Focus July 2014

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Dear Friends in Christ:FOCUS, is a lay movement formed in late nineties by the laity of the Mar Thoma Church living around the world. It is an independent movement of the laity of the Mar Thoma Church; and we have started publishing a quarterly online journal under the name FOCUS since April 2013; and as such FOCUS is not an official publication of the Mar Thoma Church. With abundant grace from our Lord Jesus Christ, we were able to publish six issues of FOCUS online magazine so far. It first of its kind in the history of any Christian denominations from Kerala. We have just published the July 2014 edition. The online journal is published on a quarterly basis with an intention to connect the Diaspora Marthomites living around the world and at the same time to build loyalty and support to the Mar Thoma Church, its leaders including clergy and Bishops. FOCUS also wants to pass on to the second and third generation Marthomites living around the world the rich heritage, faith and practices of the Mar Thoma Church and also the importance of the liturgical corporate worship of Mar Thoma Church. As Pope Francis said the number of religious 'Nones' are increasing in the world especially in the western countries. This tendency is affecting our second and third generation Marthomites as well, since most of them are not attending our worship services due to so many reasons known and unknown; they are considered as religious 'Nones' of the Mar Thoma Church. For the Mar Thoma Church's healthy continued existence in this part of the world, it is necessary that the ethos of the Mar Thoma Church should be transferred and experienced by the second and third generation Marthomites in a meaningful way and understandable form. FOCUS aims to transmit the ethos of the Mar Thoma Church through its online quarterly magazine. We seek your blessings, support and prayers for this endeavor of FOCUS. We are publishing the online journal on two different sites and both the links are given below, which can be accessed by clicking the links and can be read online and also downloaded to your computer in PDF format to be read at your own time. We seek your suggestions, comments and also messages and articles to be sent to us in word format along with a passport size photo of yours in JPG format with a small bio-data to be included in the future issues to be sent to the e-mail address of FOCUS at [email protected]. If you have not yet joined the FOCUS Facebook group, please join by visiting our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/mtfocus and also encourage your Mar Thoma Diaspora friends and also others to join FOCUS Facebook group. Thanks.http://issuu.com/diasporafocuswww.scribd.com/diasporafocusEditorial BoardFOCUS

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Content



FOCUS July 2014 Vol. 2 No: 3
Cover Photo – MTC Dallas, Farmers
Branch, By Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas
A Publication of Diaspora FOCUS
Contents
Editorial - Mission in a Digital World -
Page 3



Synopsis of Metropolitan!s Pastoral
Letters, Sabha Tharaka – April, May,
June 2014 – Page 4

Inter Faith Contact - Celia Blackden,
London – Page 8

Everyday Theology Part IV - Dr. Zac
Varghese, London - Page 6
Pearls of Wisdom - Dr. Zac Varghese,
London – Page 11
E. Stanley Jones! Strategy for Missions:
Lessons for Today Rev. Dr. Martin Alphonse - Page 13
Reaching Out – Sharing Faith and
Meeting Social Needs - Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu- Page 16
The Golden Rule of Asian Religions – Rev.
Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam – Page 18

Marks of a Disciple - Late Thomas Mar
Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan - Page 22

Chickaballapur Mission-Page 24
Editorial

Ministry in a Digital World

Most of us seem to be somewhat parochial in our
outlooks, loyalties, and concerns. Nevertheless, we
appreciate the advice "to think globally and act locally.! As
stewards of a world created by a loving and caring God
we have no excuse for not having a loving concern for
people throughout the world irrespective of caste, color or
creed. In a world where an ever increasing number of
people are connected to the internet and mobile phones,
the possibilities of reaching out to all sorts of people and
generations are greater than they have been at any time
in history. The digital environment provides a huge range
of opportunities for God!s mission.



It is interesting to note how St. Paul broke cultural barriers
to reach out to intellectual giants, traders, artisans, and
poor peasants of his time; he spoke to Jews, Greeks,
Romans and Gentiles with relative ease. He used
different skills in spreading the gospel of Lord Jesus
Christ whom he met on the Damascus Road and his tent-
making skills to support his mission. Paul!s "reasoning!,
an ancient rhetorical method, to men of Thessalonica and
of Athens in Act 17 is a good model of ministry even for
today. Paul starts with research of the prevailing culture
(vs 16, 17) then he builds on that knowledge by making
links from their culture to the gospel (vs 22, 23). Thus he
spent time observing and listening, troubling even to read
and memorize their philosophy and poetry. He was taking
the pulpit to the pews, to people where they assembled at
synagogues, market places, and philosophical
supermarkets of ideas and beliefs, where people found it
easy to assemble; it is important to meet people in their
cultural milieu and in their comfort zones. He respected
his audiences! history and culture because persuasion
requires the active participation and even the intervention
or heckling of audiences. As we know, Paul!s
methodology was very effective in challenging Christians
in Rome to confront a pagan culture with the gospel, and
he begins by making the gospel very clear. Jesus!
parables are prime examples of using cultural
conventions and traditions in His ministry for transforming
cultural norms and establishing the kingdom culture.
Jesus was not using theological jargons, but he used
everyday examples to reach his audience and it made
sense to them. Lord Donald Soper was a very effective
Methodist preacher, in the second half of the twentieth
century, at the speaker!s corner at the Hyde Park near
Marble Arch in London. He encouraged his hearers to
heckle him and he used that opportunity to reach out to
the very same heckler and others around him because he
understood and spoke the language, used their idioms
and engaged with the mood of his audiences.

We are told over and over again that the young people of
the Mar Thoma Diaspora communities are disenchanted
with the church and its liturgical worship. Therefore, it is
of utmost importance for our church to take this problem
seriously and follow Paul!s example by studying the
current, continuously changing, youth culture and
searching for means and methods of communication, and
applying the gospel to the prevalent culture. There is a
huge gap in appreciating this urgent need in the ministry
of our church. This journal, in utter humility, is trying to
address the question, "who will stand in this gap?! This is
also addressing the present need for "churching the
churched.! Is it not important to look after the "netted-fish!
before casting the net again for a new fishing expedition?
We should pay much more attention to post-baptismal
faith formation. However much many of us resist, we
need to make policies by taking into consideration not
only the present realities of the world as it, but also the
world we would love to see to be with kingdom values.
Whilst we continue to use traditional methods and print
media for satisfying the emotional needs of the older
generation, we should be mindful of the needs of young
people and use the digital media to reach them.

It is gratifying to see that over the last two years the Mar
Thoma Diocese of North America and Europe has
embarked on using Internet for sending daily meditations.
These meditations are mostly written by young laypeople
of the church; this is indeed a very praiseworthy initiative.
It is making them feel important and part of the
community. Scripture Union is also using the Internet for
sending daily meditations. Rev. Dr. Thomas Philips has
been using web casting and video-conferencing
effectively to conduct Bible studies on Wednesday
evenings from 9 PM to 10.30 PM to reach out to busy
young people of the Sinai MTC in North London; he is
finding a day and time convenient to young people and
using media with which they are comfortable; in doing so
he is breaking into their comfort zones. These are good
models, which others may be able to emulate. Please do
not wait for people to come to us, go out meet them at
their conveniences in their space.
Doing gospel work online may seem a strange thing to
begin with; it can certainly take you to new places and
creates new relationships in the virtual space. However,
such virtual ministry will never replace meeting people in
person on Sunday morning worships or fellowship
meetings. It has its negative side as well, as we notice in
TV evangelism and parading the Holy Communion on the
box. We are in the middle of a digital revolution that will
have an enormous impact on all our lives as the printing
press (Gutenberg 1440CE) did in the 15th century. Hence
we need to be very careful and disciplined in using these
new technologies for interacting with people and not
exploiting people who are emotionally vulnerable. Anyone
can post their thoughts on the social media and there is
no clearly defined source of authority of a church or a
bishop. In the post-modern world the interpretation of a
text depends on the people who read it. For the
postmodernists, every presentation is a representation
and every author of a book or article is thought to be
dead, a writer has no authority over the text once the text
is in the public domain. It is the reader who interprets the
text using his/her cultural context. The very foundation of
authority is being challenged. Therefore, we can no
longer enjoy on the privileges of respect and the
protection of authority we have come to enjoy and
respect. Hence we should be mindful of using the modern
communication media responsibly.

There are some positive things in the postmodern way of
thinking as well. They argue that what is on the margins
decides what is at the center. Jesus cared for people on
the margins of the society, so we should. Margins should
help the center to formulate policies and restructure the
society. It is time to consider the importance of the
subsidiarity principles in the management and
governance of the Mar Thoma Diaspora regions. At
present, it is the young people and women who are
marginalized and silenced through a top-down
hierarchical hegemony. We must identify these margins
and help to recover the agency of the margins for their
growth and expression of their faith.
Focus online journal is a very modest effort in using the
digital environment for reaching out and highlighting
important issues thoughtfully to the Mar Thoma Diaspora
communities around the world. It is refreshing to see how
Pope Francis is effectively using twitter to reach his
people and he is leading the way; he has a twitter
account in nine languages with over 12 million followers;
it is indeed an amazing transformation. We hope that our
community will rise to the challenges of hyper-connected
super highways of communication with courtesy and
discipline. Being disciplined in using the digital
communication may be countercultural, but that is what
the Christian message is all about; our involvement may
bring the necessary discipline in propagating the
Christian message of love under the grace of God. The
internet-based applications including websites, blogs,
face book, podcasts, and apps are opening up new
frontiers for church!s mission, ministry and pastoral care.
Training in social communication is an essential area
where more emphasis should be given if future ministers
are to deliver their ministry effectively; it is time to float the
pulpit to reach out to people. We also need to find ways
for intergenerational communication that are creative,
challenging and convincing. The challenges of today!s
globalized culture demand new and deeper efforts not
only to read the signs of the times but also to see the
challenges for being a new way of being a church in the
digital age.

Churches continue to penalize young people who are not
always able to attend Sunday services. They may not be
attending the Sunday worship for a number of reasons
including work, leisure activities, and possibly total
indifference. Youths have a huge number of other
attractive alternatives on Sundays; it is their business, but
it is business of the church to reach them instead of
writing them off. We need to think about providing
interesting faith-building activities and teaching for young
people at other times and days. What is wrong in
arranging a worship service on an evening on a
weekday? What is wrong in sending a very brief note,
three points, of the Sunday sermon by email to the
members of the parish? The burden of this ministry
should be on the shoulders of the informed few. Leaders
of our parishes ought to understand that the resources
entrusted to them are only on loan from God, to be used
for the good of all. We should be sharing resources of the
digital age in a way that takes account of their impact on
all sections of the community. Other agencies, outside the
church, are using Internet for educating children in remote
villages in India and other places; we are only beginning
to realize the potentials of this powerful technology.
Churches should help young people through the digital
media and social networks to develop their own Christian
values, based on the biblical principles; they also need to
have the examples of the elders who follow Christ with
honesty and integrity under the grace of God.

