RITUALS AND FESTIVALS

South Asian society is religiously pluralistic and rituals and festivals are an integral part of community life. Christians have to decide whether to participate in these festivities and how to respond to them.

There is no easy solution, but it may help us to move towards a better understanding if we begin by defining our terms. Rituals are ceremonies consisting of a series of actions performed in a prescribed order by an individual or a community. Although we generally associate them with religious rites, there are also social rituals (for example, we are taking part in a social ritual whenever we greet someone by shaking hands with them). Any repeated action that has symbolic meaning may be considered a ritual. Rituals can have physical, spiritual, social and psychological dimensions and are commonly used in celebrations of births and marriages, at funerals, and when making oaths or seeking purification.

Festivals, on the other hand, are occasions of communal feasting or celebration, and often have religious, seasonal and cultural significance. They may last for only one day or for several days, and in the course of them people will observe certain rituals. Festivals meet specific social, psychological or religious needs, and create solidarity in a community or between families. Some festivals like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are purely cultural. Others celebrate the changing seasons, as when agrarian societies celebrate harvest festivals or the phases of the moon or the position of the sun.

Religious festivals celebrate specifically religious events. For example, for Hindus, Sikhs and Jains, the festival of Diwali celebrates the victory of good over evil.

In a society where culture and religion are closely intertwined, it can be difficult to distinguish the religious and cultural elements in rituals and festivals. An obvious way to do this would be to investigate their origins, but even that may not clarify the issues. For example, eggs are universally used as a symbol of new life, especially in relation to the festival of Easter, but historically the roots of this symbolism are pagan. Yet the church has seen no need to refuse to use the egg as a powerful symbol.

Christians are called to be salt and light in the communities they live in. The challenge before us is to adapt rituals and festivities without compromising biblical teaching. One way of doing this is contextualisation, in which we absorb the methods but not the content of these practices. We will have a greater impact on our community if we adopt its rituals and festivals but fill them with new meanings than if we isolate ourselves from our neighbours by refusing to share in their lives.

Customs and practices that are clearly religious must be politely avoided – for example, partaking of prasad offered by a friend or colleague who has returned from a religious pilgrimage, adorning oneself with a bindi (understood as the third eye of Shiva), participating in ancestor worship and the like. But customs and practices that are sufficiently neutral, religiously speaking, may be adapted and filled with Christian meaning. Examples would be the use of yellow flower petals in worship or of a thali necklace rather than a ring in a marriage service. In a multi-religious context, we must strive to be both authentic Christians and authentic South Asians.

Bal Krishna Sharma

 

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RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM

Today the word “fundamentalism” is associated with religious extremists who adopt a very narrow view of the fundamental principles of their faith and are fiercely intolerant of all who disagree with them. They are prepared to use violence and terror to fulfil their religious and political agendas. They believe that martyrdom for their cause is honourable and will bring rewards after death. Those who do not support or share these fundamentalist views face intimidation, physical attack and even death.

Fundamentalism is not a new phenomenon. It has occurred throughout the centuries, particularly in missionary religions like Christianity and Islam that have fixed doctrinal teaching. However, the word “fundamentalist” itself only originated in the USA at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries. It was used to describe a new brand of Protestantism that arose in reaction to liberalising trends within American Protestantism, which, according to these fundamentalist Protestants, were undermining faith in God’s word and the uniqueness of Christ. The distinguishing marks of this movement were faith in Christ as the only Saviour and an absolute reliance on the Bible, which was often interpreted in fairly literal ways without much regard for the historical context in which it was written. Christian fundamentalists demanded rigid discipline, banned all practices they considered liberal, and aggressively propagated their own brand of thinking.

In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, practically all religions developed some kind of fundamentalist sect. We find them in Judaism and in Islam, where they rigidly enforce Sharia law in places like Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria and Egypt. Even historically tolerant religions like Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoarastrianism now have their own versions of intolerant sects.

The most important feature of fundamentalism is its insistence that it alone knows the truth of its religion. It demands unquestioning conformity and uniformity of thought. It condemns those who think otherwise as incorrect and as distorters of the truth. It does not encourage critical and analytical thinking or scientific approaches to solving the mysteries of the universe. Instead, it advocates a return to ancient religious customs and “original” cultural moorings and social practices. It has little patience with preaching love, compassion and peace.

