptable from a Christian point of view. Human beings are not resources, rather they are potentialities. Education should be seen as a process of helping our children to actualize their God given potentialities so that they can live a life that is personally satisfying and socially beneficial. As such, every young child deserves respect and his unique capabilities are to be recognized, respected and facilitated, instead of treating academic success, the way we define it, as the only criterion for “merit “and success in life.

As we find in Luke 2. 41-51, the expectations of Jesus’ parents were no different. They became upset and for legitimate reasons from our point of view, for being indifferent to the parents’ anxieties and staying away from them without informing them. “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you." Jesus’ reply will also appear discourteous from our point of view, “Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Many parents are anxious about their children as to whether they would fulfil their academic and career expectations. They are prepared to spend any amount money and energy for it. Children are also equally anxious. A son or a daughter is considered as ‘good’ so far as he or she is able to remain focused on his or her studies and not indulge in anything that would divert his or her attention from it. Hence, we want politics to be out of the campus. While I do not approve the kind of politics played out in the college campuses in Kerala, it is important to affirm politics as a way of being in touch with current realities and discharging our responsibility in relation to fellow human beings. As parents, we appreciate and even consider important that our children go to the church on Sundays, if there is no coaching class, but we don’t want them to get too much enamoured with/by Christ and his call to leave everything and follow him. This is our attitude. Christianity is a veneer that one puts on to be respectable and decent and that is essential to remain in conformity with the wishes of parents.

Parents of Jesus were also not different. They were also anxious about their son. Their anxiety would be interpreted as more rational and natural. But here the reply of Jesus: “Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"
We should not make a virtue of obedience. In the sense we understand obedience, Jesus was not obedient to his parents but to somebody more ultimate and important than parents. No human being, even parents cannot demand ultimate obedience and allegiance from their children. This is also true of our obedience to any human authority, including a bishop. Our obedience to a bishop is subject to our obedience to God.
In many other translations we read “I must be about my Father's business.” We call ourselves Christians; but today, nobody is there to be concerned about ‘our Father’s business’ of realizing His rule on this earth. Definitely we don’t want our children to divert their attention by being concerned about ‘the Father’s businesses’. They are too risky and dangerous.

Remember that as parents we are trustees of our children. They actually belong to God. They must be treated as our guests. We do not control our guests. We provide them with the best that we can offer and ensure their comfort, security and safety. But, when the time comes, they must have the freedom to move on. We must respect their interests and concerns. Our task, the educational task of teachers is to help them find their niche in the larger ‘business of God’ in the world.

How can we help our children to develop their educational and academic life around God’s business? Clarifying the meaning of the following terms is very significant to understanding our educational mission: information, knowledge, and wisdom

There is ample information all around us, which a student gathers from various sources. Our five senses are the windows through which the information reaches us. We will not be able to handle this massive volume of information, unless we select those that are more important for us and organize them and give meaning to them. The mental apparatus which we develop through our experiences enabling us to select, organize and give meaning to information is referred to as schema or frame of reference by psychologists. In common sense parlour, it is our perspective. What is assimilated and meaningfully appropriated through this information processing is called knowledge. As teachers and parents what we can do is to help our children in the development of appropriate schema for understanding the world. Cognitive Therapist would trace the root of all emotional problems to false schema or false perspective on life.

Knowledge become wisdom when the schema is related to matters of ultimate concern, that is, according to God’s word, God’s business. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man.” (52) If we and our children do not have the right kind of schema, a schema that is related to those that matters ultimately in life, they become skewed and our perspectives becomes distorted. This leads to a wrong sense of priorities in life and become the cause of much suffering and meaninglessness, which we try to hide by sensuality and consumerism. Hence, we need to critically look at our role in education and what we do as Christians today in the field of education.

Once, our presence in education was integral to our Christian mission of giving sight to the blind and reaching out to the most oppressed sections of our society. But today, it has become a means of self- aggrandizement and a source of much corruption. Our aided educational institutions are facing complete neglect and in its place what we want is self-financing educational institutions and recognized English medium schools for the affluent. What we are clamouring for and bargaining with government, under the subterfuge of minority rights, is the privilege to run educational institutions without any concern for transparency, merit and concern for the poor and down trodden. In most of the CSI dioceses, the main mission of bishops is to run self-financing higher educational institutions. It is only through such ‘under the table dealings’, that they can regain the large sums of money that changed hands for their nomination as bishops to their respective dioceses.