We are amateurs; we need your constant prayer and
support to make our online ministry fruitful for the glory of
God. Please send the following URLs to your friends and
tell them about this resource:
http://www.issuu.com/diasporafocus
http://www.scribd.com/diasporafocus

Disclaimer: Diaspora FOCUS is a non-profit organization
registered in United States, originally formed in late
nineties in London for the Diaspora Marthomites. It is an
independent lay-movement of the Diaspora laity of the
Mar Thoma Church; and as such Focus is not an official
publication of the Mar Thoma Church. Opinions
expressed in any article or statement are of the
individuals and is not to be deemed as an endorsement
of the view expressed therein by Diaspora FOCUS.
Thanks. Contact: www.facebook.com/groups/mtfocus
E-Mail:[email protected],
http://issuu.com/diasporafocus
http://www.scribd.com/diasporafocus
Synopsis of Metropolitan!s Pastoral Letters in the "Sabha
Tharaka! April, May & June 2014
April 2014:
India is waiting
for the
parliamentary
election, which
would decide the
future of the
country for next
five years. The
people of India
approach this
election on its
67th year of
independence
with grave
concerns. India
has several
credits to its
success in
various fields
after its independence in 1947. However, bribery at all
levels, nepotism, and sectarianism had destroyed the country
from its exemplary goals promulgated by Mahatma Gandhi. It
was Gandhiji!s dream that those who are neglected and
marginalized should come to the forefront and have a stake
in the society. We can see several political leaders who just
move around without any principles, just like clouds moving
around without any drop of water in it. Those leaders who
always think what they could get for themselves; their
policies are guided by an attitude of what is in it for them.
They also engage in character assassination of others, which
is indeed a shameful image of the country. Let us hope, pray
and work for a stable central government with commitments
to religious freedom, democratic principles, and human rights
for maintaining the secular identity and achieving prosperity
for the whole nation.
A meeting is being arranged to celebrate the birth centenary
of late Thomas Mar Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan on
May 25th at Kottayam Jerusalem MTC. A Festschrift volume
remembering the life of Thirumeni will be published under the
editorship Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, former principal of MT
Seminary. Philipose Mar Chrysostom Thirumeni is entering
to 97th birth year on April 27th and prayers are offered for
God!s continued care and blessings; Thirumeni rejuvenates
the lives of people around him day by day.
In the first half of the month of April, we remember the
culmination of the public ministry of our Lord Jesus, and in
the second half we celebrate the crucifixion of our Lord.
When our Lord approaches the Fig tree with lots of branches
and leaves, and finds no fruits, he curses the tree. This
challenges us to be fruitful in this world. When Jesus
cleansed the Jerusalem temple, he raised the challenge
against the so-called injustices in the society. The same
anger and apprehension that Jesus demonstrated should
encourage us to fight injustices and corruption. When the
thief on the cross, repented his sins and sought mercy, Jesus
promised him a place in the paradise with him. When Mary
visited the tomb of Jesus on Sunday morning, she saw an
empty tomb. She went there to pay homage to his body, but
she found that the stone in front of his tomb had been moved
and his body was not there. Peter and John saw the empty
tomb too and returned to their home, but Mary remained
there with tears in her eyes. But when Jesus appeared and
called her Mary, the tears of sorrow became the tears of
happiness. Jesus appeared to the disciples in the closed
room. He gave them the gift of Holy Spirit. Our church has a
practice during the time ordination, the consecrating Bishop
reads the above Biblical text and ushers the Holy Spirit to the
Deacon. Jesus again appeared to the disciples, and this time
Thomas was also with them; when Jesus showed Thomas
his hands and feet with wounds from the nails, Thomas
believed and declared his faith in the resurrected Jesus. On
the fourth occasion, we see Jesus walking with two persons
on their journey to Emmaus, clearing their doubts. When
Jesus tried to go ahead, they invited him into their house and
he had dinner with them. When they noticed the wounds from
the nails in his hand and also the way in which he prayed
before breaking the bread, they realized that it is the risen
Jesus Christ. They returned to Jerusalem with happiness of
meeting the risen Christ. Four thoughts are important here –
on the occasion of the last supper Jesus prayed and broke
the bread and gave to the disciples. On the Pesaha (Maundy
Thursday), Jesus broke the bread, but on Good Friday God
the Father broke Jesus on the cross and offered to the world.
The broken body of Jesus became whole under the unfailing
sovereign power of God on the Easter Sunday. The God said
“I came that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John
10:10) Today, the same God is giving us the power of
resurrection through the Holy Communion. In and through a
Eucharistic life and with the power of the resurrection may
God help us to do a fruitful ministry.
May 2014:
The long awaited election to determine the future of India has
already begun. The turn of the people in Kerala is already
over. The election is conducted at different times in various
parts of the country, but votes are counted only in the end to
avoid the influence of one set of results on other regions.
This may also enable people to cast their votes without nay
violence or fear. I congratulate the people who came forward
to cast their votes without fearing the Maoists or Naxalists in
certain places. I feel sorry for those leaders who renounce
their allegiance to their own party and pledge allegiance to a
new party, just for getting a seat in the elections. I hope the
people will recognize such people and will act accordingly. I
pray that people may be able to elect a new stable
government who can rule the country without any corruption
or bribery. If all of our political parties could unite together
and work for the betterment of the country, India could have
become the number one country in the world in all spheres. If
all of us including all political parties unite together our
country can make big leaps including in science and
technology. I pray that God may enable our country to unfold
the secrets of the universe created by God with the
knowledge and wisdom provided by God to each one of us.
We need to recognize the fact that the foundation of all
scientific advances is the knowledge given to us by God. God
has charted for the earth and other planetary bodies a fixed
path to travel, but for man God has given unlimited freedom.
He has given certain guidelines on how to live in this world,
but man has deviated from those guidelines and travel in
different ways. When we travel away from the God- given
pathway, we move away from God. Life in this world should
enable us to travel on the path created by God.
We are celebrating May 25th as a sacred music Sunday. To
make the resurrected Christ a reality in our life is the mission
of the church. The songs sung by our forefathers reflect the
dream of the church and its mission. What is gospel? There
is gospel of Jesus Christ, but Jesus Christ itself is the gospel.
The first gospel writer St. Mark has recorded this truth
through the inspiration of Holy Spirit. I thank God for the
services of the DSM & C, and bringing this truth in to the
hearts of believers through beautiful songs. The meditations
for this month end with the resurrection of our Lord. In the
Acts of the Apostles 1:9, it is written like this about
resurrection: “After he said this, he was taken up before their
very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” Cloud, in the
Holy Bible, represents the presence of God. When Moses
was talking to God at Sinai Mountain, there was the presence
of the cloud. Prophet Elijah was taken in to the heaven in the
presence of the cloud. When King Solomon dedicated the
Jerusalem temple, there was the presence of the cloud.
Moses as representative of the Law of the Prophets, and
Elijah as representative of prophets speak about what is
going to happen to Jesus in Jerusalem. That is when Peter
says, let us sit here and build three huts. We are not called
out as witnesses to settle down in safe places by building
huts in mountains, but to come down to the valley and find
solutions for the problems of those less fortunate and
marginalized living there. Jesus had proved the same
through his life and mission in this world. This is the gospel
for the church for all ages. The God by hearing the cry of His
people in Egypt sent Moses to release them; God had sent
his own son to this world to become the redeemer of us from
our pain and suffering. The model of Christ is to stand with
those who are marginalized and less fortunate in society. We
have been given the strength of the resurrection to be with
those who are suffering in pain and in difficulties. In order to
be the true witnesses and to share the love of Christ, we
need to taste the love of Christ first. True witnessing creates
a witnessing community. Yes, we are the witnesses who
have seen the glory of Christ. Let us submit ourselves before
the Lord to be His true witnesses so that we can lead others
to His glory.
June 2014
June is the beginning of the school year in Kerala. We
thankfully remember the glorious days when we started our
education with an "Asan!, who taught us the first letters by
inscribing the prayer, "Sri Yesuve Nama!, in "Panayola! with
his pointed iron pen. It was a secular community who lived
harmoniously during those days. We used to learn all things
including the multiplication table by heart. Now a day, our
generations could not do anything without calculator or
computer. We are forgetting the limitless power of the brain
God has given to each one of us. The new generation should
be able to develop their education based on moral principles
and values.
I congratulate the Kottayam Cochi Diocese and also
Kottayam Jerusalem MTC for organizing in a dignified way
the birth centenary celebrations of late Thomas Mar
Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan. We were able to release
a Festschrift volume about Thirumeni and also a worship
order book including Suriyani version during the occasion.
Thomas Thirumeni was able to follow our Lord without failing
in the trials and temptations of everyday life. He was very
careful in our heritage and eastern culture. He had the
opportunity to share the Word of God in all continents. He
stood firmly by the gospel truths and in its implementation.
He laid a strong foundation for the North American Diocese.
His words were extraordinarily powerful. Even though his
face was always serious, when one interacted with him, they
felt the pleasantness of his love. Let us pray that our church
is able to continue its faith journey as a witnessing
community in the path shown by Thirumeni. Let us pray that
the ecumenical vision shown by Thrirumeni may be a
pathway to enlighten us in our ecumenical journey.
In the month of June, we remember about the promise of
God about the sending of the Holy Spirit. Jesus instructed the
disciples to stay in Jerusalem and continue in prayers, and
after receiving the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses in
Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea and to the end of the earth. What
is our mission? God is calling us as His witnesses to renew
the creation. God has created man and women in His own
image. If the relationship between God and man is in the life
that He has breathed in to us, the relationship between man
and man is flesh to flesh and bone to bone. When we forget
this relationship, we move away from God and humanity. It is
the responsibility of the believers to renew these
relationships, renew the creation, and redeem the
environment from destruction. When we celebrate June 8th
as environmental day, we pray that “let the Holy Spirit come
and renew the creation.” The experience of Pentecost is the
experience of renewal, and also sharing of God!s power.
During the Trinity Sunday, we declare our faith in the Trinity,
followed by the remembrance about the calling of the
Apostles, and declare our faith through worship. When we
understand the discipleship is for witnessing, our Lord will
provide the strength for witnessing. June 29th is the day of
Apostle Peter and Paul. I am completing 57 years on June
29th in the service of the church. While going through
different life experiences, I was able to experience God!s
providence and care. I thank God for the mental strength
and the discerning power he has given all these years. In
order to obtain more and more grace from the Lord, who is
able to make the impossible possible, please continue to
pray for me so that I can discharge my priestly duties.
Compiled & Translated by Lal Varghese, Esq.,
Dallas (An abridged version of Pastoral Letters in
appeared in Malayalam from Sahba Tharaka)
Everyday Theology: Part-IV*
Culture and the Gospel
Dr. Zac Varghese, London
[In this four-part study, an effort is made to indicate that
everyday theology evolves from an understanding of the Bible
from our own cultural contexts. It is a faith seeking or faith
building understanding; it is experiencing the presence of God
within the community of God!s created world order and in the
midst of all situations of our lives. It is also suggested that
giving glory to God in life is by celebrating "the Liturgy after the
Liturgy.! The importance of studying the interplay between
culture and the gospel is highlighted in this final part.]
Everyday theology, as we have seen in the early parts of this
series*, is taking the incidences of everyday living and relating
it to the presence of God in the ordinary hub and tumble of life
and in extraordinary moments. It is what Charles Kingsly
experienced in his daily walks, for he said: “I was immersed in
an ocean of God.” It is about loving God and realizing His love
in our lives and in the lives of our neighbors. It is testifying with
confidence that His grace is sufficient for us in all circumstance
of living and all seasons of our lives. Then we begin to
experience the presence of God in the highs and lows in our
lives, in the rise and fall of the sun, in the waxing and waning
moon, and in the rise and fall of wind. All these are
opportunities to feel a purpose for the pulsating and throbbing
lives within our neighbors, the created order, and us. The
creator and the coordinator of this incomprehensible mystery is
our God; everyday theology helps us to experience this
mystery. We know about God through three Books: the Bible,
the "Book of Nature!, and the "Book of Culture!; we are truly the
people of these Books. As we live by the precepts of these
books, we also help to contribute new insights, and become
part of its developing history. We are inheritors of an abundant
covenantal blessing from God, and part of God!s plan for
healing this fractured world for establishing His kingdom. The
book of Proverbs also talks about everyday life; Proverbs
pictures godliness in everyday working clothes.
William Tyndale (1494-1536) was burned at the stake in
Belgium in 1536 for translating the Bible into English so that
Bible could be accessible even to an "illiterate ploughboy.!
Before his effort, the 4th century Vulgate edition of the Bible in
Latin was only available to the priestly and the scholarly
classes. Tyndale defied the Pope and Henry VIII in his pursuit
of making the Bible available to everyone. Then Bishop of
London bought an entire edition of 6,000 copies of Tyndale!s
translation and burned on the steps of the St. Paul!s Cathedral.
The established church wanted to keep the treasures of the
Bible to enlightened few. Lay people were not encouraged to
read or study the Bible in this early period. It is against this
background we should see Martin Luther!s reformation and the
fascination for everyday and everyman!s theology. He
declared, "Sola Scriptura - scripture alone! for salvation and
guidance for a God-centered life. It is the Bible alone
emphasis, and not human interpretation of the Bible that tells
us what we need to know about God, ourselves, and the way
to salvation. Apostle Paul tells us that every part of the Bible
was written by people but was inspired by God, and it is useful
for showing us truth, building our faith in Christ, Jesus!
teaching, correcting and training us to live in God!s way ((2
Timothy 3:15, 16). The second "Evangelical National Anglican
Congress! held in Nottingham made the following statement:
“The reader of the Bible does not require training to understand
its basic message, but to understand it more deeply we need
the gift of the scholar and the pastoral expositor. We should
use our mind to study the Bible both in its unity and in its
diversity; in general, passages should not be interpreted out of
context, but when valuable insights are gained in that way, they
must be tested against an historical understanding of biblical
truth.”
It is reasonable to assume that cultural influences might have
infiltrated the thought forms of the biblical writers and hence we
may find the influence of Palestinian, Hebrew, Babylonian,
Greek and Roman cultural traits in the Bible. The whole Bible
from Genesis to Revelation is written in the languages and
styles of the particular times, and evokes cultures in which it
got expressed, hence it is culturally conditioned. Using the
same basic Markan text, Mathew and Luke gave a Jewish and
Gentile slant respectively to their texts. Since the gospels were
all written thirty or more years after Jesus! crucifixion, some
fresh interpretations were expressed by the needs of each
writer!s constituencies. Hence, we can also see the political,
sociological, and cultural trends in the gospels. The religious
leaders of the day knew the laws of Moses inside out, but most
of them did not have an experiential relationship with the God
they professed; Jesus pointed this out to the caretakers of the
Jewish religion. We can self-righteously keep all His
commands but totally neglect His greatest command to love
our neighbor as ourselves and to love our enemies. Such
attitudes are not different to those of the Pharisees. There is a
danger that we may not recognize God when we encounter His
working, or worse still, we may oppose what He is doing. God
encourages unity in diversity. The kingdom envisioned by
Jesus gave priority for the powerless and who lived in the
margins of the society; Jesus! friendships with sinners, tax
collectors, the ritually unclean, and with the dispossessed were
countercultural; it was also against centuries old expectations
of a Messiah to liberate Israel from foreign rule and oppression.
We see from Paul!s letters that it was possible to share
synagogues for his ministry before the Jewish-Roman war and
the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, but there was a clear
separation between Jews and Christians after this period.
Therefore, socio-political and cultural tensions played a
significant role in developing Jewish messianic attitudes, which
profoundly influenced the ministry, the development of the
early church, and the shaping of the New Testament.
The Biblical methods of interpretations of using exegesis and
hermeneutics principles help us to overcome some of the
cultural biases. This enables us in believing the biblical stories,
though not literally, which teach us of God as the living God,
one who speaks, appears acts, loves, heals, forgives, blesses,
and saves. The Holy Spirit is always working to bind us
together with God!s unconditional love. However, people
always want to know how the biblical teachings relate to daily
events in life. We are also always exposed to the Nature and
culture and we study the Bible in the context of the two; hence
all the three books help us to appreciate God!s authority, and
we remain grateful to Him for His mercy and abundant
blessings. The Bible does not standalone; it is culture bound
and exists in the matrices of the historical, present and future
cultures. It is worthwhile to remember what Edmund Burke, the
18th century British parliamentarian, said about society. He
said society is a contract between “the past, the present and
those not yet born”. Sociologists define society as a group of
people who share a common culture. This continuity is also a
characteristic of the Church. We have an unwritten faith
forming contract with our patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, prophets, Jesus Christ, apostles, Church Fathers,
generations of past believers, present and future; this
constitutes the invisible universal Church. We are also
connected to these people through their cultural endowments.
The main burden of this 4th part of the study is to bring out the
interplay between culture and the gospel.

