baluonproselytization

Balu on "Proselytization"

Home Word PDF Next Page

Extracts from discussions on Alex Alexander's article on sulekha

Dear Alex Alexander,

I am happy to see that a liberal Indian Christian is finally addressing the issue of conversion which has become a bone of severe contention in today's India. I hope more and more people will realise that is absurd to conceive of proselytisation and conversion as inalienable rights that have been universally ingrained in the human being. Still, I would like to point out that the tolerance (and the aversion toward aggressive proselytising) of some of the Indian Christians *has more to do with their being Indian than with their Christianity*.

1. From the very start, Christianity has claimed that it is the one true religion (this includes all of its doctrinal variants). The story it tells took the following form: "Once upon a time at the beginning of times, God - the creator and sovereign of the universe - created man, and while doing so he imparted him with the true religion. Throughout human history, however, the devil - the lord of this world - corrupted this true religion in the different peoples that crowded the earth. They began to worship this false god and thus they became the followers of false religion or idolatry. At some point, God revealed himself to humankind in the deserts of the Middle East. This revelation was completed in Jesus Christ. In his revelation in Jesus Christ, God called humankind back to the true religion. As the creator and governor of the world, He revealed His will or plan for the universe to all human beings and now they had to come out of idolatry and submit to this Divine plan."

2. This story shows where the proselytising drive of Christianity comes from. When God reveals His will in Jesus Christ, this will is meant for the whole of humankind and not just for Tom, Dick and Harry. That is, the doctrine that conveys the Divine will *cannot but claim an unconditional and universal truth*. This leads to two central properties of Christianity: the necessity of proselytisation on the one hand; and the necessity of religious intolerance on the other. To be a Christian means that one believes that the Christian doctrine reveals the one true will of the one true God. This implies that the Christian should spread the Gospel as the true message of divine self-disclosure among the blind and the deceived. Of course, that in itself does not mean that all Christians have to be fanatic missionaries, but they should at least try to save the souls of a few idolaters.

3. Like proselytisation, intolerance towards other cultural traditions - which are construed as rival religions -- is equally intrinsic to the Christian religion. In fact, the more faith one has in the Christian God and His revelation in Jesus Christ, the more intolerant one has to be toward other traditions. The argument goes like this: To have faith as a Christian means that one has trust in the will or plan of God as it is revealed in the true religion. Of course, there can be only one true plan of God for the universe and for humankind. Therefore, the more trust the Christian has in this Divine plan, the more intolerant he or she will be towards those human traditions perceived as doctrines that corrupt the message in which God reveals His will. (The argument so far is simply an imperfect rendition of Balu's scientific understanding of the Christian religion in his 'The Heathen in His Blindness ...').

3. Thus, proselytisation and intolerance are intrinsic to Christianity. Naturally, it is true that many of the local Christian traditions in India have to a large extent lost the proselytising drive and the aggressive intolerance of the Christian religion. But I think this can best be explained by the benign influence the cultural traditions of India have had on these local Christian communities. Tolerance - or rather an attitude of indifference and non-interference - towards other cultural traditions has been part of the several Hindu and Buddhist traditions during most of Indian history. Of course, this does not mean there were no conflicts whatsoever, but there was no systematic persecution of some specific tradition. In fact, it seems that the different Indian traditions did not even conceive of each other as religious rivals, although the various communities must often have been involved in power struggles or other conflicts.

4. Because of these and other reasons, I am not convinced by your appeal toward "the liberal adherents of all religions" to insist on "religious tolerance as the only legitimate road to a peaceful world." As Balu argues in his book, it does not make sense to think of the various cultural traditions in India and the rest of the world as different species of religion. They are not variants of one phenomenon, but different phenomena. The 'pagan' traditions are *completely different* from the religious structure that is common to Christianity, Islam and Judaism - all three of which conceive of themselves as the one true revelation of a God whose will rules the universe. Therefore, one cannot equate 'a liberal Christian or Muslim' in any way to 'a liberal Hindu'. A peculiar kind of tolerance appears to be intrinsic to the Hindu traditions (peculiar when seen through my western eyes, that is), while 'tolerance' in Christianity is a half-baked attempt to get rid of the intolerance that is intrinsic to any doctrinal system that claims unconditional and universal truth. I do not believe it is possible to capture both attitudes as variants of 'liberalism'.

5. I think we should rather argue for an attempt to let the Hindu and Buddhist traditions regain their vibrance so that they can again have a benign influence on the local Christian and Muslim traditions in India. This vibrance has been taken away from them *precisely because* they have been understood as doctrinal systems or variants of a religion like Christianity. Together we will have to move beyond this flawed understanding so that the Indian traditions can again infuse human minds and bodies all over the world with the experiential knowledge that follows from a genuine search for enlightenment. To end in an optimistic vein, this should lead to a tolerance that would soon dispose of the barren dogmas of both Christian theology and the VHP.

Sincere regards,

Jakob

1. Please note that I did not at all say that the story in #3 is based on my western eyes. Rather, I meant that the reason that the extreme tolerance of the Hindu traditions seems peculiar to me is to be found in the fact that I have been raised in a Christian culture in which the exclusive truth of some set of beliefs is considered to be of supreme importance. I must add that the more I become familiar with the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the more this attitude towards 'religious truth' itself appears peculiar and even somewhat silly to me.

2. The story I told in #3 recounts the basic structure of the Christian religion. This structure is to be found both in Western and in Eastern Christianity. It sets out the most basic constraints of what it means to be a Christian. Of course, you might want to deny that the Christian teaching is the revelation of God in which He discloses His will. Such a move would be a denial of Christianity itself. Both the Western and Eastern traditions of Christianity conceive of Jesus Christ as the message of Divine revelation. This conception *necessarily* leads to the proselytising drive to convert unbelievers and the religious intolerance toward 'false religion', which are therefore inherent to Christianity. I think we should be fully aware that *if Christianity denies to be the true religion, it simply denies its own existence!* Of course, it is true that there were significant differences in the historical developments of Eastern and Western Christendom, and that the former has always been less aggressive in its proselytisation and intolerance. The Biblical framework in which both variants operate, however, is the same, and this framework implies that the Christian religion claims unconditional truth.

3. What I find to be fascinating about Indian Christendom (or Indian Islam for that matter) is that is has been able to combine these unconditional truth claims with an attitude of surprising 'tolerance' toward other cultural traditions. As I say in #3, in many parts of India during long periods, the proselytising drive disappeared to a large extent in the local Christian and Muslim communities. Christians and Muslims even participated in Hindu festivals and paid their respect to some of the Hindu devas. Although we are today witnessing a decline of this interaction and syncretism, they can still be seen in several pockets of rural India. Now, once one knows the basic structure of the Semitic religions, it becomes impossible to attribute these tolerant attitudes to Christianity or Islam themselves.These attitudes *must have* been the result of outside influence on the local manifestations of these religions.

4. Thus, I am not at all convinced by your claim that proselytisation is a result of the corruption of the pristine message of Jesus Christ by the Western Church. You say the following: "My reading of the history of early Christianity leads me to believe that the Western churches' obsession for converting others to Christianity is based more on their historical tradition of using proselytization as an instrument of statecraft for the extension of their political and mercantile influences, than in furthering the spiritual welfare of their flocks." This is a typically Protestant view of the Roman-Catholic Church and its corruption of Christendom. Like all Christians, the Protestants believed that the original revelation of God was inevitably corrupted by the lord of this world once it was in human hands. But they went one step further and said that the Antichrist had taken over the Church and that he was slowly bringing it to ruin. Therefore the Church and its priests had begun to use religion to gain worldly power and mislead the people. All negative aspects of Christendom were attributed to the workings of the devil and his minions, which had tainted the pristine teachings of the Gospel, according to them. It seems to me you are simply trying to apply this same story to the properties of intolerance and proselytisation that are intrinsic to the Christian religion.

5. I would like to end by simply repeating the point I made in #3, as it has been happily ignored by everyone except Jag: "I think we should rather argue for an attempt to let the Hindu and Buddhist traditions regain their vibrance so that they can again have a benign influence on the local Christian and Muslim traditions in India. This vibrance has been taken away from them *precisely because* they have been understood as doctrinal systems or variants of a religion like Christianity. Together we will have to move beyond this flawed understanding so that the Indian traditions can again infuse human minds and bodies all over the world with the experiential knowledge that follows from a genuine search for enlightenment. To end in an optimistic vein, this should lead to a tolerance that would soon dispose of the barren dogmas of both Christian theology and the VHP."