Given its respect for a supposedly purer past, fundamentalism is decidedly politically conservative. It has no concern for the rights of minorities. Instead it preaches a return to rigid patriarchal religious views that oppress women and minorities. For example, virtues like modesty, chastity and self-sacrifice are held to apply particularly to women, even though the moral code of the religion calls on both genders to show these traits. But these virtues are distorted into tools to keep women submissive and exclude them from certain roles.

Fundamentalism tends to attract financial support from those whose religious and economic status is threatened by change. Thus it is often well-funded. But its oppressive ideology has negative effects on the oppressed and on the health, education, social and justice systems in a country. In South Asian societies, it tends to deepen social divisions such as those based on caste, and sometimes deliberately fans such divisions for political gain.

Fundamentalism thus presents a major obstacle to Christian witness and to any effort to challenge unjust systems and discrimination of any kind.

P. S. Jacob

 

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RELIGIOUS CONVERSION

Human beings have the capacity to think and to make choices and decisions. One of the choices they must make concerns their religion. The freedom to make this choice is regarded as a basic human right and is enshrined in the constitutions of many countries. For example, Article 25 of the Constitution of India states that all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practise and propagate religion, subject to public order, morality and health. This does not include a right to forcible conversion. Religious conversion must be a free personal and responsible act under the grace of God.

In everyday language, when one “converts” one thing into another, one changes its purpose and use. The same is true of religious conversion. It involves changing one’s mind and direction. A faith that was once thought to be unimportant now assumes central importance in someone’s life. The person now lives with a new truth and a new understanding of reality. This inevitably means that the person will reject some aspects of the way he or she lived before and adopt a new set of behaviours. In Christian terms, this can be described as repentance.

Jesus began his ministry with a call to repentance: “Repent and believe in the good news” (Mark 1:15). He illustrated what he meant by repentance and conversion in the parable of the lost son (Luke 15:11-32). The younger son’s journey into a far country with his share of the family wealth signifies human departure from God to sin. It caused an estrangement between the young man and his father. But eventually the young man became aware of what he had lost, honestly confessed his sins, recognised that he was unworthy and longed to return to his father’s house. The father anticipated his wayward son’s return and waited with the mercy the son did not deserve, unconditionally loved his estranged son and received him back into his house with a celebration intended for the whole community.

These steps show us the meaning of Christian conversion. It involves acknowledgement of one’s separation from God and turning back to God (1 Thess 1:9). The son needed an inward spiritual change to make him become aware of his separation from God, repent of the sin that had caused it and become willing to accept the welcome God offers. He then again became part of his community, living humbly in reconciliation with the people around him. It is the same with conversion. People need to give up their old sinful ways, live humbly, and live reconciled to God and to those around them.

The story of the lost son also makes it clear that the change that takes place with conversion is not simply a matter of deciding to change, using the power of the finite human will. There was no way the son could force the father to accept him and welcome him back.

That choice lay with the father. In the same way, in Christian conversion the self is passive in accepting what it cannot change, but active in seeing the need for salvation and opening the self to the possibility of conversion, and in accepting the gift of God’s grace when it comes. Repentance and dependence upon God are essential elements of Christian conversion.

Some object to the very idea of conversion, arguing that it uses the cloak of religion to disguise many other motives. Studies have shown that conversion has even been employed as an instrument of social protest. The Dalits of India, for example, have long struggled to escape the oppression inflicted upon them in the name of social stratification. Conversion to Christianity offered them an opportunity to improve their social status and achieve equality, for Christianity teaches that all are welcomed by God. This has been described as a temporal and material reason for conversion. However, is not desire for equality also a spiritual reason?

Others in South Asia allege that conversion to Christianity reflects an illegitimate Western influence and undermines their national and cultural heritage. Such thinking has resulted in moves to introduce anti-conversion laws in some countries and states. But such thinking underestimates what constitutes culture. Conversion does slowly bring cultural change in that the new convert takes on a new view of the world, but it does not overthrow an entire cultural history. The world around a convert does not change overnight. The convert serves as a change factor within his or her existing community, but does not undermine that community. The gospel rightly heard does not praise one culture and condemn another. Rather it evaluates all cultures by its criteria of truth and righteousness.