It is common knowledge that we receive huge sums of “donations” for appointment and admissions to our educational institutions. Who receives it and how are they accounted are very pertinent questions. After basing ourselves in this wrong foundation of profiteering and pilfering how can we run educational institutions as Christian mission? How can they be instruments for our children to develop the right kind of schema in which they can find their niche in the larger business of God for the world? How can the teachers take up their job as a vocation, a calling and deliver such educational ministry that can legitimately be part of proclaiming the good news of the coming rule of God?

It is time to seriously rethink about our educational mission and recapture the vision of our ancestors and find ways of reliving it in creative ways, despite the many forces that militate against this task.

ഇടയലേഖനങ്ങളും ക്രൂശിലെ ബദല്‍ രാഷ്ട്രിയവും

noreply@blogger.com (Sans) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:54:00 +0000

പതിവ് ആവര്‍ത്തനംകൊണ്ട് അര്‍ത്ഥവും വിലയും നഷ്ടപെട്ട ഇടയലേഖനങ്ങള്‍ രാഷ്ട്രീയപ്രസ്താവനങ്ങളായി അധ:പതിച്ചിരിക്കുന്നു. വളരെ വിരളമായും അവധാനപൂര്‍വവും ഉപയോഗികേണ്ടവയാണ് അവ. തുടര്‍ന്ന് വായിക്കുക »»

സത്യസുന്ദരമായ വചനം ജഡമായി ഈ മണ്ണില്‍

noreply@blogger.com (Sans) — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 22:06:00 +0000

(ഒരു എം. ജെ. അനുസ്മരണ)

വളരെ തീക്ഷ്ണവും സാഹസികവുമായ ക്രൈസ്തവവിശ്വാസം ജീവിച്ച, എന്നെപോലെ അനേകര്‍ക്ക്‌ മാര്‍ഗദര്‍ശിയായ, ഒരു മുതിര്‍ന്ന സ്നേഹിതനായിരുന്നു എം. ജെ. ജോസഫച്ചന്‍. തുടര്‍ന്ന് വായിക്കുക »»

Distorting the Integrity of Creation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:15:00 +0000

The Story of Genetically Engineered Seeds and Foods
(Genesis Ch. 6: 1-8, 11: 1-9)

The Problem

Some of the recent advances in genetic engineering and transgenic development of organisms are astonishing: A company called Nexia has managed to put the gene of a spider into goats. The "spider-goats" produce milk with a silk protein which is so strong and lightweight that the U.S. Army wants to make bullet proof vests out of it. Now fluorescent cats, human/pig hybrids and other exceedingly bizarre creatures are actually being created by our scientists. A genetically modified cat named Mr. Green Genes is the first fluorescent cat in the United States. If you get one of these, you will never have to turn the lights on to find your cat.

Biotechnology has opened up revolutionary possibilities for the treatment of many illnesses and debilitating physical conditions, for which treatment has been eluding us. It is also revolutionizing the way solutions are being found for many of the problems confronting us, particularly in the areas of energy and agriculture. Many crops such as rice, maize, and potatoes are being genetically engineered in myriad ways. The proponents of genetic engineering in agriculture, particularly multinational seed corporations and their collaborators argue that the benefits are many: 1) higher crop yields 2) more nutritious food 3) crops can be grown in harsh environments 4) they are more resistant to pests thus eliminating the use of potentially hazardous pesticides 5) undesirable characteristics can be removed 6) food can have a better flavour and a longer shelf life and 7) they can also be used as a cheap source of medicine.

