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ОглавлениеChristian–Hindu encounter in India: From the beginnings of Christianity in Kerala to the present day
A key to understanding Indian Christianity is that it is the faith of a minority, and indeed a tiny minority. Just 2.3 per cent of Indians registered as Christians in the last census, and this number was down from 2.6 per cent in 1971. In numbers this is over 24 million people, a large proportion practising. Some estimates are that the figure is now around 30 million. There are, of course, enormous regional variations, with Christianity by far the majority faith in certain small north-eastern states, and comprising around a quarter of the population in the highly educated state of Kerala. Southern states also have percentages well above the average, as do certain urban areas. But other states vast in population such as the Hindi belt of North India have tiny numbers of Christians. There are less than 0.3 per cent in the largest state by population, Uttar Pradesh, and no more in the rest of the northern areas outside the cities or tribal areas. This means that Christians are, and always have been, surrounded by a vast ocean of people of other faiths; they are so often indeed just a drop in that ocean.
Of course, the nature of the ocean around them will vary; in most areas it is Hinduism in a broad sense, but the make-up of that population varies enormously in terms of caste, main theological and philosophical traditions, deities worshipped in rural contexts and city temples, and manifestations of Hindu practice in terms of festivals and customs. Among these factors, the Dalit questions have come to the fore in recent decades, and whether Dalits see themselves as Hindu at all; and the variety of tribal belief systems and practices varies enormously regionally and locally.1
It is therefore impossible for Christians to live uninfluenced by these contexts. How far have expressions of Christianity changed within this environment? At the same time, what is surprising is how much influence Christianity has had on those around them, particularly Hindus. A question is how to measure this relationship – is it by the number of Hindus who have become Christians, or by the changes found in Hinduism as a result of living alongside this minority? This influence has been both upon the individuals concerned and also in the thinking and practice of the faith or faiths that make up Hinduism.
In terms of relationships, a key question is whether Christianity is an Indian religion or not. Ambedkar was clear it was not.2 He admired it greatly for the strength of its social gospel, but felt he could never join it, because it would mean joining a ‘foreign’ religion, just as much as Islam was. The Hindutva movement of recent decades has also had, as a major platform, that only Hindus can be truly Indian, and neither Christians nor Muslims can be fully trusted for their Indianness because their ultimate loyalties lie elsewhere. A diametrically opposed view was taken by India’s first prime minister, Nehru, who in Parliament in 1955, around the question of conversion and the constitution, affirmed strongly that Christianity was an Indian religion as were others. He said, vividly, ‘Christianity is as old in India as Christianity itself. Christianity found its roots in India before it went to countries like England, Portugal and Spain. Christianity is as much a religion of the Indian soil as any other religion of India.’
I now look at the history of the major churches, in terms of their relationship with people of other faiths, especially the 80 per cent who are Hindus.
The churches in India and their interaction with Hinduism
Orthodox (St Thomas) Christians and other faiths
Nehru was calling attention to the very early advent of Christianity to southern India, through the agency of St Thomas or those associated with this apostle in the first two centuries of Christianity. Christianity in Kerala was not the introduction of Western colonial mission; it came from Syria, and it has always remained independent of such missions. Its history was a remarkable example of survival without help from outside for more than a thousand years. The change came with the coming of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, when parts of this Church became part of the Roman Catholic Church. But many were allowed to keep the Syrian rite and customs. Others remained within the Syrian Orthodox traditions completely. They have survived all these centuries surrounded by Hinduism, and in some areas by Islam, by becoming a kind of high caste, and being accepted by other high Hindu castes as equals. Their relationship was one of mutual respect, with strict rules against intermarriage with those ‘lower’ than themselves. They were also clear they were not to evangelize other faiths around them. These were ways of survival, and this led to fossilizing of life and liturgy.
In the nineteenth century, some of these St Thomas Christians felt this fossilization. They felt there should be a sense of mission and theological development. They asked the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) to send missionaries to help them. The result was not what they expected. The vigour of the two missionaries sent led to a split in the Church. The Mar Thoma Church was formed, which still maintained the Syrian rite, but engaged actively in mission and evangelism to Hindus. It believed in a vigorous relationship with those around, and became a major Christian Church in terms of influence up to the present day. It holds the largest annual evangelistic convention in the world. At the same time, another mission – that which later became the Church of South India in Kerala – worked with the low caste, and formed the Diocese of Madhya Kerala. Hinduism indirectly or directly was the reason for these church divisions. If mission was to be successful, in practice it seems it had to live within the caste system. By this route, casteism became endemic in the Kerala Church, as it was to become within all the main churches, by various routes.
The Roman Catholic Church
Meanwhile, the major Roman Catholic missionary engagement had come further up the coast, beginning from Goa and spreading at speed around all of coastal southern India. The intrepid missionary Francis Xavier converted so many that individual baptism was impossible, as crowds of fishermen and their families sought the protection of the Portuguese navy and their religion. The relationship with the Hindu communities around was that of conquest, and the creation of little Portugals in southern and western India, centred on Goa. Baptism meant in some ways deculturization, and the adoption of a new way of life, as well as obedience to a foreign ruler. Churches were built according to Portuguese architecture, and Hindu festivals were replaced by Christian festivals, with statues of Mary and the saints replacing Hindu deities as they were carried round the streets in procession.