Cultural hostility to the very idea of conversion has led some Christian converts to worship Christ without undergoing water baptism as a sign of public confession of their faith. Their argument is that baptism may be misinterpreted as a sign that one is abandoning one’s community and losing one’s identity. When this happens, people like Dalit converts to Christ may lose benefits previously afforded them by law, just because they now worship Christ. This legally discriminatory practice in some South Asian countries causes some Christians to abstain from any outward rituals of affiliation.

Salvation is received by faith and not by works. Thus Christian conversion does not necessarily require one to change one’s name, adopt a foreign culture or adhere to certain rituals. Rather, the reality of saving faith in conversion is attested by its practical effect, “the work produced by faith” (1 Thess 1:3). Conversion to Christ creates reconciled people who work for justice amidst injustice, for truthfulness amidst deception, and for peace in the centre of a violent society. This enables them to participate in authentic social transformation. Moreover, in general, converts to faith in Christ learn the value of being industrious and independent, seeking to be sustained by God’s grace rather than by handouts from others. The energy of converts to Christ is visible in their witness to newfound faith and new-found love.

Richard Howell

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RELIGIOUS ART AND SYMBOLISM

Since ancient times, religious beliefs have found expression in music, paintings, architecture, dance and ritual. Religion can even be said to have been the cradle of art, for both express complex ideas in ways that speak to the mind and the imagination. There is thus no natural hostility between religion and art. Hostility arises only when art distorts the essence of religion or misrepresents a religious concept.

Symbolism is an important element of religious art. For example, the cross is a symbol of Christianity and the crescent moon a symbol of Islam. Similarly, in Hinduism hand gestures convey meaning, whether represented on a statue, imitated by a guru or included in religious dances and dramas.

People sometimes use symbols such as markings, ornaments and special clothing to indicate their religious identity. For example, followers of Shiva may have three horizontal white lines on their forehead. Such symbols may also signal social status, as when a married Hindu woman applies vermilion to the parting of her hair and wears a marriage necklace, bangles and toe rings.

Over time, some symbols lose their association with one particular religion and become part of the wider culture. Thus in India, Jains, Roman Catholics, Muslims and some Protestant Christian women also wear a ring on their second toe to convey their married status.

This is a good example of how people adopt the religious art and symbols of the dominant religion in their region, while also making changes to suit their own religious affiliations. Such adaptation may be necessary if a minority group is to thrive within an area dominated by another religion.

Religious symbols can serve as symbols of power and domination or as an assertion about a religion’s place in a community, as when a mosque or temple is erected on a particular site. Politicians can also appropriate religious symbols. For example, a political party in India has taken the lotus as its symbol and saffron as its colour in an attempt to persuade the Hindu population to support its ideology.

Such political appropriation of religious symbols can cause miscreants to destroy symbols associated with other religions, thereby raising tensions within the community.

In reacting against the art and symbols of other faiths, some Christians miss the rich art and symbolism that is part of their Christian heritage. They fail to see that the Bible affirms the universality of art as a gift of God. In fact the very first chapter of the Bible can be interpreted as describing the “art” of God. He shaped everything that exists, and his “artwork” is a powerful symbol pointing to him as the creator (Rom 1:20).

As beings made in the image of the creator, we too are creative. Moreover God has confirmed that the material world is good. Not only did he create it, but he became incarnate in it and the Holy Spirit has come to be with us in it (Gen 1:31; John 1:14; 1 Cor 3:16). Thus we need not be hostile to all images and forms of art, for art (like human beings) only becomes sinful when it forgets its divine origin and begins to serve evil purposes.

Christians can and should engage with art and symbolism in their worship, living and witness. We should recognise these elements in the words of Scripture that we read, in the music we use in worship, and in the majesty of the ritual form of services in some traditions. We can meditate on what it means to say that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15) and that we are being transformed into his image (Rom 8:29). God’s spiritual nature is something that cannot be captured by any image of wood or stone (Acts 17:29), and that is why he forbade any worship of artefacts said to represent him (Exod 20:3-4). But in his grace he did send Christ as the perfect representation of himself (see also the article “Avatar and Incarnation”).

