Theological Positions: Possibilities in the Post-Vatican Theology

A discussion based on Schineller, J. Peter. “Christ and Church: A Spectrum of Views”. Theological Studies 37 (1976): 545-566.

Less than a decade after Vatican II (c. 1975), the Catholics then experienced a radical shift in their understanding of the Church. With the spread of new insights into Christian faith, the faithful gradually grew into the ‘inclusive-framework’ and ‘broadened horizon’ of the Church’s outlook (atleast in paper) at the world, religions, culture and traditions. Generally one smelled the air of growth in stages towards the new shift in Christian theology dawned with the Vatican II. It was a state of healthy disturbance. Passing the test of reason (modernity) the faithful faced fundamental questions on their belief and identity: “Why is a Christian Church/Community necessary if God’s salvific grace is available for all? Why missionary effort? What is our unique contribution to the human community as Christians? Why should one be Catholics or Christians at all, and not just be a humanist and secular?” It was no longer possible for the Christians to live as one without considering these questions that challenged their unexamined-traditional-paradigm. There arose as a result, a variety of responses from the faithful taking positions from right to left, from conservative side to liberal stances with their limited theological framework.  Hitherto the Church has been experiencing mixed responses often quite confused, since their introduction with the Vatican II.

In other words, the theological tension experienced by the people was an external manifestation of Church’s attempts to reconcile with the modern world (contemporary culture) and otherwise. Further the questions basically were about the identity of Jesus Christ (Christology) - ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ - and the meaning of the existence of the Church/Christian community (Ecclesiology) - ‘Why the Church?’ The two are connected, yet not the same. The latter follows the former the function and mission of the Church is derived from the life and mission of Jesus Christ. All the responses therefore can be summed up to four well-argued, logical/categorical views/positions. We present the four views with an aim to shed light on the crowded responses and to underline the possible theological positions in the post-vatican western theology. At the end of each position we mention their implications towards non-Christian world, specific Christian source and resources (Scripture and tradition), and theological method.

First Position

The first position is the most conservative of the spectrum. It believes that Jesus is the only true mediator of salvation and so disregards the rest as idols and fiction of the human mind with no power to lead to salvation. This limits divine Logos within the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. One could therefore attain salvation only if one comes in personal contact with him through the Church. The Church therefore is conceived as the exclusive institution of salvation. We attain salvation only through the explicit membership in the Church (Baptism), since there is no other mediator to Christ other than the Church. It claims that there is no salvation outside the church in the literal sense of the phrase. It explains the missionary thrust of saints (Francis Xavier) and faithful in the Church/Christianity. It is termed as ‘ecclesiocentric universe, exclusive Christology’.

Generally this is hostile towards the non-Christian world, as the place of error and condemnation.  Hence there is no space for genuine dialogue but for the call for conversion. It is fundamentalist in its respect for scripture and tradition. They are the final and absolute criteria for truth indisputable by non-christian viewpoints and by contemporary experiences. The method of theology here proceeds from above, from religious documents and beliefs that are revered as trans-natural (beyond space and time). Therefore it is highly dogmatic, universalistic, and unrelated to existential situations (experiences).

Second Position

The second position though confirms to the former in as much as Jesus Christ is believed to be the only true mediator of salvation, it is open to the possibility of grace being available to all even to those who have never heard of Jesus Christ. They explain it through concepts like ‘anonymous Christians’(Karl Rahner). Though it is not narrow like the former position, it holds the belief that even those who are not Christians are saved only by the grace of Jesus Christ, who is the constitutive mediator of salvation i.e. without whom there would be no salvation. While it is clear that one need not be a Christian to be redeemed save he/she sincerely seeks God and follows the dictates of his/her conscience[1], it is unclear whether church is a constitutive mediator of the salvific grace. Two possibilities follow this position. First, we can hold that church is as much a necessary mediator of grace as Christ is. It means that without the church there would be no salvation in the world. Second, we can contend that Church is not indispensible but only a sign of salvific grace i.e. God’s love made manifest in Jesus Christ. Because the redeeming act of Jesus Christ and the Spirit would remain present and effective even if the Church ceases to exist. This is phrased as ‘Christocentric universe, inclusive Christology’.

This position views non-Christian world as moving towards Christ, who is the source of everything true and good found in them. It engages in a dialogue strictly standing on the Christian platform, conceiving non-Christian religions in terms of Christian categories. Though it regards scripture and tradition as the norm of our life, it is not fundamentalistic. It permits historical, critical reading into them. It urges faith to be made adequate for the contemporary experience. The method of theology, here is dogmatic and universalistic but takes in the concrete historical experience.

Third Position

The third position is called as Theo-centric. In the previous positions there is always a danger of limiting theology to Christology. They incline to hold the concept that God has never spoken to human beings at all except through Jesus of Nazareth. But it faces difficulty with the reality of our relation to God prior to the incarnation of Word in Jesus. Hence the third position states that Jesus is not constitutive but a normative mediator of salvation. The word norm means rule or standard. Jesus therefore is conceived not as the exclusive way to God instead as one who corrects or fulfills all other mediations; He is a clear manifestation of God’s love that has always been available for humanity since the beginning.