The Roman Catholic missions penetrated inland from the coasts, and the challenge of how to do mission was at its sharpest in Madurai, in what is today Tamil Nadu. Here the well-known Jesuit mission of Di Nobili (1577–1656) followed a model of indigenization that ring-fenced the high-caste status of Brahmin converts or potential converts.3 Himself of noble birth, he felt that in the interests of spreading the gospel it was legitimate to develop a community that lived by caste rules, and enabled new converts to remain unpolluted by close contact with Christians from lower castes. In particular, he employed Brahmin cooks to serve pure Brahmin food. Marriage was strictly within the caste. He himself learned Sanskrit, as well as Tamil, and wore the saffron robes of a Hindu holy man. At the same time, other missionaries worked among the lower castes and so-called untouchables, where they were more successful numerically. But he argued that only by beginning at the top could Christianity penetrate deeply into Indian life. He engaged also in dialogue with Hindu pandits (scholars), looked for commonalities and differences, and coined new words in Tamil to explain Christian concepts such as grace, church, Bible, mass and so on. In the end, he went too far for Rome, and his mission was derecognized.
It can be argued that any attempt to enshrine caste distinctions in the Church, even for the best of motives, has disastrous consequences, since it is a denial of the essence of the body of Christ where there should be no hierarchical social distinctions. Moreover, such one-caste communities tend not to last. A similar attempt was made to create a Brahmin Christian community in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu, in the early part of the twentieth century. Again, there was some success, but before long the need for marriages outside the closed community led to its breakdown. One negative consequence of these experiments was that, until comparatively recently, there were separate graveyards for different castes within some Catholic cemeteries, divided beyond death. Moreover, in Tiruchi itself, as late as the 1920s, a new bishop refused to take up his place unless a wall was removed in the cathedral, separating high and low caste. Worshippers could see the same altar when mass was celebrated, but could not mix when coming forward to receive the sacrament of unity!
A British anthropologist, David Mosse, studied one large village in Tamil Nadu in the 1990s.4 It is half Catholic and half Hindu. He found that the arrangements for the annual festival for the female deity, and for Mother Mary, were remarkably similar. Who does what were in both cases organized on caste lines. And adherents of both faiths participated in both festivals, though some Christians would not do so. I myself visited a similar village in Tamil Nadu, and here the Roman Catholic Christians were keen to emphasize that their statue and festive cart were bigger than those of their Hindu counterparts!
At the same time, the most effective and creative examples of indigenization have also been within the Roman Catholic Church. The National Biblical and Catechetical Centre in Bangalore has been in the forefront of movements in music, liturgy, art and dancing. It has had some effect on the wider Church, enabled through the networks of religious orders, as well as dioceses. Nearby has also developed the ashram of Jyoti Sahi. He is the Indian artist best known in the West, and his painting has developed stylistically. His earlier work was influenced by classical work, then by the mandalas of Buddhism. In recent decades his style has centred on Dalit and tribal cultures. His art is seen in churches, as well as murals and paintings. He also taught many sisters, from North India in particular, to develop their own style of art coming out of interaction with tribal religion.
The wider ashram movement has featured both Anglican and Roman Catholic communities. The Christ Seva Ashram in Poona is a protestant example, though this has now ceased to exist as an ashram. Two prominent examples of Catholic ashrams have been the Kurisumala Ashram in Kerala, with a Syriac rite, founded by Francis Acharya and Bede Griffiths in 1958, and Shantivanam in Tamil Nadu, to where Bede moved in 1968 and where he died in 1993. He began as an associate of the founder of Shantivanam, which I know well, Father Le Saux, and developed a thoroughly Catholic ashram in a thoroughly indigenous style. In so doing, he attracted many Westerners who were on a spiritual search in India, and led them back to Christianity. The ashram follows the architecture of a Hindu temple. The worship practices within the mass are evocative of Hindu puja practices, with much symbolism introduced, including the offering of flowers and arati over the bread and cup. Moreover, a reading from Hindu scripture is included before the Bible readings. Bhajans are sung in a range of languages, particularly Sanskrit.
Meanwhile, Le Saux had gone much further, as he took the name Abhishiktananda, and journeyed to Rishikesh, in North India, after a long period in the Hindu ashram in Tiruvanamalai, Tamil Nadu.5 Here he struggled to integrate Christianity and Vedantic Hinduism, and went as far as anyone ever has in this, achieving what he defined as the ultimate Vedantic experience of unity. By its nature, such an example could never become popular, but it provides an important symbol of the possibilities of integration between the two faiths. Bede never went this far, though he encouraged the teaching of yoga in his ashram, and led many courses on meditation within the two traditions.
Protestant and Anglican churches
These entered India along with colonialism, from the eighteenth century. They came with a reformation zeal, and mission commitment, to save people from what was seen as the darkness of Hindu practices and the demonic idol worship. It seemed to be self-evident that Christianity was superior in all respects, and that Hinduism would fall down like a pack of cards when it encountered the preaching of the gospel. But gradually, there was the discovery of the depth of spirituality and philosophical traditions found in the best of Hindu scriptures that the oriental movement revealed to the West. Moreover, it became clear that Hinduism did sustain people in their daily lives, and was not as vulnerable to the missionary movement as people had expected.
A vigorous discussion ensued in these missions, in the nineteenth century, about questions of caste and its relationship to conversion. The general missionary view was that caste was evil in its nature and its effects. As Bishop Wilson of Calcutta said in 1833, caste ‘must be abandoned decidedly, immediately, finally’ within the Church itself and on conversion to Christian faith. There could be no compromise here with an egalitarian gospel. This was shown most dramatically within the American Madura Mission. New converts had to eat a meal cooked by Dalit cooks, before baptism. This was extended to existing Christians, and the mission lost a good proportion of its higher-caste catechists, who reverted, or joined another church, rather than agree to such an agape meal before the Eucharist.
