DALLE MISSIONI E DAL MONDO
Jacob Parappally, M.S.F.S.
The word of God is not bound (2Tm 2:9). This truth is confirmed by infinite ways in which God’s Word finds expression in the world. Above all, it is true in Jesus Christ, the mystery of God’s Word revealed in history. He transcended everything that bound him, even death. The early theologians of the Church interpreted Jesus Christ as the Messiah of Jewish expectations as well as the fulfilment of the hope cherished by the Gentiles of all times. Ignatius of Antioch (Ý 110 a.D.), for example, proclaimed Jesus Christ as the “ground for hoping that (all of humanity) may be converted and win their way to God”. Further, he affirmed that Jesus was “our common name and common hope”.1
The followers of Jesus Christ believe that he is indeed the common name and common hope meant for the whole of humanity. They encounter him as the Way, the Truth and the Life. They experience him as the beginning and the end of their lives, and therefore, the ultimate meaning of their lives. They confess him as the Lord of history and the universe who lived and died at a particular time in history and yet is alive after his death, leading all to the fullness of life. But something bound up with this transforming experience of Jesus Christ is that it must be shared or proclaimed in a meaningful way so that the same Jesus Christ can be encountered by the people of all cultures and languages. It is absolutely imperative for the Church which “lives, moves and has its being” in Jesus Christ to proclaim Him in a way that other people can really “hear” the word of proclamation.
In the multi-religious society of the Roman Empire, the early Church found creative ways to theologise and proclaim the universal significance of Jesus Christ. When the Roman Empire accepted Jesus Christ as its Lord and Saviour, Christianity became a mono-religious culture without any challenge to its claims about Jesus Christ from outside. It had to face only the internal challenges with regard to the wrong interpretations of the person of Christ which were countered by the early councils, especially, the council of Chalcedon. The Church articulated “who Jesus Christ is” in dialogue with Judaism and the Greco-Roman world. Such a finished Christology with its ready-made Christ image did not make much impact on the peoples of Asia for the last twenty centuries because Asian people have different cultures and world-views which cannot understand the “language” of Christian proclamation. Moreover, the religions of Asia claim to have their own mediators, saviours who seemed to have shown them the ways of salvation. They might find “Christ an exotic figure more or less appealing, of a suspicious constructor associated with the conquering and invading foreigners”,2 a threat to their traditional religions and cultures. The latter understanding of Christ and Christianity as a threat is growing stronger in India and elsewhere in Asia. This is clearly seen in the anti-Christian propaganda of the Hindu fundamentalism in India which led to the martyrdom of some missionaries in recent months. In this context, what are the ways to proclaim Jesus Christ in a language meaningful and challenging to the people of other religions so that they may encounter him as the “fullness of life” and not as a threat to their authentic cultures and traditions.
In his paper, “The Uniqueness of Jesus Christ in Indian Theological Reflection”, George Karakunnel has clearly shown that in the Indian context of religious pluralism and poverty of the masses there is a need to present an image of Jesus Christ that is inclusive and relational, prophetic and liberative, pneumatic and cosmic finding expression in kenotic love and service. In this paper I would like to underline the above concerns and show why such an approach to Christology is imperative in the Indian context if we take the “mission command” (Mt 28:18-20) of Jesus Christ seriously. Further, in the context of religious pluralism in India I would suggest an approach to proclaiming Jesus Christ that is challenging and not threatening, respectful and not aggressive, relational and not relative.
1. Towards a Meaningful Indian Christology: Problems and Prospects
Proclaim Jesus Christ, we must. Invite people to experience his life-giving presence in and through His Spirit in the Church, we must. But should we go on repeating certain Christological affirmation articulated in a language which is not only not meaningful to our listeners but also have such a negative impact on them that they reject our message? Should we use exclusive and absolutist expressions to proclaim the centrality of Jesus Christ in the universal salvific plan of God (1Tm 2:4-5) that hinder the people of other religions from hearing the Good News of salvation? Should we make absolute statements about other religions and their founders and their religious experiences, even sometimes denigrating them as if we know all about the mysterious ways of God who “shows no partiality” and to whom “in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable” (Acts 10:34-35)? The history of Christian proclamation in the colonial era had been, to a great extent, aggressive, exclusive and triumphalistic, contradicting even Apostle Peter’s exhortation “always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1Pt 3:15).