Everyday life is the sum total of many cultural events; culture
and society are intimately linked. Everyday exists in time and
space, and it is our time and our space. Everyday theology is
the faith seeking understanding through our everyday culture.
As indicated before, everyday theology is making sense of our
environment and our interactions with other people under the
grace of God. This includes our physical location at any
moment in time including intellectual and spiritual domain in
which we live. This is so because culture consists of language,
customs, values, rules, tools and techniques, professional
etiquettes, artifacts, organizations and institutions. It is a
means for defining ourselves for establishing our identities.
Hence we have religious and secular cultures and these further
divided into multiple sub-cultures too. For instance, within a
family or a parish we have definable sub-cultures on the basis
of generational polarities and faith affirmations. However,
today!s globalised culture has lost its sharpness in defining a
particular cultural entity because increasing numbers of people
interact and share cultural capital globally. It is now extremely
difficult to know where one culture ends and another begins.
Jesus! analogy of a tree is applicable to all aspects of our life
and our cultural existence: "Make a tree good and its fruit will
be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree
is recognized by its fruit” (Matt 12:33).
One of the problems for the people in the pews is to
understand the interpretation of the biblical texts without
historical or existing current cultural biases. The theological
opinions and interpretative skills of the preacher or writer vary
like the vagaries of the climate change. What do we believe as
the authentic biblical truth or its interpretation through the
authority of an institutionalized church? This is the problem that
confronted Martin Luther when he sought help from the church,
but instead of providing simple answers from the Bible, church
leaders of the time simply quoted the leading biblical scholars
and Church Fathers. They threw at him traditional unpalatable
answers and the sayings of St. Cyprian of Carthage and
statements such as, “extra ecclesiam nalla salus- outside the
Church there is no salvation”. He took this for the power play of
the Pope and his magisterium. This led to his involvement in
the reformation and the search for truth directly from the
Biblical texts (scripture alone), and not from interpretations and
other outside influences including the hegemony of the
institutionalized church. This suggests that truth is sometimes
dressed up in cultural fabrics and underneath this is the hidden
jewel, the Lord Jesus Christ. What we need is the solid
foundation of God!s word, not the human opinion of it. The text
alone is conditioned by cultural influences, and not truth; truth
is timeless. It is a challenge to preserve the timeless truth
about God and His authority while adapting to times and
cultural shifts. Bishop Tom Wright argues that “in the Bible all
authority lies with God himself”. The timeless truth is hidden in
a culturally conditioned Book. We cannot escape from the
possibility that some of the Old Testament stories were crafted
and placed there for building up Israel brick by brick as an
elected nation for sharing God!s blessings to the whole world.
Sometimes, we are asked to believe in it literally or in its varied
transcriptions or translations and subjective interpretations. At
times, we worship the Bible more than we worship God.
Richard Niebuhr!s book, Christ and Culture,2 is a good way to
get a grip on this complex topic of "culture and the gospel!.
Niebuhr says that our appreciation and understanding of Jesus
through the gospels are inadequate, as they do not fully
capture his totality, since they are culturally conditioned. How
can the built-in limitations of a finite human mind fully
comprehend and infinite God? This is why God is sometimes
described as "more than!, more than any human
comprehension. But we can rely on the sufficiency of the grace
to guide us through. As indicated earlier, Jesus challenged
social boundaries, conventions, Sabbath restrictions, purity
laws, culture and traditions; he was indeed a social reformer.
Niebuhr!s analysis of Jesus! interaction with culture has five
aspects: Christ against culture, Christ of culture, Christ above
culture, Christ and culture in paradox, and Christ the reformer
of culture. Jesus questioned the Jewish culture of his day into
which he was incarnated, and from within that culture he
transcended to set up a new paradigm for establishing God!s
kingdom. There is no room here to expand on Niebuhr!s ideas,
but it is helpful to consider briefly the idea of Christ as the
reformer or transformer of cultures. There are conflicts and
tensions when the gospel message encounters individual
cultures or other religious instincts. At various points in colonial
history, missionary movements were involved in the destruction
of indigenous cultures. Norman Lewis!s book, The
Missionaries,3 shows how North American fundamentalist
missionaries wiped out certain indigenous tribal cultures of
South America. The church originated within the Judeo-
Christian and Greco-Roman cultural settings and spread to
various other geographical locations and cultures, and has
enriched them and was enriched by them. Culture is never a
finished product; all cultures are dynamic, evolving themselves
to ever-new situation.
It is not possible to withdraw totally from the surrounding
culture without choosing a monastic lifestyle. Instead of
blaming and highlighting the negative aspects of a culture, we
should become agents of change and transformation.
Appreciating the good things that a culture can offer is part of
the enculturation process. At the very same time, we should
have the humility to appreciate and accept that the gospel!s
power cannot be contained in any particular culture or within a
particular Christian denomination. It reaches into every culture
and transforms it by changing the lives of people within.
Enculturation is a process of engagement between the gospel
and a particular culture. A good example of this is St. Paul!s
ministry in allowing Gentile Christians not to have circumcision
(Galatians). Are we permitted to think of its equivalent for us
today? The ongoing dialogue between faith and culture is a
mutually beneficial one; without enculturation the proclamation
of the gospel message is incomplete. During the early part of
the 20th century, Bishop A. J. Appasamy and others were
engaged in rethinking and presenting Christ in the Indian
cultural context, thus the expression of "Oriental Christ! became
acceptable for the Indian psyche. Raymond Panikkar!s
Unknown Christ of Hinduism and M. M. Thomas! The
Acknowledge Christ of the Indian Renaissance were
praiseworthy efforts in understanding the interaction between
India!s pluralist culture and the gospel. No one culture is
allowed to claim for itself the sole rightful possession of the
mystery of Christ. The covenantal blessing to Abram, as we
read in Genesis 12:3, is for people of all cultures and nations:
“And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed”. Every
dialogue of Christians with another culture should enhance
their understanding of what the gospel means.
Young people in our Diaspora communities are often not
allowed to enjoy their own freedom for an enculturation
process in an orderly way by the non-flexible attitudes and
stubborn behavior of the elders in parishes. Are the elders
spying on their freedom? Let us be mindful of a critical or
negative attitude towards new ways of worship, different music,
the enthusiasm of young people, the ministry of women etc.
Jesus is greater than all our conventional and respectable
ways of being a Sunday Christian; "Jesus is greater than the
Sabbath!. These tensions are alienating young people and
encouraging them to seek sanctuaries outside for a fresh
expression of faith. The church has a responsibility to bring the
power of the gospel into the very heart of the prevalent youth
cultures so that young people may feel happy within the fold of
the mainline churches. We have a situation of one gospel and
many cultures; we need to learn to negotiate with respect and
understanding to break down cultural barriers and bridge
generational gaps to reach out to people. Gospel is never
heard in isolation of culture. In the modern "university campus
cultures! and environment, theology is not generally considered
to be a source of genuine intellectual pursuit; logical reasoning
and the gospels are at odds with each other. Apologetics and
faith formation are necessary tools for the gospel to make an
impact on our younger generations; we may have to think
outside the box of the Sunday school teachings to achieve this;
they are not infants and they need more than milk for their
spiritual growth to face secularists, agnostics and atheists. M.
M. Thomas4 in one of his talks on "Mission of the church in the
pluralistic context of India! quoted Jurgen Moltman to give an
emphasis to the idea of enculturation: “There were Jewish
reasons for believing in Jesus to be the Christ. There were
Greek reasons for believing Jesus as the Logos….. Culture
and religion cannot be separated. Consequently today we shall
also have to enquire into Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic reasons
for faith in Jesus.” Paul Tillich proposed a theology of culture
and considered religion and culture integrally. He treated
"religion as the substance of culture and culture as the form of
religion.!5
Pluralism and secularism are significant realities, which
describe the Western culture today. Therefore, one of the
challenges for us is to transform the secular into the sacred; for
this we need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to become both
discerners and transformers. In order to transform cultures, we
must recognize what is in need of transformation. The only way
to transform a culture is by engaging with that culture with
trepidation, respect, and with a critical mind. This should be our
approach in interacting with the youth culture of today as well.
We need to move from being victims of circumstances to active
agents of dialogue and negotiations under the guidance of the
Holy Spirit. As we interact with alien or other cultures, our faith
should guide us in making all the right moves. The burden of
proof is upon the believers to explain how does Jesus Christ,
who was once incarnated into a particular historical cultural
situation, transcends cultural barriers to reach others today to
establish kingdom values. We need to deepen our
understanding of the cultural implications of the gospel
message for today!s congregations living in the Diaspora
regions of the Mar Thoma Church. We should use technology-
driven communication media too for achieving these
objectives. Our God-given communication skills must be put
into effective use to reach out to other cultures and transform
them. God-guided and God-centered Biblical studies,
fellowships with other believers, prayer, and meditation will be
of help to maintain an intimate relationship with God; this is
necessary to get the spiritual energy every day to help us
engage and transform the cultures around us. A critical study
of culture and the gospel will give us the grace to do God!s
mission in our God-given and entrusted Diaspora existence.
This is the essence and power of everyday theology.
References:
*1. Part-1, 2 and 3 of this article appeared in the previous
issues of the FOCUS: Vol.1 No.3 & Vol.2 No.1&2.
2. Richard Niebuhr. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper and
Row, 1951.
3. Norman Lewis. The Missionaries. London: Picador,
Macmillan, 1998.
4. M.M. Thomas. The Church!s Mission and Post-Modern
Humanism. Tiruvalla: CSS, 1996.
5. Paul Tillich, Theology of Culture. London: Oxford University
Press, 1959.
Editor!s Note: Dr. Zac Varghese,
London, U.K., was the director of
Renal and Transplantation
Immunology Research of Royal
Free Hospital and Medical School
in London. He has co-authored
Medical textbooks and published
extensively on Transplantation,
Nephrology, Inflammation, and
lipid-mediated vascular injury. He
is an Emeritus Professor and
continues to be a supervisor for
doctoral studies even after his
retirement. He is also a prolific writer on religious and
ecumenical issues; he continues to work relentlessly for the
!common good" of the worldwide Mar Thoma Diaspora
communities.
!"#$% '()#* +,"#(-#
Celia Blackden, Inter Faith Officer, Churches Together in England (CTE)
Our world today
The last hundred years have seen an unprecedented migration
of peoples around the globe, leading to the multicultural,
multiethnic and multi-faith societies found in our country and
others today. Many Christians have felt called to look beyond
their own circle and build up friendly relations with believers of
other religions.

