Formative stages of Indian Christian theologies
1. Indian
Renascent Engagement with the Gospel of Christ.
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1.1.
Raja Mohan Roy (1772-1833)
Raja
Ram Mohan Roy is known as the pioneer of Indian Nationalism. He had a rational
and scientific approach and believed in the principle of human dignity and
social equality. Therefore he is known as the morning star of Indian
renaissance and Father of Modern India. He founded a new religious society
Brahmo Samaj (the society of Brahmos) in 1830. In this society, worship was to
the one God, with rituals and theologies taken from both Hindu and Christian
scriptures. In 1820 he published extracts from the Gospels containing the
teachings of Jesus, especially sermons and parables, The Precepts of Jesus:
The Guide to Peace and Happiness, extracted from the Books of the New
Testament, Ascribed to the four evangelist (translation in Sanskrit and
Bengali). Marshman commented critically to this work because Roy published only
a part of the gospel and said “may greatly injure the cause of truth.” In
response Roy again published An Appeal to the Christian Public in Defense of
the Precepts of Jesus by a Friend of Truth.
For
Roy, Jesus is the teacher or guru of wisdom and ethics. His attitude towards
Christ is one of the reverences as due to a great teacher and messenger of God,
but he could not accept the title ‘Son of God’ if it implies an attribute to
divinity. It is not difficult for Roy to accept the doctrine of the Virgin
birth, but he would not like the idea to associate it with the personality of
the Holy Spirit. He will not deny the miracles of Jesus, including
resurrection. Both these points are unimportant for the religious minds of the
Indian people.
Roy
seriously read the Gospels and derived his Christology on the basis of his own
readings and the reasons that satisfied his mind. Roy rejected the ideas of
vicarious suffering and sacrificial death; God is impassable and is untouched
by the misery and suffering, and if Jesus suffered in his divine nature this
would be highly inconsistent with the nature of God. Death of God is the dogma,
which cannot be accepted by Roy.
1.2.
K.C. Sen (1838-1884)
Keshub
Chunder Sen joined Brahmo Samaj in 1857 at the age of nineteen signing
the membership covenant and was soon recognized for his gift of oratory. He
introduced Christian philanthropy into the Samaj and founded the Calcutta
College, in 1861, which was the first college founded by an Indian. His young
wife participated in the ordination service of her husband which became a
catalyst for women’s liberation at the time. Unlike Roy’s Samaj, Sen’s Samaj
included the Christian elements into its sessions in a fuller way: the use of
Scriptures, meeting on Sundays, earnest prayers to Brahma, the starting of
Brahmo missions, to cite a few examples. He also developed Brahmo liturgies and
annual festivals. Sen as a visionary and his vision towars theological
significance was carried forward by later Indian Christian theologians.
It
is to Sen that Indian Christians owe their use of the term, Saccidananda (Sat +
cit + ananda = truth +
intelligence
+ bliss) for the Trinity. Boyd suggests that this term is more adequate than
the Nicene Formula of one substance and three persons, which is still in Greek
philosophical categories. Sen affirms the full humanity of Jesus. Sen accepts
the pre-existence of Christ and Christ incarnation. He also believed in the
resurrection and ascension of Christ. He considered cross as the highest expression
of self-sacrifice. It is the moral influence of his death that Christ turns men
from sin to God. For Sen, resurrection is not a physical fact rather a
spiritual fact, it is the Spirit of Christ that is risen.
Three
strands of Sen thought on Christ and Christianity:
a. The first is a ‘belief in the
supremacy of Christ as the Godhuman,’ which impelled him to see the harmony of
religions in his Eclectic Church as definitely Christ-centred.
b. The idea that all religions are
equally true The glorious mission of the New Dispensation is to harmonize
religions and revelations to establish the truth of every particular
dispensation.”
c) The third strand was Sen’s doctrine of adesh (divine
inspiration) in which he saw himself as divinely appointed and commissioned to
be ‘the leader of the New Dispensation in which all religions are harmonized
and which all people are summoned to enter as their spiritual home.
He clearly establishes Jesus as Asian and he persist on same line
thereby started an eclectic Church known as the Church of New Dispensation.
1.3.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma
Gandhi was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount and held that its basic
principles are also the cardinal features of Hinduism. He practiced the values
of the Sermon on the Mount and proved to the world that following these virtues
leads to political and social transformation. According to E. Stanley Jones,
“Gandhi was a Hindu and belongs to Hinduism, but nevertheless when you strip
away all controversies between East and West and religion and religion, we
cannot help but recognize affinities he had with the faith in Christ….the
Mahatma was a natural Christian rather than an Orthodox one. In practice of
those principles he discovered and lived by the person of Christ, however dimly
and unconsciously….he never seems to get to Christ as a person”. The Christ he
admired was not New Testament Christ and his interpretation of Christ was
consequence of his reverence for Christ.
Gandhi’s
challenge to Christianity remains, not perhaps at the level of conformity to
Gandhian theology as S.K. George sees it, but at the other level of exploring
the fuller meaning of the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount for an Indian
understanding of God’s reconciliation of the world with himself in the person of
Jesus Christ, and if the idea of the Church as the witness to him among the
religious communities and secular ideologies of India. Gandhi was concerned
that Christ’s followers should live by deeds and words and not through mere
words. There is absolutely no doubt that Christ had a special place in Gandhi’s
heart but his convictions were deeply rooted in his own faith traditions and he
utilized them to teach the validity of peace and non-violence to the whole
world.
1.4.
Swami Vivekananda
Swami
Vivekananda approach was not that of a seeker but that of one who found
satisfaction in philosophical-mystical Hinduism. Secondly, he is influenced by
the Christ-myth speculation of the late nineteen century. Thirdly, he viewed
everything from the perspective of Advaita Vedanta. He attempted to bring
Advaita and Christ on the same platform so that humanity can be united in terms
of spirituality. By bringing great figures on the equal platform their
contributions are compromised.
1.5. Bhimrao Ambedkar
Dr. Ambedkar is considered
by many as the modern messiah of dalit
community. Ambedkar saw religion not as a means to spiritual salvation of
individual souls, but as a social doctrine for establishing righteous relations
between one human and the other. His philosophy of religion does not mean
either theology or religion. Theology studies the nature, attributes and
functions of God; religion deals with the things of the divine. Theology and religion
may be linked together; but they are not philosophies. When we talk of the philosophy
of religion, it is taken as a critical estimate of the existing religions in
general, and in particular to evaluate the teachings and doctrines of each
religion, whether it is Hinduism, Islam or Christianity, in relation to humans
and society, because, a religion, ignoring the empirical needs of either human
or of society does not meet the expectations of an intellectual like Ambedkar.
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