Sincere regards,

I would like to pick up an important thread in the discussion. It would be totally unproductive, if we believe that there is a problem with “western Christianity” (which is proselytising and intolerant) but not with “eastern Christianity”, especially its Orthodox variety in India (which is non-proselytising and tolerant).

I agree with Jakob De Roover (# 3 and # 48) that *every* Christian - whether a “born-again” Christian in New York or an Orthodox Christian in Kerala - has to believe in Jesus as the Messiah. He is also very right in pointing out that the intolerant and proselytising drive is an inherent feature of Christianity from the time of its inception. It is a necessary characteristic that Christianity shares with Judaism and Islam *as religions*. As religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam turn the whole Cosmos (that is, everything that ever was, everything that now is, and everything that ever will be!!) into an expression of God’s Will. If this is the case, it follows logically that only one account - only one religion, that is, which provides us with such an account - can be true; all other accounts have to be false. (For those who are familiar with previous discussions on this board, and for those who are not, I refer to Balu’s ‘The Heathen in His Blindness…’ for a deeper understanding of this point.) In this sense both Alex and Rajiv (# 51) are wrong if they attribute the hostile features of Christianity in the West to its status as a political (or, for that matter, economic) force.

However, this does not imply that Alex Alexander’s contribution to the debate is futile. On the contrary. I think that it is very important that native Christians from India participate in this debate and reflect upon the growing disruptive forces which threaten to undermine India’s peaceful society. Therefore, I would like to draw attention to an aspect of Alex’s column which has remained unnoticed. No matter what his personal ideas about the different factions within Christianity might be, one fundamental stance remains unshaken: his alliance and loyalty to India’s nation, people and culture!

Alex rightly pointed out that the problem is not with Christianity as such, but with the way in which foreign-funded groups interfere in India; and by doing so, threaten to disrupt India’s way of going about with each other. The same problem is also prevalent in the West: Mullahs who are financially supported by the Muslim countries come to preach in the European Mosques. There is nothing wrong with that, but it must be obvious that such religious leaders are bereft of ‘local knowledge’ which makes living together possible.

As everybody knows, and as many people in this discussion have said as well, one remarkable feature of India is its tolerance towards other religions, Christianity and Islam included. Equally remarkable is that the Semitic religions lose their proselytising drive when they become a part of India’s society. Jakob rightly pointed out that this feature *must have* been the result of outside influence on the local manifestations of these religions. To rephrase this insight in the terms of Alex Alexander, one could say that they must have been the result of India’s nation, people and culture.

As I understand it, Alex’s column invites us to think about how society (and not this or that religion, whether Hinduism or Orthodox Christianity) makes this miracle happen.

Best regards,

Willem Derde

JThe logical steps that *inevitably* make the claim that God revealed His Will in Jesus Christ into an unconditional and exclusive truth claim are fairly simple:

(a) Christianity says that the universe was created by God, and that this universe is the perfect embodiment of His will or plan;

(b) Furthermore, it claims that this God has revealed His Will to humankind, and that this revelation is the Christian doctrine as it is 'embodied' in Jesus Christ;

(c) This Divine Will is governing the entire universe including humankind, i.e., it governs *everything that has ever existed, that exists, and that will exist*;

from (b) and (c) it follows (d) that the Christian doctrine must claim a universal and unconditional truth as the revelation of God.

Why? Well, firstly, there can only be ONE WILL that truly governs the entire universe. Secondly, there can only be ONE TRUE DOCTRINE that conveys this one will to the humankind. Therefore, this doctrine MUST BE intolerant towards all traditions it sees as rivalling doctrines that convey the will or plan of God. As I said, it has to construe these doctrinal rivals either as the corruptions of the devil of the true doctrine in the worst case or as pale and erring variants of its own doctrine (which might contain some 'rays of light', that is, traces of divine revelation) in the best case. From this, we can conclude (1) that Christianity cannot but be intolerant towards the traditions it construes as religious rivals, and (2) that Christianity has an intrinsic drive to spread its doctrine among those who are not yet aware that God has completed His revelation in Jesus Christ. This either/or zero sum game characterises Christianity and its monotheistic rivals, Judaism and Islam. As I said, when you negate this exclusive aspect, you simply deny that Christianity is the message in which God reveals His plan for the universe, and that would amount to a denial of the existence of Christianity itself. *Exclusivity or self-denial are the only two options for Christianity*, whether Eastern or Western, Protestant or Catholic, Orthodox or Baptist, Pentecostal or Seventh-Day Adventist. This is not because of historical developments, but because of the intrinsic structure of the Christian religion (Please see Balu's book for further explanation).

Jakob

Dear Satya,

Happy to finally meet you again in the virtual sphere.

1. I really like your proposal to make a distinction between 'Christu-dharma' and Christianity. There are many aspects of the story about Jesus Christ which can be read as beautiful examples of ethical learning (although they often are rather extreme and would demand too much if we tried to follow them as real human beings). In that sense, I agree that this story can be put at the same level as some of the stories about the Buddha or the yogis in other traditions, and it would be apt to speak of Christu-dharma. But the problem is that the Christian religion does not take the account of J.C.'s life as a story among other beautiful stories, but as the one true doctrine.

2. I do agree with you that global and local politics have an important influence on the historical developments of the three semitic religions. For instance, the 'fundamentalism' that is often attributed to Arab Islam and American neo-conservative Protestantism is stimulated by the contemporary political situation of both these religious traditions. But the way in which this fundamentalism expresses itself as a radical intolerant claim to be the true religion derives from the basic structure of the religions in question.

3. Please do not misread me, I do not have any urge to negate Christianity or Islam entirely. I am studying Christianity from a scientific point of view in Balu's research programme. The more I become aware of the impact this religion has had on the western culture, the more I am fascinated by its dynamics. I hope this study will also allow us to find ways to stimulate those internal movements that resist the extreme intolerance of the fanaticism within several Christian traditions. Most probably some of these more tolerant movements within the Christian religion contain valuable paths to experiential knowledge, as you suggest. I have met Christian priests who seemed to possess a similar kind of wisdom as the wise men and women from other traditions. Personally, however, I would never choose a path that requires me to accept all kinds of bizarre beliefs about the world, which are not rooted in my own experience. But, I do not have any problem whatsoever with other persons accepting and professing these beliefs.

4. Nothing to add right now to your crucial point about Hindutva being a complex phenomenon.

5.The attitude of indifference toward certain kind of differences that characterizes much of Indian culture indeed is present in most of the pagan traditions. It may just be part of a system of performative knowledge that was developed to allow co-existence in these plural societies in which plurality was conceived as a number of communities each practising its own ancestral tradition. It is also true that the western culture on the contrary has conceived of the problem of pluralism as a clash between different doctrines each claiming to be exclusively true. This just a universalisation of its own experience of centuries of vigorous conflicts between several Christian confessions. Still, I would not contrast the pluralism of pagan cultures to doctrine or 'fundamentalism' as a purely western product. Doctrine is central to all three of the semitic religions. Therefore, all three of them share a structure and a dynamic that can lead to the severe intolerance of 'fundamentalism'.

Sincerely,

Jakob

P.S. To reply to your P.S., it is extremely important to make a distinction between the natural sciences which offer universally valid descriptions of several phenomena in the natural world, and the so-called social sciences of today which offer theological descriptions in disguise that make sense only if one accepts the truth of the Christian doctrine. It is the case that science as a massive cultural practice of gaining reliable theoretical knowledge about the world *came into being* because of the kind of attitude towards the world that was created by the Christian religion; an attitude which made this world into an explanatorily intelligible entity, i.e., an entity that is structured by a hidden order that lies beneath the surface of phenomena. This cultural origin of science as theoretical knowledge does not imply however that its descriptions of the world are built on or constituted by Christian doctrine. In fact, if this were true, this would mean that only Christians or westerners should be able to come to scientific discoveries and develop physical, chemical and biological theories. Clearly, this is not the case.

That may require Indians to modify their value systems to suit western sensibilites. Would it not?"

Dear Alex,

Not necessarily. If we were to equate twenty first century sensibilities to western sensibilities, your concern would be legitimate. But it is *precisely this equation which we will have to leave behind in the twenty first century*. As Balu has argued, other cultures have been understood from a distinctively western perspective so far, and that is why most of us are no longer able to appreciate and assess the kind of knowledge they have developed of human beings and societies. In the twentieth century and before, we have become used to see the rich variety of human traditions as nothing but pale and erring variants of the western culture and its Christian religion. Once we move beyond this framework of secularised Christianity in our understanding of the Asian cultural traditions, we will again have access to the experiential knowledge they contain. This is our task in the twenty first century, as far as I am concerned. We will develop *alternative explanations* of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, for example, instead of rehashing the old western stories about the 'religion of Hinduism' and 'Buddhist mysticism'. I think we have good reasons to believe that these alternative theories will show these traditions to have very deep insights into the human being, which go far beyond the pseudo-scientific accounts of western intentional psychology. Regaining access to the Asian cultural traditions in this manner will profoundly change the twenty first century sensibilities. I think this is what it will mean to be *truly post-colonial*, irrespective of the culture in which one is born.