Wars, violence and terrorism
We must not be blind to the facts of history in which "wars of
religion! have been fought. Although in our day religion is rarely
a direct cause of conflict, there are many conflicts in the world
where religion is used or abused to further violence.
Nonetheless, religions are also authentic sources of peace and
reconciliation. Many church leaders, and leaders of other
religions, have affirmed and declared that violence in the name
of religion is an offence to God and that anyone who uses
religion to stir up violence contradicts its most authentic and
profound inspiration. In the wake of civil disturbances in the
north of England in 2001, and following terrorist atrocities, an
increasing number of Christians have become involved in inter
faith activity and in efforts made by civic authorities at every
level to foster dialogue and understanding for the benefit of
society. Nonetheless, peace is inseparably linked to justice - a
fairer sharing of the world!s resources and, also, to
forgiveness.



God!s love for all humanity – the call to dialogue
The Bible offers profound insights into God!s love for humanity.
The opening chapters of the Book of Genesis (1-11) are
universal in scope and show that God!s initial design embraced
all of humanity. The book of Jonah has long been recognized
as having a universal note, where even the Ninevites were
precious in God!s eyes and showed a greater responsiveness
to God!s call than Jonah did. The Servant Song in Isaiah 49:6,
taken up by Paul in Acts 13:47, speaks of "God!s servant being
a light not only to Israel, but to all nations!.

Building good relations with people of other faiths is one way of
making explicit our trust in God in whom "we live and move and
have our being! (Acts 17:28), the God who even "counts the
hairs on our head! (cf. Matt. 10:30). For Christians, genuine
love of God necessarily involves love for our brothers and
sisters in the human family, for we are all God!s children.
"Those who say, “I love God”, and hate their brothers or sisters,
are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom
they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen! (1
John 4:20).

The call to dialogue comes directly from our faith in God who is
both One and Three. In God there is a Trinitarian life of
exchange, mutual indwelling and communion; and since
humanity is made in God!s image, for human life and
interaction to be true to itself it should be modelled on the
pattern of the Trinity.

Dialogue can be seen to be part of our spiritual DNA, so to
speak, which calls us always beyond ourselves to build a
relationship of interaction and fellowship with the "other! and
with "others!, whoever they may be. We naturally rejoice when
there is growth and harmony in relationships; we suffer when
relationships are threatened, distorted or broken.

The presence of God in other religions
Christians in Britain hold a spectrum of theological views on the
status of other faiths. There are those who consider that,
through the work of the Holy Spirit, or the Logos – the Word of
God as expressed in the prologue to St John!s Gospel – other
religions can mediate God!s salvation in Christ, even though
they may not have an explicit or full knowledge of Christ. Many
insist that only an explicit acceptance of Jesus as Saviour
allows full access to the salvation God brought about in Christ.
Others affirm that God has laid down many paths, which in
them-selves mediate salvation without an explicit or implicit link
to the person of Christ.

While there is much contemporary debate on these questions,
they were also considered by leading figures in the first
centuries of the Church!s life, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria and Athanasius. Reflecting on the words
of John!s prologue that "all things came into being through the
Word!, Athanasius speaks of the Word being "stamped! or
"imprinted! on the whole of creation. Justin wrote: "Since it is
God who works all things in all, he is, by his nature and his
greatness, invisible and ineffable to all his creatures, but not
therefore unknown, for through his Word, all learn there is one
sole God and Father, who contains all things, who gives being
to all things….! This gave rise to the concept of "seeds of the
Word! being found in other religions.

Among the significant principles Christians share with other
religions is the so-called "Golden Rule!. The Christian text Luke
6:31 reads "Do to others as you would have them do to you.!
The Golden Rule is found in the teachings of almost all
religions and we can consider it "an invitation to put into
practice a precept, or word of life! (cf Phil: 2:15-16), we share.
We can move on from there to discover how to love our
neighbours according to their real or particular needs.

On this basis we can enter into a real dialogue where, not only
are there already things in common but where, albeit among
practices and doctrines in contrast to our own, we may find
Christ already waiting for us. Generally, adherents of other
religions are pleased to build on these elements of faith we
share, whilst hoping that Christians will seek to understand and
respect the differences that exist among religions.

So who is acceptable to God? Who is saved?
Our Christian faith makes strong affirmations about salvation
through Christ alone and in John 14:6 Jesus states clearly "I
am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father,
but by me!. However, Christians believe that Christ died for all
and it is not for us to judge whether people are close to Christ
or not since the ways of God are inscrutable and we cannot
read people!s hearts. John Wesley said, for example "I have no
authority under God to judge those who are without! and
Scripture gives important insights that encourage humility and
trust in God; "God shows no partiality, but in every nation
anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to
him! (Acts 10:34-35). "Then people will come from east and
west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God.
Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who
will be last! (Luke 13: 28-29).

This apparent paradox that exists within Christianity is a
positive challenge to us. The World Council of Churches
affirmed: "We cannot point to any other way of salvation than
Jesus; at the same time, we cannot set limits to the saving
power of God!. A commentator said "We appreciate this tension
and do not attempt to resolve it!. So while there is no need for
Christians to renounce their belief that Christ alone is the path
to salvation, we are also invited to understand that the infinite
love of God knows no boundaries.

Witnessing to Christ
We are called to witness to Jesus by the constant re-
evangelisation of our lives and our service to others.
Nonetheless, we are also invited to speak when appropriate:
"Always be ready to give a defence to everyone who asks for a
reason for the hope that is in you.! (1 Pet 3:15). Christians must
think carefully about how to speak about their faith in a multi-
faith society, hence the importance of prayer and study. We
trust too that the Spirit may guide us in the present moment, as
to what to say and when. Respect is key to every dialogue,
involving a willingness to listen and to learn. Our dialogue
partners can be very sensitive to poorly hidden agendas
regarding hoped for conversion to Christ. They welcome
however, Christian sharing on what we believe, when views
are given "with gentleness and reverence! (1 Pet 3:16) whilst
being ready "to make disciples of all nations! (cf Matt 28:19)
we must remember that Christian faith is a gift from God, the
work of the Holy Spirit, and that mission is not measured by
visible results. Nonetheless, perhaps the most important
feature of witness today, is mutual love among Christians of
different traditions "By this everyone will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another! (John 13:35)
.
Principles of dialogue
These grew out of a World Council of Churches document
published in 1979 and are endorsed by Churches Together in
England.

Dialogue begins when people meet each other
Dialogue is first of all about people: meeting, building
friendships, conversation, laughter, tears, sharing. Once we
meet, we may realize that Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews,
Zoroastrians, Baha!is, Jains or Buddhists are not what we
thought. We realize too that no one is the perfect embodiment
of faith. Dialogue has been defined as "all positive and
constructive interreligious relations with individuals and with
communities of other faiths that are directed at mutual
understanding and enrichment in obedience to truth and
respect for freedom!. While Christians have a special
relationship with the Jews, and share the "Abrahamic tradition!
with Islam too, much can be learned from and exchanged with
the faithful of all religions.

Dialogue depends on mutual understanding and trust
It is essential to abolish notions of superiority with regard to
any neighbor, because we can truly learn from everyone we
meet. Trust also requires that each dialogue partner is intent
on listening to and receiving the best of the other (it is not right
to compare our "best! and their "worst!); and that everyone
listens with an open heart and mind. It has been said that "to
know the other!s religion implies seeking to walk in the other!s
shoes, seeing the world as he or she sees it, grasping what it
means for the other person to be Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu…!.

Genuine dialogue nonetheless, requires that each partner work
from a position of strength, knowledge and confidence in their
faith. To dilute our faith is a disservice to others. Hence, mutual
understanding leaves room for the view that Christ is the only
mediator through whom salvation is possible, just as it does for
other perspectives. Where there is both giving and receiving
there is the possibility of challenge, change and growth on both
sides.

Dialogue makes it possible to share in service to the
community
The opportunities are endless. Increasingly too at the level of
local and regional governance, faith communities acting
together are being invited to take part in planning and
resourcing. The Christian community can play a key role here.

Dialogue becomes a medium for authentic witness
The faithful of other religions are willing to hear what Christians
believe. While Christian communities or individuals on their
faith journey may not adhere to all of the articles in the
Apostles Creed, it remains an essential summary of Christian
belief: "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven
and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was
buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose
again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand
of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the
dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection
of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.!

Identifying with others - imitating Christ
Interreligious dialogue and collaboration requires openness to
others and a readiness to learn from them; that can seem to be
in contrast to the immense treasure of our faith in Christ and
the truth he revealed. Here Christ!s own example is the key.
Christ "though he was in the form of God!, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited, "but emptied
himself… And being found in human form he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a
cross! (Phil. 2:5-11). In Christ and with him we can "empty
ourselves! which means to put aside our own point of view in
order to identify with the other person. It is a matter of
momentarily setting aside what we have and what is most
precious to us, our own faith, our own convictions, in order to
be, as it were, "nothing! in front of the other person, a
"nothingness of love!. "…unless a grain of wheat falls into the
earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it
bears much fruit! (John 12:24).

This, "dying to ourselves! enables us to learn from others and
also give authentic witness to Christ. Our complete openness
and acceptance then predisposes the other person to listen to
us. Then we can pass on to proclaiming with respect. Being
true to God, and being sincere with our neighbor, we can share
what our faith affirms on the subject we are discussing, without
imposing anything, without any trace of proselytism
1
, but only
out of love.

Multicultural society becoming an intercultural society
If this is our attitude, our partners in dialogue will be able to
express themselves because they find people who seek to
listen deeply and speak respectfully. In this way, we can
become acquainted with their faith and with their culture. We
can in some way enter into their lives, even to some extent
becoming in a sense enculturated in them, and so be enriched.
This attitude enables us to contribute to making our
multicultural societies become intercultural that are, made up of
cultures that are open to one another and in a profound
dialogue of respect and love with one another.

Difficult questions
Nevertheless, dialogue and collaboration with our neighbors of
other faiths does not mean agreeing with beliefs or practices
contrary to our faith or remaining silent about things we might
disagree with in other faiths. However, great care and delicacy
is required in order to seek to understand fully, the beliefs and
practices of others and the culture(s) they are associated with.
Ways of thinking and acting may seem different from our own
but they are not necessarily wrong. We too should be prepared
to answer difficult questions. Where there is a context of trust
and a willingness to be part of the solution rather than part of
the problem, difficult questions can be raised.