The colonizers could not discover Christ’s presence through His Spirit in the positive values of the religious traditions of their colonial subjects as it would have probably hampered their claim to superiority, not only in military might but also in religion and culture. In the colonial and post-colonial era in Asia and particularly in India, the Christian claims of being the only true religion possessing the absolute truth, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and His Church for salvation etc. were not only not understood by the followers of other religions, but also conveyed to them the opposite of what was intended by such claims. For people who hold an inclusive and relational world-view any absolute and exclusive claims about Jesus Christ and His Church would reduce Jesus Christ to a tribal God and the Church to a religious sect. Jesus Christ, thus, becomes one among the founders of religions or one of the incarnations or a great Guru or a prophet or one who reached the fullness of self-realization. They would consider him as one among many historical manifestation of the Absolute. How does it happen? Is not our proclamation clear and unambiguous? Indeed it is! But it is meaningful only to those who share the Judeo-Christian world-view. For those whose world-view operates on the epistemological principle of identity rather than on the principle of contradiction and for whom trans-historical truths are more real than historical facts, liberation from ignorance is more important than liberation from sin, symbolic religious expressions are more evocative and experiential than creeds or dogmatic formulations any exclusive statements about religious truths fail to fit into the scheme of things. So the struggle of any Indian Christian theologian is to translate the Church’s faith-affirmation about the person and mission of Jesus Christ into a language meaningful to the people so that they can respond to him with their whole heart and mind.
To present a meaningful Christology in the Indian context is not easy. In fact, the plurality and complexity of the situation demands a plurality of Christologies in dialogue with the “great traditions” and the “little traditions”3 which have their own world-views as well as both liberative and oppressive elements. The Christian experience of Jesus Christ as the fullness of life can challenge the dehumanising elements of these cultures and religions. Openness to the positive elements of the other religious traditions can enrich the Christian understanding of the mystery of Jesus Christ. But the prospect of enriching our present understanding of the mystery of Christ is possible only if we give up the claim of having exhausted all the possibilities of understanding the mystery of Jesus Christ. It also means that we have to give up the presumption that our so called universally valid, a-temporal, a prioiri articulations about Jesus Christ are intelligible for the people of all cultures and world-views.
It is clear to those who encounter Jesus Christ in the living tradition of the Church and understand the challenges of their inherited Indian world-view that their faith-affirmations, are not intelligible to their listeners. Therefore, Indian theologians are convinced of the need to present the truths of Christian revelation in various ways meaningful in the Indian context. Their attempts may be construed as relativising the fundamental truths of Christian revelation. Sometimes they are even accused of not affirming the uniqueness of Christ as the only saviour. It is understandable that some may make such accusations if the pedagogical methods employed by the Indian theologians are not properly understood by those who do not have the lived experience of the context of Indian theological reflection.
The proclamation of Jesus Christ in dialogue with the Indian context of religious pluralism and the dehumanising socio-cultural and economic situation convince the proclaimers of the Gospel that:
1. Jesus Christ’s cosmic and trans-historical presence as well as his presence through his Spirit in all that is good and beautiful and perfect must be the point of departure and his historical presence must be the point of arrival in the proclamation of the Gospel. This is imperative as an overemphasis on the historicity of Jesus at the beginning of the proclamation reduces him to one among the historical founders of religion.
