::: Rev. THOMAS JOHN :::

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 (Sans) — 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 (Sans) — 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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Union Christian College

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 11:47:00 +0000

Re-inventing and Re-living its Commitments in Creative ways

(Quality benchmarking in Higher Education with specific reference to Union Christian College, Aluva)

We are living in a world that is corrupted by the one dominant ideology of the Neo-liberal political economy known as globalization. There is no area of life that does not bear its mark and education is no exception. All arms of democratic governance such as legislature, executive, judiciary and the fourth estate are at the service of the market forces. Education is one of the most crucial service sectors where commercialization, creation of a subservient intelligentsia and cultural indoctrination are making rapid strides.

It is natural that UGC, NAAC and such other instrumentalities in Higher education can only play second fiddle to this cultural action for globalization. In this context, it is very difficult for institutions like UCC, which had maintained a prophetic role in higher education from succumbing to the quality benchmarks of these instrumentalities. The topic for today’s discussion itself is an example as to how terminologies that are unique to business and industry find their way to education and determine its character, thought forms and practices.

Benchmarking is a process used in management, in which organizations evaluate various aspects of their processes in relation to best practices, usually within their own sector. This then allows organizations to develop plans on how to adopt such best practices, usually with the aim of increasing some aspect of performance. Benchmarking is a continuous process in which organizations seek to challenge their practices.

It is my conviction that our efforts at identifying the best practices which would provide UCC with an edge over other colleges should emanate from its own distinct history and self-understanding than from any extraneous influences. The essential benchmark of UCC is its courage to be different and prophetic and to model a unique way of living ones faith in the secular vocation of educational service through a distinct organization of its collective life and administration and way of imparting knowledge. Why did the founding fathers decide, against many odds, to establish a college with unique distinctions of ecumenism, fellowship method of administration, residential life, cosmopolitan character and strong nationalistic commitment? What are the distinctive marks of UCC that we should value and highlight as giving a distinct edge to our service in relation to other institutions?

The founding fathers of the college were not indifferent to their religious persuasion or faith but, had acted on the conviction that “the Christians in India are today called upon to give their best without stopping to stipulate terms for their service, that it is their duty “not to be ministered unto, but to minister.” They did not have any greater desire than.... “shoulder [our] humble share of the days burdens among the many tasks that confront the nation at the present time.” The founding fathers further emphasized their commitment to remain obligated to the state: “We have gladly engaged with the Travancore Durbar to accept the “Conscience Clause” and to use no manner of compulsion in the matter of attendance at religious instruction”. This was an action which brought criticism from some of the conservative missionary quarters. But they were firm in their resolve and made it clear that it was not due to any difference to Christian faith but their conviction that at this point in history it was their calling “to give their best without stopping to stipulate terms for their service.”

These statements from one of the documents the founding father’s had produced in 1921 highlight the following:

Commitment to respond to “the needs of India at this state of world history.”
Commitment to work toward the creation of “a new and more virile type of Indian manhood humanhood than at present obtains among the products of our Universities.”
Christian faith is determinative of this understanding of the Human and the kind of service extended to society and it is lived in service to “all” as “a vital force of our (their) lives determining every word, thought and action” in the political and social realm.
Commitment to remain fiercely independent of the western missionaries and remain dependent and accountable to the state in spite of limitations that they might impose.
A clear understanding that ‘living the good news’ does not involve being intolerant of other faiths and converting them to Christian faith. In broad strokes, I have painted the context- the historical origins, identity and commitments of UCC- in which we ask questions about quality benchmarking in Union Christian College.

An understanding of the New Man (Human) congruous with the person of Christ, a form of Christian Humanism was fundamental to the educational enterprise of the founding fathers and that of the Missionaries. Humanism is a broad philosophical system with ethical implications that affirm the dignity and worth of all human beings, their capacity for self determination, self-transcendence, and for making ethical choices and sacrifices for common good. While acknowledging the reality of God and the role of religion in human affairs, it is unequivocally against any attempt to make human beings impotent and a slave of any God, cult, religion, ideology or system. It affirms the capacity and responsibility of human beings to transform this world and make it a better place for all to live and pursue their calling as free and responsible beings.

Christian Humanism affirms the dignity, freedom and responsibility of human beings. It is derived from the Old Testament understanding of human beings as created in the image of God and the New Testament representation of Jesus Christ as the prototype of authentic humanity. Authentic humanity is understood as fellow humanity, life in fellowship and responsibility to the rest of creation and fellow human beings. Bonhoeffer refers to Christ as ‘the man for others’. It points to the lofty goal of facilitating the growth and transformation of human beings into self actualizing beings who are capable of extreme self-sacrifices for the sake “a new heaven and a new earth”. This humanistic tradition was at the back of the liberal arts and science tradition in Higher Education. According to this understanding, education is not an activity of acquiring knowledge and storing it but also one of developing a new human being with faculties, vision and commitment to reinvent and change the existing realties and the world. The practical ways in which the founding father’s tried to realize their educational philosophy is critical in understanding quality benchmarking in U.C. College.

Linking Higher education to the crucial issues that confront our nation today through community extension programs
Remaining depended and accountable to the state and to the public, accepting the constrictions it may impose
Re-conceptualizing, re-living and revitalizing the liberal Arts and Science tradition in daring ways
Restoring the residential life
Enhancing the cosmopolitan character of the college through greater international linkages

The founding father’s refused to accept and conform to the world as it existed and dared to imagine an ideal world and realize it through structures and practices that were unheard of in those days. At a time when we are confronted by a dominant ideology of ‘there is no alternative’- TINA, which is an affront to human dignity and freedom, it is imperative on U.C. College to evaluate its quality of service in terms of the extent which it can re-imagine the world around it and reshape it through alternative structures and practices that model them. In short we should not be swept away by the passing currents of neo-liberal economic policies but rather should be able keep at bay its tides by evolving new models of realizing the liberal arts and science tradition. We should be able to open up new vistas of Ecumenism, democratic structures of administration, international co-operation, residential life, knowledge creation and exchange, learning through community extension

Democratic nature of the relationships within the campus

The college should keep the best democratic traditions of freedom, respect and responsibility in all aspects of human relationships within the campus. This must be reflected in the relationships between the management and the staff, the staff and the students and the students among themselves. The fellowship method of administration, unique to U. C. College, was essentially meant to remove the distinction between those who govern and those who are governed and to ensure a sense of involvement and participation to those who serve in the college as faculty.

Quality of Residential life- greater teacher student interaction

Residential life of U. C. College best exemplified this democratic tradition which facilitated a “free intercourse between the teachers and the taught and the participation by them in a common life lived beyond the hours of instruction.” It was seen by the founding fathers as an “antidote against the many stultifying influences of our present educational methods.” This aspect of its heritage must be restored by providing reasons for the present students to stay on the campus for longer hours- library remaining open for longer hours, re-vitalizing the activities of various clubs and societies, keeping alive informed political discourse and activities, offering educational programs that explore the social uses, practical implications and the interdisciplinary linkages of various courses of study.