This is arrived in two ways, first based on Scripture which clearly expresses Jesus as the Word of God, through whom God spoke in the fullness of time (Heb 1). It implies that there were earlier revelations of the Word, though not as perfect as in Jesus. Others arrive at this conclusion through their study of other religions in comparison to Christianity. Speaking about this Eugene TeSelle writes,

The humanity of Jesus, although it is shaped by and attests to the Word, neither exhausts the Word nor is the sole means of access to it, for the Word is both knowable and efficacious elsewhere. The uniqueness of Jesus […] will consist then in being the touchstone by which other responses are judged, the achievement by which their deficiencies are overcome, the center of gravity around which they cluster.[2]

H. Richard Neibuhr (1894-1962, a north American Christian theological-ethicist), on the other hand affirms the point from another direction pointing to the ungroundedness of the former positions,

So far as I could see and can now see, that miracle has been wrought among us by and through Jesus Christ. I do not have the evidence which allows me to say that miracle of faith in God is worked only by Jesus Christ and that it is never given to men outside the sphere of his working, through I may say that where I note its presence I posit the presence also of something like Jesus Christ.[3] [Emphasis mine]

Paul Tillich (1886-1965, a German American theologian) is another important theologian who argues in the same line. In sum, this position holds that Jesus is one of the mediators of Salvation but stands as the epitome of God’s salvific grace made manifest in this world. Hence the absence of Christ would not imply absence of grace rather the absence of the decisive manifestation of grace in Jesus Christ. It stands between the second and fourth position. If Christ cannot be affirmed as the constitutive mediator we need not necessarily jump to total relativity. We can regard him as the normative mediator. Then it follows that Church is also a normative mediator of salvation. It is a measure by which other religious communities are judged. Further, since this position is Theo-centric and Jesus is viewed as normative mediator, it conceives Jesus more as the model of faith than an object of faith. Jesus always points the believer to the father than to himself. This position is termed as ‘Theo-centric universe normative Christology’.

This position is more open and positive towards non-christian world view. It sees them as genuine revelations and ways to God since it holds that divine can manifest through all religions and humanist movements. It finds in them as opportunity to learn about God who is manifest in Jesus within our tradition.  The scripture and tradition therefore are normative only for believers as the non-Christians have their own codes and creeds. One finds here a space for genuine (inter-religious/textual/cultural) dialogue. In its theological method it moves away from universalist and dogmatic to historical and existential viewpoint. In other words, it is a journey from below considering the experiences as the starting point. It actively propagates dialogue between groups and individuals of various traditions as the means to attain truth.

Fourth Position

The fourth Position is based on the skeptical epistemology/theological caution that it is impossible to know the mystery of God. Hence our Judgments about the normativeness and uniqueness are disregarded as unverifiable and without basis. It is built on the conviction that God is incomprehensible and so all our attempts to comprehend this mystery is not free from the danger of reducing him to our limited perspectives: “Surely I speak of things I do not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42.3).  Therefore we cannot speak more than Jesus as one among the many mediators of salvation. To move from this neutralist position is hence viewed as unjust extension of the evidence at hand. Some of its proponents are Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In short, the position argues that there can be intense loyalty to Jesus Christ and his cause, but it is erroneous to make further step revering him as the indispensible and the epitome in comparison to other great figures in history, other ways of salvation.  It follows, hence that Church is also one of among the many communities committed to our salvation; God has no special, favored way to help us attain Him.

It would be interesting to find out whether this can be a Christian position. It is a rather difficult to defend it on face value in the Roman Catholic Church, as the church condemns (religious indifferentism) mental attitudes that describe all religions as equals. However there are some elements that go well within Christian Theology, like the emphasis on the incomprehensibility of God and the acceptance of Jesus as the way of salvation for his followers. Christian theology upholds to certain extent the ‘incomprehensibility’ of God. Rahner is supposed to have held that even God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus did not remove the mystery; instead made it more of a mystery. Thus he contended that the revelation of God in Jesus as deepening rather than lessening the mystery of God’s salvific ways for mankind. Elements of this theological caution led some people to this position. Others reached it from their study of other religions. Arnold Toynbee (14 April 1889 – 22 October 1975 a British historian) for example, after careful observation of the history of other religions argues that there is no trace of a movement towards Christianity or Jesus Christ in other religions. In fact, the more we examine other religions the more we are fascinated with their sublime insights and characteristics. Hence any judgment about uniqueness or normativeness among non-Christian religions is often unfair to the richness and complexity of the particular religion.

The fourth position refrains from any judgment about other religions, celebrating pluralism. In dialogue with other religions it does not go beyond their differences and uniqueness. It accepts scripture and tradition as the important way to God but is open to other possibilities. Further it believes that it is difficult for a Christian to come to grips with other traditions. So it discourages comparative study between religions. The theological method is centered on epistemological problems highlighting the objectivity of truth and our ontological subjectivity.

The four views thus represent to a certain extent all possible theological positions in the post Vatican western theology. We need to note that if we take a position we are logically ousted from other possibilities. Catholic theologians mostly fall under second or third position. The first and fourth are the extreme sides of the spectrum, while others are more balanced. Third position is the most advanced within western theology. Today however we find Asian theology growing more nuanced ‘celebrating pluralism’ being faithful to one’s tradition. Thus probably constitute the fifth position that waits to be recorded.

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[1] Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, no. 16.

[2] Eugene TeSelle, Christ in Context (Philadelphia, 1975) 164 as cited in Peter J. Schineller, “Christ and Church: Spectrum of Views”, 558.

[3] H. Richard Niebhur, “Reformation: Continuing Imperative,” Christian Century 77 (1960), 249 as cited in Peter J. Schineller, “Christ and Church: Spectrum of Views”, 559.

AMARTYA SEN (1933- ) a response to communalism

The Authour

A. Sen is a noted economic philosopher of our country. He is most fitting author to refer to in our search for solutions as he has his experience in communal violence as the driving force in his intellectual journey. Basically from Bangladesh-Calcutta pre-independent India, he carefully narrates the disturbing memories of massive identity shift in mid 1940’s in his teenage years.

Thought  

Directly related to our topic he has three works:

Reason Before Identity (1999) which he delivered as a lecture in Oxford university

Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Identity (2006)

The Idea of Justice (2009)

His Response     

Basically he defines human being not as a self interested individual like other economists, instead as one who needs and wants to be identified with one group or groups. He/she has freedom though limited in his/her given-ness to freely choose the identities using reason. He notes “it is the mistake belief that we have no choice about our identity which leads people fall into the trap of sectarianism. Choice is possible and an important decision.”