2. Jesus Christ cannot be meaningfully proclaimed in the Indian context in isolation or separated from the “many and varied ways God has spoken to our fathers” (Heb 1:1f). Other founders of religions and other ways of salvation need not be understood as parallel or complimentary to God’s revelation through Jesus Christ which is “once and for all”. There is no need even to consider them as participating in the mediation of Jesus Christ. According to the Scripture they can be considered as ways of God’s dealing with humanity in particular cultures and nations in the past (Heb 1:1f) and it is reasonable to conclude that the old economy of God continues to those people who have not yet encountered Jesus Christ. Such an understanding does not reduce the missionary zeal for proclaiming the Good News, as feared by some, but enhances it by a deeper reverence to the mystery of God’s will and respect for human persons, cultures and authentic religious tradiction.
3. The revelation in Jesus Christ is new, calling for free response and total commitment. God wills to save all humans through him (1Tm 2:4-5). This, I believe, is the sufficient and compelling reason for the Church’s mission. So there is no need to categorize other religious mediations and mediators as deficient ways to salvation in order to show the centrality of Jesus Christ in the economy of salvation. Such an approach would create only insurmountable difficulties in the proclamation of the Gospel. The newness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ is powerful enough to challenge and transform persons and societies.
4. God’s Spirit present in the authentic values of other religions and cultures cannot be separated from Jesus Christ. Following the spirit of the Vatican II, especially of Gaudium et Spes, Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio acknowledges the Church’s recognition of the presence and action of the Spirit beyond the boundaries of the Church. He says that “the Spirit’s presence and activity affect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures, and religions”.4 The Indian and Asian attempts to recognize the “hidden presence” of Christ through his Spirit in the authentic religious and cultural traditions, in no way, separates Jesus Christ from his Spirit but promotes the tremendous possibilities of proclaiming the centrality of Jesus Christ. Discovering the Spirit’s presence and action in the complex realities of India/Asia leads to the encounter with Jesus Christ whose Spirit he is. In his Apostolic exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia Pope John Paul II underlined the inseparability of the action of the Holy Spirit and the universal salvation in Christ and the Church’s commitment to follow the promptings to fulfil her mission.5
5. The proclamation of God’s kingdom through dialogue with all those who are committed to create a just society in no way dilutes the commitment to Christ and the emergence of the Church but facilitates them. In the self-emptying commitment of Christians for the transformation of their unjust societies and in their courage to stand up for the values of the kingdom as well as in their readiness to suffer the consequences, people of other religious traditions discover the liberating and kenotic image of Christ.
The quest for an image or images of Jesus Christ that takes into account the above concerns without jettisoning any of the fundamental affirmations of Christian faith impels the Indian theologians to discover creative ways to communicate God’s revelation in Jesus Christ.
2. Challenging Newness of Jesus Christ
In the 19th century some Hindus and the Hindu converts to Christiantiy made attempts to present Jesus Christ in a language meaningful to Hindus. They discovered the challenging newness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ to bring about the integral liberation of humans. While a Hindu reformer like Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833) presented Jesus as the Supreme Guide to Happiness, Keshub Chunder (1838-1884), remaining on the border of Hinduism and Christianity, saw Jesus as the fulfilment of Hinduism, the apex of organic evolution: Cit (Consciousness) of the Trinitarian God (Sat-Cit-Atianda = Being-Consciousness-Bliss). For Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya (1861-1907), a Brahmin convert to Christianity and the so called father of Indian Christian Theology, Jesus Christ was the Transcendent Image of the Supreme Brahman and Nara-Hari (God-Man). Following this line of interpreting Jesus Christ from the Indian cultural and religious tradition some have attempted to present Jesus as the unique Avatara (Incarnation), Isvara (Personal aspect of the supra-personal Absolute), Adi Purusha (The Primordial Person), Prajapati (the Lord of the creatures), Vimochakan (the liberator), Satyagrahi, Yogi etc. Surprisingly, these attempts at interpreting Christ in the Indian context had no serious influence on the Christian proclamation and praxis as the Church viewed these attempts with suspicion.