Genetically Engineered Crops in India

BT Cotton was the first genetically engineered crop that was introduced in India and it is widely used in states like Andhra Pradesh. Field trials are going on for many plant varieties or are awaiting approval from the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC). These crops include brinjal, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, corn/maize, ground nut, bhindi/okra, potato, rice, tomato, mustard and sorghum. Researches in this area have been corporate driven with technology sub-licensed from the US multinational seed company, Monsanto, through Monsanto-Mahyco Biotech and with active collaboration of ICAR. By patenting and branding seeds, seed companies establish their monopoly over trade in agricultural inputs. An idea about the extent of this “collaboration” between Indian State and the Multinational seed corporations can be had from the fact that of the Rs. 400 crore set apart by India for agricultural research, Rs. 300 crore is for research in transgenic materials and biotechnology. Read on US-India Agricultural Knowledge Initiative: www.bhoomimatha.com

A Biblical Reflection

While the promises and potential of genetic engineering are enormous, and arguments for and against it still remain topics of debate, two verses from the scripture portions suggested for our reflection act as key to begin a theological and ethical reflection on this subject:

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of human kind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” (Genesis 6: 5-6)

“And the Lord said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language: and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them.” Genesis 11: 6)

The story of the fall as found in Genesis chapter 3: 1-19 reveal the human attempt to be ‘like God’: to trespass the limit of being human, become all knowing and to immortalize oneself. In classical theology, this is described as ‘hubris’, pride or arrogance. It is human hubris that had resulted in the fall which manifested itself in their estrangement from God, the animal world, the very woman whom the man described as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, and the earth from which they were created. The fall is not depicted as having implications for only those who trespass the limits, but all multifaceted relationships in which human beings are placed, especially the earth: “cursed is the ground because of you”. (Gen.3:14-19) The fall manifests itself as breach in relationships: it becoming one of enmity, domination and exploitation. Human failure to recognize the essential interdependence and mutuality with the rest of creation (anthropocentrism) and their role as stewards of creation remain crucial for defining the crises that we face in relation to our ecosystem, to the earth. Ecology affirms life’s unity and community with the rest of creation. Any indifference or slighting of this delicate web of inter-relationship can continue only at the cost of life on this planet.

The story of human hubris, arrogance and unwillingness to accept the limits of the other, be it God, one’s own brother/sister, other human beings or the earth and the flora and fauna around continues to reverberate in the following chapters in Genesis reaching its culmination in Chapter 11. In Chapter 4, human sinfulness manifests itself as fratricide and unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s own brother - “am I my brother’s keeper?” In Chapter 6, which is a prologue to the flood, the sinfulness of refusing to recognize the boundaries of being human and their relationship with this earth (“adamah”) is highlighted. More apparently, what we find is a breaching of the boundaries separating heavenly beings and earthly beings. Without going into the controversies of who constitute ‘the sons of God’ and ‘daughters of humans’, what becomes more obvious is the creation of a kind of transgenic beings, the Nephilim, people of gigantic stature who possess super human powers. (Num.13:33; Duet.2:10-11) Whether “they were the heroes, that were of old, warriors of renown”, the fact is that the Lord saw this as a product of human wickedness and perversion of human creativity - “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was continually evil. And the Lord was sorry that he had made human kind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.” This was how the context for God’s decision to “blot out from the earth the human beings” was presented.

Many technological innovations, particularly in the field of GMOs and their patenting (patenting of life forms) have corrupted the earth. What is pushed through and ‘enforced’ on the developing nations through WTO and other Free Trade Agreements is nothing but corruption and violence: “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” (Gen. 6: 11-12) Here the notion of violence goes beyond mere physical violence, and focuses our attention on the structural manifestation of violence implicit in an earth that has been corrupted. Forcing technology, which serves the interests of big corporations and nations, upon poorer nations through the imposition of a neo-liberal economic regime, is such violence, perpetrated not only on humans but also on rest of God’s creation.

This story culminates in Genesis 11: Using technological prowess, human beings decide to “build themselves (ourselves) a city and a tower with its top in the heavens” – the gate way to the realm of Gods. It was a Promethean desire to create for themselves unity, fame and security, which God alone could provide. It was a decision to isolate themselves from rest of the human community, secure themselves a territorial space, create an exclusive empire (“Let us make a name for ourselves”), and become invincible. It was an expression of imperialist ambitions, which is being played out today through neo-liberal economic policies and militarism, furthered by powerful nations and corporate entities. Through a carefully engineered fear of the ‘other’, we are led into supporting violent regimes, human rights violations, arms race and the myriad policies and programs implemented to benefit corporate interests, while millions die of hunger, malnutrition and without gainful employment.