The fruits of dialogue
Dialogue frees hearts to love each neighbor in a disinterested
way. It helps Christians re-discover and deepen their faith and
appreciate the faith and practices of others. It allows Christians
to discover truths held in common with the faithful of other
religions and to put them into practice together. Dialogue
forges genuine friendships, builds the local community and
brings joy, peace, understanding and light. Dialogue and
effective action together also give credibility to religion in the
eyes of those who question its usefulness.

Editor!s Note: Celia Blackden was
educated at St. Hugh"s College, Oxford.
Along with the late Bishop Charles
Henderson she built up the work of the
National Roman Catholic Committee for
Other Faiths. Her present post, Inter
Faith Officer at Churches Together in
England, fosters deeper collaboration in
the field of interreligious dialogue by the
Churches in England. She is the author
of Friendship and Exchange with
People of Other Faiths: a context for witness and dialogue (EV91)
Grove Books, and co-authored, with Dr. Helen Reid, a Chapter on
Unity and Inter Faith Relations in Unity in Process: Reflections on
Ecumenical Activity, ed. Rev. Dr. Clive Barrett, DLT August 2012. The
web site for Churches Together in England (CTE) is www.cte.org.uk

1
Pressurizing people to convert
Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Mar
Athanasius Suffragan
Metropolitan (1914-1984)*
Dr. Zac Varghese, London
Photo courtesy: Mr. Jacob Joseph, Toronto
This photograph of Thomas Thirumeni has an amazing quality
and power to talk to us about who he was. I take this
opportunity to write few lines to pay homage to this disciple of
Jesus Christ. 2014 is the birth centenary of Thirumeni. He was
born on 26
th
May 1914 in the Panampunna family at Kottayam.
He passed away on 27
th
November 1984. In 1953, he was
consecrated as a bishop of the Mar Thoma Church together
with Mar Alexander Mar Theophilus and Philipose Mar
Chrysostom. These three outstanding bishops contributed
much to the golden age of the Mar Thoma Church.
I had the privilege of knowing him from my childhood and
enjoyed his thoughtful and loving mentoring all my life. He had
a parathyroid surgery in London in October 1984, and I still
remember him telling me, "I feel like a new man.! He was so
happy about the way he was looked after in the hospital; he
was indeed a prince, the doctors and nurses felt holiness and
divinity in his manners and contact with them. He used to tell,
"No one should do anything, which may hurt the Church.! I am
sure many of you may also recollect with great affection many
things that Thirumeni said and did. He always will stand out in
my mind as someone who set forth with such total discipline,
integrity, courage, style, dignity, and leadership. Some of us,
who had the exceptional fortune to know him, continue to turn
to him for help and guidance because he is indeed a living
legend and has been a lasting influence. Many people would
acknowledge that Thomas Thirumeni was the most outstanding
Indian bishop of the twentieth century. (Contd. on Page 15)
Pearls of Wisdom from Down the Ages-5
St. Augustine
A reading from St. Augustine!s commentary on the Gospel of St. John*
[St. Augustine (354 – 430 CE) was a very influential
theologian; he is considered as one of the most
important Church Fathers. His most important works are
"City of God! and "Confessions!. Believing that the grace
of Christ was indispensable to human freedom, he
helped to formulate the doctrine of original sin and made
seminal contributions to the development of just war
theory.]
A woman from Samaria came to draw water (John 4:
3-43).

A woman came to draw water. She is a type of the
Church not yet justified, but already on the way to
justification. Now this what the text is saying: she came
in ignorance, she found him and he entered into
conversation with her. Let us look at the meaning of this
and see why a woman from Samaria came to draw
water. The Samaritans did not belong to the Jewish race,
for they were foreigners. It is part of the allegory that this
woman, who stands for the Church, came from a foreign
race, for the Church was to come from the Gentiles, and
for the Jews its members were outsiders. Let us
therefore hear ourselves spoken of in her; let us
ourselves recognise in her, and let us in her give thanks
to God for what we are. She was indeed an image, not
the reality, for she was foreshadowing of what was to
become and this foreshadowing became truth. She
believed in Him, and He made her story into a parable
for us. She came to draw water, quite simply to draw
water, as men or women were accustomed to do.
Jesus said to her, !Let me have a drink." His disciples
had gone into the city to buy food. The Samaritan
woman said to Him: How is that you, a Jew, should ask
me for a drink, for I am a Samaritan? The Jews have no
dealings with Samaritans.
Let us consider the position of the foreigners. The Jews
would not even touch their utensils. Since the woman
was carrying her vessel to draw water she was amazed,
because here was a Jew asking her for a drink, which
was not the custom of the Jews. Moreover, He who was
asking her for a drink was thirsting for her to believe.
Finally, consider who it is who was asking for a drink.
Jesus replied and said to her: If you knew the gift of
God, and who it is who says to you, let me have a drink,
you would perhaps have asked Him and He would have
given you a drink of living water.
He asks for a drink, and He offers a promise of a drink.
He is need of one, and He has himself so much to give
that will more than quench her thirst. If you knew the gift
of God, he says. The gift of God is the Holy Spirit. Up to
now He has not been speaking openly to the woman.
But gradually He penetrates into her heart. Perhaps now
He is teaching her, for what could be kinder or more
gentle than His words of exhortation: If you knew the gift
of God and who it is who says to you, let me have a
drink, you might perhaps ask Him to give you a drink and
He might give you living water.
From what source is He intending to give her a drink, if
not from that of which it is said: With you is the source of
life? For how shall they thirst who drink their fill from the
copious fountains of your dwelling? He was promising
her an unfailing supply, the fullness of the Holy Spirit,
and she did not understand; and as she did not
understand, how did she answer? The woman said to
Him: "Lord, give me that water, so that I may never be
thirsty, nor have to come here to draw water anymore.!
Her poverty made her think of work, and her weakness
made her reluctant to undertake it. If only she could hear
the words: Come to me, all of you who labor and are
overburdened, and I will refresh you! Jesus was saying
this so that she would not have to toil any longer; but she
did not yet understand.
* A Word in Season edited by H. Ashworth, 1974; The
Talbot Press, Dublin, page 227-228

Collected by Dr. Zac Varghese
E. Stanley Jones! Strategy for Missions: Lessons for Today
Rev. Martin Alphonse Ph.D., Portland, OR

Introduction:



Eli Stanley Jones was born on 3 January 1884, in Clarksville,
an insignificant suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. A young man of
23 years he arrived in India in 1907 as a missionary of the
American Methodist Mission Board. Keeping India as his base,
he served as a global evangelist for the next 66 years until his
death on 25 January 1973. During his life time, Time Magazine
identified him as "The World's Greatest Missionary'. World
Outlook Magazine named him: "Missionary Extraordinary". A
renowned Bishop described him as: 'The greatest Christian
missionary since St. Paul.” As a global evangelist he traveled
extensively, presenting the gospel on a one-on-one basis to
presidents and prime ministers, intellectuals and executives,
while preaching to hundreds of thousands of hungry masses,
speaking three or more times daily. He spoke at the celebrated
Maramon Convention of the Mar Thoma Church in Kerala to
almost 1,50,000 people every February for 44 consecutive
years. As a prolific writer, he authored about 31 books, besides
contributing numerous articles to Christian journals. As an
evangelist he was busy "round the clock, round the year, round
the world.! As a missionary strategist, Jones was way ahead of
his contemporaries. There is so much we can learn from his
life, ministry and the evangelistic missionary strategies he
employed in his generation.

E. Stanley Jones – A Passionate Evangelist.
Stanley Jones was gifted of God with a brilliant mind and an
exceptional power for communication. Only a few of his
contemporaries could match his capacity for interpreting the
gospel as something irresistibly attractive and relevant to the
modern and post-modern age. He substantiated his
evangelistic apologetics with indisputable illustrations from the
fields of religion and philosophy, science and psychology.
However, more than being an intellectual, he was a passionate
evangelist. His passion for evangelism emerged out of three
other inter-connected passions, namely the passion for God,
for people, and the Kingdom of God.

1. His Passion for God in Christ.
Dr. Paul Rees, a long-term associate of Stanley Jones
described him as a "Christ-intoxicated' person. Indeed he was
a Christo-holic, a God-addict. He confessed: "I am an ordinary
man doing extraordinary things because I am linked with the
extraordinary" (1968:26). That link with the extraordinary was
the source of his powerful ministry for 66 remarkable years.
Once, someone after listening to his passionate presentation of
the gospel commented, 'Jesus has got into you. Hasn!t he?"
He exuberantly replied, 'Yes, and he has raised my
temperature."

It was said of Count Nikolaus Zinzendorf, founder of the great
missionary Moravian Church: "I have one passion. It is He! He
alone." Stanley Jones too was so overwhelmed with a passion
for Jesus Christ that he sought to know Christ not only through
his own personal experience but also through the experience
of others of Christ. He believed that, "... each nation has
something distinctive to contribute to the interpretation of the
universal Christ ... each individual ... has something distinctive
to contribute to the fuller interpretation of Christ' (1944:7-8).
While as an evangelist he eagerly presented Christ to others,
he was equally eager to learn more about Christ through
others. In his classical first book entitled The Christ of the
Indian Road (1925), he describes with passion the Christ
whom he had discovered through the cultural context and
spiritual quests of the people of India. True to his own cultural
heritage, he also sought to discover Christ from a North
American perspective through another book called The Christ
of the American Road (1944). Affirming that we could always
learn about Christ from each other's experience and
interpretation, he wrote another book called The Christ of
Every Road (1930). In the Indian tradition, a man or woman of
outstanding devotion to God is reverently addressed as a
bhakta. Even the proudest heads in India would bow in respect
before a bhakta. Dr. E. Stanley Jones, both as a person and as
an evangelist was a Christu-bhakta par excellence, one who
was consumed with a passion for Jesus Christ.

2. His Passion for People.
In his autobiography A Song of Ascents Stanley Jones noted:
"If everyman is a part of everyman he has met -and he is-, then
everyman I have met across the span of over half a century, in
East and West, North and South, is a part of me. I owe much to
the sons of men. They have enriched me. My gratitude is
unbounded' (1968:5). He had an enormous passion for people
of different cultures and races, anywhere, anytime. He wrote: 'I
looked into the face of the Son of Man and then looked into the
face of the sons of men, and I have spent my life trying to bring
them together. After that one look into that 'one dear Face!, I
have never seen an uninteresting face. They are all so
worthwhile with infinite possibilities"(1968:5).

His passion for people is best illustrated by a missiological
principle called 'The Naturalization of the Gospel', which he
originated, practiced and propagated. It is an incarnational
principle of evangelism which as defined by Samuel
Kamaleson means: "A Christian affirmation of human dignity
born out of an inner identity with Jesus Christ, on the basis of
which we become part of the essential humanity in context”
(1983:33). The principle of naturalization of the Gospel consists
of three integral parts.

a) It affirms human dignity.
The biblical doctrine of humans as a creation in the image of
God underscores the validity, nobility and dignity, which are
inherent in every person irrespective of sex, race, color, creed,
and social status. Where this human dignity is recognized and
honored, there will be no room for discrimination of any kind.
Instead, socio-cultural distinctive will be mutually affirmed and
respected, resulting in a spontaneous celebration of the
otherness in others and producing a spirit of equality and
fraternity. Although separated by culture and language, all
humans are equal and united by creation as the image of God.
Jesus Christ is not comfortable with any one culture
exclusively. He purifies every culture and gives dignity to every
person created in God's image.

b) It affirms our identity with Jesus Christ.
The Christian affirmation of human dignity stems out of our
inner identity with Jesus Christ. This identity releases us from
all bondages, restores us to full freedom and recreates us into
a new humanity in Christ. “... if anyone is in Christ he (she) is a
new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17). This creative newness we
receive by being in Christ disentangles us from our prejudice
against others, enables us to see others also as an integral
part of that one essential humanity we share in Christ, and
calls us to uphold the dignity in every person. One who is in
Christ cannot be otherwise. Jesus affirmed this dignity in the
Jew and in the Samaritan, in the bureaucrat and in the
proletariat, in the saint and in the sinner, in every man and in
every woman. So must be the case with everyone calls oneself
a disciple of Christ.

c) It leads us to become a part of all humanity.
Jesus the Word became flesh, not just Jewish flesh, but the
flesh, which represented and included all humanity. Although
Jesus was born a Jew, he was a universal person. He
conscientiously belonged to humanity as a whole. Stubbornly
refusing to limit his inter-personal relationships only to those
categories of people approved by parochial Judaism, he
mingled freely with the prohibited segments of society such as
the Samaritans, the publicans and the prostitutes. He knew he
had come to die for all of them, and that he belonged to
everyone of them. Hence, all those who claim to belong to
Christ must have within them the spontaneous urge to become
an integral part of the universal humanity of which Christ
himself is the nucleus. It was this intense urge, which made
Stanley Jones to declare: 'Everyman is a part of everyman he
has met ... and ... Everyone who belongs to Jesus, belongs to
everyone who belongs to Jesus.'