In the Eighties, the Third World theologians evaluated the various Christological models of the Asian context and found them inadequate in responding to the plurality of religions and the pervading poverty of Asia.6 The “fulfilment theology” of the 1930’s with its recognition of the Christ-of-the-religions, was an initiative to counteract the “civilization theology” of the Western missionaries and colonizers. But it failed to recognize the Christ-of-the-poor. The ashramic Christ of the late 60s was a protest against the “development theology” of neo-colonialist. The ashramic movement, recognizing greed as the enemy within, embraced voluntary poverty and simplicity but failed to see the structural greed of systems and structures and to participate actively in the struggles of the poor for liberation. Thus the inculturation Christology of the late 70s, developed in opposition to “liberation Christology” failed to see the link between religion and liberation. In India/Asia, there are many cultures and classes in one religion and many religions in one culture. There are both liberative and oppressive elements in religions as well as in cultures. The awareness of such a complex situation was the compelling force that motivated the Indian/Asian theologians to make attempts to present an image of Jesus Christ who is the Christ-of-the-religions-and-the-poor.
In the context of many religions that claim to be ways of liberation from the misery of human existence and the presence of millions of poor who look for socio-economic and political liberation what is new about the person and message of Jesus Christ? This newness must be communicated through meaningful words, actions and life-style rather than repeating terms which are unintelligible, exclusive and offensive to the people of other religions. The whole of apostolic witness and praxis was about the newness of God’s action in history in the person of Jesus Christ that it became the New Testament. The covenantal relationship God established through him was interpreted and proclaimed as the New Covenant. Till the establishment of the new heaven and new earth this new message has to be proclaimed. Unlike the exclusive and univocal terms that we prefer to use to explain who Jesus Christ is, the challenging newness of Jesus Christ, if properly communicated, can bring many to encounter him. This, I believe, is the task of theology in the Indian/Asian context.
Can we identify some of the elements that can communicate the newness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ that can adequately respond to the soteriological concerns of the people of other religions, their quest for integral liberation and their longing for harmony among humans, God and cosmos? I believe that it is possible and necessary in order to enter into a meaningful dialogue with the people of other religions and to invite them to experience Jesus Christ. Some of the elements of this newness of Christic revelation can be outlined as follows:
1. In Jesus Christ one can encounter a self-emptying God, hitherto unknown in the history of revelation. In him the Absolute became relative, Infinite became finite, God became human, Word became flesh (Jn 1:14). In him God came to serve and not to be served (Mk 10:45). Thus the self-emptying figure of Christ (Phil 2:7) can be encountered as the servant of everything perfect, good, true, beautiful and authentically liberative in all religious traditions whether Great ot Little, Meta-cosmic or cosmic, unitive or messianic. He is not only the liberative potential of Asian religious traditions but has the power to actualise it in reality.
2. If Jesus Christ is truly God and truly human as the Council of Chalcedon confesses and proclaims, he cannot but be what he revealed himself to be in history, the servant of God, humanity and the cosmos. In him is the self-disclosure of God that God is not only the Lord but also the servant of all and everything. This is the radical kenosis, the paradox of Christic revelation, a stumbling block to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles, but, indeed, the power and wisdom of God (1Cor 1:25). Self-emptying is the essence of the Trinitarian Oneness. “There is no other name” (Acts 4:12) that reveals this mystery of the God as a self-emptying God who becomes the servant of his own creation. The newness, decisiveness, normativeness and the universal validity of Jesus Christ consist in his servanthood of everything authentically human, be it culture, religion, systems or structures. This self-emptying servanthood is expressed in the foot-washing of the disciples at the Last Supper (Jn 13:3-15). This revelation subverts all human categories of discrimination: superiority and inferiority, higher class and lower class, high caste, low caste and untouchable, patriarchalism and matriarchalism, male and female, Christian and Pagan, believers and non-believers, civilized and uncivilized etc. It challenges the religious and secular strucutures that perpetuate the systems of discrimination and dehumanisation and energizes the forces of liberation whether religious or secular.
3. The self-emptying image of Jesus Christ can reveal the power of the powerless, can identity with them and energize them to struggle for a fuller human life and at the same time liberate them from the forces of alienation within themselves as well as within the structures and the systems which enslave them. Jesus Christ reveals a suffering God who suffers when human suffer as he is love itself. This new revelation in Jesus Christ has tremendous influence on the people who suffer from oppressive images of God.