Extension to the community

All disciplines and departments of the college must extend their knowledge base to the needs of the community. It is a way of making the subject relevant to the community and to life. Instead of making higher education job oriented our effort should be to make it life or society oriented. There is no meaning in producing knowledge giants without humanity and love and without a grasp of reality and ingenuity to change it. In other words, education should be made reconstructive and liberating. By serving in a community they should be able to deconstruct and reconstruct reality and also their own knowledge system and thus make them serve the ends of liberation in respective communities. This perspective on education owes much to the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire who understood education as cultural action for liberation. The Alwaye Settlement, the Christava Mahilalayam, the Rural Medical Mission and the Alwaye Fellowship House are best examples in our heritage for reaching out to the needs of the community within the limitations of their understanding and ideological orientation.

Keeping to the spirit and genius of our indigenous heritage in shaping the life and work of the College

“While (we should be) profited by the best counsel that western educational experience can provide” it is important that we “keep distinctly to the spirit and genius of our people in shaping the ideals of College’s life and work. So that within the narrow bounds of a cast-iron system of education, we may find room for the development of a new and more virile type of Indian manhood (womanhood) than at present obtains among the products of our Universities.” What does this mean for us today as a quality bench marking for our development?

International co-operation in Higher Education

While the founding fathers sought to make the college both in management and atmosphere Indian and refused to accept the domination of the western missionaries in the administration of the college, they took particular care to maintain a cosmopolitan atmosphere on the campus and ensure the presence of Western scholars on the campus as co-workers. The relationships have been mainly with the C. M. S Missionaries and they were borne out of mutual respect and commitment to the lofty goals of higher education. Today it is extremely important that we enunciate an alternative vision of internationalization of higher education over against the dominant globalization paradigm of considering education as a trade in services. A paper presented in one of our seminars in 2000, “Towards a Critical and Creative engagement in Internationalization of Higher Education” amply describes our commitment.”

The paper states: The problems we confront cannot be reduced to that of a nation or a people but rather, those that are confronted by a global community, who find that soil under our feet is being eroded and we are increasingly losing control over our own destiny. All problems have a micro-level and macro-level dimension, and solidarity needs to be built up across national boundaries to deal with them. Over against the solidarity centered on profit motive we need to build a solidarity centered on respect for life and preservation and enhancement of the same.

Continuous evaluation, up gradation and innovation of academic programs
This is to be done with the objective of:

(1) Keeping up with the knowledge explosion in various academic disciplines and advances in information technology, accessing and sharing of information
(2) Meeting the needs of society in the rapidly changing economic scenario with particular bias and preference to the most deprived and disadvantaged of Indian society and the rural masses
(3) Participating in Knowledge creation based on the strengths of our geographical, cultural and socio-political specificities
(4) Making our educational system more compatible and competitive with the ones that are available any where else so that we can attract foreign students and faculty and thus maintain our cosmopolitan character
(5) Equipping our students to meet and cope with the demands of a highly technological and competitive society
(6) Comprehending and dealing with complex issues of modern life with skills and resources derived from multiple disciplines
(7) Sensitizing students to the negative consequences of the dominant paradigm of development and helping them to evolve alternatives that would be more sustainable, eco-friendly and life-enhancing
(8) Developing greater ethical sensitivity, responsibility and accountability to fellow human beings and nature

Greater involvement and participation of the faculty in the development of courses, their implementation and the evaluation of students

Turn religion into a living reality and not a dead routine

The founding fathers, in a brochure published in 1921, used excerpts from a letter from Dr. S. Radhakrishnan to make clear their stance toward religion. Let me quote from the letter “It is good to say the prayers we have learnt at our mothers’ knees once or twice a day, but is it not much better to make religion a vital force of our lives determining every word, thought and deed? …I hope at Alwaye you would try to kindle the spiritual sense, instill a larger vision and thus help people to respect each other’s faith. Such mutual respect would be the necessary result of a true understanding of the spirit of religion that it is not a cult or a creed, a church or a ceremonial system, but an inner life which in the quiet depths of the soul seeks its way to God…. If we preserve our tradition of patience under suffering, passive resistance to evil, the power to face death without a tremor, and develop our innate sense of the spiritual, we will no more be servile imitators of the alien.”

This exhortation by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan deserves more attention than ever before when we are faced with the ugly face of religion and its cultic and sectarian uses taking precedence over its humanizing and ennobling roles. It is important the college develop a department of religion and ethics to “harmonize the colors that now to all appearance refuse to blend” (Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, 1921) and to respond to ethical questions emanating from modern Science and technology and the challenges raised by such phenomenon as globalization and neo-liberal economic policies.

Maintaining the simplicity, serenity and pristine character of the ecology of the college

One of the essential aspects of ones identity and self-respect is ones body image. We have a large and beautiful campus. We don’t seem to be fully aware of it. Over the years, the development of the college in terms of buildings and infrastructure has been unplanned and less appreciative of the beauty of the college campus. When the campus becomes very large, its up keep becomes a problem. Hence it is important to demarcate the area essential for our development and draw up a master plan so that future development will be more in tune with the beauty and ecology of our campus

Greater interaction between scholars and experts, the community, government agencies, industry and service agencies and mechanisms to realize the same
Developing and ensuring a strong financial base with endowments and scholarships, not through commercialization of education, but trusting in the good will of people – our alumni and well wishers

This is best achieved by a development office and by involving our alumni and scholars who have distinguished themselves in various fields of study, research, business and industry in the life of the college, in an advisory capacity. We can harness their good will and resources, both financial and academic/technical, by establishing network of Alumni chapters all over the world and also by continuous updating of the developments in the college through a newsletter. Here we should be able to make use of the potentials of information technology.

After all this is said and done, how can we make this a reality? How can we live up to the standards we set for ourselves?

Nothing meaningful is possible within the present University system. It is more a constricting and stifling influence than an enabling instrument. How can we do away with this system and turn the university into a resource center for vetting our courses, enhancing and updating our knowledge base and skills, and guiding us in research and development. Academic Autonomy should be understood and asked for in this context.

No meaningful initiative can be expected of the management. This would mean that ultimately, everything depends upon the determination of the teachers of this institution. The teaching community can divide themselves into task forces to translate the benchmarks into objectives and goals and action plans and bring out a charter of demands for the consideration of the management and the larger public so that the UCC continues to play its prophetic role in higher education.