3. His passion for the Kingdom of God.
Mission, to Stanley Jones is the church!s attempt to expand the
Kingdom of God on earth, and evangelism is the persuasion of
humans to enter into that Kingdom. He saw six distinct and
integral aspects of the Kingdom, which have a direct bearing
upon the mission of the church.

1) The inseparability of Christ from His Kingdom
Jones saw Christ and His Kingdom as synonyms. They are
inseparably linked together in organic substance of truth. He
wrote that the character of the Kingdom is seen in the
character of Jesus – the Kingdom is Christ-likeness
universalized and Christ is the Kingdom personalized. “The
unshakeable Kingdom, the absolute Order; and the
unchanging Person, the absolute Person. These were two
absolutes than, now they have coalesced and have become
one.” (1972:34). As Dr. Kamaleson has observed, the two
absolutes have become one single "absolute absolute!. Jones!
missiology emerges out of the fusion the two absolutes
together. As such, “mission must be carried out within the
purview of all that the Kingdom of God has to offer humans
under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.” (Alphonse 1993:24-25).

2) The Kingdom of God is God's Total Order for the Total
Human
Immanuel Kant said: 'Two things strike me with awe, the starry
heavens above, and the moral law within.' What was a matter
of awe and wonder for Immanuel Kant was revealed is God's
total order for the government of all of creation, both celestial
and terrestrial. That order which humans have rejected since
creation was exactly what Jesus Christ came to re-establish on
earth. Jesus called it the Kingdom of God and Kingdom of
heaven interchangeably. This New order, which Jesus Christ
inaugurated, is uniquely designed to cater to the total needs of
the total human. The New Order does not reform society, but
regenerates it. In giving the Great Commission to His disciples,
Jesus entrusted to them the responsibility of expanding the
horizons of this New Order to the ends of the earth.

3) The Nature of the Kingdom of God is both Individual and
Social.
God's concern for humans is holistic. He cares for the total
welfare, namely spiritual and physical of both the individual and
the society. Hence, argued Jones: “An individual gospel
without a social gospel is a soul without a body, and a social
gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul.
One is a ghost and the other a corpse.” (1972:40) To Jones,
evangelism is the presentation of the Gospel, which means the
presentation of the Person of Christ for the receptor!s personal
faith and repentance, and the Kingdom the new Social Order
for the liberated person. He said: “Thus social responsibility
becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also
Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to
God … without being truly converted to our neighbor.”
(1975:53)

4) The Kingdom of God is the way to total freedom.
The Kingdom of God is the only holistically redemptive
institution on earth, and the only way out for all the ever-
escalating global problems of war, social injustice, hunger and
poverty. The greatest freedom human need is freedom from
self-entanglement. The Kingdom of God offers us total freedom
by offering us a sense of purpose, direction, meaning and
wholeness. It shows humans that: a) Humans have a destiny
to live for. Jones emphasized: “… man and nature and the
whole universe was made by Christ and for Christ, that a
destiny is therefore written into the structure of new things, and
that structure and that destiny is a Christian destiny” (1972:47)
Since Christ is the Kingdom personalized, and the Kingdom is
Christ-likeness universalized, a person who has found me of
them has found both of them. That person has arrived home.
b) Humans have a dignity to live with. Dignity is a
phenomenon, which deals with human worth and respect.
Humans have an in-born urge to earn that respect from each
other, by seeking to define dignity by various ways and means.
Christ and his Kingdom offer us the most sublime and splendid
form of dignity. Jones said: “There is no higher status in this
world or the next than to be a son of God or a daughter of God,
and to be made in the likeness of the Divine Son and to belong
to the Unshakable Kingdom and to the Unchanging Person.
That makes trivial and tinseled any other status” (1972:88). Our
dignity is not determined by who we are, but whose we are. We
belong to Christ and his Kingdom. That settles it. c) Humans
have a design to live by.

The mission of Christ is to transform humans into wholesome
persons. The Kingdom of God is God's design by which he is
building up a New Humanity, a new World Order. This New
Order has deep and wide implications for individuals and
communities as Jesus Christ articulated it in Nazareth
Manifesto according to Luke 4:18-19. They are: i) "the Good
News preached to the poor! meets the needs of the
economically disinherited; ii) "the release of the captives! meets
the needs of the socially and politically disinherited; iii) "the
recovery of sight to the blind! meets the needs of the physically
disinherited; iv) "the setting at liberty of the oppressed! meets
the needs spiritually and morally disinherited; and v) "the
proclamation of the year of jubilee! signals the beginning of the
new World Order under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
(1972:120).

Editor!s Note: Rev. Dr. Martin
Alphonse is an adjunct full time
associate professor at Multnomah
University, Portland, OR. He
completed his B.A. from St.
Xavier"s College, Madurai
University; M.A. from Madras
Christian College; B.D. (M.Div.)
from Union Biblical Seminary;
TH.M., Ph.D. from Fuller
Theological Seminary. He is also
serving as pastor at India
International Church, Portland,
OR, and also served as a pastor
in Methodist churches in India,
Singapore, and the United States. Since 1976, he has also
served as an adjunct lecturer or as a full time associate
professor of mission and evangelism in Bible colleges and
seminaries in India, Singapore, and the United States. He is
also one of the speakers of famous Maramon Convention held
in Kerala, India by the Mar Thoma Church. He can be reached
at [email protected]
(Contd. from Page 11)
Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Mar
Athanasius Suffragan
Metropolitan (1914-1984)*
Dr. Zac Varghese, London
Thomas Thirumeni was first and foremost a bishop, an apostle
of Jesus Christ. He was an apostle, called by Jesus Christ to
lead the Church; he was called to give mentorship to others to
send them to the vineyard; he was called to know when be to
be strict and when to be kind, when to correct and when to turn
a blind eye! Thomas Thirumeni was also a prophet; a prophet
is not a fortuneteller, but a man who interprets the signs of the
time for seeing the action of God here and now and so to point
to future possibilities. Thirumeni also took his teaching role
seriously; Thirumeni was seriously involved in the post
ordination theological education of the clergy. The library in his
Manganam Aramana and St. Augustine Study Centre are
examples of how he wanted to encourage serious in depth
study of the faith of both clergy and laity.

Thirumeni strived for excellence and perfection in all his
endeavors, whether it was singing, chanting, preaching,
teaching, pastoral care, administering or giving leadership.
Mediocrity had no place in his thinking. Quality rather than
quantity was his motto; he strived to present his work as a
perfect offering to "his Lord and his God.! His melodious
chanting of the liturgy was entirely for giving glory to God and
making people feel and experience the presence and holiness
of God during worship; this was an extraordinary gift. When
Thirumeni chanted, "Holy art Thou O God,! the entire
congregation felt the holiness and experienced that heavenly
reality.

Our service to great men is not to praise them now and then or
to put their names on institutions and plaques; great men are
inspirations for us to follow them. The greatest thing that we
can do to the memory of Thomas Thirumeni is to take seriously
those things for which he lived his ministry; to hold firmly the
traditions and the doctrine of the Mar Thoma Church, her
Catholicity and apostolic ministry and yet, to be so firmly rooted
in the faith of the Church that we can be free to be confident to
risk anything for the Gospel. Let us therefore, remember those
things, which were nearest to Thirumeni!s heart for that is the
greatest compliment we can pay as faithful children to a great
spiritual father.

* The festschrift volume edited by Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph on the
birth centenary of Thomas Thirumeni and released at
Kottayam on 25 May 2014 will be a useful aid for learning more
about Thirumeni.
Editor’s Note: Also read on Page 22, a sermon delivered by
Thirumeni at Oxford in October 1984, which is a spiritual
classic. He was one of the really committed and faithful
Bishops of the Mar Thoma Church who led church through
several issues in the sixties and seventies. We remember and
thank God for such great leaders of the church.
REACHING OUT – SHARING FAITH AND MEETING SOCIAL NEEDS

Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu, New Delhi

Reaching out, or out-reach, is the genius of the biblical faith.
It is the secret of its dynamism. Out-reach is the very nature
of God. Remember how Adam and Eve went and hid
themselves, after disobeying God? They would have become
anthills if God had not reached out to them! Each time the
Jews reneged and slinked away from God, he reached out to
them. This "outreach! is a natural and necessary expression
of the Creatorship of God. The Creator, unlike a curator,
cannot but reach out, when any part of Creation is in peril or
decay, just as the Good Shepherd, unlike the hireling, will
reach out to the lost sheep (Jn. 10).

Incarnation is a historical expression of this out-reaching-
ness of God. Jesus said clearly and emphatically that he
came to seek and save the lost. (Luke. 19:10) Given that that
is the quintessential purpose of his coming into the world, we
should expect that he will sent us out, if we heed his call and
go to him. It is, indeed, to send us out that he calls us to
himself. It is in this sent-ness that Jesus abides with us most
powerfully. (John. 15:4)



There are only two models of leadership in the world. First,
leaders who expect you to go to them. Such people will make
it difficult for you to reach them, even as they expect you go
to them! They want you to go them, but they do not want to
have you with them. They understand their importance in
terms of this contradiction. Such leaders show off their
importance or power in terms of their inhospitality and
inaccessibility. This is inherent in the worldly idea of
leadership. In the second model, the leader is marked by his
outreach. He comes! Because he comes, there is the
assurance of redemption and transformation. The Nazareth
Manifesto (Luke 4:18) for example, is ridiculous in respect of
the first model. i.e. the "come-to-me, but touch-me-not!
model.

Imagine a leader of the first model meeting with the woman
of Samaria! (Jn.4) First of all, this is a logical impossibility.
But, for the sake of argument, let us assume that such a
meeting can take place. What would be the outcome? The
woman, already fallen, will only be exploited and degraded
further. I note this in passing only to underline the danger

hidden in the "come-to-me! model or the anti-outreach model,
which is the reigning model today.

What is the rationale for outreach? Why reach out at all?
What is the discipline of this outreach?
Well, the thief also reaches out! So, not every instance of
outreach is spiritually valid of humanly beneficial. Outreach
has to be, as Jesus defines it, "like sheep among wolves!
(Mtt. 10:16). The wolf is a symbol of unilateralism. Outreach,
when it is cast in the mold of unilateralism, becomes
predatory. The corrupt politician reaches out to the electorate
at the time of election. He is a wolf among lambs. The lamb
is the symbolic opposite of the wolf. It is, symbolically,
mutuality introduced into a world of unilateralism. The lamb
will, hence, be at peril. It risks being ripped apart. But the
lamb is, mercifully, safe against acquiring the nature of the
wolf. The outreach of the wolf and the thief is marked by
aggressive self-interest. They live in a world in which
neighbors will be victims.

You would recall that Jesus, while calling Simon and his
brother Andrew, promised to make them "fishers of men!.
They were, till then, "fishers of fish!. What is the difference
between the two? Fishers of fish work only for their profit.
They are, that is, unilateral. Do their "outreach! results in pain
and cruelty. Fishers of men reach out for the sake, and only
for the ultimate good, of his fellow human beings. That is the
hallmark of the Christian outreach.