The Lutheran churches took a more relaxed attitude, quoting the ‘two kingdoms’ theology of Luther. A casteless world would only happen in the kingdom beyond this world! Higher-caste Anglican converts argued that caste was no worse than the social divisions found in Western countries, and they stood out against the lead of Bishop Wilson. In the end, these discussions made little difference. Marriage customs, above all, continued as before, and the arranged-marriage system enabled caste divisions to continue. The Hindu-linked casteism penetrated the Church at all levels, and this has continued to the present day. The difference is that often the members of the higher castes now claim to be marginalized, as more and more bishoprics and other powerful positions have fallen into the hands of Dalit-background Christians. One of the saddest Hindu influences on the churches lies in this apparent inability or unwillingness to set aside community politics within the church, where it is often little better than outside.
Many missionaries gave their life to India for decades, and some died there. A sample can be included here for the enormous contribution they made to the development of the Indian Church, and local cultures. The first of these were Ziegenbalg (1663–1719) and Plutschau, Danish pioneers deeply identified with Tamil culture, who first came to Tranquebar. William Carey went from Leicester to Serampore, to begin the Baptist mission in 1799. Alexander Duff made a major educational contribution, coming from the Scottish Presbyterian tradition. G. U. Pope and Bishop Caldwell, two Anglican missionaries with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) in the nineteenth century, were so honoured for their contribution to Tamil language and culture that their statues were erected on Madras Marina, by the Tamil Dravidian governing party, the Dravida Munettra Kalagam (DMK), in the 1960s. Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, whose birth anniversary was in 2009, was a giant figure in the world ecumenical movement, but above all was a missionary who gave his all to India. Rather different were C. F. Andrews, Anglican priest, the close companion of Gandhi; Verrier Elwin, Anglican priest, who ended being Nehru’s adviser on tribal affairs; and Dick Kaitahn, who was twice sent out of India, back to the USA, because of his espousing of the nationalist cause, and ended by establishing an ashram in the Tamil hill station of Kodiakanal, in post-independence India.
I make mention here of two remarkable North Indian converts who both became Anglicans, and then moved to a post-denominational Christianity, since they could not tolerate the divisions they found in the churches in Europe which had then been exported to India. I make no apology for giving an account of them in detail. Sadhu Sunder Singh (1889–1929) was a convert from a high Sikh family. As a Christian, he put on the robes of a sannyasi, and became a wandering and evocative preacher and mystic, who travelled to many countries abroad, as well as in India, dying somewhere in the Himalayas on his way to Tibet. He describes himself as not worthy to follow in the steps of Jesus, except by sharing in his wandering life, without home or possessions, relying on those who give him food and shelter, an evangelist simply speaking of the love of God that he had experienced himself.
Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922), probably because she was a woman, is less well known, but no less remarkable. She came from a Brahmin family, losing most of her family from cholera. She married, and her husband also died young, leaving her with a child. She was taken in by missionaries in Calcutta, and there studied the Bible and also Sanskrit. She was converted when teaching at Cheltenham Ladies’ College in England. She was deeply impressed by the care shown by a Christian mission in London for ‘fallen’ women, following the example of Jesus and the Samaritan woman in John 4. She returned to North India and worked tirelessly for the women of her country, to provide literacy, shelter and hope for the downtrodden, particularly child widows. She founded the Pandita Ramabai Mukti Mission, which has continued to this day. She refused to be submissive to clergy members who questioned her orthodoxy. She believed that true religion was the love of God and love of one’s neighbour, and that she should live by this creed was all that anyone could ask of her. She was named Pandita by Hindus, who recognized her wisdom and learning more than her own fellow Christian leaders.
To end this section, mention should be made of the achievement of the formation of the Church of South India in 1947, and the Church of North India in 1970. These two Churches have often not fulfilled the high promise under which they were born. But to join churches across the main Anglican and Protestant divisions into one structural unity was remarkable, as is the fact that they have largely remained together. One of the reasons for the move to unity was the fierce criticism that came from Hindu thinkers about church divisions which made their mission ineffective. Bishop Azariah, the first Indian bishop in South India, famously said that what Indians need is a common Christ in the face of the Hindu masses, not the divisions he encountered when he walked down an English high street and saw all the different churches.
Another special creation of the Indian churches were indigenous missionary societies. The earliest and best known of these were the Indian Missionary Society (1903) and the National Missionary Society (1905). Both are still very active and, though based in the south, work all over India and beyond, supporting large numbers of workers, particularly in tribal areas.
Interfaith dialogue and the Indian churches
Interfaith dialogue has been a necessity of life for Indian Christians, long before it was defined by this technical phrase. As has been seen, they have lived with their neighbours for 20 centuries, and dialogue was necessary to survive. The Roman Catholics have called this the dialogue of life. Theologies may be incompatible, but life is lived together. Christians have faced the same struggles as their fellow villagers, or fellow migrants to the cities, fellow slum dwellers, or fellow students or high fliers in the new dynamic metropolitan India. They share common passions such as those for cricket, Bollywood, common political adherences (it is noteworthy that most vote across faiths, for common parties), common concerns for their neighbourhood, health, education. So also in the sharing in ‘bad’ and ‘good things’ of life – births, marriages, illness, death.
A second level is that of theological dialogue or dialogue of discourse. This is normally informal, as talk turns to faith and belief. This can happen on the train, in the village coffee shop, beside the well. It can happen more formally, as seminars on dialogue are held on common themes. For example, the Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary, in Madurai, held two significant three-day seminars, one on justice and one on grace, which were then published as books, and included contributions from the major faiths as well as a variety of Christian traditions. They looked at theology, scriptures and the application of these themes to life. The aim has been to become aware of similarities but also of differences. Some dialogues are bilateral, some trilateral, some multilateral, and there are examples of all in India. Meetings, for example, were convened by the Roman Catholic Church, on word and silence (in Bangalore), on working for harmony in the contemporary world (in New Delhi), and in Pune on Hindu and Christian cosmology and anthropology. There has also been a Religious Friends Circle in Madurai, based in the seminary, lasting for many years, involving Hindu, Muslim and Christian leaders, teachers and theological students. Also in Madurai there was a sustained dialogue on Saivism and Christianity, with Drs Gangatharan, Thomas Thangaraj and Israel Selvanayagam. They developed this, building on the work of Dayanandan Francis, who contributed much to the Christian understanding of Sikhism.
