"'An uninvited gate-crasher'"
'An uninvited gate-crasher'
Bhalchandrarao C Patwardhan
The Observer of Business and Politics
December 24, 1999
Title: 'An uninvited
gate-crasher'
Author: Bhalchandrarao
C Patwardhan
Publication: The Observer
Date: December 24, 1999
It is necessary to counter
yet another onslaught on the truth, to dispel genuine errors of understanding
and to condemn deliberate distortion of facts. I am not sure in which one
of these three categories Rajendra Prabhu's article, 'Where Shankaracharya
Errs' (The Observer of Business & Politics, 27 November 1999), might
fit. It is sincerely hoped, if only for his sake, that it is in the second!
It would be a great shame indeed to have to look askance at one who regales
us with so much that is both true and beautiful in all he writes on other
subjects!
Prabhu has taken a respectful
objection to the Shankaracharya's contention that Christians, in the final
analysis, pray to God indirectly, through the indispensable agency of Christ.
Hindus, on the other hand, pray directly to God and need no intermediary.
He takes exception to the Acharya's statement (and here I quote from the
interview to which Prabhu refers-OBP, 12 November). "Whereas Christians
pray to Jesus, who according to them, is the messenger of the God and there
is a God above him". He also vehemently disagrees with the Acharya's proposition
that the doctrine of redemption sanctions sinfulness.
With several quotations
from the New Testament, Prabhu attempts to prove that all sections of Christians
also actually pray directly to God even if they appear to be praying to
Christ, because "Jesus is not just a messenger of God, but forms part of
the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which together is God".
This raises several questions. If the three 'together is God', then the
Father is helplessly dependent on the other two, without whom He is incomplete
He can claim neither omnipotence, omniscience nor omnipresence on His own,
without the active support of the others. In that sense he really cannot
be God, but a mere fraction of Godhead at best. Why should the Biblical
Supreme Being require someone else to assist Him, if verily He is as Supreme
as the Bible wants us to believe?
The lesser role of Christ
as mere messenger or Prophet of God, like Moses or Elijah, he ascribes
to Jewish belief, and which position he says 'Jesus refused to accept'.
Here lies the crux. It is really the status of Christ, and neither Divinity
nor the virtues with which it ought to inspire men, that drives a wedge
of hatred between the Church and Judaism.
One does not seem to
be as bothered about God as one is about Christ! Christ naturally becomes
more important that God Himself. By his remark that 'it would be a travesty
of Christian faith to say that we Christians believe that there is a God
above Jesus', he inadvertently confirms the actual position as intended
in the scripture: Indeed, Jesus is ABOVE God, and not the converse! This
is further Gubstantiated by the doctrinal belief that it is Christ who
will intercede for humankind on Judgement Day. In a word, God Himself is
entirely dependent upon His Son for information about His flock! In theological
constructs, God is the Father, Christ is the Son and the Church is the
latter's 'bride'! Both God Almighty and the Church are thus comprehensively
subservient to Christ, a position Judaism did not accept.
Unlike Christianity,
where man is a born sinner and would remain so eternally until redemption
is sought through Christ, man according to the Hindu teaching is basically
divine, and true spiritualism helps him to realise that Divinity. Hinduism
also believes that sin is committed in spite of that potential Divinity,
primarily because of the lack of samskaras that renders such Divinity dormant.
What a man does becomes his won burden. Not even God can mitigate it. Noble
conduct alone. And not umpteen dips in the Ganga, can redeem it.
The doctrine of redemption
through Christ is perhaps as central to the faith as is its compulsion
to convert. You cannot be a Christian unless you subscribe to it. A dip
in the Ganga is quite different. You are not any the less Hindu if you
do not even once bathe in the Ganga. More important is the over-riding
doctrine of potential divinity that ought ideally to prevent you form committing
sin in the first place. There is, unfortunately, no evidence of a matching
preventive in the doctrine of redemption, since it is put abroad as a blanket
cure for all your sins - past, present and perhaps even future!
It is much like a 'wide-spectrum'
antibiotic so popular among physicians toady. If Emperor Ashok, after reportedly
murdering his brothers of the throne, took a dip in the Ganga as redemption
and was also hailed a saint, we heave yet to hear of it! If he is regarded
toady as one of our greatest rulers, it is more for his commitment to the
needs of his people, perhaps even for sending out peaceful, honest missions
to spread Budhhism, although 'conversion', per se, is wholly alien to pristine
Sanatana thought.
If Emperor Ashok propagated
Budhhism, he did so entirely with out force, by resorting to peaceful and
intellectual dialogue, a fact that is well-recorded in history.
There is perhaps no nation
is the world, except India, that would allow religious conversion otherwise.
Even assuming that a certain mythical St Thomas came to India with as honourable
an intention as Ashok's daughter Sangha-mitra, ostensibly to preach the
gospel, there is sufficient proof of how the Mylapore Shiva Mandir was
actually usurped for promoting Christian interests.
Moreover, it is said
that Christ himself studied philosophy at the Takshasheela University and
was profoundly influenced by the tenets of Budhhism, perhaps the source
of his directive to 'spread the good word'. There fore, Prabhu is probably
right in saying the inspiration for conversion had state-sponsored Budhhism
as is role-model. But he forgets that the same Budhhism declined dramatically
once it lost that sponsorship.
Something similar seems
to be happening today with Christianity. On the other hand, a non-proselytising
Hinduism has survived for aeons not merely without state-sponsorship, but
even in the face of persecution by an oftentimes-inimical state! Faced
with the compulsions of our enlightened age, the fast spreading climate
of objective empiricism, and an increasingly critical examination of its
claims by its own intelligentsia, dogmatic Christianity is unlikely to
fare even as well as Budhhism.
If, according to
Prabhu, the Acharya has made pejorative reference to Christ (which incidentally
he has not), it is only because Christ, through his bride-the Church-has
come a knocking at his doorstep. There is no evidence of the Acharya, or
for that matter any Indian at any juncture of our history, having invited
him to please come and teach us about the intricacies of seemingly illogical,
alarmingly unreasonable and wholly unverifiable doctrines. If the salesperson
is ticked off for attempting to sell a substandard product, one can scarcely
blame the customer!
It would spare all of
us a great deal of avoidable work if the Prabhus of the world finally understood
that India could do without the theological aspects of an uninvited 'gate-crasher'
called Christianity. What she could use, as Swami Vivekananda had said,
is the exemplary material service that the Church and its missionary are
so well-equipped to provide. This, strictly without the attendant penchant
to convert! Is the Church capable of rising to the occasion?
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