It is outreach of this kind that embodies the power and
possibilities of the biblical faith. Though this has many
aspects, we shall, for the time being, look at only two of
them: sharing faith and meeting needs.
Sharing faith………………

John, the Evangelist, puts the strategy of sharing faith
incomparably well: “the Word became flesh” (Jn. 1:14). It is
inherent in the logic of outreach that the self (even the Self)
changes. The willingness to change is basic to the
wholeness of outreach. Hence it is that Jesus said, “He who
wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up my
cross and follow me.” (Mtt.16:24) Outreach, without the
saving grace of self-denial, quickly degenerates into the
“thief/wolf” model.

So the Word became flesh. Not that there was anything
wrong with the Word! Even the Word has to change itself into
something else to be an agent of outreach. If we are in Christ
Jesus, we shall be a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5: 17). Or, we
shall be "born again! (Jn. 3.3). This is the essential
precondition for our outreach to be conducive to sharing the
faith. Else, our outreach is likely to discredit the faith.

Our educational institutions, for examples, are embodied
outreaches. At least they are meant to be. Through them we
are in engagement with those outside of our community. Do
they, as of today, share the faith or sear the faith? Why are
they, if they are, stumbling blocks? Isn!t it because they reject
the discipline and strategy that God himself accepted? If the
salt has lost in saltiness, it is good only to be cast out and
trampled underfoot by others, says Jesus.

If, as the administrator of a Christian institution, I do not deny
myself and become something other than, or more than, "an
administrator! as the world understands this phenomenon,
what earthly chance there is that I will share my faith, or may
even want to share my faith, with anyone? A Christian
Principal is one who is not a stereotypical Principal, but a
missionary. To be a missionary in the domain of education, I
have to deny myself as Principal. Only when I deny myself as
Principal do I become a Christian Principal. To be a King one
has to deny one-self. Only the Servant King can be a true
King. All else are imposters and pretenders. Those who have
ears to hear let them hear.

The second aspect of sharing faith is "dwelling amidst! or
"being with!. The Word, would have fallen short of the model
of "sharing faith! even if it had become flesh, but did not care
to "dwell in the midst! of people. “Abide in me, and I in you,”
says Jesus (Jn. 15:4). This is an area of crippling weakness
for us at the present time. On the social plane, we live,
mostly, self-exiled. We are not in engagement with the world
around us. We marginalize ourselves. Experientially, we live
compartmentalized. Our professional life and our faith life are
poles apart. Our weekdays mock our Sundays! What governs
one is irrelevant, even incompatible with the other. We are
split personalities and there is, alas, no wholeness in us!
How, then, can we share faith? We cannot "have! faith, much
less "share! faith!

The third aspect puts the spotlight on who we are, or how
others experience us. We need to live in their midst “full of
grace and truth”. Grace is that God-given quality in you which
enables others to be reminded of the presence and authority
of God in interacting with you. Showing the other cheek, for
instance, is an expression of this grace. Staying focused on
the purpose God has for us in calling us and sending us out –
being good and faithful servants- is an aspect of this grace.
How we deal with difficult situations, including trials and
tribulations (Mtt.5: 11, 12), proves this grace.

Sharing faith is not a walk in the park! It cannot be done with
human abilities or enthusiasm alone. It has to be a shared
labor. In sharing faith we are partners with Christ. This makes
us a new Creation. It imbues us with grace and truth. It
enables us to abide with people, with even the difficult ones.
It enables us to endure. Endurance is the key to
effectiveness. He who endures to the end, says Jesus, will
be saved. He will be saved from futility and fruitlessness.

Sharing faith is not a matter of Crusades and conventions!
Remember what St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach by all
means; use words, if necessary.” The simplest, and the most
effective way of sharing are, in the words of Jesus, “Come
and see”. This is a far cry from the predicament of Adam and
Eve, who went into hiding! Where do we stand today? Are we
in a position to say to people at large, “Come and see!”? Or,
do we have to go and hide and our heads in the bush of
hypocrisy and playacting?
Meeting needs……………….
What most people rarely realize is that meeting needs is the
measure of our relevance. The needs all around us are
pregnant with opportunities! They comprise the matrix of our
relevance. If we do not, or cannot, respond to needs, are we
not irrelevant? The fig tree sans fruit, that Jesus cursed? But
to see and to respond to the needs of others, we have to
bridle our desires, or overcome our covetousness. That is
why the Ten Commandments contain the Commandment,
“You shall not covet”. Covetousness, on the one hand,
degrades us into wolves or thieves and, on the other, makes
us blind to the needs of others. We remain so obsessed with
our own wants and desires that are cruelly unmindful of the
needs of others (cf. The Parable of the Sheep and the
Goats).

Clarity on the difference between needs and desires is basic
to the discipline of being sent out in outreach. If we are not
spiritually educated on this distinction, we will be no better,
our good intentions notwithstanding, than "fishers of fish!. We
may meet "needs! if you like; but they will only be our own
needs; or what we think are our needs, which may not be
needs at all. How much land, Count Leo Tolstoy asks through
a short story, does a man need? Enough to enable him to
work and live? Or enough to make him collapse and die?
Remember the rich fool?

God has placed us in a world of needs. And what is more, we
live in a world that denies needs and pursues desires
murderously. There is mounting confusion everywhere on
this count. Take an illustrative example. Most people covet
power: the reason why we have kissa kursi ka. What we
need is not "power! but "strength!. Jesus was strong,
awesomely strong; but he was powerless. (Characteristically
this was lost on those who mocked the Crucified. They were
blind to his strength. They clamored for a display of power!)
Power and strength seem, in this contrary world of ours, to
be incompatible. Either you have power or you have strength.
Power belongs to the order of Mammon and strength comes
from the Lord. Strength is inner. Power is derived from
external sources, means and institutions. What stands us in
good stead is strength. The Holy Spirit is strength of that
kind: the strength that transforms adversity into an
advantage, pain into a profit, and crisis into an opportunity.
Any takers for strength?

One of the basic needs that we have is the need to
understand our needs aright. This is discernment. Consider
the parable of the Lost Son. He thought he needed the
licentious, riotous freedom of the "far country!. He learns the
hard way that it is the love of a father that he needs. There is
really no point in busying ourselves with meeting needs if we
are not spiritually educated about what the "needs! are and
we do not share that "faith insight! with others. That is why
Jesus gave the mandate to his disciples, as he sent them out
on their mission, to “preach and heal” (Mtt. 10: 7,8).
Prophetic preaching sets people free from their slavery to the
pattern of the world, which is driven by the multiplication of
desires and wants. The "pattern! of the world is the
substitution of needs with desires.

All human beings have a fundamental need for God. Man
cannot live by bread alone. But we cannot live without bread
either. Hence Jesus! instruction, “Give them something to
eat”. Consider the profundity of this situation. It is the Living
Bread, the Bread of Eternal Life that says, “Give them
something to eat”! It is this balance between the eternal and
the temporal, the spiritual and the material, the worldly and
the otherworldly, the intimate and the ultimate that we need.
Nothing less will do.

Remember Jesus on the Jericho road? He stops to ask the
blind man, Bartimaeus, “What is it that you want me to do for
you?” What is it, in other words, that you need? Thank God,
he was not confused. “Rabbi,” he cried out, “I want to see!”
We have a need to have our eyes opened. Everyone! If only
Christian education were to result in opening the eyes of the
blind!

It is not – pray don!t get me wrong- that material needs do
not matter. They do. But material needs abound in the scope
for misunderstanding. Take your ubiquitous cell phones. How
often should you change your model? And how expensive
need your phones be? If it is to meet your need to
communicate? Is it, really?

What is your need? Is it to communicate? Or is it to afford a
vague feel-good-factor? Or, to show off? Or, to keep up with
the Joneses? Or, is it to play mischief? If it is to
communicate, is it necessary to invest in newer and more
jazzy phones? Isn!t it more important to develop yourself so
that you "have something to say! when you use the phone?
To become a person whose communication will enrich
others? How will catching up with the latest model in the
market help in this respect? What is the use in having the
best communication instrument when you have really nothing
worthwhile to communicate?

It is through outreach that we learn to critique our needs and
to discover the needs of others. This has a liberating effect
on us. Often we remain grumpy just because we do not know
the realities of the world we live in. We are like the boy in a
poem from yester years who kept crying because the pair of
shoes his dad bought for him was not to his liking, until a
beggar came along who had only one leg to stand on. Seeing
him boy stopped crying! That is the power, if you like, of the
beggar!s outreach. How does it matter that it is accidental?
The beggar ministered to the boy!s need better than his
father did. Isn!t this splendid irony? How can we meet
people!s needs, for God!s sake, when we are so confused
about our own needs? Hence it is that Jesus exhorted his
disciples, “Watch and pray!”

Editor!s Note: Rev. Valson
Thampu is an Indian educator,
and Christian theologian, who
is the present Principal of St.
Stephen's College, University
of Delhi, Delhi, since 2008. He
is an ordained minister of
Church of North India and a
member of the National
Minorities Commission in India
and Delhi Minorities
Commission. Thampu pursued
Ph.D. in theology from Sam
Higginbottom Institute of Agriculture, Technology and
Sciences. He can be reached on his email id
[email protected]
“Demons!
Vivek Zachariah Samuel, St. Johns MTC, Hounslow


The subject of “demons”
is rarely discussed as a
serious topic so here is
an opportunity to explore
this further.

Demons are often
referred to as "fallen
angels," or "Satan's
angels."

Satan was the very
highest angel, but made the mistake of rebelling against God
and was cast out of heaven, (Is. 14:12-15). The evil angels
who followed Satan were also cast out.

These evil beings represent the very depths of evil, including
hatred, bitterness and perversions. Though often an
expression of sinful flesh, they can also express their
presence in the lives of people. Their purpose is to torment
and harass people, leading them away from God and His
truth. The Bible gives the following example:

"...This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him
any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been
chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and
broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to
subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills
he would cry out and cut himself with stones" (Mark 5:2-5).

Just as there are archangels in God's kingdom with higher
powers, there are "principalities and powers! that rule over
Satan's angels. There is constant conflict, and battles
between Satan's "principalities and powers! and God's loyal
angels.

We are told that our prayers offer a restraint against their evil
activity by summoning the intervening presence of God (Dan
10:12-13).

Possession is not the same as being influenced or attacked
by Demons. To be "possessed," means to be indwelled by,
and under their complete control. However, they regularly
attack and attempt to trouble and influence mans! behaviour,
even God's people. Christians must guard themselves not
only against the sin of the flesh, but also their influence.
These evil spirits can influence and intensify the works of the
flesh. This must be recognized and stood against before one
can die to the flesh and walk in the Spirit.

However, we as Christian!s need not fear Satan or his fallen
angels. We are told "...the one who is in you is greater than
the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). We need to believe
and allow this promise to guide our walk with Jesus and be a
living testimony for Jesus.

The Golden Rule of the Asian Religions
Rev. Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam

Introduction

The religious people of Asia are commissioned to serve all with
the objective of sharing the fullness of divine life. For this, we
need to initiate a theological understanding of the Holy
Scriptures of the Asian religions with an ethical mandate. The
need is tremendously felt as religious fanaticism is growing in
an alarming way all over Asia. The basic tenets of all the five
major religions of the world- Hinduism, Christianity, Islam,
Buddhism and Jainism do share the Gandhian philosophy of
Sarva Dharma Sadbhavana in their own way. There is a call to
search for the point of convergence rather than confrontation.
The call is addressed to all irrespective of caste and creed in
the Sermon on the Mount: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as
your heavenly Father is perfect” (St.Matt.5: 48). Two questions
emerge out of a sincere search. They are: i) How can people of
differing faiths understand each other and each other!s faith in
the common areas of life? ii) How can we learn and draw
together from the religious resources of differing faiths and
religious traditions with a view to building up a better tomorrow.
A theo-centric theme chosen for the 10th assembly of the
World Council of Church scheduled for 2013 in Korea, God of
Life, leads us to justice and peace, also speaks of a common
interpretation of the historical responsibility for social
transformation. If we are committed “ to celebrate the festival
of life with sincerity and truth”(1 Cor.5:8) we need to look
outward in the same direction. This is possible, if we celebrate
the glory of love in our relationship with God and nature. “Love
does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward
in the same direction.”(De Saint Exupery). There should have a
conscious effort to search for the buckle that binds and the
hyphen that joins the terrestrial and the celestial. The concept
of a vasudhaivakudumbakam (The world as one family)
becomes a reality only when there is an inner constraint to
peruse the things that make for peace and reconciliation. It is
Love, which is the golden rule of all religions that makes a
difference in our common pursuit. Ours is a world of pluralism.
Diversity is the order of creation. In an orchestra one should
not expect everyone to play the same note. Harmony does not
come automatically. It is to be created. Let this prayer be on
our lips, “God Thou art one, make us one”. According to the
Christian doctrine, the triune God is one. Each person of the
Trinity is independent and interconnected just as water has
different kinds of existence. A return to the centre whether in
religion or culture contributes to the making of a relationship.
The values of the household of God, satyam, sivam, sundaram
(Truth, order and beauty) as the Seers in the Upanishads
envisioned have to be adhered to, and their visibility is assured
only when we move from the frontier of human existence to its
the core.