Scriptural dialogue has also taken place, if in a fitful way. There have been Christian commentaries on the Bhagavadgita (such as that by Bede Griffiths) and Hindu books focusing on Christian Scripture, such as Radhakrishnan’s major book Eastern Religion and Western Thought.6 Here there is a strong emphasis on John’s Gospel as the essence of Christianity and on the Synoptic Gospels as the Jewish takeover of the original Jesus. There have been many other initiatives, but sustained dialogue at a scriptural level is difficult between a faith centred on one book and one person, and a diffuse faith with countless scriptures and a whole range of systems and deities.
This interaction between two very different faiths and world views has also meant that sustained theological dialogue has not been easy. Similar terms are found to have very different meanings. For example, avatar seems a fitting concept to describe the Incarnation of Jesus. But, as Parrinder has shown in his classic work Avatar and Incarnation,7 the differences in use of the term are vast. Jesus can never be one among many avatars (incarnations) alongside Krishna, Rama and so on. His humanity was complete, his footprint on the earth was real, his suffering and death were real. The docetic Christ was heretical for good reasons.8 So also the theology of the cross. Gandhi loved the cross as a deep inspiration of self-giving love. His favourite hymn was ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’. He himself was to suffer in a similar way, at the hands of a Hindu extremist. But Gandhi had no truck with the historical uniqueness of Jesus and the cross, and its saving quality, beyond viewing Jesus as a special exemplar of love. The future principal of Madras Christian College, Alfred Hogg, brings out these sharp differences in considering the cross, in his book Karma and Redemption (first published in 1909).
A third area is dialogue of action. This is dialogue for liberation, development, social justice. Here it is a question of joining together across faiths to face issues locally, community-wise, within particular states, nationally and internationally. Action for the oppressed has included working together for the betterment of those with leprosy, for exploited women, against child labour, for Dalit liberation, and so on. There are examples of all of these taking place in association with others, particularly in recent years. My own involvement in work with prisoners and their families was another example, the prisoners mostly coming from the lowest social strata. Work with HIV/AIDS victims is another recent example. By far the majority of those helped in all these cases are Hindus. Action has included advocacy for excluded groups, alongside Christians, who have been the object of Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS)9 opposition. There have been specific campaigns related to reservation policy, or about anti-conversion bills. These have all been ecumenical from a Christian church perspective. There were massive interfaith relief works in the period after the 2004 tsunami.
The fourth category is that of religious experience. This has included acts of common solidarity involving prayer alongside each other, from the same platform, in the face of a common issue or disaster, or national celebration, and this seems natural within multi-religious India. Prayers are offered before meetings or formal dialogues. In ashrams, such as Shantivanam above, people from different faiths enter into the experience of the other. As Bede Griffiths said, ‘Hinduism and Christianity are poles apart in terms of doctrine; but they can meet in their spiritual depths, in the heart of the lotus – there is Christ.’ There are also the simple acts of prayer in a village or when someone is sick. A Christian pastor will be asked to pray in Hindu homes quite naturally. I remember visiting a group of villages where, every full-moon night, the pastor and his team visited all the homes in a village, mostly Hindu, and offered to pray in each house. They were accepted in most.
The bhakti devotional experience is common across all faiths, whatever it is called. It will be seen at the tombs of saints in Sufi Islam. It is seen in the major Sikh temples on their holy days. It will be found on new-moon days within Buddhism. It will be seen in popular Hindu festivals, when thousands of devotees are taken out of themselves in prayer and enthusiasm.
It is seen in a shrine such as Velanganni in Tamil Nadu, which now hosts the biggest annual religious festival. It is a shrine in honour of Mary, and her appearances there. Hindus are by far the majority of the devotees, but also Christians of all backgrounds come to this Catholic shrine by the Indian Ocean, at all times of year. The annual festival time in September has become an official holiday for those from the neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu. Prayers are to fulfil vows, or for healing, and practices of popular religiosity are seen such as going towards the shrine on the knees, or walking there with a full pot of water on the head and avoiding spilling. Such can be seen also in the Tamil shrines to Murugan, the second son of Siva, and the most popular deity here, as he is worshipped in temples on six hills around the state. The Christmas festival is both a Christian celebration and a time for Hindus to attend churches, and to welcome the Christ child, born as an avatar.
An area of creative spiritual dialogue has been that of music and hymnody. Early hymns were those brought from Europe, translated into regional languages or Hindi. But as the decades went by, there grew up a rich tradition of bhajan singing, and lyrics. These were very much in the Hindu bhakti and poetic tradition, but clearly Christ-centred. They included a style of dialogue between the lead singer and the congregation, as they go back and forth in expressing their part. There also developed the kalachebbam, a style of narrating a story involving a dialogue with the audience. Indian instruments normally associated with temples were introduced, especially various forms of drums, combining with the harmonium adapted from Europe. Attempts to introduce the Indian flute largely failed, because it is the instrument traditionally associated with Krishna. Dance in worship was never widespread, because of the association of dancing with temples and ritual prostitution. But the Roman Catholic Church has encouraged the development of highly trained groups in Bangalore and in Tiruchi. They have very beautifully adapted classical dances, usually found in Hindu culture, to tell Gospel stories such as that of the Samaritan woman at the well, as shown at the World Mission Conference in Edinburgh in 2010. They are a direct way in which Indian Christianity, adapting Hindu-style art, has made an impact in the West, through regular tours, particularly to Germany and the UK. I was external examiner for a doctoral thesis on Indian Dance and the Catholic Church, by Jessica Sinniah, and she received this degree from Birmingham University in December 2013. She was the leading dancer and choreographer at Edinburgh.