Can we decide that this same body of people, including our guests, will meet again by the end of this year to talk about a charter of demands for implementation in higher education, specifically in UCC? We must be prepared to think out of the box- the dominant paradigm provided by the neo-liberal economic rationality. We must ask for minority rights not to make profit from education but to live out our values in genuine service in the field of Higher education.

Slandering Christian Witness

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:04:00 +0000

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Scandalizing Christian Witness in a Multi-religious Society

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:03:00 +0000

The reaction and responses of the church leadership to The Kerala Unaided Professional Colleges (Prohibition of Capitation Fees and Procedure for Admission and Fixation of Fees) BILL should be seen as a clear reflection of the changing role of the church in today’s world.

By crying wolf to the ‘bill’ the church leadership has exposed their moral insensitivity and their callous disregard of the primary responsibility of the church: to bear witness to the in-breaking of God’s rule through sacrificial service to the building up of a world of equity, justice, peace and harmony.

It is not enough to take credit for the missionary contribution to higher education, but to ask what their successors have made of higher education. Since the ‘60s, after the Vimochana Samaram (the liberation struggle), the church’s involvement at all levels of education has been without any sense of probity, responsibility, sacrifice, and mission.

Many of us have failed to realise that the Kerala society’s initiation to the self-financing of education was through the unaided, English medium, recognised schools. They gave the churches and similar associations, a taste of what one could accomplish without any capital of one’s own and yet make substantial revenue and profit to expand one’s clout in the educational field.

Though these schools were run for the children of the elites in society, gradually they began to be seen by the middle class and the lower middle class as a means for upward mobility and economic benefits. Thus, schools of various sorts that would suit the purse of the parents such as ‘international’, ‘residential’, ‘public’ and so on – began to spring up in every nook and corner of Kerala with active connivance of the powers that be.

The unbridled privatisation of education, led to the total neglect of the aided and government stream, which resulted in the children of the poor getting a raw deal. The guardians of social justice – including the politicians, church, and other socio-religious organisations – are only interested in their burgeoning profits.

Education is universally recognised as the primary instrument equipped to ensure equity and equal opportunity in this highly unequal and caste-ridden society. The churches in Kerala have the dubious distinction of having pioneered the transformation of education into a source and device of inequity.

Children of the socio-economically weaker strata cannot hope to better their lives in a highly competitive society. They are denied access to good education and hence cannot hope to benefit from the new economic opportunities. Can the Christian community absolve itself of this crime?

This unashamed mercantile nature of private-owned education have legitimised capitation fee under different pet names such as development fund, building fund, etc. It is this morally degraded cultural milieu that has become the fertile breeding ground for self-financing institutions and courses in higher education.

The church and their monastic orders, for which vows of chastity and poverty are fundamental, did not hesitate to take advantage of this opportunity for crass material aggrandizement. They have nowhere to hide after exposing themselves to be callously indifferent to the poor in their own churches and communities.

Self-financing in education is something unheard of in any civilised society, even in highly capitalistic ones such as the United States of America. This form of education should not be confused with private educational initiatives.

Most of the private schools, colleges and universities in the western world are built by the largesse of rich philanthropists. Such schools, though they may charge a higher rate of fees than the government run or supported schools, still provide a highly subsidised education. They do not force the capital costs of education on to the students, irrespective of their financial status. They also insist on a student composition that reflects the socio-economic realities of their societies. Through a well-evolved system of scholarships and financial support, the private schools in the west ensure that no student is deprived of educational opportunities for want of money.

The self-financing system of education is a negation of all values, particularly those Christian values for which the missionaries laid down their lives. They started schools for Dalits and other untouchable communities and also for women. Kerala owes a lot to the noble vision of the missionaries of the past, who saw education as a means of civilising and transforming the existing social order. The tireless efforts of the missionaries have been rewarded in the form of tremendous amount of goodwill towards the church.

Now, the church leadership is in a hurry to encash that goodwill. They unashamedly ask for minority rights to run these self-financed educational institutions, which are the worst form of commercialisation of education.

Greed can only breed more greed and trigger the destruction of the very values Christ gave us for safe-keeping. Why do Christians want to run these educational institutions? What values are they trying to live out? Who are the ones benefited by these institutions? What rights do they demand for running educational institutions of this kind? Is it to serve the most deprived students, or to admit students of their own communities? Or is it merely the desire to make a profitable business out of it? What disadvantage or discrimination as minority are they trying to redress by claiming this right?

By claiming the right to establish and administer educational institutions without specifying the disability or disadvantage or discrimination that they suffer in relation to the majority community, the church leadership is desecrating a sacred right conferred on them by the constitution. The Indian constitution represents the best democratic traditions of a civilized society, and which guarantees that brute majority will not obliterate the traditions, values and distinct identities of a minority.

What a Christian wants and should demand is the right to practice his/her faith, to live out values that are distinctly Christian – responsibility to one’s fellow human beings and creation, self-less and sacrificial service to humanity and intervention in history on behalf of the poor and the outcasts to the point of death.

The clamor for minority rights would appear ridiculous in comparison with the vision and commitment of the founders of some of the Christian colleges in India.

The founders of the Union Christian College, one of the oldest Christian indigenous initiatives in Higher Education in India, acknowledged in one of their earliest brochures (1921) that, "We have gladly engaged with the Travancore Durbar to accept the ‘Conscience Clause’ and to use no manner of compulsion in the matter of attendance at religious instruction. This is no way due to religious indifference on our part but to our conviction that the Christians in India are called upon to give of their best without stopping to stipulate terms for their service, that it is their duty ‘not to be ministered unto, but to minister’. We have no greater desire than that like our Master before us ‘who went about doing good’, we may, poor and despised as we are shoulder our humble share of the day’s burdens among the many tasks that confront the nation at the present time.”

They were even prepared to forgo their concern to teach scripture, "to shoulder the day’s burden among the many tasks that confront the nation at the present time." They never claimed any minority rights; nor did they stipulate terms for their service. But they were prepared to accept the restrictions that the government would impose and unconditionally put themselves at the service of the nation ‘in this great hour of trial’. This was a reference to the independence movement of our nation.

An understanding of the New Man (Human) congruous with the person of Christ, a form of Christian humanism, was fundamental to the educational enterprise of the Missionaries. Christ is understood as the prototype of authentic humanity. Authentic humanity is understood as fellow humanity, life in fellowship and responsibility to the rest of creation and fellow human beings. It points to the lofty goal of facilitating the growth and transformation of human beings into self actualizing beings who are capable of extreme self-sacrifices for the sake "a new heaven and a new earth". This humanistic tradition was at the back of the liberal arts and science tradition in Higher Education. According to this understanding, education is not an activity of acquiring knowledge and storing it but also one of developing a new human being with faculties, vision and commitment to reinvent and change the existing realties and the world.

The self-financing of education is not only against this understanding of the human but reduces human beings to sellable commodities in the job market.