Sincerely,

Dear Sankrant,

1. In Balu's scientific desciption of the Christian religion it becomes clear that its exclusivity is an inherent property. This is not a question of your or Alex's or my preferences in defining what it means to be a Christian. You might say that Osama Bin Laden is the greatest Christian on earth, Alex might insist that all true Christians are tolerant and peace-loving, and I might say that I am a Christian who believes that Jesus Christ is not the Word Incarnate but a visitor from planet Mars. Who is to say who is right? The only way to decide this issue from a scientific point of view (as opposed to a Christian theological point of view) is by developing a theory about the Christian religion that describes its structure and that can be tested empirically. This is precisely what Balu has done in his book. One of his conclusions is that intolerance and proselytisation are necessary properties of Christianity. Those who want to challenge this conclusion, can only do so by developing an alternative theory about the Christian religion. This theory will then have to compete with Balu's, and show how it offers a better understanding of this religion. It will take a courageous and brilliant man or woman to do so!

2. If you prefer not to undertake this difficult task, Sankrant, we can look at your first question from the perspective of the conclusion that Christianity necessarily claims exclusive truth. We will then have to ask the question as to how Indian Christianity has been able to absorb the pluralism of the Indian culture, in spite of Christian exclusivity. Your suggestion that foreign churches are continually renewed in their intolerance would then make sense as well. They have emerged from a culture in which the intolerance of the Christian religion rules the roost. So, as missionary groups they keep on renewing their proselytising drive in the West. The question then is as to how the Indian traditions including Indian Christianity will be able to counter this. That is, how their pluralism will defuse the proselytising drive of the western missionaries without taking recourse to anti-conversion legislation.

Sincerely,

Jakob

Dear Venki,

I have never denied the possibility of this interpretation. In fact, liberal Christians often look at other traditions as containing traces of divine revelation. The result is the following: instead of a dichotomy between true and false religion, we now get a continuum in which true and false religion have become the two poles. Christianity is the climax of religious development (or true religion), while other cultural traditions are less developed stages in the evolution of humankind (or corrupted versions of true religion). It is difficult for me to see as to how this will eliminate much of the conflict and promote harmony. It might be a benign view of non-Christian traditions when compared to that of a rabid missionary, but it hardly does justice to the rich diversity of human traditions.

We are not claiming that the syrian christians of kerala are non-evangelistic and benign merely because they are a minority influenced by the Hindu majority. I think we should first become aware that there is no such thing as a Hindu majority, whatever Hindutva or western orientalism may say. There is a large number of communities practising various traditions (from Vaishnites to Jains, from Vipassana Buddhists to Virashaivas) that have been placed under the misnomers 'Hinduism', 'Buddhism' and 'Jainism'. Throughout the history of the subcontinent, it seems that these various Indian traditions have developed a system of attitudes and practices which has allowed them to live together reasonably harmoniously, considering the kaleidoscopic diversity. When Christianity came to India, the local Christian communities were also incorporated in this practical system of pluralism. Therefore, at the level of attitudes and practices, these Christians did not live the intolerance or exclusivity that is intrinsic to Christianity at the level of doctrines and beliefs. How does this sound to you, Singular Man?

Conversion in India and the vigorous reaction against it today seem to be part of a decline of the vibrancy of the Hindu traditions or Indian traditions in general. As Balu and I have suggested, this decline has something to do with what colonialism did to the Indian culture. Now, I think Indian Christendom is very much part of the Indian culture and its dynamic of pluralism. If this dynamic begins to slow down and decline, Indian Christianity will most probably begin to lose the benign characteristics that make it into *Indian* Christianity. Something like this has already started to happen to Indian Islam. Today, Indian Muslims are losing some of the earlier tolerance and openness that distinguished them from the dominant Islam in countries with a majority of Muslims. The emergence of the Deoband school could serve as an example, or the refusal of many Muslims today to participate in Muharram, a festival in which many Hindus also used to participate, and which is now considered to be 'unislamic' by many of the mullahs. Unless Indian Christians want to see this happen to their own Christian tradition as well, I suggest it is also their project to find ways to reactivate the dynamic of active pluralism of the Indian culture. This reactivation will inevitably go hand in hand with a countering of the aggressive proselytising of western Christianity. I hope this answers your question.

There is a tendency among the participants in this discussion to search for certain features *within* Christianity which, if they are accepted more generally, could lead to a more harmonious society. The most recent suggestion is made by Venki:

“In other words could, "God has revealed His Will to humankind, and that this revelation is the Christian doctrine as it is 'embodied' in Jesus Christ", be recast as "God has revealed His Will to humankind many times, in many places, and that this revelation is the most perfect in the Christian doctrine as it is 'embodied' in Jesus Christ, but other revelations are valid but not as good"? This would eliminate much of the conflict and promote harmony.”

Perhaps it is ironic that Venki has given an accurate description of how Christianity *does* look at other traditions from the very beginning of its existence. Therefore, it is not an option open only to ‘liberal Christians’ as Jakob seems to suggest, but part and parcel of Christianity’s self-description. However, I fully agree with the implications that are outlined by Jakob.

To give an example: The Christians did not deny that God had revealed himself again and again to some members of the ‘Chosen People’, i.e. the Jews. They accepted the Old Testament as a book containing the Word of God, but they looked at it from the perspective of Christ as the Messiah. Because of the New Covenant, the Old Covenant was now seen as a ‘preparation’ for the coming of Christ. Because God had revealed Himself in the figure of Christ, the Old Covenant was no longer valid.

Something similar happened with the Christian interpretation of the non-Semitic religions. Before the coming of Christ, the pagans could not be blamed for not knowing the true religion. The Church even acknowledged that they had pieces of insight regarding the nature of the true religion. After all, the Bible had told that God had implanted in mankind a longing for his creator. But without the guidance of God’s Revelation these pieces of insight were doomed to remain partial, distorted and wrong.

It must be obvious that acknowledging ‘valid revelations’ or granting true pieces of insight to other traditions did not guarantee a peaceful co-existence. And it was certainly not an anti-dote to the proselytising drive. On the contrary, the true meaning of these ‘insights’ and revelations had to be spelled out. This explains, for example, the strategy of the Roman Catholic missionaries to use the Indian conceptions and stories of the gods in order to convert them.

With this short clarification, I hope to illustrate that it is not very productive to look for certain features within the different brands of Christianity in order to explain their peaceful co-existence with the other traditions in India. It is equally non-productive to speculate about what makes Alex Alexander into a ‘tolerant Christian’ as against others who are not. Also it is not very productive to speculate on whether Alex is a true Christian or not. Therefore, in response to Arun Gupta’s # 125 I would like to emphasise that Balu’s theory is not a theory about what makes Alex into a Christian. It is a theory about religion. As such, it explains what makes *Christianity*, and not this brand or that brand, into a religion. If we want to come to a better understanding of what happens in India, we better start from this theory and accept that intolerance and exclusivity are necessary features of religion. In this sense, Balu’s theory *is* like Boyle’s Law. However, how a religion manifests itself in the world - in other words “how it departs from idealness” - is an empirical research question. But thanks to Balu’s theory which “gives a context into which to quantify the departure from idealness” we are now able to start looking for answers.

I do not know how long it will take for the Indian traditions to regain their vibrancy and their dynamic of pluralism. As I said before, this will be a question of *regaining access* to these traditions; an access that has been blocked by the western colonial descriptions which view the Indian traditions as systems of doctrines or beliefs. So, first we will have to show as to how wrong we are to understand these traditions as religion or doctrine. Next, we will have to develop a better understanding or description of the traditions. Hopefully, these alternative descriptions will slowly take the place of the western-Christian understandings of Indian culture, and dissolve the theoretical barrier the latter have set up between the Indians and their cultural traditions. How long will this take? The answer depends on the number of creative minds that will join Balu's research project, the speed at which we can develop scientific understanding of Indian pluralism, the extent to which the results of our project are spread in India, and other complex factors. Thus, it is very difficult for me to offer anything that looks like an accurate ans

1. Although I do not have much knowledge of the history of Indian Christendom, I think you must be right to divide it into a pre-colonial and a colonial phase (I do not think we have as yet entered the post-colonial phase of Indian culture). But I am afraid I must disappoint you, I have not done the research that might allow me to answer further questions regarding these two phases or aspects of Indian Christendom.