A study of village Christians in Andhra Pradesh, by P. Luke and J. Carman, nearly all of them from one of two Dalit communities,10 shows how many of these villagers lived across two religions, in terms of religious practice. To differing degrees, they shared in the majority religious life of Hindus, particularly around festivals, and for marriages and funerals. They could technically be named ‘syncretists’, but they were clear about their Christian identity. They just did not see this as incompatible with sharing in the spiritual highs and lows of the lives of their neighbours. This is a kind of grass-roots inclusivism.
There is a long history of Indian Christian theology, and this has been at its most creative when it has been born out of deep interaction with Hinduism or another Indian faith. It has been largely from the work of converts from higher castes, or their descendants in such communities. Many examples are found in Robin Boyd’s much reprinted book, Introduction to Indian Christian Theology.11 These pioneers struggled with the great themes of Christian theology – God, Trinity, above all Christology, atonement, sacramental theology – and produced inspiring books of faith-centred theology, as they worked to find meeting points between their former religion and their new-found, salvific, Christ-centred faith. Some focused upon what has become thought of in the West as the highest forms of Hindu philosophy, known as Advaita, where God is essentially impersonal. This has as its aim the realization of the oneness of God and the human soul, and the absorption of that soul into the divine. Those following this way usually centre upon John’s Gospel, and texts such as ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10.30). They look too to the Logos concept, the self-expression of the divine, with parallels in the Om in Hinduism as the primeval voice of Brahman, the divine.
Others focused upon the bhakti devotional traditional, where God is intensely personal. An example is Bishop Appaswamy. Another initiative is that of relating to Saivism. This is seen in the work of Israel Selvanayagam, who engages deeply with Saiva Siddhanta, a Tamil philosophical tradition. More recently, there has come a focus on the Spirit, largely absent in earlier writings, and this can be found in a recent doctoral thesis of Christine Manohar, published as Spirit Christology.12 As an Indian Christian she builds on the earlier recent work of Kirsteen Kim, Mission in the Spirit, on the Spirit in Indian traditions.13
Another recent work of significance is that of Thomas Thangaraj, The Crucified Guru,14 which takes the Hindu concept of teacher, so often seen in Hindu leaders, who become the objects of personal devotion, not least by Westerners, and shows how Jesus could be seen in this way. The guru is voice of God to the devotee, and can easily be seen as a god. Clearly there can be seen to be links with developments in Christology, though Christ as servant is very different in its implication. Links can be seen here with the key concept of the guru in Sikhism (see later in this chapter).
There has been much discussion about sacramental theology, particularly related to baptism. The challenge was raised, most notably by the Mar Thoma church theologian M. M. Thomas, whether baptism was strictly to be insisted upon within the Indian context. He engaged in a vigorous controversy with his friend Lesslie Newbigin.15 Thomas was deeply disturbed with what seemed like the de-indianization, or deculturation of a convert, symbolized by baptism into what was seen as a Western organization, the Church. A challenge came from Russell Chandran, then principal of the United Theological College, in Bangalore, who held that baptism is not about separation from the original family or community, or about bringing disunity, but about separation from sin.
Newbigin held strongly to the traditional understanding of baptism, and if there was pain in separation, that had to come – conversion, obedience to new norms and joining a new community (the Church) are not three different things but are all aspects of the same thing. He held that the Church was a sign of the new humanity, which must include the capacity to embrace people of varying cultural backgrounds in one fellowship. This would of necessity in India include people of all castes and communities. This was a mark of the kingdom. Better a smaller church of quality than a large church which followed caste divisions. Newbigin fought against a tendency to look to higher numbers of converts by following the mission strategy of the ‘church growth’ school of Donald McGavran, where leaders considered how churches would grow best and followed that strategy – the homogenous growth principle. Baptism, believed Newbigin, was often divisive, but so was it in New Testament times. Being part of the visible Church was to be a Christian. M. M. Thomas defined the new humanity as ‘that which responds in faith and receives the liberation of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour’. This did not require baptism.
All this was part of a wider discussion about what it means to be Indian and Christian. There have been a number of initiatives to establish Indian Christian fellowships or churches independent of Western churches. Examples of these were the Indian Church of the Only Saviour (Nattu Sabai). This was formed as the ‘Hindu Church of the Lord Jesus’ in Tinnevelly in 1858, and consisted of Christians of the Nadar community who kept their caste distinctions, and abandoned baptism.16 Another was the movement in Andhra Pradesh of Subba Rao. He was virulently anti-baptism, and called himself a Hindu devotee of Christ. The Old Testament was abandoned, as he responded to a direct vision of Christ in 1942. Again it was a one-caste movement. These are just two of several such groups, none of which has been sustainable long term in any numbers. Moreover, such is the power of Hinduism, and its inclusiveness, that adherents are soon absorbed back into their former fold.
The same applies to so-called secret Christians. These are many and are of two types. Some have been secretly baptized, and are single-minded in their Christianity, usually conservative in their theology and negative to their Hindu background. But social circumstances and family realities mean they keep their baptism secret. The most famous group of these were women in Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, whose faith was sustained often for two or three generations, until they ‘came out’ as part of the Church. The other group are the large numbers who follow Jesus through prayer, Bible reading, radio programmes, attending meetings, but are part of family Hinduism otherwise. Research shows that in Chennai there are as many such Christians as there are full members of the Church.17 Again, sustaining such a position over a period of years is difficult if not impossible.