His basic premise is that ‘Human being is Multi-indentified’. At present I am salesian, etc….

Our ignorance of this possibility narrows it down to one identity. We inherit a tendency to split these plural co-existence into little islands. This is the prime cause of hatred and violence in the world. He contends any such singular (isolated/unrelated) identity as an illusion. Secondly he argues that violence is caused by unquestioned acceptance of identity because it promotes a confirmist behaviour towards unjust traditional elements, instigates communal violence and tyranny of one identity over others.

Since the cause is public ignorance he proposes public debates based on informed reasoning (Public Reasoning) as the solution. To understand the concept read the discussion http://ibnlive.in.com/news/public-reasoning-can-combat-terrorism-amartya-sen/98807-40.html.

HISTORY OF ISRAELITE RELIGION Second Stage: Religion of the Liberated Larger Group (Exodus Group)

Summary based on Rainer Albertz, A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, vol.1: From the Beginnings to the End of the Exile, translated by John Bowden, British edition (London: SCM Press, 1994) 40-66.

Those who handed down the history of Israel record the story of the Exodus group as the second but decisive phase of its history. Traditionally the complex social status of the people of Israel as slaves and conscripts for forced labour, their experience of liberation by god Yahweh through Moses and the powerful theophany of Yahweh at Sinai are upheld as the foundation events of the Israelite religion. In the view of the tradition, the exodus group refers to the Israelites 600,000 men (Ex 12.37) who lived in Egypt, five centuries after the time of Abraham. The group originally is believed to have entered Egypt, as a small group of families compelled by famine. Suspecting their increase with the years in strength and number, the rulers of Egypt impose them to harsh labour. Yet, the group is miraculously redeemed by the mighty hand of Yahweh crossing the sea of Reeds under the guidance of Moses despite the military supremacy of its opponents. Yahweh then appears to them in Mount Sinai and makes a covenant with them.

Scholars are quick to note that every detail of what is written down does not correspond to the actual events, as the major mass of the source is nearly 700-800 years distant from the events. Further the significance of Pentateuch for Yahweh religion is of later origin. One finds no mention of Exodus-Sinai tradition in the books composed before exile, like prophet Isaiah. The faithful dissemination of the events, on the other hand hint that they probably played a leading role among the tribes of Central Palestine and Northern Kingdom. Despite the controversies that surround the subject, it is important because we could find possible explanation of the special features of Yahweh religion only in the thickly crowded story of the Exodus group present in Exodus – Deuteronomy. Our task here is threefold: first to understand the identity and social organization of the Exodus group, second to name the decisive religious experience in the event of liberation and in their life in the wilderness, and third to present the transition of worship from the patriarchal religion to structured religion of the larger liberated group.

Identity and Social Organization of the Exodus Group

Contrary to the traditional material that magnifies the number of Israelites, scholars argue that only one group lived in Egypt which later contributed its religious experience to the tribal alliance. However the tradition is correct pointing the increase in the size of the group, and that they were group of workers conscripted into forced labour by the state (Ex 1. 11-14, 5.3-19) to build the store cities of Pithom and Ramses. But the Exodus group was mixed (Ex 12.38, Num 11.4). Because, it was detachment of ‘prisoners of war’ of ethnically differing origin; according to the theory W. Helck only such group was involved in state building. Moreover the term ‘hap/biru’, ‘Hebrew’ in English which is explicitly used to refer to the Exodus group in the Bible (Ex 1-12),  in cuneiform resources (the earliest know system of writing used in ancient Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian writings) was used only to refer to ‘outlaws’, those that disrupted the Near East as looting bands. In Egyptian resources they were known as prw. There is a mention of these prws to have collected grains from Egypt and labored in building the store cities. So this sufficiently proves that the Exodus group originally was a band of fugitives; it is further proved by repeated reports of the lack of solidarity which was initially the characteristic of the group (Ex 2.11-15, 5.20f, 6.9). 

With the meager evidences about the structure, composition and living condition, the scholars assume that probably it must have been a tribal organization despite any solid evidence of tribal structures or ethnic coherence. Besides the scholars are suspicious of the general assumption that the group was ‘former nomads’ who had sought refuge with their herds in the Nile Delta in an emergency. But there are no Egyptian evidences for the involvement of nomads in the state forced labour. The OT, in addition, portrays Exodus group as ignorant of the nomadic customs (Ex 9.26, Num 10.29-32). Moreover the fact that Moses had an Egyptian name and was identified by the Midianites as an Egyptian, suggest that the Exodus group though consisted of semitic elements, economically adapted the Egyptian way of living. In other words, it is wrong to associate the origin of Yahweh religion to nomads, instead it is connected to people who are socially declassed as outlaws and conscripts to forced labour living in a foreign land.

Religious Experience: Exodus-Sinai Events

The Exodus group experiences god Yahweh in the process of their historical and political liberation from Egypt and in his magnificent theophany at Sinai, the mountain of God. The book of Exodus reports in different ways how this assimilated group of foreign forced laborers, with no solidarity, incapable of political action and oppressed, by the initiative of God gain a political leader, hope and strength to make a common political act of liberation. Because the first attempt of rebellion by Moses (Ex 2. 11-14) comes to grief, people do not recognize him as leader. They threaten to denounce him. So he flees Egypt and outside the Egyptian sphere of power, gets to know god Yahweh. Then on the basis of the oracle of Yahweh he returns to his people and successfully accomplishes the mission of liberation. Yahweh therefore is experienced by the group as a god who at the decisive moment finds it a political leader to motivate it for its liberation and enables it to succeed. It is good to note that only in the act of liberation the Exodus group first gets to know the god Yahweh through Moses (Ex 3.13f, 15; 6.2). This does not mean that the group hand no religion nor their worship of  family gods and other Semitic and Egyptian gods. But point made, only in the act of liberation the group feels a special tie to the god Yahweh.