2. No, I *do* mean the pluralism of *Indian* culture. Let me expand and give a more general reply to your post, which will take the form of a very tentative hypothesis. First, I think the system of attitudes and practices that was developed in the Indian traditions ('active pluralism' from now on) amounted to a very effective way of going about with the cultural and other differences that exist between various human communities. Active pluralism allowed these communities to live together in the subcontinent, not in spite of their differences, but *thanks to their differences*. I mean the following: if a community was confronted with another community with a different tradition, the dynamic of active pluralism caused the first community to focus on keeping its own tradition vibrant (instead of trying to alter the other tradition), and as such show the qualities of its own tradition. Now, I think it might well be the case that the deeper the cultural differences between the communities were, the more the clashes among them stimulated them to uphold the vibrancy of their traditions. If this could be shown to be true, it would have important implications. For instance, although the dynamic of active pluralism developed among the Hindu (and Buddhist and Jain) traditions originally, it would not have attained its climax in this first phase. This would happen in a second phase, in which the Hindu traditions were confronted by Islam and Christianity, two religions that were profoundly different from the 'pagan' traditions that existed in India. Imagine the vigorous clash between these semitic religions and the pagan traditions. Now, imagine how the influence of the pagan traditions changed the local manifestations of the semitic religions in India to such an extent that they slowly lost much of their proselytising drive and their intolerance toward 'false religion'. The only explanation I can think of, is that *this clash invigorated the dynamic of active pluralism* to a very high level so that it succeeded in deeply affecting Indian Islam and Christianity. How could this happen? Well, precisely because the vibrancy of active pluralism grows accordingly as the differences between the cultural traditions in question are more extreme. I repeat this is a very speculative hypothesis. But if it shows to be workable, it would prove that the advent of Islam and Christianity in India had a positive effect on the pluralism of the Indian culture. In that sense, Indian Islam and Indian Christendom would be part and parcel of Indian pluralism.

3. Now, if this all seems somewhat reasonable to you, I can continue and bring my argument to contemporary India. Instead of keeping their own Hindu traditions vibrant and alive when they are confronted by the semitic religions, Hindus have today become *fearful* of the threat of Islam and Christianity. They want to take recourse to legal measures to prevent proselytisation. The Hindutvavadis keep on insisting that Christianity should Indianize in India or that Muslims should prove their loyalty to the Indian nation. It is clear that the extreme differences between the Hindu traditions and the semitic religions no longer inspire them to focus on their own traditions, but that today the Hindus want to forcefully alter the semitic religions. Of course, this leads to more violence and deeper conflict. This all shows that active pluralism has seen a dramatical decline in colonial and contemporary India. One of the results of this decline is Hindutva, an aggressive and intolerant movement that tries to assert the identity of the Hindus. Another result is the re-emergence of intolerant movements and attitudes within Indian Islam and Christendom. Active pluralism no longer works. And as I have now said many times in this thread, we think this is because a deep rift has grown between the Indians and their own cultural traditions at some level. The single solution today is to close this rift. But this will be a very difficult exercise in which *all Indians*, including Indian Muslims and Christians, will have to participate. Together these different communities will have to see to it that their deep differences again invigorate the dynamic of active pluralism, instead of inspiring violence and genocide. When the options are limited to this renewal of the pluralism of Indian culture or Indian society falling apart, it should not be very difficult to choose for the Indian who truly loves his or her country.

1. As you have probably noticed, the assumption in my earlier reply is that we would all prefer India to be a peaceful plural society rather than a chaos of violence. All the claims I make about the renewal of Indian pluralism are interesting only if one accepts this starting point. When you repeat the question as to why Indian Christians and Muslims should strive for this rediscovery of pluralism, the answer is obvious. If they don't, they face a horrible period of violence in which they will be harrassed and attacked by Hindu communities that have lost their pluralist vibrancy and that want to take revenge for the wrongs that have been done to them a few decades or a few centuries before by the presumed forefathers of the Muslims and Christians in today's India. Then the recent drama in Gujarat will truly become a model for the rest of India, as some Hindutvavadins seem to desire. Thus, the Indian Muslims and Christians have very good reasons to participate in the project for the renewal of active pluralism, as the other option is virtual suicide.

2. The first step to retain pluralism in India, I think, is to become aware that there is no such thing as Hinduism. There is a rich variety of Hindu traditions that have emphasized different aspects of the search for enlightenment, and cater towards different kinds of people. The pluralism in India is dependent on this variety, so those who want to retain pluralism would do good to maintain this variety rather than try to develop a barren and imaginary religion of Hinduism. If we take this first step, we will soon see that the Hindu traditions, when they have regained their vibrancy, do not have much to fear from Islam and Christianity. If we can again create a situation in which the dynamic of active pluralism does its work, these semitic religions will inevitably be influenced positively by the Hindu traditions. The earlier process of cross-fertilization for which India is rightly famous will then again defuse semitic intolerance and proselytisation.

3. Of course, the Hindu communities should oppose mass conversion, but perhaps it is better not to do so by taking recourse to the rules and regulations of a legal system that simply coerces people 'from the outside', but rather by positively influencing other traditions and causing a change 'from the inside'. I think they have succeeded in doing this for centuries so why should they suddenly fail in the 21st century? They should also protest when the Pope calls for a harvest of souls in India, but perhaps it is better to do this by showing how the Hindu traditions have much more to offer than the dogma of the Roman-Catholic Church.

4. It may well be true to some extent that Hindu traditions have survived in the past by adopting the enemies' methods and turning it back on them, but "semitising Hindus" may well be the end of the creativity and the fertility of the Hindu traditions themselves. This is an evolution that is changing them at the heart, and I doubt that it is a change for the good. Moor Nam, do you really want to fight against the intolerance and the persecution of the semitic religions by becoming an intolerant persecutor yourself. With all respect, I doubt that you want to establish a Hindu Inquisition, but your argument is moving very close to that. Why not just convert to Islam or Christianity in case you want to live their property of exclusivism? Earlier, it may have been the case that the shell changes according to different threat perceptions, but I fear the kind of violent intolerance against Muslims and Christians that is now growing in some of the Hindu communities may well penetrate the pluralist core of their traditions and change it for the worse.

5. True, Mahatma Gandhi also opposed the proselytising drive of Christianity and said that it should change its intolerance. In Gandhi's position toward these matters, however, we find a typical ambiguity that characterizes him. On the one hand, he says that he would put a ban on all proselytisation, if he was a legislator. He says that all religions in India should accept the doctrine of equality of religions, which of course implies intolerance toward those religions that do not accept this doctrine. This is not a very interesting position, as it is deeply inconsistent for one. If one believes that all religions are equal, how about the religions that believe that all religions are unequal? Are these equal as well or are they inferior? On the other hand, he often defends an attitude that is characteristic of the active pluralism of the Indian traditions, which I find to be fascinating. He says that all followers of different religions should be stimulated to become better followers of their own religion, rather than to convert to another religion. Of course, here he means that different traditions should not try to consciously alter other traditions, but that they should focus on their own tradition so as to have the other traditions absorb their own benign characteristics. As he puts it so beautifully, true spirituality spreads like the fragrance of a rose. In this second aspect of his pluralism, Gandhi is certainly not a Hindutvavadi, as the latter can hardly be considered to spread spirituality like a rose spreads its fragrance.

Sincerely,

Jakob

Dear Moor Nam,

You are disappointing me. You identify me as a liberal Christian, and then you act as though you have finally discovered my hidden agenda, and start crying out to the Hindus on this board.

1. Of course, I am saying that intolerance is at the core of Islam and Christianity, that is what I have been saying since #3. I am not a Christian, and certainly not a liberal Christian. I am a scientist who is fascinated by the variety of human experience and who would like to understand it. I appreciate the invitation to become a Hindu, but I do not think this is necessary. One does not have to convert to the imaginary religions of Hinduism or Buddhism to appreciate the incredibly valuable knowledge of Hindu dharma and Buddh dhamma.

2. Yes, pluralism exists in India because of the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, but, as I said before, the coming of Christianity and Islam most probably stimulated this dynamic of pluralism to an even higher level. So, if you follow my reasoning, the best way to a pluralist India is not mass conversion to Hinduism (whatever that might mean), but a co-existence of radically different cultural traditions within the dynamic of active pluralism.