Theological parameters have changed rapidly, under the impact of the Dalit movement, and the growing importance of other excluded groups as they have gained a voice, such as women and tribals. Dalit theology has become increasingly dominant and has led to a suspicion of all other forms of theology, including Indian Christian theology, as above, being labelled Brahminic. The studious work of K. P. Aleaz, for example, on Christianity and Advaita has, in recent years, been dismissed by such voices. The high volume of Dalit theology has been varied in its quality, but represents a strong voice of protest, about being silenced for generations. Its most famous voices include James Massey, A. P. Nirmal and M. Prabakhar. Much of it rejects all association with Hinduism in any form. But other writers, most notably Abraham Ayrookuziel, were able to bring out the creative and liberative strains within village Hinduism and its traditions, including its songs, poems and oral traditions.18 Satthinathan Clarke, not himself a Dalit, has written one of the most creative works, coming out of his doctoral thesis, where he compares Christ with the drum. This is the village instrument which a particular Dalit caste is required to play at the funerals of the high caste. He shows how this can become a symbol of liberation rather than of slavery. Recent feminist writings have talked of Dalit Christian women as being threefold discriminated against – as women, Christians and Dalits. There have been attempts to find liberating themes in the persons of goddesses in popular Hinduism, and also in figures such as Sita.
In the Dalit movement some of the distinctions across faiths can fall away, as the emphasis falls on a common identity as the excluded ones, rather than on barriers between faiths. Clearly the Christian movement as a whole has also been a factor in the reform of at least some Hindus’ attitudes to Dalits. The need to treat former untouchables with humanity and dignity has not just come out of a defensive attitude, lest they all convert to other faiths. It has also unearthed the better traditions within Hinduism, as it works at showing that such distinctions are not of the true nature of Hinduism, any more than slavery was of the nature of Christianity. But such changes were necessary for apologetic reasons also. The strong stance taken by Ram Mohan Roy against caste divisions and untouchability was an important step forward. Gandhi himself was not uninfluenced by Jesus’ teaching, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, in many of the progressive stances he took. He would not enter any temple if it was not also open to those he had named Harijans (a name they later rejected as patronizing – those ‘blessed by God’ – as they took on their own designation, Dalit, meaning ‘crushed ones’; see note 1). Both the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj claimed at least to be inclusive of all castes, as did the Ramakrishna Mission. The Ramakrishna Mission has a strong emphasis on social work with the poor. Ramakrishna himself had a strong vision of Jesus, as one of the influences behind his formation of the mission.
Questions of mission, evangelism and conversion
Theology and practice of mission has depended in an integral way on theology of religions. The prime motivation for Christian mission in India for centuries was to save souls, and convert communities and individuals to the gospel and to membership of the Church. Whether they lived under what was seen as the tyranny of Islam, or the demonic possession of Hinduism, the task was to rescue them for the sake of their eternal destiny. This exclusivist theology was the norm among the sending agencies, of whatever faith. Numbers of believers were critical in terms of measuring the success of a mission. Tactics might change, between converting the high caste so that there would be a trickle-down effect, or converting the poor and oppressed, as this is where the numbers lay. By far the majority of Indian converts came through mass or community movements. They came by families, villages or castes. This movement was at its peak in the period from 1800 until the 1930s, but has continued at a lesser level since. It was studied very effectively by J. Pickett in his major work Christian Mass Movements in India.19 He reckoned that 50 per cent of Roman Catholics were products of such movements, and 80 per cent of Protestants, throughout India. He showed that motives are always mixed, with religious and spiritual reasons going alongside the desire to gain respect, material support and liberation from caste oppression. Duncan Forrester, in his definitive book Caste and Christianity, wisely comments on motives:
The search for material improvement or enhancement of status is seldom, if ever, the sole or even dominant motive in a mass movement. Dignity, self-respect, patrons who will treat me as an equal, and the ability to choose one’s own destiny – all these are powerful incentives to conversion.20
My own doctoral thesis, published as The Church and Conversion, would suggest the same in later movements also. Now, since Indian independence in 1947, the benefits system discriminates heavily against the Christian convert, and especially their children. Only Hindus, and later Sikhs (from 1950) and Buddhists (from 1990), could receive the benefits accorded to the scheduled castes (Dalits and tribals). Converts became ‘backward caste’ (a category between scheduled castes/Dalits and forward castes). And those from the backward castes, if they converted, were treated as forward caste.
Individuals made their own decision as to whether to take baptism within a people’s movement, usually following the lead of their family leader. But in most villages, some converted and built a church; others remained in Hinduism. The evangelistic activity of the missionaries, whether a minority from overseas, or by far the majority, Indian, was usually combined with educational and medical work, and often development work and advocacy. The theological motivation was exclusive, that people could be saved from darkness; but the nature of the darkness was complex – ignorance, illness, hopelessness, oppression, as well as the worshipping of false gods, or the chains of Islam.
But such is the fear of conversion movements that there was a major backlash in recent years from politically powerful Hindu forces. This fear may be irrational – all the statistics show that the Christian percentage in India is static – but stems from the fact that conversion is a political and demographic issue, as well as a religious, spiritual and psychological question. It has often been said that Hinduism in India is a majority faith with a minority complex. Some of this may be nothing to do with Christians, but stem from the much larger minority of Muslims, fear of foreign influence and terrorism, and nearby neighbour Pakistan. Anxiety is projected onto the much weaker Christian communities. It has been focused upon charismatic and fundamentalist movements who since the 1960s have come in significant numbers, from outside and from within India.