Here, God’s own acknowledgement of human technological prowess needs to be noted: “Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”Moreover, since “every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually”, this prowess inherent in human beings can always be used to wicked ends with unimaginable and deleterious consequences, not only for the human kind but the entire creation.In the context of technological advancement, we need to ask ourselves, just because everything that human beings propose is possible, should we go about realizing all those possibilities? Shouldn’t we consider and prescribe limits, trespassing of which will lead to loss of communication (“confused the language”), loss of community and eventual loss of life itself? Acknowledging the fall and the anthropocentrism involved in it, can we re-imagine a world where “God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31), where all created beings relate with mutuality and respect?

In the light of this tendency for perversion of human creativity, we need to look at some of the worst fears and effects of GM seeds and foods:

As human beings we have to recognize and respect the integrity of each God’s creation, however small and insignificant it may seem. Creating an apple that tastes like a pineapple is not respecting the integrity of both, but destroying their distinct identity and integrity.
By unnaturally intervening into the order of creation, we are not only playing God, but also destroying the integrity of each God’s creation. Mixing genetic material from species that cannot breed naturally, takes us into areas that should be left to God. We should not be meddling with the building blocks of life in this way (Prince Charles, quoted in the BBC News, Online Network: 26 February 1999).
By unnatural intervention into the building blocks of life of each species, we are destroying biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to the variety of different species, the genetic variability of each species, and the variety of different ecosystems that they form. It is in this diversity and the delicately designed relationship (ecosystem) that life exists.
Insertion of genes into the genome of a particular organism can result in unintended effects. The way the inserted gene affects the functioning of the crop’s own genes is unpredictable. This may lead to the development of unknown toxic/allergenic components. We have only tests to find out known toxic elements. Genetically Modified (GM) foods can affect both animals and human beings in ways that are beyond our present understanding.
Every imagination or purpose or the thoughts of human hearts in relation to Genetic Engineering is corporate driven for profit and nothing but profit. It was these vested interests that facilitated a new patent regime through WTO which included patenting of life forms. The person who discovers a gene is, in effect, conferred ownership of it via a patent! In short, patenting life amounts to owning life.
Traditional seeds of many crops have been ‘stolen’ surreptitiously from farmers and private seed companies are now supplying ‘improved varieties’ to them. Thus already farmers are alienated from ownership over seeds and are dependent on private companies for seeds. With the introduction of genetically modified seeds, their alienation from seeds would become complete. It would also mean compromising not only our food security but also food sovereignty. The government, agricultural universities and public research organizations (ICAR) supported by tax payer’s money are now playing second fiddle to the nefarious designs of private monopolies.

Our calling in Jesus Christ is not to become “like God” but to be more human like Jesus, assuming the role of a servant to the rest of creation. To follow and emulate Christ means to be responsible to one’s own fellow human beings and to the rest of God’s creation. Ecological consciousness is one that affirms our interdependence, mutuality and just relationships as the very basis of life and being human. Proclaiming God’s rule in Jesus Christ makes it incumbent upon us to expose and subject to ridicule satanic forces that claim authority over life and destroy it. Knowledge and technology has to be redeemed to serve God’s purposes in creation rather than to serve the purposes of Satan in destroying life and the integrity of creation.

A Life Well Lived, a Life Well Loved

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:31:00 +0000

It has become quite common and convenient to extol the virtues of great men and women in history, write eulogies for them and idolize them, while overlooking the concerns and commitments that many of them valued. In these times when the church has been turned into an institution which is used for once self-aggrandizement, to talk of Bishop Benjamin and many others of his generation is to recover that church which once dedicated itself to serve the poor and the downtrodden.

Bishop Benjamin and other members of his family, of the same generation, embodied that which was laudable about the missionary tradition founded by missionary societies such as the CMS, that which we today would understand as the authentic identity of the church. For them, our calling as a community of Jesus Christ was essentially for mission and that too, for preaching the good news to the poor. Hence, church was not an institution that would live for itself but for others, especially those who are marginalized and poor.

Having distinguished himself as pastor and administrator par excellence and earned quite a name for himself, Arch Deacon T. K. Benjamin, Bishop Benjamin’s father, decided to do something that was not “respectable” in the sight of the world but holy in the sight of the lord. Though he had inherited the ancestral home in Maramon as the youngest son of the family, he decided to pitch his tent in a small village largely inhabited by Dalit Christians and known for its strong anti-caste moorings, named Kunnamthanam, near Pullad. Here, he spent the rest of his retired life serving the Dalit congregation, empowering them and nurturing them in the knowledge and love of Christ. I have very little memory of my grandfather, but today I am deeply appreciative of the privilege of growing up and going to school with my Dalit brothers and sisters, and being taught Sunday school by Dalit elders who eked out a living by hard agricultural labour.