It is mistaken to conceive God Yahweh to have been associated with Israel from the beginning. Gathering evidences from the OT tradition and further research, the scholars conclude that the term ‘Yahweh’ has its origin in the hilly wilderness, the desert region of the southern Palestine, which is not part of the territory of Israel. Later the place is called as Sinai. Furthermore, old poetic texts note a local link between Yahweh and this region. Egyptian lists from 14^th and 13^th BCE, attest the name ‘Yahweh’ to same region of Southern Palestine. It is highly probable that Yahweh was worshipped here by Kenites the nomadic group of Midianites, before he became the God of Israel. Remember Moses is said to have married a Midianite woman whose father has been a Midianite Priest (Ex 2.16; 3.1; 18.1). Though the tradition fluctuates about the name of his father in law, Reuel (2.18), Jethro (3.1) and Jether (4.18), his last name was Kenite. It is quite possible therefore that Moses first got to know this god through the mediation of his Midianite father-in-law before receiving from his the oracle that sent him back to Egypt and made his the liberator of his group. So the god Yahweh is older than Israel. Moreover it was important that he was an alien God unknown to the Egyptian pantheon of gods, thus in a position to break their religious system and challenge their social structure. As a mountain God of the wild worshipped by the freedom loving nomads he could not but be the symbol of liberation for Moses and his people – ‘God of the Hebrews’ (Ex 3.18,  5.3, 7.16; 9.1,13; 10.3). Apart from these the plague narratives and the highlight of Moses as worthy of an exclusive theophany, as a magical religious leader are works of the later traditions.

Second key experience according to the tradition is the encounter of God on Sinai. Scholars question the authenticity of Sinai tradition as recorded in the text (Ex 19 – Num 10). Theophany of Yahweh at Sinai, scholars argue could have been the result their worship in the mountain sanctuary. Just as Moses had come to know, so in turn the Midianites introduced the Exodus group to the cult of Yahweh at the mountain of God. Tradition records following events to have taken place at Sinai: theophany, foundation of the cult, proclamation of the commandments and making of the covenant. Scholars on the other hand, note that event at the most would have become the foundation for the regular worship of Yahweh by the group. The rest are ascribed to the vested interests of the post-exilic writers.

Characteristics of the Religion of the Exodus Group

Similar to the experience of patriarchs, in the Yahweh religion the action of god Yahweh is related to the central situation of the group in an emergency; like the family god Yahweh too attaches to the group, reveals a future for it and sees to its survival. But the similarities end here. Since the religion is of the larger group, the experience of god’s saving intervention is more complex than the former Patriarchal religion. First, the span of the ‘divine word of promise’ is extended enormously, from a year in the religion of the smaller group to a span of generation (40 years) in the religion of the larger group.  This was mostly due to the long drawn out political-historical process in the case of the latter.

Second, Yahweh does not relate to directly to the people concerned, but through an intermediary. This is the fundamental characteristic of the religion of the larger group. Religious representation, in this phase is decisive for the relationship between god Yahweh and people. Moreover there arises specific religious cult, which strengthened the bond between Yahweh and the people and reinforced the social composition of the group. The cult is performed in a holy place; it is bound to a holy time which separates itself from the regular history (Ex 24.16; 19.10f,15); the participants are asked to prepare themselves by special rites (Ex 19.10, 14f: washing clothes, sexual continence); it is performed by one or more mediators who enter the sacred place to perform the rites. Thus there arose religious association who claimed to be guardians of the cult and code, alongside the tribal organization (Ex 32.25-29). Further the traditional sources mention the use of sacred equipments like ‘tent of meeting’ (Ex 33. 7-11 11.16f, 24; Deut 31.14f) and ‘ark’ (Num 10.35f; 14.44). Though their importance as cultic objects gains momentum in the later phase of the Israelite religion, still their usage was the imitation of the small tent that carried the images of tribal gods among the tribes of that region. It mostly served as portable sanctuary where people would connect to Yahweh through Moses or priests.

Third, Religion of the larger group involved to a much greater degree human decision and participation than the simple relationship of trust adequate in the family piety. In other words, it demanded faith. Given the particular situation – the socio-political liberation – in which the Yahweh religion begun, it necessitated both loyalty within and the explicit distance from the neighboring religions and worships. Basic legal norms and simple form of legislations guarded the inner unity and the latter intention gave rise to exclucivism.   Sole worship of Yahweh and lack of images were another characteristic of this phase. It was however, less a choice and more an effect of the simple social structure. This later develops into a covenant which is the foundation of the Israelite religion.

Putting them together, religion in the liberated larger group was centred on their experience of god Yahweh in the act of political liberation and in his theophany at Sinai. It was the real beginning of the institutionalized Israelite religion. It consisted of elements like, cult of Yahweh, religious representation, basic norms and simple legislations (covenant) that would later be noted as the distinctive characteristics of Israelite religion. 

Jesus and Sin Basing on the article “Esuvum Pavamum” by Fr. M. Amaladoss.

These days as I am reflecting on the article ‘Jesus and Sin’ by Fr. M. Amaladoss, I came across a snippet titled ‘Seven Deadly Sins according to Gandhiji’ in a popular Tamil Catholic Magazine. Interestingly the list had no mention of our usual list of acts related to carnal pleasure, theft or murder, instead a list of negative, narrow, selfish and egoistic attitudes and vices that hinder us from our ontological vocation, to be divine. How happy would Jesus be with such a conception of sin by Gandhi!