The church, which should have raised its prophetic voice against commercialisation of education and the notion of education as a private good, is seen not only to have silently acquiesced with it, but to be actively engaged in promoting it and making profit out of it. The church by its active engagement with this form of education is proclaiming to the world that nothing else matters except Mammon (the god of wealth) and his project and there in nothing ennobling about human beings.

When our nation is threatened by divisive forces of sectarianism and religious fanaticism, the church by its claim on minority rights and differential treatment for illegitimate reasons and thus, putting majority communities on a disadvantage, not only justifies those illegitimate reasons but also communalises our already fractured social order. A Christian should be seen at this state of world history striving with all likeminded people for promoting social justice and equity, communal harmony, a more humane and sustainable world order and the integrity of creation.

The church leadership is compromising their integrity and moral stature and their most supreme apostolic calling to bear witness to the good news of the in-breaking of God’s rule to set the world and all its relationships right. It is quite obvious to all people in the pew except the bishops that our medical colleges and engineering colleges ‘sell seats’. It is obvious to all except the Bishops that the entrance examinations are conducted after seats have been sold. It is obvious to all except the bishops that they only serve a fraction of the rich in their communities and the majority of poor students from their own communities are left to fend for themselves. All know that these professional colleges have no noble motive other than financial gain and political and social clout. It is obvious to all that these educational institutions have no ennobling role in the lives of students as they also are there as investors who expect good returns.

While all these are crystal clear to all and sundry, the kind of public outbursts on minority rights will only demean themselves and the Christian community in general. True Christians will always remain a minority and it is their privilege and joy. It is their joy to embody the Kingdom values of love, justice, peace and harmony. It is their joy to be the vanguard of a new humanity and world order. It is the responsibility of all true Christians to rise up against the church leadership that is bent on scandalising Christ and his mission in the world.

Church, the Politics of Authenticity and the Lost Humanity of Christ

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 04:12:00 +0000

After much hue and cry from sections of the Catholic Church, the movie, Da Vinci Code, has been banned in five states and having watched the movie with some prominent members of the Church, the Indian government has directed the distributors to show a directive at the beginning of the movie, indicating that everything in the movie is fictitious and not factual. It is said that all this is being done in order to protect the interests of Christians around the world. Since, a heated debate has ensued on the movie and the novel by the same name. And as it is the case with any controversial movie or novel, much of this debate happens without one either reading the novel or watching the movie.

Much of the present controversy revolves around the critical treatment of the Catholic Church and the references made to the private life of Jesus Christ in the novel. More specifically, what has angered the ‘Church’ and the ‘believers’ is the portrayal of Christ as a married man, who not only fathered a child but whose lineage continues to exist even today. It is a fact that besides the Gospels, there are hardly any other historical sources, which give us details about the life of Jesus Christ. Since the Gospels themselves were written as faith proclamations of a faith community, it is also questionable as to what extent it can be treated as a reliable historical source. Besides, even the four Gospels found in the New Testament do not represent the entire body of Gospels that were written, but only of those selected by the Church to best define the parameters of its faith. As a consequence, only that representation of Christ inherent in these Gospels selected by the church is available to the believers. If this is the case, then a few questions can be posed: How can Church and the body of believers claim the sole right to define who Christ is and deny the rights of others to hold and propound a different conception of Christ? How does one explain the divinity of Christ? Aren’t there differences of opinion on these questions even in Christology? It is in the background of these questions that this article makes an effort to understand this novel.

The novel begins with the murder of Jacques Sauniere, the curator of Louvre museum. The investigation that follows holds Opus Dei, a sect within the Catholic Church, responsible for the murder. It is said that Jacques Sauniere knew certain secrets about Christ, which if revealed to the public, would undermine the conception of Christ held by the Catholic Church. Fearing this, the murder was committed. The novel discloses the secret that Sauniere knew about Christ. As mentioned above, it was the fact that Christ was married to Mary Magdalene and that a child was born out of the wedlock, whose lineage continues to exist even to this century. The novel then indicates how it is a life and death question for the Church to acquire and keep the evidence that support this information as a well guarded secret, away from the eyes of the public.

The main thrust of the novel is to explain why it so significant to understand this secret about the life of Christ that the Church wants to suppress. Through a consistent propaganda, powerful men in the early church “devalued the female and tipped the scales in favour of the masculine.” Robert Langdon explains to Sophia, another important character in the novel, the proclamation of ‘The Priory’: “Constantine and his male successors successfully converted the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity by waging a campaign of propaganda that demonized the sacred feminine, obliterating the goddess from modern religion forever.” He then goes on to say, “Holy men who had once required sexual union with their female counterparts to commune with God now feared their natural sexual urges as the work of the devil, collaborating with his favorite accomplice…woman.”

Witch-Hunt of the Church

According to the novelist, it is the consistent campaign on the part of the church that was responsible for such a transformation of the world. Through his characters, he argues that the Church nurtured and made a patriarchal world through a cover up of Christ’s humanity and sexuality. This is how the novelist reconstructs the history of Christianity through his principal character, Robert Langdon: “Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. The brutal crusade to “reeducate” the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific.” Langdon presents his argument to Sophie by introducing to her a book published by the Catholic Inquisition, which arguably could be called the most blood-soaked publication in human history – Malleus Maleficarum or The Witches’ Hammer. This book “indoctrinated the world to the “dangers of freethinking women” and instructed all the clergy how to locate, torture, and destroy them. Those deemed “witches” by the Church included all female scholars, priestesses, gypsies, mystics, nature lovers, herb gatherers, and any women “suspiciously attuned to the natural world.”…During three hundred years of witch hunts, the Church burned at the stake an astounding five million women.”

Langdon is of the opinion that the hatred Church has towards women and its dismissal of sexual desire as sinful has had an important role in shaping the modern world. Referring to ‘The Priory’ proclamation, Langdon argues that “it was this obliteration of the sacred feminine in modern life that had caused what the Hopi Native Americans called koyanisquatsi – “life out of balance” – an unstable situation marked by testosterone-fueled wars, a plethora of misogynistic societies, and a growing disrespect for Mother Earth.”

The Church kept the sexual-marital life of Christ a secret to maintain such a “life out of balance” world order. And the novel posits that, it would do anything, even murder, to possess the key to this secret and guard it from the public. According to Langdon, Leonardo Da Vinci, through his paintings, made an effort to provide us with the key to this secret. An interpretation of the secret codes embedded in his works provides leads regarding where the Holy Chalice – Holy Grail – is hidden. Langdon follows this lead and finds the key to this secret. But instead of using the key and making the secret his own, the novel concludes with Langdon bowing down in worship in front of the Holy Grail. And these forgotten words echo in his ears: “The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one.”