The Arch Deacon was part of a larger protestant missionary tradition that had taken root in Travancore and Malabar in the 19th century and had produced social reformers like the Late. Rev. George Matthan. He was the inheritor of a history that witnessed missionaries campaigning for the abolition of caste practices and slavery, providing sanctuary for runaway Dalit slaves escaping from the fields of Syrian Christian and Nair masters, and arguing for control on the “proud and contentious” Syrian Christians from treating the church as their personal fiefdom.

Bishop Benjamin and his siblings were not untouched by the conviction and history that guided their father. All of them, in their own walks of life, bore witness to this tradition. Bishop Benjamin’s first cousin and late. Rev. T. K. Joseph’s daughter, Sr. Rachel Joseph, along with Sr. Edith Nieve, became instrumental in establishing the Bethel Ashram, through which, efforts were made to empower women and children, those who were otherwise considered lesser than humans in a caste ridden and patriarchal society. Bishop Benjamin’s two sisters, Sr. Mariam Benjamin and Sr. Anna Benjamin, also devoted their life for the educational ministry of the church despite possessing qualifications and degrees that would have given promising career opportunities at the time. His two brothers, Prof. T. B. Ninan and Prof. T. B. Thomas, also chose the same path and made distinctive contribution towards higher education in Kerala. Another of his brother, my father, Mr. T. B. John, though did not have the eminence of any of his brothers or sisters, was a staunch supporter of the ‘Separation Movement’ and believed that the Dalit Christians would never get justice within the fold of the church from a dominating, self-serving Syrian Christian population.

Growing up in such a familial context, it is not surprising that following his graduation from the Union Christian College, Bishop Benjamin chose to become a teacher at the Alwaye Settlement, which was an orphanage cum school for Dalit children. Even as a student of Union Christian College, he used to organize night classes in the mess hall of the North East Hostel for the Dalit children of the locality. He never thought of becoming a minister of the church until he was convinced that the same ministry could be carried forward with greater vigor and sense of calling within the fold of the church as an ordained minister. He began his pastoral ministry, as a church worker in Erathumbamon, among the Koravas who had embraced Christianity. His first posting after becoming an ordained minister was Ranni, which was, at that time, a totally Dalit parish. After having served in Christ Church, Trivandrum for a long period, when he was called back to serve as the Vicar of Cathedral Church in Kottayam by the Late. Bishop M. M. John, it is said that he asked the Bishop for a smaller parish like the one at Katampackal, which was largely again a Dalit parish. He had privately shared with me his strong feelings on how Dalit Christians were successively, methodically and surreptitiously marginalized in the church.

As the reins of ecclesiastical power in the Anglican Church went into the hands of Syrian Christian clergy and laity, Dalit Christians began to be excluded from the church in a more organized manner. Dalit congregations were least cared for and churches were in ruins. While Kunnanthanam congregation with a membership of 200 families was an outstation and provided only with an evangelist, the Povathoor congregation with a membership of 25 families was the head station with a presbyter in charge. The only difference between the two was while the former was a Dalit Christian congregation; the latter was a Syrian Christian congregation. The Kunnanthanam church today is reduced to a membership of 50 families as a result of pastoral neglect, “sheep stealing” by the Pentocstal churches and the coming into existence of a break away church under the leadership of late Rev. Stephen who was forced to leave the church ignominiously.

Similar is the story of Kallumalla Lower Primary School. In the sixties, under the initiative of the Central Kerala Diocese, Bishop Moore College was founded in the land of the Dalit congregation in Kallumala. And subsequently, Bishop Moore Vidhyapeeth English Medium School was established in the same mission property amidst big fanfare. New boundary walls were built and enormous profits were made. So much profits that the church went on to build a couple of other Vidyapeeths which catered to the educational requirements of the middle class in their respective areas. However, just outside the main gate of the Bishop Moore College, like Lazarus outside the rich man’s gate, there was the Kallumala Lower Primary School which was founded by the missionaries to meet the educational needs of the Dalit children in the locality, neglected and in ruins. No churchmen and no laity found anything incompatible and incongruent in this situation. After all, we live in times when church is more interested in running institutions that can pour in profits. Neglected and in ruins, during the last monsoon, the school finally collapsed. Can we show more disrespect than this to the legendary stalwarts who stood for Dalit liberation within the tradition of our church?

