SOUTH ASIAN RESPONSES TO CHRIST

Christianity is believed to have been introduced to South Asia by St Thomas in the first century AD. Yet, although Christianity has been around for two millennia, it does not seem to have had any major impact on this region. It is thus important for us to examine South Asian responses to Jesus Christ, which are as complex and varied as the region itself.

There are some who reject Jesus outright, but the response of many others is strongly influenced by the South Asian world view, which is comfortable with plural and often contradictory notions. This results in a willingness to appropriate elements of Christ’s teaching without subscribing to the Christian faith as a whole.

We see evidence of this in the work of Hindu social reformers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), the founder of the Brahmo Samaj, who wrote that “no other religion can produce anything that may stand in competition with the precepts of Jesus, much less that can be pretended to be superior to them.” He recognised the moral and social significance of Jesus’ teachings as being “more conducive to inculcate moral principles and better adapted to rational beings than any other”.

Mahatma Phule (1827-1890) was attracted to Christ’s sense of justice and equality as well as to the notion of truth in his teachings.

So he founded Satyashodhaka Samaj (Society of Truth-Seekers), a movement that continues today, championing Phule and his inspiration, Jesus Christ. Similarly, Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1863- 1915) was inspired by the exemplary work of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) to establish the Servants of India Society.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), considered the father of the Indian nation, championed the concept of satyagraha as being inspired by Jesus Christ, whom he referred to as the “Prince of all Satyagrahis”.

Amusingly, the West has begun to credit Gandhi with the message of non-violence, although Gandhi himself ascribed it to Jesus Christ. In The Message of Christ, Gandhi wrote:

“The gentle figure of Christ, so patient, so kind, so loving, so full of forgiveness that he taught his followers not to retaliate when abused or struck, but to turn the other cheek – it was a beautiful example, I thought, of the perfect man.”

It is characteristic of the eclectic nature of religious beliefs in South Asia that all these social reformers sought to appropriate the social implications of Christ’s teaching without seeing any need to accept him as the saviour. But not all reformers did this. Pandita Ramabai (1858-1922) recognised that only Jesus could change the plight of Indian women. In the person of Jesus Christ she found a way with no discrimination on the basis of caste, colour or gender.

Another important element in South Asian responses to Christ is the cyclic sense of history that is part of the Hindu and Buddhist world view. History is seen as repeating itself, which means that no event in human history can be unique or have cosmic consequence.

This makes it difficult for thinkers like Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (1888-1975) to see the incarnation of Jesus as a unique historical event. Instead, they reframe the idea of incarnation as something that is continually taking place. Thus the cyclic sense of time tends to mythologise the person of Jesus.

South Asian theologians have become acutely aware of the need to tailor the way we present the message of Christ to the South Asian world view. Although inculturation carries with it the risk of syncretism, the greater risk is to present a Westernised Christ, so maintaining the impression that Christ is foreign to the region and that Christianity is associated with colonialism. Rather, as stated in the first issue of The Bengal Christian Herald, which later came to be known as The Indian Christian Herald, “In having become Christians, we have not ceased to be Hindus. We are Hindu Christians, as thoroughly Hindu as Christian.” Here “Hindu” is to be understood not doctrinally but culturally.

Among those who understood this are some who did not associate with any existing church and sometimes had problematic theological positions, but who were nevertheless committed to Jesus Christ. For example, Keshab Chandra Sen (1838-1884) and Pratap Chandra Mazoomdar (1840-1905) were deeply concerned about the denationalisation of native converts to Christianity. Both resisted Western presentations of Christ and tried to understand and explain Christ using Indian categories.

Brahmabandhab Upadhyay (1861-1907) spent considerable time studying religious texts in Sanskrit and Bengali. Upadhyay was drawn to Jesus Christ through Christian literature and Bible classes. With an eagerness to bring India to the faith, he became a Christian sannyasi.

With the focus on inculturation, he recommended that Indian missionaries be “thoroughly Hindu in their mode of life”, eating a strictly vegetarian diet, avoiding alcohol and dressing in the garb of a sannyasi.