The novel does not provide us with any clear evidence regarding whether Christ was married. To assert the fact that Christ was married, references are made to Gospels of Philip and Mary Magdalene. But, as was said earlier, Gospels are more faith proclamations of a faith community rather than well researched historical documents. Therefore, the author depends more on the narrative techniques of fiction writing to persuade the readers that Christ was married. Leaving that aspect aside, the novel, more importantly, takes a clear position on the many on going debates taking place among theologians and Christian denominations on issues related to the Bible, Church History and Christology. The novel, therefore, is either appreciated or criticized according to the position a reader holds in these debates. What then are these positions that the novel takes?

Jesus was a human being rooted in history and whose humanity had threatened the established religion and the ruling classes. To assuage this threat, the established religious forces and the ruling classes, following his death, made efforts to co-opt him, the new way of life, community and thinking he represented. With the conversion of Roman emperor, Constantine, to Christianity, the real Jesus was lost to us.

Another character in the novel, Teabing explains this. According to him, the Christ that we know today is a creation of the ruling classes. He points out that “The fundamental irony of Christianity! The Bible, as we know today, was collated by the pagan Roman emperor Constantine the Great.” He “was a lifelong pagan who was baptized on his deathbed.” To top it all, he was the head priest of Rome’s official religion – sun worship. Teabing goes on to say that “Constantine was a very good businessman. He could see that Christianity was on the rise, and he simply backed the winning horse. Historians still marvel at the brilliance with which Constantine converted the sun-worshipping pagans to Christianity. By fusing pagan symbols, dates, and rituals into the growing Christian tradition, he created a kind of hybrid religion that was acceptable to both parties.”

Empire Building

There is another issue that Teabing explains which needs to be taken note of. “Establishing Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was unchallengeable. This not only precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel – the Roman Catholic Church.”

“Christ as Messiah was critical to the functioning of the Church and state. Many scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from His original followers, hijacking His human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power.”

When Teabing claims that he has written several books on the topic, Sophie asks, “And I assume devout Christians send you hate mail on a daily basis?” To this, Dan Brown anticipating the controversy that his own book is likely to bring about responds through the character of Teabing: “Why would they? The vast majority of educated Christians know the history of their faith. Jesus was indeed a great and powerful man. Constantine’s underhanded political maneuvers don’t diminish the majesty of Christ’s life. Nobody is saying Christ was a fraud, or denying that He walked the earth and inspired millions to better lives. All we are saying is that Constantine took advantage of Christ’s substantial influence and importance. And in doing so, he shaped the face of Christianity as we know today.”

Teabing explains how Constantine was able to do this: “Constantine upgraded Jesus’ status almost four centuries after Jesus’ death, thousands of documents already existed chronicling His life as a mortal man. To rewrite the history books, Constantine knew he would need a bold stroke. From this sprang the most profound moment in Christian history. Constantine commissioned and financed a new Bible, which omitted those gospels that spoke of Christ’s human traits and embellished those gospels that made Him godlike. The earlier gospels were outlawed, gathered up, and burned.” Such were the efforts of the Vatican to erase the real Jesus from human memory.

Dan Brown presents the quest for the Holy Chalice as an allegory to the quest for the sacred feminine and the goddess, which was suppressed by the Church. “The power of the female and her ability to produce life was once very sacred, but it posed a threat to the rise of the predominantly male Church, and so the sacred feminine was demonized and called unclean.” Langdon says, “It was man, not God, who created the concept of ‘original sin,’ whereby Eve tasted of the apple and caused the downfall of the human race. Woman, once the sacred giver of life, was now the enemy.”

It is important, at this point, to remember that the formulation of the Catholic Church which holds sexual desire as being responsible for the original sin is not something that is accepted by most mainstream protestant churches today. The approaches to portray sex as something sinful; to hold women responsible for the sexual desires of men and thereby, demonize women and distance her from church life; to hold chastity as being superior to marital life; to simplify the divinity of Christ as just some demonstrations of super human miracles; and to uphold the authority of the Pope and the Church have all been contested issues in history among different sections of the Church. These are not issues which were invented by Dan Brown. But issues, which have been debated much in the past and which needs to be openly debated further.

Re-reading the Bible

The existing white rich male portrayal of Christ, theology and biblical studies, to maintain and legitimize its own power and vested interests, had silenced the authentic Christ and his relevance. However, in the latter half of the previous century this came to be critiqued by Liberation Theology, Dalit Theology, Black Theology and Feminist Theology.

As a result of which, the need to re-read the Bible increasingly became prominent in various churches. Bible was always read from the standpoint of men, the rich and the ruling classes. But this dominant way of reading the Bible came to be challenged and today, one is being called to read it from the standpoint of women, the poor and other marginalized sections of society. Alongside this theological shift, many protestant churches today have begun to ordain women as pastors and even consecrate them as Bishops. The debate over whether priests, especially of the Catholic Church, should remain celibate is also getting much sharper and is bound to intensify in the days to come.

There exist deep differences among theologians on Christology. The early church saw those ideas that rejected the humanity of Christ and considered material life and bodily desires as sinful (Docetism, Gnosticism, Nestorianism) as heresies. But interestingly, today, the Christian commonsense seems to be much akin to those ideas. The tendency among large sections of the Christian church to do away with the humanity of Christ, to objectify and make him an idol to be worshipped, and to pass of Christ’s divinity as mere exhibition of miracles is much strong. There are plenty to ‘worship’ him today but very few to follow him. In the early church, councils and theologians had spent much time to reflect on the question how Christ could be man and God at the same time. And most theologians came to the conclusion that Christ’s divinity lay in the fullness of his humanity. In the novel, the author’s intervention in this discussion is interesting. How can one talk of the fullness of Christ’s humanity by rejecting his sexuality? Who has interpreted sexual desires as the original sin? Even if Christ was married, how is it going to affect his divinity? Doesn’t it become obvious that in all this, what looms large is the effort of a dominant section to control women and sexuality?

The novel introduces to the readers a Catholic sect that has taken a vow to cover up all truth that would be a threat to the existence of the Catholic Church – Opus Dei. Members of this sect are portrayed as people who would be willing to go to any extent, even murder, to make sure that certain truths are not revealed. This again is something that is well known. The Church has always feared the truth. In the past, all those who dared to speak the truth and question the church were branded as heretics and burnt at stake. Even today, the Church guards its secrets with high security in order to maintain its power.