3. I do not understand why you make such a big fuss about my answer to your question as to why Indian Muslims and Christians should strive for pluralism. It seems very reasonable to me that one of the reasons why pluralism is good is because it allows people of different kinds to live together peacefully. Why aren’t you satisfied by such an answer. Would you prefer it if I said that pluralism is the commandment of God, that it is the one true principled doctrine? Or that God has revealed to humankind that all ought to be pluralist, and that the non-pluralist should now be forcibly converted into pluralism? You Zeroth Theory of Hinduism comes very close to this. If you believe that only religions that believe that only religions that believe all religions are equal, are equal, this amounts to saying “we are very tolerant as long as everyone holds the same opinion as we do.” If the latter is your belief, I understand why you think India needs a vibrant martial tradition.

4. At some level, I am beginning to understand why you aren’t satisfied, so let me suggest a different kind of answer to your question, which is inspired by Balu (as most of my thinking is inspired by his research programme). The reason why Indian Christians like Alex are concerned about the decline of pluralism and the growth of proselytisation in India, may well be found in the fact that they have become aware that Indian pluralism gives them a great freedom to develop their own tradition. It gives Christians and Muslims a freedom to use their human creativity in keeping their religious tradition vibrant, which goes far beyond the kind of freedom they would know in countries that are dominated by Islam and Christianity. In Muslim and Christian countries they would live under the tyranny of the majority, as Mill liked to call it: the dominant umma or church would have a much stronger backing to impose very strict constraints on what it means to be a Muslim or a Christian. In India, thanks to the pluralism of the Hindu traditions, these constraints are relaxed even in Islam and Christianity. Now, if Indian pluralism begins to decline, these constraints will again become stricter, and Indian Muslims and Christians will again become more intolerant toward other traditions. We can see this happening in Indian Islam today. Although modern communication undoubtedly plays some role in this process, I think it can also be used to counter the decline of active pluralism.

5. This decline itself, I think, is the result of the colonization of Indian culture by the Christian West. Indian intellectuals have learned to look at themselves and their own traditions through the eyes of the western culture. They think all human traditions have to be understood as religions or belief-systems. Therefore, they have become unaware of the fact that the Hindu and Buddhist traditions are not based in beliefs or doctrines at all, but that they are essentially practical systems in a search for enlightenment of the human being. They are rivers leading to the same ocean, as Gandhi said. According to the various dispositions of human beings, different rivers will better suit different types of people. Now, what you seem to be doing, Moor Nam, is try to transform this variety of practical systems into a doctrine of Hindutva. The dynamic of active pluralism, which actually consists of a series of attitudes and rituals, is now transformed into the doctrine of the equality of religions, which should be forced upon all communities in India. Unknowingly, you are transforming the fertile dynamic of active pluralism of the Hindu traditions into a barren set of doctrines of the Hindu religion. This is what it means for the Hindu traditions to be colonized, and, in this sense, Hindutva is a deeply colonial phenomenon.

6. There is a man who appears to have been aware of all this almost a century back, viz., Rabindranath Tagore. In his magnificent novel Gora (1909), Tagore focuses on the clash between the champions of traditional Indian custom and the members of the Brahmo Samaj in 19th century Calcutta. At some point in the story, Gora - who is a staunch defender of Indian tradition against the aggression of colonialism - highlights the absurdity of the claim that one way of being, namely, being Brahmo, is the universal way of being for mankind: “Do you have some idea of how large an entity the whole of mankind represents? How many kinds of men, how many different inclinations, how various their needs? All of them are not standing at the same place on the same road. Some are facing mountains, some oceans, some open fields. Yet nobody can stand still even if he wants, everybody has to keep moving. How can you want to impose the authority of your own group on everybody else? How can you keep your eyes shut and think there is no variety among human beings, that they have all been born on earth for the sole purpose of enrolling themselves as members of the Brahmo Samaj?” (355) He links these universal pretensions of the Brahmo Samaj to its moorings in the intolerant Christianity of the colonials. When he continues to defend the traditional stance of Indian culture, or Hindu dharma as he calls it, he emphasizes that its strength lies in the fact that it does accept and appreciate the immense diversity among human beings: “You have to consider the fact that Hindu dharma has, like a mother, tried to make place in its lap for people of various opinions and views. That is, it has looked upon human beings of this world as human beings; it has not counted them as members of a group. Hindu dharma accepts the ignorant as well as the wise - accepts not just one form of wisdom but the many-sided expression of wisdom. Christians cannot recognize diversity. For them, it is Christianity on one side and eternal chaos on the other, with no gradations in between. Of late we have accepted lessons taught by Christians, hence we have been made to feel ashamed about the variety of Hindu dharma. We are unable to see that it is through such variety Hindu dharma seeks to realise oneness. Until we can shake off the coils of Christian teaching from our minds, we shall not recognize the true nature of Hindu dharma and thus not inherit its glories” (757). The Christian religion claims that one way of being, namely, being Christian, is the universal way of being for mankind. Therefore it cannot recognize diversity: there is the true religion of the veritable Christians on one side and the corrupted religion of heathens and heretics on the other side. Although a Christian allows other cultural traditions to have ‘rays of light’ in their midst (that is, imperfect traces of Divine revelation), he inevitably maintains that only Christianity has the full religious truth (that is, the one perfect expression of Divine revelation itself); the latter is what makes him into a Christian. Indian tradition, on the contrary, assumes that there are many different ways of being, and does not understand how there could possibly be only one true way for all of humanity. Now, Moor Nam, I hope you do not think that there is only one way of being, viz., being Hindutva. Such a stance would be diametrically opposed to Hindu dharma, which has, like a mother, tried to make place in its lap for people of various opinions and views, as Tagore puts it gracefully. Anyway, I do hope the Hindutvavadins will be able to shake off the coils of Christian teaching from their minds.

Some interesting threads are developing in this discussion, and I would like to open up another one. Before I do so, Let met say a couple of things regarding the thread opened up by Jakob De Roover and Willem Derde.

1. They are absolutely right in insisting about the nature of Christianity. Without in anyway denying the differences between the Eastern and Western Christianities, it requires to be emphasized that they share properties in common by virtue of which both become examples of the religion that Christianity is.

2. Of course, it is both absurd and historically inaccurate to claim that Eastern Christianity does not have the proselytizing drive. If it did not, how did this Eastern Christianity spread in the East, and come to India? And Rajiv, you are wrong about what you say in your #51: Emperor Constantine's 'brand' of Christianity is preciselythe so-called 'Eastern' Christianity. With 'Western' Christianity, one refers to the proselytizing drive towards the 'West' of Rome beginning with the Gregorian Reforms (around the tenth century). So, Constantine was not the progenitor of the 'Western Christianity'.

3. Arjun Bhagat discerns very clearly the interesting point that Jakob is trying to make: if the proselytizing drive of the 'Eastern Christianity' is muted in India, it has to do with the influence of the Indian culture upon Christianity in India. This is an important thread in our conversation to focus upon.

4. One way of doing that is to open up an allied sub-thread. Just because the Christians are enjoined to spread the "Good Word" (the Messiah has come; He died for our Sins; and He has been Resurrected), it does not mean that every Christian is either a Missionary or a persecutor. Between what he has been asked to do and what he does, many empirical circumstances intervene. One such, in our case, is the Indian culture.

5. So, the question becomes: what is it about the Indian culture that it can mute the proselytizing drive of Semitic religions? To say that Indian culture is 'pluralist' and that is why this happens is the wrong answer: it is like saying that Opium induces sleep because it has sleep-inducing properties (Virtus Dormativa as the good doctor put it in Moliére's play from which I borrow this example). The question is this: What is this 'pluralism' about? Is it the same thing as 'tolerance' that the secularists of today talk about? Or is it something different? If the former, why are we not all secularists? If the latter, what is the difference about?

Forgive me for handing out unsolicited advice, but I think it would be wise to steer clear of theological disputes when one is not well-grounded in the subject.

1. Most of us would not know the difference between the Syrian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox and the Russian Orthodox Churches; many will be hard put to differentiate between the Pope and the Patriarch. In these circumstances, it is foolish to write apologetica for 'Eastern Christianity' and criticise 'Western Christianity'. Let those concerned with the nature of Christian theologies do that. But that does not concern us on this thread.