Indian theologians have repeatedly stressed the importance of using local cultural and philosophical categories to further our understanding and appropriation of the Christian gospel. For Vengal

Chakkarai (1880-1958), theology begins with Christ who is revealed. Christ is the Mula Purusha (root/foundational man) and the Sat Purusha (true man). For Chakkarai, “It is from the Holy Spirit, our antaryamin, the indweller, that we start our inquiry concerning the nature and work of the person of Jesus.” For P. Chenchiah (1886- 1959), the greatest appropriation of Jesus Christ is to experience the “raw fact of Christ”. He argued that “neither Judaism nor Hinduism leads to Christ. Christ abrogates Judaism and Hinduism more than he fulfils them. Christian theology builds bridges from Jesus to Judaism and Hinduism, and not bridges from Judaism and Hinduism to Jesus.”

Chakkarai and Chenchiah gave eminent leadership to the Rethinking Group, a group of radical theologians in Madras in South India.

One of the most influential traditions in the South Asian context that has found deep affinity with Christian practice is the bhakti tradition, which is characterised by a deep personal devotion to God. It is within this tradition that A. J. Appasamy (1891-1975) presented a biblical reinterpretation of the Indian philosophical categories of bhakti marga and avatara. This preference for experiential knowledge ties in with the South Asian acceptance of pratyaksa (perception/intuition) as the most valid pramana (source of knowledge). Evidence of its power comes from people like Narayan Vaman Tilak (1861-1919), the great poet of Maharashtra, who undertook a search for ideal religion that took him on a long journey of study of the Hindu scriptures and Indian social life. He even became a sadhu. He was drawn to Christ while reading a New Testament that was given to him by an unknown European during a train journey. Tilak eventually found the deepest longings of his heart fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Another Christian within the bhakti tradition was Sadhu Sunder Singh (1889-1929), who believed that Christianity would not be received in the subcontinent unless it was served in an Indian bowl. He took up the life of a sadhu, dressed in a yellow robe and a turban, and had frequent mystical experiences. This “apostle with the bleeding feet” endured much physical hardship as he committed himself to living like Christ and travelled great distances on foot carrying the gospel message.

In the second half of the twentieth century, theologians began to take more conscious note of the pluralist nature of South Asian societies. Thinkers like Stanley J. Samartha (1920-2001) and Raimundo Panikkar (1918-2010) furthered a dialogical approach to Christian witness undergirded by their commitment to pluralism. Fr Aloysius Pieris (1934-), who has also greatly contributed to Christian–Buddhist dialogue in the Sri Lankan context, writes that the church “must be humble enough to be baptised in the Jordan of Asian religiosity and be bold enough to be baptised on the cross of Asian poverty”.

Moved by the poverty and structural oppression that permeate South Asian society and afflict many Christians coming from Dalit and tribal backgrounds, prominent liberation thinkers such as P. D. Devanandan (1901-1962), Sebastian Kappen (1924-1993) and Nirmal Minz (1927-) have worked to develop Dalit and tribal theologies.

They have focused on Christ’s concern for the poor and have examined how the gospel liberates communities and societies from the oppression of caste and other dominating social structures. Dalit theology sees God specifically as the God who liberates by embracing the Dalits and partaking in their brokenness. Other thinkers such as M. M. Thomas (1916-1996) have assessed what the gospel implies in the context of globalisation and poverty. Post-colonial theology tries to bring the previously marginalised identities and perspectives to the centre. The Sri Lankan theologian R. S. Sugirtharajah remains a frontrunner in the post-colonial interpretation of the Bible.

South Asia as a whole presents a complex context for the gospel and yet today it is more receptive than it was at any time in history. Be it in the Buddhist contexts of Bhutan and Sri Lanka, or the Muslim contexts of Pakistan and Bangladesh, or the predominantly Hindu contexts of Nepal and India, Christ-ward movements are becoming more common today and this despite threats from unfriendly governments and local fundamentalist groups.

However, it is worth noting that in South Asia important personal decisions are often made collectively rather than individually. Thus one will sometimes find entire families or people groups being converted, rather than just individuals. An individual who decides to follow Christ on his or her own risks social ostracism.

Within the divergent expressions of Islam in South Asia, the reception of Christ varies with a believer’s cultural rootedness in Islamic practices. At one end of the spectrum are those who are overtly Christian and draw on foreign cultures in regard to the expression of their faith. At the other end of the spectrum are those who for fear of death remain secret believers and continue to participate in Muslim religiocultural practices.

The greatest challenge to those who seek to promote a positive response to Christ in South Asia is to present the gospel in culturally appropriate ways, recognising that a faithful response to Christ necessarily takes a genuinely South Asian expression. It is helpful therefore to acknowledge that while Christ confronts every culture, he is a stranger to none.

Varughese John