It should be noted that when there are conversions to Buddhism this is much less of a threat, and usually passes almost unnoticed. But there were the famous conversions to Islam from Hinduism in Meenaakshipuram, Tamil Nadu, in 1980, which became a national sensation. I studied these, but also conversions from two Christian villages to Islam some time after this. The government was primarily concerned with the Hindu–Muslim conversions, and it led to the village leaders being summoned to Delhi to explain themselves. The story of the two Christian villages showed how effective was Muslim evangelism. The Muslims made clear that there was no caste in their faith and they would be accepted by old Muslims immediately. There would be an imam chosen from their village, to provide local leadership. This was not the case with these Christian congregations, which were looked after by pastors who came and went from the towns or cities. I visited these villages ten years later, and found them satisfied that they were accepted, and their low-caste status had been put behind them. Of course, there are divisions in Islam, but it is sad that the degree of these divisions seems to be less, at least in South India.
The Hindutva movement of recent decades has attempted to claim India for Hinduism, and to eliminate the secular nature of the constitution established in 1949. This made clear that, as a Fundamental Right, subject to public order, morality and health, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion. As early as the mid-1950s, the Nyogi Commission was established to consider the work of foreign missionaries in Madhya Pradesh, and its report focused largely on questions of conversion. One witness commented that the aim was to create a Hindu state, with existing minorities ‘integrated into Hindu culture’. The tug of war has continued since then, with various individual states bringing in anti-conversion bills, covered over under the title ‘Freedom of Religion’ and highlighted as bills to protect poor, vulnerable scheduled castes and tribes from the onslaught of Christian missionaries, from home or abroad. Political parties were formed around this issue, and eventually the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led the coalition government in Delhi in 1998. It had a Hindutva ideology, and had been behind the destruction of the Babri mosque in Ayodya in 1992. Ayodya is considered the birthplace of Rama. It has led coalition governments twice in Delhi, and it won a landslide victory in May 2014, under the strong and controversial leadership of Narendra Modi, the chief minister of the Hindutva-influenced state of Gujarat. The Congress was seen as tired and unable to deal with corruption. We shall see how important Gujaratis are in the Indian diaspora.
Earlier, the BJP was never able to implement more partial Hindutva demands, such as the building of a temple at Ayodya, and eventually lost power to Congress in 2004. Minorities breathed a sigh of relief. But this did not prevent strong opposition to Christian mission, continuing in BJP-ruled states such as Gujarat, Karnataka and Orissa. In Gujarat it also led to more than 1,000 people being killed, mainly Muslims, in riots in 2002. The activist wing of the BJP, the RSS, was accused of attacks on Christian worship, buildings and occasionally, most notably in Orissa in 2008–9, on village Christians themselves. Arguments centred upon ‘inducements’ leading to conversions, and for the dedicated Hindu nationalist, Christian education or medical work could be seen as an inducement. So also exploitation of the economic weakness of the lower castes, or their psychological or mental vulnerability. The suggestion was that they were not capable of making spiritual or rational choices.
The result of this struggle over decades has been to strengthen Christian exclusivism as a missionary and theological stance. It has also led to a movement that can only be called evangelistic, to reconvert Indian Christians to Hinduism. The process of reconversion is known as suddhi. Certain mutts (spiritual centres) are dedicated to such a mission, and there is a liturgical reconversion ceremony where the pollution is removed from the candidate, ash is placed on his or her forehead, and the person readopts a Hindu name, which is then published in the local gazette. For some, this is a genuine reconversion; for others it is a deliberate plan to regain lost benefits. Relief aid is also sometimes used for conversion purposes. It is said that in Gujarat, after the earthquake in 2002, those who were suffering had to chant Ram, Ram, before receiving relief. Of course counter-claims were made about certain Christian missions, both then and in the post-tsunami period.
Another factor in reconversion at the village level has been pastoral neglect. In some mass movement areas there was a failure of ministry. Villages were rarely visited by pastors. I have documented this in the Madurai/Tiruchi area. Gradually, villages fall back, not out of belief, but lack of follow-up and teaching, and through lack of creative leadership. Eventually, they end up only celebrating Christmas and New Year, and then even that ceases. They become Hindu in all but name, and eventually in name also.
It should be emphasized that the majority of Hindus remained as they had always been, on good terms with their Christian neighbours. They attended Christian mission schools and went to Christian hospitals, without fear that they would be forced to convert, and sure they were entering institutions of quality where spiritual values were upheld. It is not surprising that, with a few regional exceptions, the Hindu majority has normally joined with the minorities in returning governments of the centre, implicitly rejecting Hindutva as an ideology.
A book by M. M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance,21 is an important record of Hindus who remained Hindus but were deeply influenced by Jesus. Examples include Ram Mohan Roy (from Bengal), Keshab Sen (from Maharashtra) and Gandhi himself.
Apart from exclusivism, other theologies of religion developed through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The impact of working closely with Hindus was to lead to awareness that this faith could not just be written off as all bad. There were so many aspects to Hindus, and to Hindu practice. How could these be seen as bad in a world God created as good? The World Mission Conference in Edinburgh in 1910 was a watershed in some ways. It reaffirmed the necessity of evangelizing the world in one generation. At the same time, it studied in detail, with a vast amount of evidence, what was happening in mission around various themes. Commission IV was on Christianity and Other Faiths. Sixty missionaries working predominantly among Hindus in India responded to a detailed questionnaire.