The major part of the article, invariably analyses the queer understanding of sin present in the life and teachings of Jesus and the rest tries to interpret the belief ‘Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away our sins’. Rightly so, one gets scandalized with the comfort Jesus enjoys amidst sinners, the outcasts. The gospels generally present him to have empathized with ‘sinners’ and to have exclusively chosen their company. Probably it is because, he believed that every human being is limited but could be helped to overcome their limitations. He achieved it, through forgiveness and insight into the ‘truth about human life’ (Kingdom of God). The record of His life and teachings are filled with parables, instructions and incidents that enlighten us about this new paradigm (KOG) proposed by Jesus. There, sin is not a big deal but ones true humility, sincere repentance and thirst to be a member of the Kingdom. The classical passage would be the way he deals with ‘the woman caught in adultery’ Jn 8. 1-11. Jesus, as a result condemns no one; he is able to forgive even those that unjustly put him to death. Moreover, it is for the same reason he comes heavily on those who project themselves as perfect, good and ‘above/superior than’ others, forgetting their limitedness. In His new vision of life (KOG), such people find the least place.  Most probably, it is through this newer understanding of ‘Sin’ and his exclusive choice for the ‘sinners’, he is idealized as the redeemer of sins: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” Jn 1.29.  

Apart from this, any pietistic explanation to ‘Jesus hung on the cross’ as the redeemer of sins is simplistic and unsatisfactory. I have been thinking about it for a long time and the line of thought introduced by Fr. Amaladoss is satisfactory. 

Coffee with Raymond E. Brown Topic: Christology of the New Testament

With our basic homework done, knowing the multiple takes on Jesus by the early theologians  (the Gospel writers) who have lived with Him or known Him from His close associates, in this write up we discuss a talk by Raymond E. Brown (Bangalore, 1978) that connects the dynamics of the New Testament understanding of Jesus. In other words, we learn about how the early Christians have come to understand Jesus. The whole context of Jesus’ life and ministry was Judaism – Jewish people, their expectations, their concepts, their understanding from the OT. Jesus comes and proclaims the KOG, but he fails to fit in their expectations. This was a major problem. Though his close associates recognized his divinity, yet he was no were close to the standard (Jewish) expectations of a Jew – the Messiah. Christian Christology is fundamentally our attempt to find a language to express this reality ‘Jesus’.

We start from Resurrection. We must always remember that there is only a gradual growth in our understanding of the mystery; in the case of Jesus, the early Christians were no exception. The Christians of the year 35 AD have one understanding of Jesus, later we see another emerging, though connected yet different, always with an elbow room for further insights and broader understandings. After the resurrection, at least those close to him were convinced that God has proved that He was the expected one; that the kingdom He preached was authentic. And yet everything they read in the prophets about Messiah had not yet happened: a kingdom in this earth, a king of Israel who conquers the surrounding countries to bring perfect peace and prosperity, and so on. Therefore there was a tension between their faith experience that ‘Jesus came from God’ and the failure to accomplish the expectations.

Our efforts to resolve this tension, is the beginning of our Christology. First, they introduced the concept ‘second coming’. Interestingly, this is altogether strange to Jewish culture. Jews have no idea of two comings, He is supposed to come once and do all things. Christians however caught up between the tension developed the notion of second coming/parousia.  Jesus, who has ascended to the father, will come back again in the near future and then fulfill all their expectations. They applied all the standard Jewish terminology to explain the concept: ‘He would come as an anointed King to establish His kingdom on earth’; and would make his Messiahship explicit. It is called as ‘Future Christology’. We find echoes of it in the NT see Book of Acts and Gospels. It is in this context they adapt titles ‘Maranatha’, ‘Son of Man’ to explain Jesus. This pattern of thought required only a little change from the Jewish tradition. This in all probability might have been the first step to understand Jesus.

Gradually however, they grew out of this understanding, to the conviction that God has made Jesus both ‘Lord and Messiah’ already in His resurrection – ‘Present Christology’. It was the most prominent thought in the early preaching. In this preaching, they explained that He would not be Messiah only when he would come back, but already one in His resurrection. This required a change in the Hebrew thought. It required a new understanding of the concept Messiah. He is a king but His kingdom is not of this world; he brings peace but its different kind of peace. They begin to adapt the standard titles ‘Messiah, Lord, Son of Man, Son of God, and King’ to fit Jesus. I quote, “they don’t make Jesus fit the terminology; they make the terminology fit Jesus. And the newness of […] Jesus eventually reshaped the whole theological vocabulary of Judaism” says Brown. Thus, gradually we begin to part from Judaism.

St. Paul, is a prominent protagonist of this theology: ‘we are bringing you the good news of the promise which God has fulfilled through us their (patriarchs) children, by raising Jesus from the dead’. See Acts 13; Rom 1.3. Thereafter he begins to explain how Jesus though man through the power of God (the Holy Spirit) is lifted up/raised from the dead. He argues it to be the proof of his divine sonship. He repeatedly attaches the title ‘Lord’, to the name of Jesus. See Phi 2.6-11. To know the name in the Jewish tradition is to know the identity of the person. Therefore with the name ‘Lord’ attached to Jesus, Paul means that He is divine. Thus the new understanding gave a new status for Jesus - a statue of Lordship, Messiahship and Divinity. This probably was the main Christology during the early preaching but it sustained its importance till the Gospels were written. This forms the major corpse of Pauline writings the earliest available Christian writings.

