Theology of interfaith Dialogue
Religious
pluralism is part of Indian identity and Indians live with people of other
faith as neighbors and friends. Even though religious pluralism is a fact but
the efforts to develop a relationship with people of other tradition is one of
the challenges to Christian Theology. At the cultural level, Christians in
India began to appreciate different aspects of Indian culture and tried to
adapt cultural elements in Christian faith. Since culture and religion are
inextricably interconnected in Indian society it naturally leads to interest in
other faith. In this context inter-religious and intra-religious dialogue
is regarded as partner of Christian theology.
1. Swami Abhishiktananda (1910-1973)
His Christian Advaitic sannyasa life in genuine Indian religious
style is a challenge. He lived the symbiosis of two tradition and both became
part of him. He tried to present the Advaitic experience as compatible with the
Christian experience of Trinity. He practiced both Christianity and Hinduism
and freely resorts to theistic Christianity and non-dualistic Hinduism and he
reached to an esoteric level where the relative forms are universalized.
Abshishiktananda’s
contention that theology should evolve from within the level of experience
needs certain qualification. It is not sense experience. It is also not
anubhava because anubhava in Advaita represent the final experience of supreme
realization. So theology should evolve from our innermost Atman which is the
reference to total perception i.e. in our intellect, heart, mind, sense and
body successively. The ultimate conclusion of Abhishiktananda is that the Hindu
thought is monistic and thus defective. So he recommended Christian faith for
overcoming this Hindu defect. He also identified himself completely with the
Advaitic experience but again it was for the sake of demonstrating the distinctiveness
of Christian revelation. Thus K.P. Aleaz thinks that his thought has to grow
from ‘relational distinctiveness’ to ‘relational convergence’.
He
presents a heritage and a challenge to Christianity. A heritage to the mystics
to experience the presence of God and challenge to express this mystery in
theological terminology i.e. Christ in cave of every human heart.
2. Raymond Panikkar (1918-2010)
One western famous criticism against Indian Christians is that
Indian Christians have not yet produced any theology. The theological
articulation of Panikkar challenges such views and proves such views as western
misunderstanding of eastern Christianity. The classical theology is mainly
based on the doctrine of Trinity (God) and Christology, Panikkar addresses both
these issues in his theology. At the same time Panikkar goes beyond the
classical framework and addresses the issue of religious pluralism and ecology,
so one can find (little) elements of liberation theology in Panikkar.
Panikkar
is not a static theologian but one can find a positive development in his
theology, for eg., in The Unknown Christ of Hinduism he tries to compare two
religious traditions, Christianity and Hinduism to bring harmony. In Trinity
and World Religion, the encounter of religions belongs to the Kairos of our
time. In Cosmotheandric Experience the kairological moment is enlightening us
to respond positively to the ecological problem. Thus a reader without the
knowledge of development pattern in Panikkar will naturally struggle.
His
theology elevated the universal Christ at the cost of Jesus Christ of history.
Therefore to make such theologies part of kerygmatic ministry of church is very
difficult. His views are interlinked and interconnected, thus it is very
difficult to bring one aspect of his theology without touching another aspect
which is altogether different from the previous. This is of course the Advaitic
influence.
Panniker
is one of the most influential Indian Christian theologians of contemporary
era. He gave a new direction to the Indian Christian theological thinking by
creating terminologies like cosmotheandric. Through cosmotheandric he tries to
abolish the huge gap created by the dualism between Cosmos, God and human. Thus
cosmotheandric dreams a cosmos with ecological, humanist and Godly values.
3. S.J. Samartha (1920-2001)
What is imperative for Samartha is ‘dialogue’. He stressed that
dialogue take place in community because dialogue is not concerned about
religion but the people who follow it. Thus he was concerned with ‘living
faith’. Inter-religious dialogue for him was an integral part of Christian
mission itself-mission of bearing witness to, and being, the channels of God’s
love as it was manifested especially in the life, death and the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. Dialogue meant to him a silent revolution in terms of attitudinal
change, and willingness to listen to one another and to allow the other person
to be his/her own spokesperson. It is the willingness to see God at work
everywhere, without giving up the integrity of the Christian faith and witness.
Sunand
Sumitra in his doctoral dissertation criticized Samartha that he failed to
project Christ’s distiveness in a pluralistic context. Here Sumitra just wants
to distinguish Christ from others. For Samartha it was the tendency of
Christians to erect fences around Jesus Christ by claiming him all for
themselves that keeps others from seeing him in his true light and
significance. He saw the uniqueness of Jesus in Jesus’ unique ability to evoke
wide-ranging positive responses from people of other faiths and ideologies. His
theological thinking is characterized by his attempt to hold together
commitment and openness, knowing that God is always more than our limited and
finite perceptions of God.
For
Samartha the existential-theological concern of being sustained by faith is
primary concern. Hence, Indian Christian Theology needs to listen to others and
take their perception of Jesus Christ seriously and sustained it’s faith in the
face of suffering, in the light of the cross and the resurrection of Jesus
Christ. But he missed to understand the problem of suffering from human
perspective. And here appears Indian Liberation Oriented Theologies to our
rescue.
4. K.P.
Aleaz (1946-)
K. P. Aleaz theological methodology based on Pluralistic
Inclusivism is open to receive insights from other faith. Pluralistic
Inclusivism stands for dialogical theologies that encourage the relational
convergence of religions, conceiving, on the one hand, the diverse religious
resources of the world as the common property of humanity, and on the other, a
possible growth in the richness of each, of religious experience through mutual
interrelation.
The
Christology based on Neo-Vedantic theme presents Jesus having non-dual relation
with God and it challenges humanity to follow these footsteps thus to find God
in us. He constructively used six pramanas of Indian Philosophy in constructing
Indian Christian epistemology as a result validating the Christian source of
knowledge.
5.
M.M. Thomas
For Thomas Christianity
is genuine humanism with the power to transform every society into a community
of persons setting in relation to freedom, justice and love. Christian should
be loyal to the state. Loyalty is conditioned and judged by his citizenship in
the Kingdom of God.
Thomas is always concerned to find a
basis for the living together of different faiths and ideologies in a working
harmony which can secure the wellbeing of all people. His concern was to relate
between ultimate faiths commitments which end to separate people. He speaks of
the need for Christians to put their faith alongside other faiths and different
faith commitments must be placed alongside one another. Thus he developed
theological frame work for dialogue among religion and secular ideologies to
develop a common secular anthropology as the basis of common action in
politics, economics and society in our religiously pluralistic situation; and
to understand the creed and cultus of each other’s religion life, for the
understanding of the depth of the mystic of other religions.
Thomas also speaks of three different levels of
dialoguenat which dialogue with People of other faith must be carried on. And
among the three Thomas’ own special interest is in the first type, where
Christian and people of other faith meet together in the context of modern,
secular India in order to find common fields of action and service for the good
of the nation as a whole and of individual ‘persons’. Thomas also argues that
dialogue for mutual understanding is necessary also at the level of the cultic
life. There should be more openness to invite adherents of other faiths, to
participate in public functions related to christening, initiation, marriage
and funeral. In fact, creed and cult of any religion should be understood in
relation to the core-faith and the core-experience, if the understanding is to
be at spiritual depth.
Conclusion:
Inter-religious
and Intra-religious dialogue invites the Christian theology to move towards the
goal of establishing harmony of religions. It can happen in a contemplative
environment of Christian Ashram or at the ultimate level of “cave of heart” or
in practical level of dialoguing with the people or at the deeper Advaitic
revelation. The call for the theology is to be light and salt for our nation.
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