Author: C. A. Abraham
Publication: Organiser
Date: May 20, 2001
All sorts of conflicting versions
are circulating in the media in recent times as to what exactly is the
mission of Christian missionaries, and why has service in that context
become such a loaded word in India? Instead of going to the most direct
and obvious sources for the answers, some writers even go to the extent
of interviewing a host of theologians and Church dignitaries in order to
produce what looks like made-to-order write-ups to suit the vested interests
of those interviewed in this article I have made an attempt to present
the facts of the matter both from its historical and religious perspectives
in an unbiased manner.
Any ordinary Christian or for that
matter anyone with a smattering knowledge of the Bible, knows only too
well that the mission of Christian missionaries has its 'raison d'etre'
in the New Testament (NT) of the Bible. "Go ye therefore, and teach all
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the son, and
of the Holy Ghost: ..." says the Gospel according to Mathew. Similar instructions
to the disciples, though in slightly different wordings, appear in the
Gospels according to Mark and Luke as well.
Significantly, unlike the other
teachings of 'Jesus Christ, this particular one appears invariably towards
the end of the last chapter of the resurrection from the dead and ascension
to heaven. 'This gives rise to the suspicion that it was a later addition
to the three Synoptic Gospels when the NT or rather its predecessor the
Volgate was created in Rome, centuries later. I mention this specially
because the Malankara 'Suriyani' Christians of Kerala, a segment of the
early Christians displaced from the land of Christ and believed to have
eventually landed in the Malabar coast during the early centuries of the
Christian era, had never been a proselytizing community. Even today they
have provision in their churches only to baptize their own babies.
So now the point to be noted is
that the proselytizing culture is peculiar to the European brand of Christianity.
It was by proselytizing that the gospel was originally propagated during
the Middle Ages from Rome to the heartland of Europe peopled at the time
by barbarians from Central Asia. These barbarians knew no religion, so
the gospel when preached to them was easily absorbed like ink on blotting
paper. In fact, the NT itself, as could be observed by any discerning reader,
was written with a purpose; that is to attract non-Christians to Christianity.
Missionaries are dedicated persons
sent out by the Church to 'heathen' lands in persuance of the Biblical
teachings of Christ as mentioned earlier, to propagate the Christian faith.
All missionaries past or present, be it the like of Mother Teresa from
Europe, Graham Staines couple from Australia, Billy Graham from America,
or Livingston in Africa, Francis Xavier of Goa and so on and so forth,
or their Indian counterparts of which an army of Roman Catholic priests
and nuns constitute a formidable force, are people who have devoted their
entire lives to the cause of propagating the gospel of Christ among the
non-Christians.
In fact, it was this missionary
zeal that motivated the earliest European explorers like Columbus and Vasco
da Gama who ventured out to discover the shortest route to, what they called
the 'Indies'. It was later that colonisation of these heathen lands was
found much more profitable, so much so, the European nations vied with
each other to build colonies in Asia and Africa. Nevertheless, missionaries
followed close on the heels, of the colonisers.
In India the first to arrive were
the Portuguese in the 16th century, who along with their armies brought
with them a Church militant of the Holy Roman empire already become famous
for their inquisitions in Europe. The untold atrocities and persecutions
the indigenous suriyani Church in Malabar has had to suffer at the hands
of these conquerors have now become part of history, for which the Roman
Church still owes an apology.
Following the Reformation in the
16th century, missionaries from breakaway Protestant Churches also started
pouring into India in the wake of successive French, Dutch, German and
British colonisers.
Now about the loaded word 'service'.
One of the early truths Western missionaries learned in their attempts
to push the gospel to countries like China and India, was that wherever
a strong religious culture already existed the gospel met with very little
response. In order to overcome this difficulty, in the Indian subcontinent
where colonisation by European nations was total, missionaries had already
established numerous service institutions all over the country such as
schools and colleges, mission hospitals, printing presses (principally
to print the Bible and gospel tracts in Indian languages), orphanages etc.,
as an alternative method of attracting the natives to Christianity. Though
a much slower process, they discovered that this service-oriented method
of propagating the gospel, in the long run, produced more Christians out
of the natives. However, propagation by preaching and baptizing' also continued
side by side. During the colonial days the whole country formed a captive
audience for the purpose. Missionaries from Europe, America, Australia
could freely do their preaching wherever and whenever they liked-in bazaars,
crowded street corners, or market places. No one dared to raise a little
finger against them. This is the period which produced the maximum converts
in India.
One more truth which the missionaries
already knew was that the Muslim population in India, as their co-believers
all over the world, offered rocklike resistance to the gospel. But in the
Hindu society, stratified by the rigid caste system, they discovered that
the low castes and casteless fringes who formed the bulk of the Hindu population,
offered the richest harvest. So towards the end of World War II, missionaries
turned their attention to remote villages and tribal districts as well
as to the city slums, where these casteless and outcastes were concentrated.
After Independence, under the protective umbrella of the word propagate'
inserted in Article 25 of our Constitution, missionaries particularly their
more formidable Catholic counterparts ably guided and controlled (and lavishly
financed by foreign funds) by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India
(CBCI), continued as before but with added vigour, and carried their so-called
'service' to all nooks and corners of India.
It is interesting to note that of
all the provisions of our Constitution, only this particular one under
Article 25 has not been enacted for any national good. It appears to have
been intended as a parting gift to the Mountbattens as if telling them:
"Though you have lost the empire, do please continue with your spiritual
imperialism in India until perpetuity".
Nevertheless, the people of India,
particularly in remote villages, are more and more showing their resentment.
In fact all the hue and cry raised in the media in recent times against
atrocities towards Christian missionaries and their 'service' institutions,
have their genesis in this resentment by the local people.
Yes, the word 'Service' has nowadays
become a thinly concealed camouflage in the mouths of propagators of Christianity
in India. The CBCI as well as several church unions coming up lately in
defence of missionaries; are putting forth the Specious argument that'
these dedicated men and women are out there only for rendering selfless
service-educating the illiterates, tending, the sick and the destitutes,
running leprosy missions, uplifting the oppressed and the downtrodden,
saving the poor people from the clutches of money lenders and the" liquor
mafia, and whatever? Sure enough such services will not work unless rendered
wearing Cassock and Cross.
But the fact is that these services
are incidental. They are all means to an end, and the end is: attracting
the natives ultimately to the baptismal font. The large number of churches
rapidly mushrooming in the villages and tribal districts as well as in
the slum areas and even on the Footpaths of our cities are proof enough
that the missionaries are amply succeeding in their pro of conversion through
'services'. Unless this trend is arrested early by deleting the word propagate,
from Article 25, and allowing freedom of religion alone to stand, I venture
to suggest that the day is not far off when the country's effective-rulers
will be the Bishops and Pastors.
(The author belongs to the Malankara
Suryani Church)