No monastic community becomes ‘holy’ just because it has taken a vow of chastity. Today, we are all too familiar with the Church leaders, who on the one hand take a vow of chastity while on the other hand illegally extract capitation fee to build more and more medical colleges for the rich. Then they teach the masses not to question the sinfulness in such acts of hypocrisy. Alongside, they also encourage religious movements like Charismatic movement to ‘manage’ the masses and keep them bound to the Church. Interestingly, for such movements, Christ’s divinity is not in his humanity but in extravagant displays of miracles and magic. A faith that reduces the divinity of Christ to performance of miracles is nothing but a faith that rejects the cross. Today neither the church leaders nor the believers are ready to follow that authentic human named Jesus Christ, who became part of our history, who took strong positions on issues, which confronted that history, who was prepared to risk his life for the sake of love and who finally gave his life so that the entire creation would have life. Today, in the name of that same Christ who stood in solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, who was rejected by the religious community, who was crucified on the cross and who showed a new lifestyle for the world, a religion has been made. It is to these contradictions that Da Vinci Code points its fingers at – yet another search to discover the authentic Christ.

The Lord's Supper

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 13:31:00 +0000

The Lord's Supper: Let Us Wait For One Another

1 Corinthians. 11: 17- 33

Paul raises a critique against the way the Christians of Corinth had celebrated the Lord’s Supper. The context is that of the agape or love feast- a common meal in which the congregation had participated before they celebrated the Lord’s Supper. This meal had become one that really brought to the forefront the “divisions” and “factions” within the congregation. It is apparent that these divisions are based on class differences.

Christians who were well off, brought ample food and drink to the assembly and enjoyed it without consideration for the poor who had not brought food. Some also over indulged, even became intoxicated, while others were left hungry. Although they gathered in the same place, they did not show any care or concern for those who were in need. It was this context that made Paul say, “When you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s Supper (Because) you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing.”

The Lord’s Supper is the central act that makes us who we are. It is a critique of the way that the existing world is organized, whether economically, socially, or otherwise. It is an act that reminds us of who we are and who we ought to be. If we are not concerned about the social divisions within our society and if we are not prepared to decisively act against removing the root causes of hunger, and work for a more equitable, just, participatory and sustainable society, then we are not eating the Lord’s Supper, but some other meal.

The Lord’s Supper brings to the centre of Christian life and witness the concern for working towards a more equitable and just world order. For a Christian, it cannot be a peripheral concern. The Lord’s Supper, as a sacrament, reminds us of what the nature of all our meals should be. It represents “spiritual communion, social community, and economic communism”. We often confine its significance to spiritual communion.

Those of us from India know how caste distinctions are enforced and maintained through non-commensality- prohibiting people from eating at the same table. Only people of the same caste can eat at the same table. In a society that is divided on the basis of Caste, celebration of the Lord’s Supper is an act of breaking the barriers of caste and establishing a social community. It is also economic communism- equitable distribution of economic resources. Such was the character of the earliest Christian community. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. They broke bread at home and ate food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all people.” (Acts. 2: 43- 46) “There was not a needy person among them” (Acts.4: 34) In a world where a few wallow in affluence and the majority is deprived of the basic necessities of life, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper is a revolutionary act of calling into question an economic order that perpetuates unequal distribution of the world’s resource and leaves people in poverty and destitution.

To the crowd that was so much taken aback by the so called miracle of feeding the five thousand and wanted to make Jesus king, he said, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs (in breaking of the rule of God), but because you ate your fill of loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the son of man will give you.” (John.6: 26 & 27) This verse has allusion to the food that God provided in the desert for the Israelites- manna. God had given them clear instructions: “Let no one leave any of it over until morning.” “But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul.” (Exodus.16: 17- 20). “Food that perishes” is hoarded food or accumulated food. Other characteristics of this food are also mentioned, “those who had gathered much had nothing over, those who had gathered little had no shortage; they gathered as much as each of them needed.” God’s dispensation is not one of accumulation of wealth by a few and deprivation of the basic needs of the majority. It is for this sort of an order that we are taught to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread”. We don’t ask for food that would last till our death. We pray for God’s rule that would ensure a just, equitable sharing of the resources of this earth. Sixty million tons of wheat rot in the store houses of India while 80 million of its people are starving. Why? A certain global economic arrangement demands it. It has no rhyme or reason other than that. Is it not a form of “terrorism”?

Camilo Torres, the Columbian guerilla Priest, who was killed in an encounter with the armed forces, held the position that he could not celebrate the Lord’s Supper in a society that was riddled with such gross inequality. I do not agree with him fully. I would like to continue this sacramental act as a subversive act and as a protest. However, I am against reducing it to a “Holy Communion” and thus separating it from stark realities of exploitation, oppression and suffering in this world. Paul writes, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.

For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves. So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” “The body” here refers not to the physical body, but the community of the people of God. As a community committed to Christ, it is important that we discern the true state of affairs of the body, the communities, regions and nations from where we come and the world at large, and it is in response to this discernment that we should partake of this meal.

It was expedient for Paul and not right on his part to suggest that “if you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together it will not be for your condemnation.” (I Cor.11: 34). He, it seems, is asking for separation between the private and the public, the Holy and the secular. It is this expediency of Paul and the like that has reduced the Lord’s Supper to a spiritual mystery that has nothing to do with the realities of this world. I wish Paul had said, “If you are hungry, don’t eat your food till you come to the assembly, bring your food over and share it with those who have no food, and then eat the bread and drink the cup of the Lord. Otherwise, it will be for your condemnation.”

Let us take part in the Lord’s Supper as a means of protest, as a means of sharing our commitment and vision, as a subversive act against a world in which people go hungry every day and dollars are spent for armaments. Let us take part in the Lord’s Supper as a means of sharing in the sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of a world that is broken, divided and torn asunder by class, race, nationality and creed. Let us partake in this meal with discernment of the body- with the full awareness of our interdependence, our broken-ness, and the costly sacrifice demanded of us to mend and to heal.

The Power of Empty Hands

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Wed, 26 Jan 2005 00:36:00 +0000

Hunter Farrell

The temptation is strong and will grow as your mission trip departure date approaches.The mere thought of traveling to and working in Third World communities is enough to get our anxiety working overtime: Will I be safe? Can I drink the water? Will I be able to handle the poverty? What will it be like to be the wealthiest person the community may have ever met (I, who have never considered myself wealthy in the least!)? How will I respond to people in need-to hungry children? How will the trip change me-in my understanding of how God works...in relationship to my modest “wealth”?

This internal anxiety, though uncomfortable, can be a God-given instrument of deep learning and personal change (precisely why I signed up for this trip, anyway!). It signals I’m crossing over, stepping onto that holy ground of encounter with people whose life assumptions are quite different from mine. And a faith which I hope to understand. It prepares my heart to receive the unexpected. And it reminds me that God is in charge of the trip from start to finish.