Throughout his ministry, Bishop Benjamin was always conscious of all this and many a times he silently sympathized with those struggles within the church that questioned the casteist ways in which the Syrian Christians asserted their power in the church. I recall with much gratitude the silent support he had given me when I was involved in the Faith Movement for Liberation in the Central Kerala Diocese and had to face the ire of the powers that be. As a young ordained minister, it was surely a time of test for me and if not for the encouragement of people like Bishop Benjamin, I would have left the Church for the sake of Christ. While he had the limitations of actively supporting the Faith Movement for Liberation, he kept abreast of the developments and several times visited those who were fasting outside the Diocesan Office gates. He enjoyed and used to share with intimate circles my repartee to those who questioned my standing on a motor bike and addressing a gathering that Jesus also stood on a boat and preached to the crowd.

As the Bishop of North Kerala Diocese, a Diocese with a distinct mission history, different from that of the CMS and riddled with dissentions and strife, he was unwavering in his convictions as to where the church had to be led to and he pursued it with diligence. Though coming from an Anglican background, he was very respectful of the Basel mission tradition and he worked with the people of that tradition with great sympathy and understanding and was able to win their heart. As a bishop, he gave most of his time to the diocese and never tried to establish his fame far and wide. He was truly a father in God to the ministers and the people in the pew.

During his tenure in North Kerala Diocese, he used to attend all the district and diocesan youth conferences without fail, as a silent participant. He enjoyed the enthusiasm and idealism that emanated from the youth and recognized its immense value for the church. Once, in a youth conference, the students challenged the church leadership on taking money for appointment of teachers in the diocesan schools. The clergy and the leadership of the conference tried very hard to mitigate the importance of the issue and defend the church leadership. At the point, Bishop Benjamin came forward and said that if money was being taken for appointment of teachers, then it was a rather serious issue which the church could not ignore, and should be dealt with sufficient seriousness. The response to this from the youth was overwhelming. There was much applause and jubilation from their end. This was the way Bishop Benjamin approached the youth and took their criticism. Unfortunately, today we have bishops who are intolerant of criticism, quick to silence the youth, and have no qualm in demanding donations for appointment of teachers.

His life and that of Kochamma were never ostentatious or extravagant but extremely simple and unpretentious. They did not have much wants and was content with what they had and at his retirement, it was under much persuasion that he accepted a Fiat car for his travels as a retired bishop.

During intimate conversations, when he shares about his disappointments with church, he is very much aware of a world that is under going rapid changes and the need to meet them with greater accommodation and understanding. He is able to take present tragedies, personal or that of the church, with equanimity and courage with the beatific vision of a God who is “sitting on a throne high and lifted up.” He never airs his critical perspectives of the present day state of affairs of the church, but looks at them with a certain amount of sarcasm born out of a strong conviction in God’s ultimate providence and the vanity of all that is happening around. I have in him an uncle, who could understand and respect the struggles and agony of a person of a younger generation to live out his faith in a relevant and meaningful way. While he is mostly silent these days, he understands more than what we think and articulate them in short and loaded words. I do not wish that I should have a long life like Bp. Benjamin had but I wish, I will have life of contentment and peace that he enjoys ultimately hinging on unshakable faith and hope in God’s providence and love.

പ്രണാമം

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:01:00 +0000

Pentecost

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 27 May 2008 16:11:00 +0000

The work of the Holy Spirit in Christian history has been reduced to an emotional and sentimental overreaction that is very individualistic and pietistic and borders on occultism devoid of any substance in the material and social realities of our life. But a careful reading of the primary experiences, as described in the Acts of the Apostles, would indicate that the phenomenon of the Pentecost in the early church created just the opposite. Pentecost experience and the consequent transformation that find in the book of Acts is one that calls into question the way the Western and American Christians do mission.