2. Rajiv, regarding your #82. The Emperor Constantine did not start a trend. UrChristenthum was as viciously proselytizing as the most rabid Protestant of today. Before one addresses oneself to the role that 'power' played in the proselytizing drive of Christianity, one needs to know what proselytization means. Consider the role that the Emperors played in Rome (and the role played by some Kings in India.) They would promote some or another tradition (or 'cult', as they were called in the Roman Empire), persecute the followers of some or another tradition (or cult). Does that mean that the cults proselytized too, or that they were as 'intolerant' as the Semitic religions? To affirm either of the two is to lose any ability to understand the difference between Indian traditions (or the Roman cults) and the Semitic religions.

In order to talk of the ground reality in India, one needs to have answers to the following question: Is the 'Eastern Christianity' in India inherently less proselytizing (i.e. does the muted proselytizing drive of the 'Eastern Christianity' in India have to do with its difference from the 'Western Christianity'), or does this have to do with the impact of Indian culture upon this brand of Christianity?

Those who want to sing the song of the 'superiority' of the 'Eastern' brand against the 'Western' brand of Christianity would do well to take heed of the following problem: how did (say) the Russian, or the Syrian, or the Greek Christianities spread in Russia, Syria (before Islam) or Greece, if the 'Eastern' Churches did not aggressively proselytize? A diagonal look at the writings of (say) St. Augustine should quickly disabuse us of the silly idea that the expansion of Christianity was, somehow, fundamentally tied to political power. Of course, its ties to the throne did facilitate much. But the proselytizing drive in the Semitic religions is fundamentally independent of any kind of political or economic power.

If we lose sight of some of these fundamental facts of history, and do not try to figure out the theological justifications offered by the various brands of Christianity, we are talking through our hats.

Dear Alex,

An excellent post that homes in on important issues, which should properly be the foci of discussions on this thread. Before making some cryptic remarks, which might go some way in generating the debate, let me quickly make one point regarding your first two paragraphs.

1. The presence of trade and migration might tell us about the carriers, but it does not explain proselytization. Further, as you should know by having read my book, 'Hinduism' did not migrate outwards. The way some of the Indian traditions migrated towards the rest of Asia is wrongly described as 'conversion' into 'Hinduism'. It was anything but that. But this is not an issue I want to talk about now.

What I do want to talk about is the history of Christianity during the first thousand years, which is fundamentally the history of 'Eastern Christianity'. Surely, Alex, you do not want to maintain that this history is any less violent and vicious than the history of 'Western' Christianity. However, as I suggested in my previous post, let us not enter a terrain which calls for more knowledge of history and theology than either of us possess.

2. Let me turn to the other two points you raise. Indeed, the issue is: why is it that only 'Eastern' Christianity has been influenced (assuming that the muting has occurred through the impact of Indian culture) and not its 'Western' variants? I am inclined to look in the direction of the Indian culture in search of an answer to this question as well. It is my belief that the 'Eastern' Christianity confronted a vibrant Indian culture; the Western variants did not do so.

3. I would put the issue in the following form. The concern and the worry that the Indians exhibit towards 'conversion' (by Christianity and Islam) testifies to the current weakness of the Indian culture. That is to say, the only way to meet the proselytizing drive of the Semitic religions is by actively developing the Indian culture as it suits the twenty-first century sensibilities and not by producing legislations that 'forbid' conversion. The latter, in contradistinction to what many think, does not express the confidence of a 'resurgent Hinduism' but the morbid fear expressed by a decaying set of traditions.

4. I am not calling for a "reform of Hinduism". Far from it. What I am calling for is a scientific study of our own culture and that of the West so that we may know who we are and where we stand. If we do not even understand our own traditions and are set upon mindlessly reproducing hackneyed Christian themes about 'Hinduism' as a religion and so on, we are far from being adequate to the tasks that confront us today which is one of revitalizing our culture and traditions.

5. Fundamental to this endeavour is a patient and thorough study both of India and the West. Without such an attempt, I am afraid, we can only come up with clichés and slogans that hardly bring us further

Very good methodological questions, but I fear they are prematurely raised. Today at least, no one, anywhere in the world, has the kind of hypotheses that can be subjected to these tests. Let me explain.

1. Actually, there are two questions that need to be distinguished from each other. There is, firstly, the question about the nature of 'Eastern' Christianity. If it is muted in its proselytizing drive in all cultures the same way and if it is 'tolerant' in exactly the same way in all cultures, it makes sense to ask the question whether (a) different factors in all these cultures have brought about the same effect (different 'causes' can generate one and the same effect in differing circumstances) or (b) it is due to the nature of the 'Eastern' Christianity itself. Nobody is able to make such a claim today. We do not possess the theoretical apparatus which would allow us to make sense of the remarks I have made in italics.

2. The other question is much smaller in scope. It is not so much about the 'Eastern' Christianity as it is about the Indian traditions and culture. Have the latter muted the 'Eastern' Christianity in some recognizable way, recognizable, that is, when compared to its 'Western' brethren in India? Here, one is trying to characterize what it means to mute the 'Eastern' Christianity in some recognizable way.

3. With respect to the previous question, we can make some headway if we can characterize the Indian culture and develop some hypotheses about how and in what form this culture exerted its influence on the 'Eastern' Christianity. This is where we are now: trying to see whether it is possible at all to develop such a hypothesis. Consequently, the historical questions that you want to raise cannot even be formulated at this stage of research. And that for this simple reason: we would not how to go about evaluating any evidence that we may collect, or even what would count as evidence at this stage in the discussion. Would the number of the converted be the evidence, or the writings of the Patriarchs, or the number of social events that they organise, or ...?

4. In fact, Satya (bless her, acute as always!) might have a provided us with a more tractable formulation of the problem in her #75: "Perhaps, rather than 'tolerance' being an Eastern/Indian phenomenon, one could cast fundamentalism/doctrine as a uniquely Western product, now apparently ready for export?"

5. In other words, Arun, we really need to go some way in the development of our ideas before we put them to the kind of rigorous tests they must undergo, if they have to acquire credibility. I guess I am advocating some kind of patience, while fully resonating with your demands.

Dear Alex,

You raise far more questions than I can answer at the moment. By referring to 'the moment', I am not speaking of a shortage of time but indicating where my own research is on some of the questions that bother us all.

1. As you might or might not know, I am trying to build a research group that investigates some issues concerning the Indian and Western culture from within the framework of my research programme. Jakob De Roover, for instance, is working on the issue of "Tolerance" for his doctorate, which we hope will be ready in about two-year time. Both within my research group and in his doctorate, the issues that are being discussed on this thread form one of the central foci of enquiry.

2. Currently, Jakob and I are working on a multi-part paper, which has gone through several versions (becoming better with each successive revision), that focuses on the following problem. Consider the claim that many Hindutva people make. They say, for instance, "here, in this land, there can be no objection to God being called by any name whatever. Ingrained in this soil is love and respect for all faiths and religious beliefs." The Secularists too say something similar: "here, in this secular country, there can be no objection to God being called by any name whatever. Ingrained in secularism is love and respect for all faiths and religious beliefs." Of course, we could say that the Hindutvavaadins must be hypocrites because (to quote from the paper) their organisations are often involved in the hate campaigns and violence against the Muslims. But then we would also have to question the neutrality of the secular parties since these have often failed to treat the Muslims and the Hindus on equal terms. (E.g., various 'social reforms' were imposed upon the Hindu traditions, while the local Islamic traditions were not touched.) Instead of getting into such a barren dispute, let us take the claims of the two parties at face value. They agree on the objective of a peacefully diverse society. Both the system of secular law and that of Hindu values allow people to worship, pray, or do puja in whatever way they prefer and to whichever god they prefer. They both allow the followers of various religions to visit their mosques, churches, gurudwaras, temples, or to stay home. They both allow someone to believe that there is one God; that there are three or five thousand gods; or even none at all. If there is agreement on these issues, what then is the clash about?

3. In the first paper, we try to answer the above question and see the extent to which there is a problem, and test the validity of the proposed solutions. The second paper will try to tackle the issue I alluded to: how the "vibrancy" of the Indian culture might have contributed towards muting the aggressive proselytizing drive of both Islam and Christianity. As of now, I only have some vague idea of a hypothesis that can answer this question. Before it takes a form that can withstand scrutiny, we need to think further, explore some theories from Social Psychology, delve into the writings of Gandhi (who had some phenomenal insights into the nature of Indian culture), and might merely have to reformulate (if we are lucky!) some of his thoughts in the form of a scientific hypothesis.

4. If the hypothesis for the second paper can be developed successfully, then (and only then) can the third and final part of the paper be attempted. It will provide a partial explication of the notion of "vibrancy" in the Indian culture. In other words, Alex, I owe you and others an explanation, which I hope to provide sometime in the future, which I cannot now give. (Of course, I have some notion of what "vibrancy" probably means, but it is not worked out as yet.)