But as the anxiety grows, most short-term missionaries begin to stock up on “gifts”-
pens, candy, spiral notebooks, tooth brushes, etc. Well, maybe “gift” is the wrong word, if a gift is meant to symbolize the relationship between two people. In fact, the item I leave behind in the community tells the receiver little about who I am, and reveals clearly that I know little about him or her. Often, all it communicates is that I assume that the receiver needs it. (If I give a friend a toothbrush, I’m bound to get a strange look)

To truly meet a new friend, I have to set aside previously-held assumptions, my degrees and status, and my power, and receive the person for who they are. For a long, uncomfortable moment, my complete ignorance of the local language reduces me from a respected professional to a mere toddler, babbling phrase-book greetings to the raucous delight of the host community’s children. In a flash, I realize how accustomed I have become to my personal “accessories”-my status and specialized knowledge about al kinds of things that, suddenly, don’t seem very important. In a way, these are the things that make me who I am. Or do they? I blush, bowing my head under the weight of the revelation. Tears well up in my eyes. I smile. And the host community’s Welcome Committee somehow senses the moment, surges forward, and embraces me. All 34 adults and all 52 children-the little ones, repeatedly. (“I’ve never been hugged by 86 people in a row in my entire life!”, I complain later, beaming). The awkward yet powerful initial encounter set the stage for the whole week of work and transformed us into the impossible: friends.

This is why the mission pastor told us not to load ourselves down with “gift items”-we would have transformed the moment of powerful encounter into a “give-me” circus with kids yelling and grabbing to get more. Unknowingly, we would have flaunted our wealth and left powerful expectations for the next church group coming to this community. A proverb from western Ethiopia puts it this way: “We can only embrace with empty hands”.

Don’t get me wrong-to take a simple gift or two on a mission trip is a beautiful act. To give something that speaks of where I come from to that special new friend who teaches me something surprising about myself and about God. And we can set aside the rest of the clutter which really serves only to make us feel better about returning to our comfortable homes and hot showers.

I have to empty my hands to be able to receive from my new friends. I had no idea empty hands could be so powerful.

America's fairyland media

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:18:00 +0000

By George Monbiot

The U.S. media is disciplined by corporate America into promoting the Republican cause.

ON THURSDAY, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.

How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make-believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past 10 days.

The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The programme's allegations were immediately and convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last week, following an inquiry into the programme, the producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were forced to resign.

The incident could not have been more helpful to Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam, the collapse of CBS' story suggested that all the allegations made about his war record were false, and the issue dropped out of the news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing pundits, with the result that between then and the election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired, was the network's most effective investigative journalist: she was the person who helped bring the Abu Ghraib photos to public attention.

It's true, of course, that CBS should have taken more care. But I think it is safe to assume that if the network had instead broadcast unsustainable allegations about John Kerry, none of its executives would now be looking for work. How many people have lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam? How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica Lynch affair? Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003? Or that he was buying uranium from Niger, or using mobile biological weapons labs, or had a hand in 9/11?

You can say what you like in the U.S. media, as long as it helps a Republican president. But slip up once while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. In 1998, CNN made a programme which claimed that, during the Vietnam war, U.S. special forces dropped sarin gas on defectors who had fled to Laos. In this case, there was plenty of evidence to support the story. But after four weeks of furious denunciations, the network's owner, Ted Turner, publicly apologised in terms you would expect to hear during a show trial in North Korea: "I'll take my shirt off and beat myself bloody on the back." CNN had erred, he said, by broadcasting the allegations when "we didn't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt." As the website wsws.org has pointed out, it's hard to think of a single investigative story — Watergate, the My Lai massacre, Britain's arms to Iraq scandal — that could have been proved at the time "beyond a reasonable doubt."

The other squalid little story broke three days before the CBS people were sacked. A U.S. newspaper discovered that Armstrong Williams, a television presenter who (among other jobs) had a weekly slot on a syndicated TV show called America's Black Forum, had secretly signed a $240,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Education. The contract required him "to regularly comment" on George Bush's education bill "during the course of his broadcasts" and to ensure that "Secretary Paige [the education secretary] and other department officials shall have the option of appearing from time to time as studio guests."

These stories, in other words, are illustrations of the ways in which the U.S. media is disciplined by corporate America. The role of the media corporations in the U.S. is similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere: they decide what the public will and won't be allowed to hear, and either punish or recruit those who insist on telling a different story. The journalists they employ do what most working under repressive regimes do: they internalise the censor's demands, and understand, before anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is not.

So, when they are faced with a choice between a fable which helps the Republicans, and a reality which hurts them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to become president must first learn to live in fairyland.

Poverty and Hunger

noreply@blogger.com (Rev. Thomas John) — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 21:28:00 +0000

Poverty and Hunger: The Violence of Globalization

Choose Life (I King. 21: 1- 15)
Rev. Thomas John M.A., M.Div.

The fundamental conflict in the Bible is not between theists and atheist, but between those who worship the living God and those who worship the un-gods or false gods. The greatest threat that Christianity faces today is not atheism, nor Islam or Hinduism or any other religion, but it is the worship of Mammon, the God of wealth or profit. It is nothing but what we today label as globalization or market fundamentalism- enthronement of market as the sole arbiter, determiner and regulator of our life. It is this new religion of Mammon that sows seeds of death in the world today. It has emerged out of a new “Washington Consensus”- a consensus between the IMF, the World Bank and the US treasury about the “right” policies for developing countries. Globalization has become a religion unto itself with the IMF, WB and WTO, the unholy trinity, becoming its missionaries or high priests.

I would like to take you through the story that we find in 1King. 21: 1-15 as a way of understanding the basic conflict of cultures that we find in the Bible and the world today. “Naboth -- had a vineyard –- beside the palace of King Ahab”, the King of Israel. And Ahab wished to have that land turned into a vegetable garden as it was near his residence. He promised Naboth, “I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” Was this not a fair deal, that too by a ruler, a king? Naboth did not think that way. He refused the offer of the King; “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” Definitely, for most of us, it would sound a very foolish response. That kind of sentiment has no value in such a highly mobile society where real estate is a thriving business. The smart and worldly-wise wife of Ahab, Jezebel came onto the scene. She met with the bureaucracy; she sent letters to the elders and the nobles- the ruling class; she also co-opted the religious fundamentalists. She painted the picture of Naboth as a communist. He was accused of cursing God and the King- an atheist and one who act against the nation- unpatriotic. The ruling class manipulated the legal-justice system and Naboth was executed and the land was given over to Ahab. I cannot find a better story to tell you of what is happening in the developing countries under the market regime. Names may change; the basic story remains the same.

The two main characters in the story are Naboth and Jezebel. They represent two cultures or worldviews. Naboth worships the living God of Yahweh while Jezebel worships the un-god of Baal- the god of fertility and wealth, the god of the market. Naboth refuses to submit to the culture and logic of the market and he paid the price for it.