4. The kenotic Christ can fulfil the longing of the Asian people for liberation from greed, acquisitiveness, egoism and the fragmentation of reality. He can reveal the necessity of an ethical religiosity for integral liberation over the cultic and Gnostic religiosity. Jesus of Nazareth revealed a God who is anthropocentric and cosmocentric (Jn 3:16) and not self-centred because he was by nature a self-emptying God. A kenotic Christ can perform his prophetic function in the Asian context by challenging all the religious traditions including Christianity to be authentically anthropocentric and care for the whole creation. He reveals the interrelationship of God, humans and the world.
5. The kenotic Christ can energize all those who encounter him to promote everything authentically human and liberative in the various religious traditions, cultures, and socio-political and economic systems with respect, love and a self-emptying attitude. Such an encounter with the kenotic Christ would also empower them to identify themselves with those who are committed to fight against the forces of unfreedom and build God’s own Kingdom where the self-emptying of God is the sorce and model for communion and communities of justice, love, compassion, fellowship, peace, reconciliation and, indeed, wholeness.
Conclusion
The Christian proclamation of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is misunderstood and is rejected by people of other religions. They seem to consider such claims as emanating from the Christian sense of superiority, arrogance and a colonial mentality. It is in the interest of Church’s vocation and commitment to her mission that she speaks a language that promotes an effective communication of her message about Jesus Christ. This means that the Church should consistently hold a positive attitude to other religious traditions which are to be served by the revelation in Jesus Christ. Other religious traditions have a right to hear the message of the Gospel and therefore the Church has a duty to proclaim it in a language intelligible to them.
The Scripture reveals to us a self-emptying God who came to serve. This is the newness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. This new revelation in history of that which transcends history does not destroy all that is true and beautiful in other religious traditions and cultures. This truth can be credibly communicated only by those who encounter Jesus Christ’s hidden presence in them through his Spirit. His hidden presence and action can also be recognized in those who are committed to all authentic values of the Kingdom. However, an excluisive tribal Christology hinders dialogue with the members of other religions and prevent their encounter with Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ mission was to proclaim and establish right relationships within and among the humans themselves and with God and the cosmos. Jesus’ proclamation of “the Kingdom of God” or “the Kingdom of Heaven” stressed the vertical and horizontal relationship of the Human for the establishment of a new society. Following the kenotic Christ the disciples are given the grace and obligation to “gather up the fragments left over, that nothing may be lost” (Jn 6:12) from the Indian/Asian religious traditions and people’s movements for the building up of a new society.
The significance of Jesus Christ for India/Asia for its integral liberation will be recognized when the people of other religions and the oppressed and marginalized are able to see Jesus Christ’s self-emptying face in his Church’s servanthood struggling with and for other to build a new society where a harmony based on the recognition of God’s sovereignty, justice, equality and “co-existence” of religions and cultures prevail. The newness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ becomes visible and challenging and effective when the disciples commit themselves to this unique service to humanity and the world.
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1 Ignatius of Antioch, Ephesians: 10.1; 1.2.
2 R. Panikkar, A Christophany for our Times, The Thirty-fifth Annual Robert Cardinal Bellarmine Lecture, Theology Digest 39:1 (1992), p. 4.
3 Anthropologists like M.N. Srinivas use the terms “Great Tradition” and “Little Tradition to show the distinction between classical Hindu tradition and the popular religiosità of the sub-altern people. See M.N. Srinivas, Religion and Society among the Coorgs in South India, London, 1952.
4 John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 28.
5 John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia, 17-18.
6 “The Irruption of the Third World: Challenge to Theology”, Fifth Conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (New Delhi, August 17-29, 1981), Document, Vidyajyoti 46 (1982), p. 92. See also, Aloysius Pieris, “Non-Christian Religions and Cultures in Third World Theology”, Vidyajyoti 46 (1982), pp. 166-170.