Mark is the earliest available gospel. It is composed in the sixties. It is about thirty years from the time Jesus died. So there must have been another corpse of writings with a different pattern of thought available when Mark writes. Because for Mark it is neither future Christology nor present Christology, instead past Christology i.e. Jesus was already Messiah during his life time. This is true for all gospels; they are working backwards. Enlightened by the resurrection experience, they begin to understand the divinity of Jesus manifest in his words and deeds. Unlike Paul who is content with crucifixion and resurrection, Mark is interested in Jesus’ ministry. And therefore he has the responsibility to bridge the relationship between Jesus of the ministry and the risen Jesus. In his response Mark insists that Jesus was not one thing during his life time and then became another thing with resurrection; Instead he already was the Messiah, the Lord and the Son of God during his whole ministry. If for Paul Jesus is designated as God’s Son in resurrection, for Mark it is already done at his baptism. Compare Rom1.3 to the drama of Baptism in Mark. We have all the essential symbols: ‘Power of God’, ‘Holy Spirit’ and the phrase ‘You are my Son’. Besides, the Holy Spirit henceforth is not something to be added in the resurrection; rather it becomes associated already in the baptism. Thereafter, they discover that it is through the power of the spirit that he worked miracles.

When the Christians proposed a ‘future Christology’ they had nothing much to change: ‘Well, he would come back to set up the kingdom to conquer our enemies’. The ‘present Christology’ though would not buy that idea, still retained the kingly image. The difference was that he ruled from heaven. But now, in the third pattern – ‘past Christology’ – Jesus was Messiah in his life time, who though truly son of God would be a suffering Messiah rejected and crucified.  This was a drastic/radical change in the Jewish thought. Hence there arise conflicts between orthodox Jews and Jesus, later with his disciples. The people around him fail to understand the radically new insights of Jesus about the kingdom. Synoptic gospels allow this tension, and reveal the truth about Jesus gradually. Gospel of John on the other hand, follows a new style, in it everyone knows right from the start the truth about Jesus. All the Gospels basically follow ‘past Christology’. They recapitulate events in this light.

But, there is a limitation in the Gospel of Mark. If we know through it Jesus is God’s son at the baptism, the question follows about his life before the baptism: was Jesus son of God before baptism? Other Gospels begin to work on it. None of them begin the story with baptism. Though his disciples came into contact with Jesus only at the baptism, Christian writers are not content to start the story there. But, they take two different routes: one from baptism to the Conception another from baptism to the time before conception, before his existence as a human being i.e. pre-existence. The latter is chosen exclusively by John. Mathew and Luke have nothing to tell about this, while they repeatedly contend that all along his life he was son of God. In their infancy narratives we find the familiar language: ‘Holy Spirit’, ‘power of God’, ‘Son of God’ etc. Thus they argue that Jesus was God’s son even before baptism, from his conception. John does not speak about conception he rather jumps to pre-existence, his existence before creation. ‘In the beginning was the word and that was God’s son’ writes John. In the Gospel, hence we find references where Jesus makes note about his pre-existence; he talks about the glory he shared with God before the world began. He argues that Jesus came down from God and became man. The theology of incarnation, pre-existent god taking on flesh is his contribution to the NT Christology – Pre-existent Christology.

Now these different answers were later put together by church fathers like Ignatius of Antioch. He writes, “the divine word became man (John’s thought) in the womb of the Virgin Mary (Mathew’s and Luke’s thought)”. We are not yet done. While we may think that at this point all the questions are answered, people are always going to be asking about ‘Jesus’. We have not yet fully understood him. We learnt from John that in the beginning was the word. In the 4^th C Arius takes it up to argue that the word had a beginning, hence it is created and not infinite. Enter Athanasius and the fathers of Nicaea who struggle with the problem and finally decide that Jesus never had a beginning. John went back before creation. But they push it back beyond John to say that there never was a moment when he was not.

Athanasius must have been a profound theologian, because he is able to convince the conservative camp to say this. The fathers of the Church were reluctant not because they sided Arius, instead they were not yet prepared to hold something which was not in the scripture. But Athanasius tells them, I quote: “There is no use quoting Scripture at Arius! He accepts the Scripture. But Arius is asking a question that was not asked when the scriptures were written. And so to answer him, we have got to give an answer that goes beyond the scripture, but goes in the same direction in which the scriptures point”. This is a good theological insight. We cannot be repeating the past formulas when people and socio-political situation poses new questions. The readymade answers may not be relevant, the need therefore to go beyond them. This is done not with an intention to put down past doctrines (the orthodox doctrines), instead with a great awareness of their limitedness (space and time) and at time inadequacy for the contemporary problems. Council of Nicaea has not solved everything, if you have temporal questions of Jesus, they have an answer. If someone has another kind of question, we have to think of another kind of category. In other words there is a constant attempt to understand Jesus.

Thus we have seen the dynamics of the NT Christology. It happens to most us that we read NT as if the understanding of Jesus was given to them, as it is the case with us in catechism. We forget that they have got them after lot of struggle, with the passage of time. Without such mind set, the NT corpus especially Gospels remain a puzzle. We wonder, “why do they not understand?” It is only when we realize that NT writers did not have all the answers it took a bit of struggle to attain them, we grow to appreciate it. We actively participate in their journey of understanding ‘Jesus’. This is important for us, without this struggle to understand ‘who he is’ and ‘his Kingdom’ we would not really understand what NT teaches about Jesus. 

KILL! HACK! BURN! Understanding Communalism: the Concept, the Institution, the Dynamics

March, 2013. Eleventh anniversary of Gujarat carnage and Fifth anniversary of anti-Christian riots at Kandhamal district of Odisha. How fitting is that we reflect on communalism, the factor that can change overnight the fate of people’s lives. Historians, activists, writers, women and men of integrity and social conscience spontaneously volunteered to research and write about these ‘communal violence’ and ‘mass brutality’ no more refer them as ‘riots’. The term ‘riot’ suggests images of more or less spontaneous battle fought between people of varying and competing religious identities, the mass violence in Gujarat and Kandhamal, for that matter any communal violence in India, is neither spontaneous nor is it primarily conflict between different religious communities, instead they are genocidal massacre and ethnic cleansing maneuvered and executed by the majority. Something in the line of what happened in the World War II to Jews. Literally the eye witnesses, grass root activists and researchers basing on the evidences of the enormity of brutality, state complicity, long advance preparations of the carnage, the deliberate denial of relief, rehabilitation and legal process, and explicit negation of the rights of the persons internally displaced by violence, describe them as ‘State-Sponsored-Pogrom’. 