Ahab wanted the vineyard to be turned into a vegetable garden. It is the luxury of the powerful and the rich that decide the economic priorities and developmental activities of the rest of the world. Their fantasies and luxuries have priority over the basic survival needs of people who own, live in and work on the land. Today, in India, it is simpler to get low-interest loans to buy a Mercedes Benz than to raise one for agricultural purposes or for education. As far as the Israelites were concerned, the cultivation of wine suited the soil and the ecosystem and it was labor intensive. It served to meet the basic livelihood needs of a large section of the people. Vine, vineyard and wine have indescribable spiritual meanings for Israelites. They represented their life and means of survival.

Today, in two-thirds of the world, small farmers are unable to make a livelihood out of their land. It is impossible to stay in business by competing with the powerful players in the global market- the agribusinesses. Small and Marginal farmers sell their land and migrate to big cities. The nature of agricultural activity also changes. The agribusiness companies use land to produce commercial crops that are unsuitable to the ecosystem, the land, and are often water intensive and labor saving. In the process the land becomes degraded. The farming operations of the agribusiness are geared to producing for a global market where the demands of the rich always get priority. Thus the food security of the people is compromised. Our rice fields are turned into shrimp farms, banana and Coco plantations, amusement parks and golf courses. In Mumbai, bowling alleys are coming up in large numbers in the lands once occupied by textile mills. While countless thousands of women queue up for water each morning in the slums of Mumbai, 24 Water parks, which use up 50 billion liters per day, operate for the entertainment of the rich. In Rajasthan, a desert region of India, there are plans to open more water parks and golf courses. A single golf course takes 1.8 to 2.3 million liters of water a day through out the season. Textile workers, hand loom weavers, agricultural workers and fish workers are all being displaced from their traditional occupations and means of livelihood due to competition from multinational companies. Thus, what we encounter today is a conflict of priorities- conflict between the luxury-needs of a minority and the survival needs of a majority.

Conflict between Two Worldviews

We find in this passage, the conflict between two worldviews: one that believes that everything can be valued or prized and can be bought or sold as per the market demands; that every thing can be turned into commodities. The second affirms that there are invaluable things in life and that not everything can be bought or sold. The deal that king Ahab strikes with Naboth would appear very reasonable and just to a modern mind. The deal is, “I will give you a better vineyard for it or if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money”. This is the same language that the government and vested interests use in talking to those who are being displaced from their habitation by big dams, mines, tourism and other big projects. In their worldview, everything is exchangeable with “money” or with better substitutes. A market culture turns everything into commodities. Knowledge and the imparting of knowledge through education were never considered in our societies as something that could be bought or sold. Knowledge was considered to be public property. It was to be given away and it was in that process alone that it would abound to the good of all. Today, in most of the developing countries, governments are privatizing education, making it difficult for the poor to get quality education. In the tourism industry, the beauty of nature, our cultural heritages, and the bodies of our women are all for sale. In this process, religion also becomes commercialized. Everything has a price and everything can be bought or sold.

But for Naboth, land is not merely a means of livelihood but is part of his covenant with God. Israelites used to be landless nomads and slaves. It was Yahweh who liberated them from slavery and gifted them with a land. It was a gift from God. They could enjoy its fruits and not possess it for themselves. “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25: 23). Naboth holds on to this worldview. Land was given to his forefathers by God to enjoy its fruits, to preserve it and not to exploit it or sell it to make profit. In other words, land is sacred. Is this not what the Chief Seattle also has to say to us, “We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.”

Neo-colonialism and the Violence of the Ruling Class

Jezebel, as wife of the king, comes to wield enormous power over the governing structures. She is an extra-constitutional authority and also, a follower of a foreign culture that worships Baal- the present day god of the market. It is she who evolves a plan of action and dictates the nobles and the elders, “Proclaim a fast, and seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him saying, ‘You have cursed God and the King.’ Then take him out and stone him to death.” The elders and the nobles, the ruling class, submit without any reservation to the wishes of Jezebel. They did as she had directed. Jezebel, for us, represents the WB, the IMF and the WTO. No matter who gets elected to power, they become subservient to these powerful financial institutions. Bretton Woods have pushed several countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America into debt trap. Media and technology are also powerful tools in their hands to implement their hegemonic designs. States subvert their legal-justice systems to suppress and finish of the Naboths of this world and the people’s movements that support them. Thus we find a coming together of the Bretton Wood Institutions, the bureaucracy and the ruling classes in developing nations in order to fulfill the designs of global capital. They thwart democracy and the basic human rights of the majority of the poor in the developing nations of the world. This drama is being enacted all over the world. We develop theories of “clash of civilization”, accuse countries of having weapons of mass destruction, label them as “axis of evil”, in the name of God, national security, democracy and human rights, we terrorize and conquer people and nations with scant regard for any of these and all for the economic interests of a few. To cut the story short, they stoned Naboth to death. How many Naboths were killed in Laos, Congo, Angola, South Africa, Nicaragua Peru and El Salvador? How many Naboths are being killed today?

The Unholy Nexus of Religion, the Ruling Class and the Global Capital

Jezebel uses religion and religious institutions and practices to do away with Naboth and carry out her nefarious designs. It is a matter of grave concern that the political establishment in the US has hijacked Christianity to further their economic designs and hegemonic agenda. We have somehow identified this Mammonic culture with Christianity. Conservative Christianity, with their emphasis on an ahistorical, otherworldly, and individualistic piety, has become agents of global capital and its market culture. Gospel Crusades, Charismatic meetings, and Electronic evangelisms, directed primarily to countries in Latin and Central America, Asia and Africa are unfortunately becoming mechanisms to further a consumerist, success oriented and Mammon worshipping culture. The gospel demands have been diluted and a kind of glamorous Christianity devoid of the cross has been promoted. Naboth was accused of acting against God and the King and given the punishment for the same- stoned to death. The charge against Jesus, our Lord, was not any different. In Luke 23: 2 we read, “We found him perverting our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king.” Jesus bore the cross in defense of life and in defiance against all that destroys the integrity of creation. He gives us the choice: either to chose life or death, God or Mammon. Do we want to side with the culture of Naboth, which is life affirming or the culture of Jezebel, which is death dealing? It is in this choice and associated political decisions that we become followers of Christ.

Prayer:

O God, who in Jesus Christ, has opened before us, a way to eternal life in all its abundance, help us to see through the camouflages and discover the death dealing forces among us and give us the courage that your Son had in confronting those forces and stand up for life and pay its price. Help us to be always aware of our higher calling in Jesus Christ that transcends our narrow loyalties of nationalism and patriotism. We pray for all Naboths of this world, who had paid with their lives to preserve those things that are invaluable in our culture, civilization and the eco-system and the rights of our brothers and sisters to live a full and dignified life. Help us finally meet to rejoice in your eternal Kingdom of peace, justice and joy. We ask these in the name of our your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.