As we are about to celebrate Pentecost and realize its meaning for our lives as partners in Joining Hands, it is important to reflect how we relate to our brothers and sisters in the Third World, whether it be related to Joining Hands or any other short-term mission. I consider Joining Hands an attempt to open ourselves to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost tells us the story of a radical transformation of a community. The transformation is marked by a new sense of unity and community, transcending narrow nationalism and linguistic barriers and realizing perfect communication and community. “Devote men from every nation under heaven—(Each one) heard them speaking in his own language.” It was not uniformity imposed from outside (domination) but a unity achieved through a sense of solidarity despite diversity of language and culture. In the context of a homogenizing, market-driven, dominating, global culture that attempts to recreate human beings and the world in its own image, how much are we ready to listen truly to our Third World partners, to be truly in dialogue without imposing our categories of thought, models of development, and how we live our lives. Are we prepared to shed our individualism, be turned into a community, and transformed as a community? The Joining Hands initiative should be seen as an attempt to realize a new Christi-centric solidarity over against the Mammon-centric solidarity of transnational capital.

The Pentecostal experience gave the timid, fearful, disappointed and introverted group of disciples a new sense of courage so that they could stand up to the powers that be and proclaim the fact the One whom they thought was finished off is still at large and is alive, and that His (Christ’s) kingdom would have decisive influence in shaping history. “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered….” “When they prayed, the place in which they were gathered was shaken; and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness” (Acts 4: 31). It was this boldness that sent many Christians to risk their life for the sake of the gospel. The Joining Hands community is called upon to show this boldness in denouncing the unjust economic arrangements of this world and announce a more just and equitable world order, which in greater measure approximates God’s rule in Christ. It is easy to be sentimental about the poor and hug them and feed them, but it takes a lot more courage to speak out against the empire that perpetuates and promotes an unjust economic and political world order. U.S. Christians should be able to fulfill their own political responsibility to their own country with a greater sense of stewardship.

The Pentecostal experience transformed lives of the disciples together in three crucial areas: one, it created a spiritual communion: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship (koinonia), to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts. 2: 42). They took time to expose themselves to the influence of the living Jesus in their lives. Second, it created a social community: “they were of one heart and soul”; “they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all people” (Acts.2: 46, 47). Third, it created an equitable sharing of economic resources: “And all who believed together had all things in common and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them all, as any had need” (Acts. 2: 44, 45). “There was not a needy person among them” (Acts. 4:34). Joining Hands is called upon to represent to the world a new way organizing our economic, social, and spiritual life according to the Pentecostal model.

We are tempted to keep the Holy Spirit as something ethereal; but it has its concrete manifestations in our social, economic, and political realities. The disciples manifested this in a material way—in the way they organized their life together and celebrated it. If U.S. Christians cannot make the kind of simple life-style options—which would wean them away from soft drinks and an over-consumptive life style and which for Third World people would mean hegemony over their natural resources, land, livelihood and food security—and if they (U.S. Christians) cannot understand and empathize with the struggles of Third World people against the WallMartization of their retail industry, the Monsantization of agriculture, contract farming, special economic zones, and challenge other forms of imperialistic designs of “the beast,” and also envisage alternative ways of organizing their economic life other than that of capitalism, what would it mean to be faithful to Christ and be transformed by the Holy Spirit?

Pentecost provides us with an alternative vision, which would become an impetus for the creation of a new world under God and a prophetic warning to a world bound to destruction. “Where there is no vision/prophecy, the people perish/cast off restraint” (Prov. 29:18). These Pentecostal visions and prophesies are not confined to a literati or religious elite. It is given to all: “And I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams: yea, and on my man servants and my maidservants in these days I will pour out my Spirit.” It is these visions and prophesies that are going to be the basis for our striving for a better world. In India, Sri Lanka, Peru, Sacramento, people are rising up with visions of a better world of love, of solidarity, of peace, justice and harmony. Joining Hands is called upon to join hands with these diverse people united in a shared vision to strive for a better world.

Let us thank God for the way Joining Hands is being used as an instrument of the Holy Spirit. These visions are dangerous; they are considered as subversive by the powers that be; but Holy Spirit gives us the courage to dream.