5. Regarding what it means to develop the Indian culture as it suits the sensibilities of the twenty-first century. "Would it entail a modification of the Indian value systems to suit the western sensibilities?", you ask. Fortunately, I can give some kind of a partial answer to this question, because even as I write you I am busy working on a public version of my forthcoming book on ethics. The answer is: No! I believe that I can show that some aspects of the Indian 'Values' (as represented by the Indian Ethics) are richer and more sophisticated than their Western counterparts. Though, the only way we can access these 'values' is by explicitly saying what they are, showing why they are defensible and in what way they are better.

6. Developing our culture today also implies, from within my limited perspective, re-accessing our own traditions in newer and novel ways. We need to move far beyond the inanities that students of the Indian culture mouth and seek fresh perspectives, which are currently non-existent. What it concretely means: my book that you have read is an example of such a novel conceptualisation; my book on ethics will also do the same. With Willem Derde, another doctoral student, and some others, I am studying the 'Caste System'. Even here, a radically new vision is being developed that will challenge every existing view on the Indian 'Caste System'. And so on.

7. So, you see Alex, work is being done. The research group is small; the financial resources that are there to develop such a group are extremely limited. We need to build many such research nuclei to investigate several more issues; we need more people who are willing to put in the time and the effort doing this kind of research. Above all, we need to find the financial resources required to fund such research projects.

Dear Sanu,

You say: Thus when one says that many Indian Christians are pluralistic ... it cannot be refuted simply by saying, well Christian doctrine fundamentally cannot be pluralistic -- because all doctrine ultimately always gets interpreted at the level of the individual.

While it is indeed true that, in the last analysis, everything happens at the level of the individual, it is wrong to say that, therefore, claims about the Indian Christians cannot be refuted by referring to Christian theology.

The reason is not far to seek: Christian theology sets limits to the interpretations proposed by the individual believer. One cannot be a Christian -- of any denomination -- and say, for example, that Jesus is the incarnation of the Devil, or that any arbitrary dog is Christ, or that the Messiah has not come, or that God is a figment of the Human mind, or that Mohammed is the last prophet of God, and so on and so forth. Consequently, while latitude can and should be given to the 'interpretations' of received theological doctrines that a believer provides, it is false to claim that the individual, all on one's own, decides about doctrinal interpretations.

Consequently, one can propose what a Christian can and cannot believe in and still remain a Christian. Deciding whether some or another Indian is a Christian is not an issue of undertaking a Gallup Poll, but one of taking recourse to Christian theology.

Here is where the Indian traditions differ fundamentally from the Semitic religions. My arguments, and those of Jakob and Willem, must be seen in the context of the above claim in order for them to make sense. In these cases, appeal to an individual's interpretation does not settle the issue one way or another, whereas an appeal to theology does.

There is no way that one can take up the question, Who is a Christian? and answer it on this forum. I have discussed this issue through many chapters in my book and I have no hope of being able to summarize it here. One of the reasons for it is that this question does not have one interpretation and one answer: it depends on who is asking the question to whom and for what purpose.

However, let me just say that you are not raising the issue of who a Christian is, but whether Christianity in India is different in some significant aspects because it has come into and grown in the Indian culture. In so far as you talk about the hypothetical Indian on a park bench, you are asking what the process of conversion entails. "Exclusivity", Sankrant, is not the fine print, but that you say it is shows the extent to which you (as an Indian, Hindu, and the heathen) have difficulty in understanding what religion is. That is what the title of my book says: as heathens, we are blind to the existence of religion, we do not see it. But one would not think that, if we were to listen to all the Indians pontificating on 'Religion', or even follow this column, would one?

Regarding several mails.

Tempers seem to be getting a bit frayed, even though there is no necessity for it. Loose thinking seems to replace disciplined thinking, even though there is a necessity for the latter. Perhaps, taking some distance from the issues and looking at them afresh might prevent folly.

1. My story is about religion, and about the question what makes some phenomenon, any phenomenon, into a religion. On the basis of a hypothesis about religion, I characterize Judaism, Christianity and Islam as religions. In religion, I show that "faith" and "intolerance" are two faces of the same coin: i.e. those who "truly" believe are necessarily intolerant of other religions precisely because they have "faith" in their own god.

2. My story is not about what makes someone, anyone, into a Christian, or a Jew or a Muslim. By studying the 'beliefs' of the billions, who have been Jewish, Christian and Muslim so far (if it is possible at all to undertake such a task today), one will not get any theory either about these three movements or religions off the ground.

3. Ever since the birth of Christianity, the Christians have been fighting each other about the question 'Who is a Christian'? I am not even interested in answering this question (even though I have treated this question from several different perspective in my book) primarily because this is an internal, theological question within Christianity.

4. From all of these, it follows that I am neither claiming nor suggesting that Alex Alexander, Chacko, or Abraham Verghese are (a) good Christians, (b) semi-good Christians, (c) bad Christians, (d) true Christians, (e) false Christians, or anything else. This issue is not my concern. They call themselves Christians, do not suffer an identity crisis when they meet the Lingayats, and that is enough for me.

5. However, based on my reading and understanding of these three religions, I do claim that there are certain minimum conditions before one becomes, say, Christian. These conditions are: accepting some doctrinal components; abjuring certain practices (idol worship, for example) and following some others (prayer, for instance). It is neither important nor relevant for this thread to spell all the conditions explicitly out.

6. Regarding 'ideal' gases, Boyle's law, and my story. Here is what I say in my book: In the first stages of building a new theory about some phenomenon, the claims and characterizations are often pitched at a very high level of abstraction. Often called the method of 'idealization' in the philosophy of sciences ... it moves through successive concretization in the process of treating the empirical phenomenon in question. Many objects of natural sciences are such 'idealized' entities as ideal gases, perfectly rigid bodies, inertial systems, material points, and such like. The more the descriptions approximate the object or phenomenon in question, the more they take other aspects of the phenomenon into account. My description of religion and ritual is cast at that level of abstraction which is capable of capturing some, but not all, details of religions like Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Though the choice of such a methodology was not deliberate, I found myself working in an analogous fashion as my enquiry progressed. (P.480; emphasis added.)

7. Religion proselytizes and is intolerant. Does that mean that all religions do that to equal degree? Answering this question requires that we become more concrete than I have been in my book on religion. The empirical answer is obvious, if we look at Judaism. It hardly proselytizes today, even though it is intolerant. So, when we have a richer empirical theory, it can answer question of the following sort: what distinguishes Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as religions? The next step in concretizing a theory would be to raise questions about the internal differentiations within these three religions. Then we can answer questions about the relation between 'Eastern' and 'Western' Christianities and their relation to prosyletization and intolerance.

8. There is also another kind of concretization that a theory of religion needs to undertake. What happens to these three religions, when they migrate? More concretely, what happens to Christianity when it migrates? An answer to this question will have to look at the state Christianity was in when it migrated (i.e. what brand it was), the nature and state of the host culture, etc.

9. In other words, there is a lot of research that requires doing before one could answer some of the questions that are being raised on this board. One might want to give quick answers, but one cannot give a quick scientific answer. One could suck an answer out of one's thumb and launch a tirade against ivory-tower scientists and such like. By doing that one exhibits one's own foolishness, because the crying need of today is not cheap slogans but knowledge. And that does not come easy or without hard work.

Sincerely,

Jakob

Dear Moor Nam,

You are disappointing me. You identify me as a liberal Christian, and then you act as though you have finally discovered my hidden agenda, and start crying out to the Hindus on this board.

Sincerely,

Jakob

1. Christians of all hue agree that the figure of Christ is central to the religion that Christianity is. This figure is "the promised one", the "messiah", the "anointed one", and so on. Kindly note that there is a difference between the Christ as a figure and Jesus of Nazareth. The Jews also believe in the Christ figure, but they figure that he has not yet come, and they are awaiting his arrival. The Christians reckon that the Christ has come and that Jesus of Nazareth was the "prophesied one".

2. Jesus of Nazareth, according to Christianity, is also the Christ, and without that being the case, there can be no Christianity. What exactly does the claim that Jesus is the Christ mean? There is a whole branch within Christian theology that deals with this question, and it is called Christology. It deals with many several themes, all focussed around the person and figure of Jesus Christ.