These responses have been studied in detail by a range of modern theologians – Wesley Ariarajah, Kenneth Cracknell, Brian Stanley, among others. This shows the quality of the responses. Kenneth Cracknell’s book is entitled, Justice, Courtesy and Love,22 and he shows how missionaries, particularly to India, came up with this description of how to commend the gospel. The predominant theology revealed is that which became known as Fulfilment Theology. Christ can fulfil the longings and spiritual quest found in Hindu traditions. We see the beginnings of a theology of dialogue. To summarize the 70 pages of analysis of the 1910 missionary responses, Cracknell found here answers which reaffirm both a commitment to the finality of the Christian revelation, and the centrality of Christ, with a generous and humble attitude to other religious traditions as encountered in India. This theology was articulated most prominently in J. Farquhar’s work The Crown of Hinduism.23 There were two major deficiencies in the work of this commission, as I see it. The movement seen from exclusivism to inclusivism is very selective. The responses are in relationship to the so-called ‘higher’ Hinduism, particularly Vedanta, and this could later be dismissed as Brahminic. And these were the answers of missionaries. The commission never asked for responses from Indian Christians. Four Indian Christians were present, most notably the future Bishop V. S. Azariah. But they did not give written evidence on their attitude to Hinduism.
However, as the twentieth century advanced, there were further developments in the theology of religions. The major mission conference at Tambaram, Madras, in 1938 moved in an exclusive direction, led by Hendrik Kraemer, whose theology of religions followed from his Barthian background and was published as Christian Message in a Non-Christian World.24 Here there can be no bridge between a human religion like Hinduism and the revelation of the Word of God in Christ.
At the same time, a group of Tamil Christians had been meeting in the same city, and they produced an important study, entitled Rethinking Christianity. They were higher-caste converts, usually lay people, and they were looking for bridges between their former faith and Christianity. Examples were P. Chenchaiah and P. Chakkarai. Chenchaiah (1886–1959) was blunt in his stance:
Christianity took a wrong gradient when it left the Kingdom of God for the Church. Christianity is a failure because we have made a new religion of it instead of a new creation . . . The Hindu will slowly and in different degrees come under the influence of the Spirit of Christ, without change of labels or nomenclature.25
Chakkarai (1880–1958) writes memorably, ‘What moves a person is not that his old country is bad, but that he has to obey the heavenly call . . . the Church is not just to be for cultus, but communion with the Living Lord, for social action.’
In the post-Vatican II period (after the epoch-making Vatican II document Nostra Aetate (1965)), there developed the idea, from Karl Rahner, of ‘anonymous Christianity’, to explain the evident goodness and spirituality found in people of other faiths, and this could be recognized as salvific. We are here wrestling with a theology that needs people to be part of the Church to be saved, and this must therefore be so anonymously. This was highly relevant to India. Most creatively in India, there was the inclusive theology of Raymond Panikkar, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism.26 Having mixed Catholic and Hindu parents, he finds here a depth of truth in Hindu scriptures that he can only attribute to Christ the Word. Also from the Roman Catholic tradition came the beautiful book by K. Klostermaier, about in-depth encounter in the birthplace of Krishna, Hindu and Christian in Vrindaban.27
From the Protestant point of view, Stanley Samartha, who wrote from Bangalore when working with the World Council of Churches (WCC), produced a number of very significant books.28 An evaluation of his contribution to dialogue comes perceptibly from Israel Selvanayagam, in a chapter in Christian Theology in Asia where he focuses on Samartha’s defining of dialogue as being about the Spirit, and about love and respect for neighbour. Samartha believes it is about mood and lifestyle, about partners as persons and not statistics.
A steady stream of articles relating theology to praxis came out of the Centre for the Study of Religion and Society (CISRS), established in Bangalore by P. D. Devanandan, with M. M. Thomas as his successor as director. From the beginning, they took seriously the need to engage with the faiths of India, as well as the society around. They took seriously the diversity of Hinduism, and also the imperative to hold mission and dialogue together. In the end, they got overtaken by an imperative to be seen to be active, rather than just reflective, and rather lost their way academically. But the contribution of CISRS, through its journal and its publications, has been immense, and paralleled in few other countries.
It should be noted that Hinduism itself has a variety of theologies of religions, though not defined systematically. There are implicit strands of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. There is the easy pluralism that is traditionally associated with Hinduism: let each find his or her own way – that is the way that is right for each. There is the assumption of superiority in Advaita, that this is the only true way of finding truth and unity with God. And there is the kind of inclusivism found in the slogan ‘One truth, many religions’. Some of this has come out of encounter with Christianity.
It is perhaps strange that while India was the cradle of the multi-religious world, and much was achieved historically, nevertheless at the present time many of the most dynamic contributions to interfaith relations and dialogue are taking place elsewhere. This is partly because religion has become more and more political in India, and minorities have been tempted to withdraw into themselves. It is partly because of the growing success of evangelical movements, and of Pentecostalism in India, as elsewhere, where the barriers between truth and falsehood are emphasized, and the need to ‘save’ has become the imperative. It is partly because of deficiencies within the priorities of the leadership in the Indian mainline Churches. It is noteworthy that while every diocese in the Church of England has an Inter Faith Adviser, if mainly on a part-time basis, there are no such appointments in the Church of South India or the Church of North India. An exception was when Bishop Selvamony of Kanyakumari initiated a Department of Inter Faith Dialogue about 30 years ago, but this did not last. The Roman Catholic dioceses, on the other hand, usually have such an officer in each diocese. Another factor is the dearth of outstanding teachers of theology of religions in Indian theological institutions. This is partly because outstanding persons in this field are serving in the West. It may also be partly because this field of study is not as valued as it used to be.
Nevertheless, as we wrote at the beginning of this chapter, day to day, Indian Christians are living out their lives in faithfulness to their Lord, just as they ever were. Such a minority witness will never be easy. But it remains the greatest inspiration for us from more tired so-called Christian countries, when we visit, or live for periods with, Indian Christians. For such Christians, interfaith relations are never just academic, or detached; they are a matter of life and death. The Church in the rest of the world needs to be ever thankful for their story, and also for how they live in harmony with their Hindu neighbours over the years.