Do not Use a Sacrament for Narrow Political Interests

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 10:15:00 +0000

How should we address the priests who make use of sacraments to meet their narrow political interests? It is important for the believers to recognize the theological, spiritual and moral bankruptcy and foolishness of the Bishop, and his supporters, who used the last sacrament to disgrace and discredit the life of a man who had made a commitment in life to stand with the poor, for social justice and against an exploitative religious framework. Jesus addressed such religious leadership of his time “brood of vipers.”

What has been enacted in Kerala, over the last few days, is a vivid exposition of how, through the institution of administering sacrament, those who have become mediators of God’s grace, establish their authority over the masses and exploit them.

While anybody may come and offer solace to the existential grief of a man and his family; it is despicable to use such an act to further their narrow political agenda. If one is to go by what these Bishops loudly proclaim; religion becomes relevant only in the weakness of human beings and not in their strength. It is this understanding of religion that was the subject of Karl Marx’s critique, and it is this sort of a religion that was condemned by Marx as the opium of the masses.

Even without the final sacrament, Mathai Chacko will resurrect into the “new heavens and the new earth, where righteousness is at home” (2 Peter 3: 13). It is not whether he knew Christ, but it is on what he has done for “one of the least of these who are members of my family” (Mathew 25: 40) that he is going to be judged on the final Judgment day. Christ has made it very clear that “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”

The biggest challenge that religion faces today is the practical/functional atheism of those who claim to be theists. It is to these representatives of religion, the high priests, the Pharisees and the elders of the people that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.” (Mathew 21: 31)

The meaning of the Greek word ‘Sacrament’ is to make holy. Mathai Chacko is a man who transformed his whole life into a sacrament by taking to selfless and sacrificial life service to the least of this world. Sacrament is not meant for managing others. It is something to be lived. It is to transform this material world into a heavenly one. It is this quest and struggle for a “new heaven and a new earth” that brings a Christian and a Marxist together.

Helder Camara, who was an Archbishop in Brazil once said, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist.” A theology of social justice that goes beyond a theology of distributing rice porridge to the poor is alien to the Church leadership in Kerala. Christ is also alien to them. They are the collaborators of those who crucified Jesus. Those within the faith community need to recognize this.

It is not possible for anyone with a sense of history to argue today that a believer cannot be a Marxist and a Marxist cannot be a believer. Only thing is that theism must be defined. Theists are not a monolith. The problem raised by the Bible is not that of atheism but of false Gods. It is false Gods that make human beings vulnerable and then exploit them. The atheism and materialism of Marxism were essentially meant to affirm human dignity and responsibility and their role in the inevitable transformation of history.

Marx’s understanding of religion took shape within a historical context where religion turned human beings into vulnerable agents of an all ‘powerful’ God, and whose vulnerability was then exploited by a priest–capitalist nexus to preserve and protect the existing capitalist system and the ruling class interests. This was a very true to life analysis of an existing socio-political reality.

The Gospels make it very clear that there is a similar critique in the Bible also. It was the collaborators of this religious consciousness and god consciousness that ultimately crucified Jesus. It was Christ’s affirmation of humanity and his commitment towards human history and creation that ultimately made the Cross an inevitability. Who can reject the critique of religion that is evident in the Cross? It is this strand of thought that later influenced theologians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer to write about a “religion-less Christianity.”

It is with this critique of religion that the Church leadership which takes interest in fattening its own self by making the masses vulnerable and then exploiting that vulnerability, and reducing Christ into an idol, need to be confronted. In this instance, the final sacrament has become an instrument of the Church to exploit rather than offer solace.

The responsibility to confront this Church leadership is not just that of Pinarayi Vijayan alone. It is also the responsibility of all those believers who follow Christ, who envisioned new heaven and a new earth where justice reigns and ultimately gave his life for it.

Politicizing Sacraments

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 06:45:00 +0000

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HOLY BIBLE: Matthew 21:31
"Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you.
Quis ex duobus fecit voluntatem patris dicunt novissimus dicit illis Iesus amen dico vobis quia publicani et meretrices praecedunt vos in regno Dei

Parable of Two Sons

28 “But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ 29 “And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. 30 “The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. 31 “Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. 32 “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.

2 Peter 3:13
But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home.

Mathew 25:40
The King will answer them, "I tell you the truth. What you did for even the smallest of these people you did for me. They are my brothers."

Mathew 7:21
Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

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