3. In my book, I speak at length about what I call the Christological dilemma. I cannot hope to summarize it here, but let me simply identify the issue. But before doing so, one needs to have some understanding of what it means to speak of a dilemma. It merely means the following: (a) a dilemma involves a choice; (b) the necessary elements of a choice present themselves as alternatives; (c) neither of the alternative is sufficient on its own; (d) one needs both the alternatives together, but one cannot have both. Such a situation presents the chooser with a dilemma.

4. The figure of Jesus Christ presents Christianity with such a dilemma. According to Christianity, in Jesus (a) God not only reveals Himself, but is also (b) His Unique Revelation. It is the combination of (a) and (b) that makes the son of a carpenter (Jesus of Nazareth) into the Christ. The very same combination presents Christianity with the Christological dilemma.

5. Christ is the Unique revelation of God. That is, his is the only way to God. At the same time, it is also a revelation of God, as such, one of the multiple revelations of God, and thus one of the ways to God. Though following Christ is the only way to God, it is a way which is open to the whole of Humankind. Though open to the whole of humankind, the other ways that the humankind follows lead not to the Lord but to the Devil.

6. In other words, in the phrase "In Christ, God reveals Himself Uniquely" contains the dilemma. Either we emphasize the Unique character of God's revelation in Christ: in that case, Christianity becomes, to use the phrase current on this board, exclusivist and intolerant. Or we emphasize the fact that God Reveals Himself in Jesus: in that case, we can also talk of other revelations of God as being at par. But by doing so, the figure of Christ disappears from the picture. Christianity might become inclusive and tolerant, but the price it pays is that it ceases being Christianity. In fact, in such a situation, I argue, one will even be unable to say whether it is God who reveals Himself or someone else.

7. In the course of the two thousand years that constitute the history of Christianity, indefinitely many solutions have been worked out to address the issue of the Christological dilemma. From the rabidly exclusivist positions that make Christianity into a sect at one end of the spectrum, to the extremely tolerant Philosophical Theisms at the other end. The first emphasizes the Unique way: thus it focuses on the person in whom God reveals Himself (an exclusive Christology that makes theo-logy irrelevant); the other, by contrast, emphasizes God who reveals Himself (an exclusive theology that makes Christology irrelevant). The point, however, is that one needs both in Christianity but one cannot have both.

8. In other words, it is not my theory of religion that imposes the choice, to put it in Sankrant's words, of being either (a) intolerant and exclusive or (b) being tolerant but non-Christian. Rather, it is the very figure at the heart of Christianity, namely Jesus as Christ, who gives birth to this dilemma.

9. On the basis of just this dilemma alone, one could not only predict that there are bound to be variations within Christianity but also, more importantly, predict the limits of such a variation. Of course, there are all kinds of other factors involved too, and they too add to the predictability.

10. Now, one can make better sense (I hope) of my disinterest in saying whether Alex Alexander, Chacko and Abraham Verghese are Christians or not. It must also be clear why and in what sense the question "who is a Christian?" is an internal problem within Christianity.

Balu.

It has been a bit difficult for me to isolate your questions sufficiently enough for me to answer them. I will, therefore, pick up only one question you raise in your post #174. There you ask:

One thing that Balu and many others (Jakob?) say is that propping up legislations against tricky proselytizations reflect the weaknesses of Indian culture needs to be explained though. How is it a weakness? How is it not a strength?

My answer, in a way, will refer also to some of the questions you raise about 'freedom' in your post #181.

1. In both the theory of rights and in discussions about liberty (or freedom), the following two ways of conceptualising the issues have been present. One could see rights as an "ability or power or capacity" to do something (this is called "active rights") or as a "duty someone else has towards the rights subject" (called the "passive rights"). Equally, liberty has been conceptualised 'positively' (as one's capacity) or 'negatively' (what the other should not do to you). Any good introduction to the theory of rights or theory of liberty will provide you with the details you require as well as the limitations of these two conceptualisations.

2. No matter which of the formulations one prefers on philosophical grounds, the debates about "conversion" in India have been framed in these terms. The defence of a secular state that India is (or ought to be) is conducted in these terms as well. The opponents in this debate, funnily enough, accept the terms of the debate, but come up with arguments why banning "conversion" into Christianity and Islam is justified or justifiable today. These arguments might be pragmatic in nature, or base itself on one or another notion of "liberty" that the western political philosophy has developed or might appeal to the so-called paradox of freedom ('ought one be tolerant of the intolerant?'), and so on.

3. The clash between the secularists and the anti-secularists in general (or the Hindutva people in particular) exhibits itself in an ambiguous way. On the one hand, there is the issue of "conversion" into Christianity and Islam. Here, the question can be formulated in general terms as: what is the attitude of the Indian traditions towards the phenomenon itself? On the other hand, there is the issue about the terms of the debate: Is the western notion of a secular state the best, the most rational or even the most universal one? The discussions continuously switch from one issue to the other; from expressing the feeling (for it is present in these debates as no more than a feeling) that the western notion of secularism is not adequate to the Indian culture to conducting the debate in terms of the western political philosophy in order to express that feeling. The ambiguity lies in trying to express one problem in terms posed by another, which forbids such an expression.

4. What Jakob and I are trying to do (in the multi-part paper I spoke of earlier) is to show that there are two different issues involved here: Is the secular state (founded on Law) a "neutral one?" How did the Indian traditions grapple with the issue conversion?

The first question is important in order to show that the secular stance that requires "freedom to convert" is anything but neutral in any sense of the notion of liberty or freedom. By the same token, the anti-secularist demand to forbid conversion through legislation accepts the very framework it wants to reject.

The second question is important because it allows us to provide an answer that is in sync with the nature of the Indian traditions. Not only that. We intend to show that this solution is more efficient, rational, and defensible than any other solution. The talk of resuscitating the vibrancy of the Indian traditions belongs here.

5. Now, I can give a brief answer to your questions. If we accept the cry to ban the attempts at conversion, we will be accepting one or another variant of the western politico-philosophical thinking. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with it, except that this thinking merely secularises Christian theology. I do not see it as an expression of the strength of the Indian traditions to kneel down before the Cross and confess that we are all worshippers of the Devil. Whoever else might want to do it, I will not. I do think that our traditions have within themselves the strength and depth to allow us to think about cultures and societies in ways hardly dreamt of today.

It is also an indication of the lack of strength. In fact, we confess that without some or another variant of western thinking in political philosophy, we cannot solve the problem of conversion. If such is the case, wherein lies the strength of the Indian traditions before they encountered the western culture?

Friendly greetings

Balu

The discussion about re-accessing the vibrancy of the Indian culture and the question whether or not to legislate against conversion, are best treated separately. An answer to the latter does not necessarily count as an answer to the first. In fact, as Jakob has pointed out, the tendency to counter the proselytising drive of Christianity and Islam by voting laws against conversion is itself an indication of India’s cultural weakness. Hence, it cannot be a means to re-kindle the flame of India’s pluralistic tradition.

It strikes me that now-a-days Indians feel very comfortable with the terms of the discussion when it comes to the problem of ‘Christianity/Islam versus Hinduism’. It has not always been like that. As we all know, the British were not the first to colonise India. The Mughals had done so before. What is very interesting is the way in which the Indians absorbed this foreign power and its religion. When you take history writing (or historiography) as an example, it is very striking that the Mughal power was presented within the Indian mythological framework. (As scholars never grow tired of pointing out, Indian history writing differs from the western ‘scientific mode’ in that it mixes facts with fiction. However, for the point I want to make here, this discussion is irrelevant.) As a result, the Muslim emperors, for example, turned up as incarnations of Indian gods. Or, that their birth was foreseen long ago and, and as such, they became part of India’s history, etc. The point that I want to make is that the Indian history writers never experienced the Mughals and their Islam as a foreign religion threatening the religion of the Indians. One could say that religion was not an issue. The Mughals, from their part, were able to maintain their power - at least partially - by adjusting their behaviour and acting like native Indian kings. The most striking example, of course, is that they granted lands to build temples and financially supported their construction. However, when European history writing took over, the idea of a great divide between the period before the Muslims and after was generally accepted.

In this sense Hermione (#185) is right when she says that the beauty of the Indian civilization is in it's immense capacity to absorb outside influences without succumbing to them. But she is wrong when she infers Why do we seek to change our strategy now? The problem is that the strategy has changed, and it has changed in the sense that the Indian intelligentsia conceptualises the problem in terms that do not resonate with India’s capacity to absorb alien influences. The conceptualisation is at odds with what makes India’s culture differ from the West. As a result the knowledge that was there to cope with extreme differences is no longer accessible. What is needed, therefore, is a reflection about India in terms that restores access to India’s cultural features.

Best regards,

Willem Derde

Continue to Next Page