Rightly so, you find here stories of people who have been misguided by police right into the hands of the rioting mobs; the complacency of state authorities to punish the perpetrators and protect the victims; mass burning; and mass electrocuting. Everyone speaks of the plunder and pillage being organized like a military operation, as if against an external armed enemy. A truck arrives to the spot initially broadcasting inflammatory slogans; followed by groups of men young and old also women in uniforms, fully armed with weapons from crowbars to kerosene/petrol bombs and other inflammable materials like LPG cylinders, chemicals. They are accompanied by leaders with computerized sheets of the minority homes, worship places and properties and field operators with mobile phones. The rest carryout the orders received in style.

Nearly a decade has gone by since the Gujarat pogrom and half a decade since the Kandhamal communal violence nothing much has changed the pitiable conditions of the victims, who live in their ghettoes and makeshift camps (rehabilitation camps). With pressure to exist camps by the government on the one side and threat not to return to their homelands (native villages) on the other they have become inland unwelcome refugees. But for the pride of the communalists to have ‘cleansed themselves’ of the minority who belong to religions different from their own, there is no move towards reconciliation i.e. acknowledgement, remorse, reparation and justice. Further, a climate of hostility and ‘social and economic boycott’ make their living difficult, painful and fearful. Living with economic boycott is hard enough, much harder is to walk down the village street each day when no one greets you nor welcomes you to their houses. There are borders within the places (in Gujarat and in Kandhamal district) the divide is between communalists’ settlements and the victims’ ghettos (usually poor relief camps or recently built colonies).  The former deliberately distance themselves from the latter, the demonized other. This is clear in the case of Muslims who are easily branded as ‘terrorists’ and ‘immorals’. The victims with nothing more to lose adapt themselves to the enforced second-class citizenship! Everything is done because they worship a different God. This is communalism.

The Concept

Communalism the term can be understood with a little bit of imagination. Imagine suddenly you find a throng of thousand men, women and youngsters of this locality surround Becchi-Don Bosco shouting anti-Christian slogans, breaking open our main doors, throwing petrol bombs, acids across, quickly construct scaffoldings to enter through our first floor to vandalize and loot our community – persons and properties – armed with weapons from axes, daggers, swords, guns to lathis and hammers. Meanwhile our desperate attempt to seek the aid of the local police reaches deaf ears, finally we have but left with one choice either to succumb to the violent mob or to jump from the second floor. At the end of the day almost every one of us would have been cremated except for a handful mistook to be dead and our house ransacked! This though seem exaggerated, believe me communalism is nothing less than that.

Communalism means brutality, betrayal, hatred, fear, loss of humanity, treating the other as ‘shit’ because their body, their properties belong to a different religion. The victims narrate sad stories of killing and rape. The fact finding team of the Gujarat Pogrom note about the rape of the young girls that as young as eleven year old girls were raped and then burnt in front of other family members. Young boys in the rehabilitations camps have stories about their rape and death of their mothers, sisters and aunts. The report notes that the young girls were paraded naked infront of 1000 to 2000 strong mobs who humiliated and terrorized them. Thereafter they were raped by a dozen men. After raping them, the attackers inserted sharp rods, knives or any other hard objects at hand into their bodies bludgeoning them before they were burnt.

Communalism does not mean a simple communal identity or communitarian feeling of a group founded on a religion. Rather it refers to an ‘exclusive identity’ as a social, economic and political unit tied to a religion but built on the hatred of the other wanting to ‘rape and burn them’ their bodies, culture and religion; to shout slogans ‘Kill, Burn, Hack, Rape’ at the opportune time. In short, it is a systematic mobilization of a community on the basis of religious beliefs to annihilate the OTHER. Generally it functions on the perception that religious identities are real/original transcending everything else like the ontological (created as a human being), cultural (fellow Gujarati, fellow tribal, fellow dalit), political (Indian), and functional identities.    

The Institution

I mentioned here about religion. There is always a tendency to reduce ‘communalism’ to religious conflicts, as I have mentioned in the beginning of this talk. Religion is just the tip of the ice-berg. The systematic style of the riots in both Gujarat and Kandhamal betrays an institution that creates and sustains communal divides for social, economic and political gains of the individuals and the community. Take for example the partition, Gandhi and Maulana Azad devout practitioners of their respective faith preached secular democracy, on the contrary it was Jinnah (the father of the Pakistani nation) a non-practicing Muslim and Savarkar (founder of militant Hindu Nationalism) an avowed atheist who fanned the communal divide in the pre-independent India. We should not misunderstand as if communalism had its origin in them, rather that the communalism that was being reconciled in the secular nationalism proposed by Gandhi was subverted by these right-wing fundamentalists. Therefore the battle and 1947 riots in the above-to-be-independent-India was not really on any religious teachings but on whether political mobilizations and institutions should be based on identity and difference or on acceptance, respect and celebration of diversity. The former won and so resulted in the divide of the subcontinent. Gandhi, who thought otherwise, was assassinated back in India.

Religion, in the communalist drama is only an instrument but an effective tool with myths, epics, legends, tradition and authourity to poison the mass and indoctrinate them with prejudice and revenge against the OTHER. Scriptures of most of the religions have violence, probably it is high time we need to re-write God’s unconditional love with a non-violent language.  Pseudo-religious fascist organizations are the backbones of any communal upsurge. In India it is fascist Hindutva organizations namely Rashtriya Sevak Sena (RSS), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), youth formation called Bajrang Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and their student wing the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. Collectively, they describe themselves as Sangh Parivar. They envision a homogenized (uniform), combative, patriarchal and upper caste version of the pluralist Hindu nation and use the politics of difference and hate to achieve it. From their inception in the end of 18^thC and the beginning of 19^thC they are bent on poisoning the public with fundamentalist ideologies fighting the secular constitution, not without social, political and economic gain. They leave nothing unturned to achieve their dissolved privileges in the nationalist, socialist, and secularist ideologies. 