But what should we make of the art and symbols of the wider culture in which we live? First, we should recognise that the religious art and symbolism found in other faith traditions are not intentionally anti-Christian. They do, however, reflect the understanding of the nature of God and reality in each religion. Secondly, we should recognise that in many South Asian traditional cultures, religion and culture are inseparable. It is not easy to separate them or to isolate cultural elements and customs and Christianise them. Accepting certain symbols may be interpreted as accepting many of the beliefs of the religion from which they came. Yet without accepting them, we may not be able to communicate with people whose understanding of reality is bound up with such symbols. (That is also one reason why Christians should watch some movies and popular television shows.)

To the average South Asian non-Christian, Asian Christianity is a Western religion with Western art and symbolism. We should change this false perspective by using Asian art and symbolism. After all, Jesus Christ came from West Asia. The Western art left behind by the colonial powers is of religious and sociological significance, but the Asian church must develop its own religious art and symbolism.

What would such Asian Christian art look like? Here are a few examples to stimulate our thinking. The architects who designed the South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies (SAIACS) in Bangalore adapted many of the outer structural features of Hindu temples. Some churches have also adopted elements of traditional South Asian worship; for example, the worshippers sit on the floor rather than on pews, and there are kuthu vizhakkus (lampstands), garlands and incense sticks. The worshippers sing Christian bhajans set to traditional Carnatic or Hindustani music and celebrate fellowship in new life by sharing the flesh and water of a coconut.

Above the entrance to the chapel of Dharmaram College in Bangalore, Christ is depicted sitting in the Indian cross-legged posture. This mosaic uses both South Asian symbolism and South Asian placement, for in Hindu temples images of the deity worshipped within a temple are placed atop the entrance to the temple. But while this image unabashedly honours Christ, it is not intended to be an object for worship. South Asian Christians should use more such art and symbolism to stress that the core kingdom values of Jesus Christ extend over all.

John Arun Kumar

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PLURALISM

There is a difference between plurality and pluralism. Plurality is the reality that all of us in South Asia experience as we live in a contextm of tremendous cultural and religious diversity. It presents us with the challenge of how to live out our faith in such a context (see the article “Living with People of Other Faiths”).

Pluralism, in contrast, denies the reality of religious diversity. It says that no religion can claim to be superior to any other, for all religions are historical and cultural responses to the one divine reality.

Diversity of religious experience and expression must thus be celebrated as something good and healthy, and salvation (or enlightenment or liberation) acknowledged as present in every religion.

Pluralism raises crucial questions for Christians, for the Christian gospel maintains that all humans are sinners in need of redemption by God’s grace and that God desires to save people of every race, culture and religion. It also asserts that God’s salvation comes to us through a particular person, Jesus Christ, who is the decisive self-disclosure of God and who took upon himself the sins of the world. Christians insist that it is only by faith in Jesus Christ that human beings can be restored to right relationship with God.

Pluralism totally rejects the central Christian claim that Jesus of Nazareth was the ultimate self-disclosure of the eternal God. This claim is regarded as arrogant and as an obstacle to the inter-religious harmony so essential to world peace. Pluralists say that while Christians can hold that Jesus is unique and normative for Christian believers, they cannot claim that he is unique or normative in a universal sense. He may be the Saviour for Christians, but he is not the only Saviour of humankind. Pluralists want Christians to abandon any great claims for Jesus and see him simply as one of many great human religious leaders.

It follows that pluralists also reject the historic Christian claim that the Bible contains special divine revelation. It demands that the scriptures of other faiths be accepted as possessing the same authority as the Bible, since they also contain divine revelation. Christianity, on the other hand, maintains that while the biblical doctrine of general revelation (Acts 14:15-17; Rom 1:18-20; 2:12-16) provides a basis for acknowledging the presence of truth in other religions, these religions cannot offer salvation.

Pluralism, however, views different religions as merely different paths leading to the same ultimate goal. The different religious traditions are seen as describing different contexts within which men and women experience essentially the same salvation or liberation.

However, in reality the salvation from sin that Christ offers is quite different from the concept of salvation or liberation in other religions. So it cannot be said that all religions are aiming for the same goal.

Pluralism is a relatively new trend and hence has little historical support. The most serious weakness of the pluralist position is the fact that it is logically inconsistent. It denies religions the right to make strong claims, but is happy to make dogmatic claims for itself.

Meaningful engagement with the issue of pluralism is of critical importance and will directly impact the future of Christianity and mission in South Asia.

Ivan Satyavrata

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