Note it is the successful campaign of the right wing ideology that has rewarded Narendra Modi with third consecutive victory in the state elections and it has also definitely rewarded the people part of the communal groups, in all spheres. On the other hand it has reduced the victims into economical, social political nullity as the government failed to acknowledge the nominal, pecuniary, moral and punitive damages.  Permit me to narrate the sad story of a beautiful young woman. Munnabhai, who had altered his Muslim name after the riots, encounters this beautiful young woman suddenly jumping into his auto-rickshaw with the request “drive me anywhere, do what you like with me, but give me some money”. On persistent probing she confided that she was widowed by the communal massacre in 2002 and did not know how else to feed her three children. [Remember I mentioned earlier the socio-economic boycott]. The driver himself a victim of the carnage, gave her all the money he had, weeping as he drove her home. Things were not different in Kandhamal, loot at this photograph of the relief camp as of January 18, 2012.  Therefore it would be rather simplistic to reduce communalism to ‘spontaneous religion-conflict’ and so search for a solution in inter-religious dialogue while this is included. The issue, however is complex involving social, religious, cultural, economical and political factors and has a long history, experience and plan. A historian would easily point out the growth sadly towards the worst, in the brutality and precision in the execution of communal violence in India.

The Dynamics

In Gujarat it was not just the fanatic organizations that were in power, but the judiciary, prosecution, higher civil services (IAS) including police (IPS), private firms (Tatas and Ambanis who would later collaborate with Modi), and vast majority of Hindus bear responsibility for the carnage. We have reports of the staff in Government hospital refusing to treat the injuries many Muslims! Reports about district collectors refusing to establish, recognize and assist relief camps. Frugal living conditions with insanitary facilities, less medicine and food have become the everyday factor in the aftermath of both communal violences. The public (a majority of them) in both Kandhamal and Gujarat hardly share remorse and have turned to normalcy after a day or two of violence. Worst of all was the judicial legal proceedings which were frequently, deliberately unfair, partisan and communally motivated. There are more cases filed on the victims under POTA and Provocation than on the rioters. Researchers who have compared the communal violence in Gujarat and Kandhamal are surprised at their similarity in the execution , connivance of the state and civil authourities, and sequence of events post-riots.

Gujarat was only a model, Kandhamal an attempt to copy it against Christians. They are not done but continue to poison our country with the fascist ideologies posing a great threat to our secular democratic constitution. On the other side, there is a slow but steady decline setting in our bureaucracy, not only with the growth of indifference, non-accountability, corruption, sloth and arrogance but most dangerously partisanship, complicity with injustice and sectarian politics. Sections of the police, civil and military administration share their active sympathies with ideologies contrary to our constitution and opportunistically align with them to advance their careers. There is also growing hostility in parts of India towards a segment of its citizens only because they worship a different God. Even parties built on the secular ideologies have displayed a singular lack of nerve and of the courage of their convictions at these crucial moments in our history. They flounder in the faint hearted calculus of the vote-banks. Recall, the number of protests Christians had to make to get the attention of the centre with UPA in power. Consider the recent conflict on Salman Rushdie attending the Jaipur Literature festival. (Though it was hyped in the national media, the fact is that he did not come). Moreover the indifference and justification of common man in India falling prey to the twisted versions of fascists through the media, the silence of the intellectuals about the cruelty and injustice, has only increased the sense of isolation of the minority in their own country. Despite the solemn guarantees of the constitution of a ‘Free Secular India’- equal respect and protection for the people of all faiths including those with absence of faith – riots, protests, life-threats and bans provoked by communal ideologies have become annual events of our chronicle.  Our secular democracy which though initially founded to bring about egalitarian society promoting honesty, truth and equality is today contaminated by majoritarianism.  Truth giving way to ‘majority opinions’, has become the growing dynamism of our secular democracy. It is time that we make fundamental reforms. The line that divides between the active supporter of communal violence and the indifferent onlooker is very thin ‘neutrality amount to taking sides with injustice. As Martin Luther King said, in the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

I would like to admit that the talk was not exhaustive, we could further branch into discussions on national, regional, local and individual communal attitudes, international communalism which would include most popular religions of the world, ‘soft communalism’, communalism in Christianity, in the History and so on. Here, our discussion however has been narrowed down by the topic, further it was based exclusively on Gujarat and Kandhamal riots. There may be criticism lingering in our minds as to ‘why should we recount what happened then in a distant place to such precision’. More than drawing a solution, it may seem provoking anti-Hindu feelings among us. Take the case of Kandhamal persecution. But scholars note that any decision to close the past without looking back is like spreading amnesia. It does not solve problem as the healing process has not begun. Instead traditions like remembering Holocausts, Bombing of Hiroshima-Nagasaki, and the Demolition of Babri-Masjid acknowledge the seriousness of the issue and induce process of healing and forgiveness. Else as philosopher George Santayana, wisely prophesied, ‘those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it’ we would repeat the history of communal violence and pogroms.

Bibliography:
Mander, Harsh. Fear and Forgiveness: The Aftermath of Massacre. New Delhi: Penguin Books,  2009.
____ . "Barefoot - Kandhamal: The Aftermath". The Hindu 14 January, 2012. 
____ . "Barefoot: Remembering Kandhamal". The Hindu 17 December, 20ll.
Selected Writings on Communalism. New Delhi: People's Publishing House, 1994.