A study of the Holy Books of all the religions of the world
reveals that there are several factors that bind people together.
It is the spirituality of religions, which is the voice of the Spirit or
the cry of the soul from the cave of the heart. To respond to
this call of the groaning of the Spirit in the religious texts
requires boldness on our part to respond. The buzzing of bees,
the twittering of the sparrows, the roaring of the sea, the
chiming of bells from the worshipping places and the groaning
of creation are voices from beyond for a spiritual response. We
need to affirm without a ray of doubt, as Dr. Kaaj Baago, the
Church historian puts it, “if God is the Lord of the universe, he
will work through very culture and religion” towards the
realization of his Plan of Salvation. Raimond Panickker in a
prophetic message said,” if the Church wishes to live, it should
not be afraid of assimilating elements that come from other
religious traditions whose existence it can today no longer
ignore”. These words of wisdom help us to search for the
golden rule of Asian religions, which binds people together.
Crises facing religions of the world



All the religions of the world are deeply rooted in their doctrinal
affirmation of creed, code and cult. They are now showing
symptoms of decay, which I would call moral cancer. This has
spread deep into the soul of humanity. How can we justify
mutual killing in the name of religion? “No society will be
humane so long as one group dominates or subordinates the
other”(Harvey Cox). The age of crusading spirit is gone. What
is required is the spirit of the Crucified. The commercial face of
the religious faith is being promoted by religions all over the
world because of the materialistic and consumerist influences.
As Fr. K. M. George, an ecumenical theologian, puts it in a
WCC document, “ the power brokers of the present global
consumerist economy seem to rejoice in the number of Asian
population, because for them it is over two billion consumers.
The more numerous the consumers, the bigger the profit”! In
such a global context of degeneration of religious faiths, we
need to stand for the regeneration of religious ethos beyond
the written texts and to affirm the rich spiritual traditions of our
Seers, satya, ahimsa, tyaga and seva (truth, non-violence,
sacrifice and service. In the religious images of Christianity,
one may notice several faces. They are Jewish face, Roman
face, Greek face, Colonial face and Commercial face (.Swami
Sachidananda Bharathi). These five faces have no relevance
in the Indian Cultural milieu and in the multi-religious context of
Asia, if we neglect the core of religious values. We need to look
for a common mission paradigm, which speaks of dialogical
existence in the community.

The golden rule in the religious scriptures

The Cosmic Community Center at Kottarakara (Kerala) has
brilliantly brought out a brochure and flagged off the need to
affirm the Golden rule in all the religions of the World. It calls
forth a return to the Centre. The glory of the other is to be
appreciated. In this context, there should be no element of
prejudice and pre-supposition in our search. There is openness
and transparency and even accountability in such a quest from
the grassroots. The ordinary becomes sublime in the eyes of
everybody. The least, the last and the lost have something to
contribute to the common wellbeing. There is no useless
person in God!s economy, but only used-less ones! The Lord!s
covenant with Noah (Gen.9) is indeed the celebration of divine
love for flora and fauna and it is valid for the posterity. In the
catalogue of texts relating to the glory of love, sacrifice and
service are given an exhaled position in all religions. This is
also the message of the gospel story of Feet Washing by
Jesus on the eve of his earthly ministry and the subsequent
institution of the Eucharist. One may notice the same abiding
theme in all the religious texts for human survival. “A grain of
wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls to the ground and
dies”(Jesus). What is required is to live by a new canon of life
which includes a vision and an attitude, as the Sufi Poet
Jalauddin Rumi wrote said ago: “ The lamps are different, but
the light is the same; It comes from beyond. If you keep looking
at the lamp! Thou art lost. For thence arises number and
plurality. Fix your gaze upon the light one may then notice a
unitive vision. The glory of love shines at this point. What a
great message for social harmony!

Let us look at a few classical texts from the scriptures dealing
with the golden rule of life. Christianity: Luke 6:31“Do to others
as you would have them do to you”. Hinduism: Mahabharata
ch.5 this is the sum of duty; do not do others what would cause
pain, if done to you”. Islam: Muhammad!s Hadith: “Not one of
you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for
yourself the prophet.” Judaism: Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat 31a
“What is hateful to you, do not do your neighbor. This is the
whole Torah; all the rest is commentary. Buddhism: The
Buddha-Udarra-Varga-5: 18 “Treat not others in ways that you
yourself would find hurtful”

Confucianism: Confucius Analects 15:23 “One word, which
sums up the basis of all good conduct …Loving-kindness. Do
not do to others what you do not want done to yourself”
Taoism, Lao Tzu, T!ai Shang Kan Ying, P!len, 213-218.
“Regard your neighbors! gain as your own gain and your
neighbor!s loss as your own loss” Baha!i Faith, bahaullah,
Gleanings “Lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish
to be laid upon you, and desire not for anyone the things you
would not desire for yourself” Unitarianism-Unitarian Principle
“We affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of
all existence of which we are a part”.

Nature Spirituality (from the Vedas)

“The whole world is one nest”
“We are the birds of the same nest
We may wear different skins
We may speak in different tongues
We may believe in different religions
We may belong to different cultures
Yet we share the same home- the earth.
Born on the same planet
Covered by the same skies
Gazing at the same stars,
Breathing the same air,
We must learn to happily progress together
Or miserably perish together
For man only live individually
But can only survive collectively.

A Christian prayer (WCC) - Christ!s bonding with humanity

“Almighty God, as your son, our Savior (Jesus Christ)
was born of a Hebrew mother,
But rejoiced in the faith of a Syrian woman, and of a Roman
soldier,
Welcomed the Greeks who sought him
And suffered a man from Africa to carry his cross
So teach us to regard the members of all races
As fellow heirs of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ our Lord….”

According to Christian faith, Jesus is not concerned with
people!s background but their faith in all the religious texts of
the Holy Books, there are a few things that help us to follow.
Life is to be lived not in isolation but in relationship. We are not
like sand on the seashore but like branches on a tree. The
question of God to Cain in the book of Genesis is relevant in all
human contexts: Where is your brother? “Am I my brother!s
keeper” was the reply (Gen.4: 9). Yes, we are our brother!s
keeper. This should be the spiritual response from all religious
faiths. Peace and reconciliation-outcome of the golden rule of
life (love) form the very basis of life in all its fullness. This is
possible if we break the conspiracy of silence and the
boundary of religions. Jesus who was crucified outside the gate
always challenges the Church to cross the boundary of
religion. The crucified hands of Jesus are always beckoning
the whole humanity to move to the centre of love. “Let us go
outside the gate” should be the slogan of the mission mandate
of the Church. This is possible if the Church shows signs of
boldness as shown by the Wisemen (magi) from the East.
They did not co-operate with the machinations of Herod, the
King. “They departed to their own country by another
way”(St.Matt.2: 12). Love always takes the route of truth.
“Sathyameva Jayathe”

The glory of love

The glory of love is indeed a reflection of God in relationship. In
his book One Religion of Love (CSS, Tiruvalla, 2003) by Dr.
Geevarghese Mar Osthathios Metropolitan, there is a call to
transcend the boundaries of religion. For him, celebration of
love as truth in relationship is the hallmark of all religions. Truth
about love can never be buried as love is eternal. The period of
consolidation in religion is over today, but the kairos of
comprehension has come to stay with us.. According to Mar
Osthathios, the Welfare economics of Amartya Sen and of all
the religious and the secular initiatives based on distributive
justice is nothing but love in action. In this respect the one
religion of love becomes the fulcrum for the celebration of
plurality and inclusivism in God!s one world. Mission of the
Church, according to the author, is to manifest the overflow of
God!s love to all people and to the whole universe. The God of
love is also the God of light. In the Holy book of Quran, we
read: “ Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. Allah
guides to His light whom He wills” In the Great Celestial book,
Bhagavad-Gita, it is said that the Lord brightens the world with
his light”. In the Bible, it is well stated “ God is light and in him
there is no darkness at all.” In his hymn of love in 1 Cor.13, St.
Paul speaks about the glory of love in terms of its relation to
religion and ethics. Let me paraphrase 1Cor.13 in a poem
under the title “The Cascade of love”.



Though I live in the evergreen neighborhood
And have all the sophisticated electronic gadgets
Without love, I might as well dwell in a prison!
I may have China woven silk carpets in every room
The most fashionable suites with star facilities
But without love I am a poor beggar.
……………………………….
………………………………..
Love is kind to the old
Love is smile on the face
Love is eyes to the blind
Love is legs to the lame
Love is sad when there are no letters
When the telephone doesn!t ring
And when none weeps when I die!
Love does not have a blind end.

Love tolerates the critics
Love does not keep a record of insults
Love forgives and forgets
Love keeps the light burning in the darkness around.
Bricks and mortar will one day shield my mortal remains
The wood of my coffin will become food for termites
The costliest line on my dead body will become dust
But my soul wrapped in love will soar high to my creator.
(Quoted from the writer!s book, Beyond the Seen and the
Unseen published by the ISPCK/ECC, 2003,p.7).

In praise of love, one may agree with Amy Carmichael!s words:
“:One can give without loving, but one cannot love without
giving”. In all the neo-religious movements including
Christianity, one may notice a new renaissance in Human
civilization, which is marked by the celebration of love and
justice in God!s one world. The spirit of new catholicity as
found in the welfare projects of Sathya Sai Baba whose
teaching is centered on the theme, “Love all, serve all” and
“help ever, never hurt” and of Mata Amritandamayi whose
teaching is grounded in the slogan, “Don!t live just for yourself”
is indeed a celebration of the circle of love. Similar strains are
found in the outreach programs of Santhigiri ashram of
Navajyothi Sri Karurnakra Guru of Pothencode, Shiridi Sai
Baba Ashram, Manmad and in the philosophy of Mother
Teresa of Calcutta. These acts of charity and concern for the
transformation of man and nature are indeed the living canon
of life for a movement towards an Omega point in God!s
economy of Salvation. It is indeed a religious text written in
human hearts.

Moving to the core of faith in all religions

It is the disorientation of religion that causes social disharmony
in the community. The much talked about concept of Jihad in
Islam has nothing to do with violence and killing in the name of
God. It simply speaks of our need to struggle hard to become
good in the face of adharma. During the period of Godhera
carnage, I put up a banner in front of the Ecumenical Christian
Centre, Bangalore (where I served as its director) with the
following words in bold letters: “The color of the blood passing
through the blood vessels of Hindus, Christians, Muslims,
Parsees, Sikhs, Jews and Buddhists is the same, RED. Let us
not reduce India to footnotes in the world community” The
legacy of Ashoka and that of Mahatma Gandhi is indeed a call
to get back to the Center of religious faith which is ahimsa and
love. Mahatma Gandhi, the Man of the Millennium, had rightly
said, “Let all of us Hindus, Muslims, Parsees, Sikhs and
Christians live amicably as Indians, pledged to live for the
mother land. The Manava Mythri (Social harmony) vision of the
Father of the nation rooted in justice, peace and harmony could
be found in railway tickets for some time. Now these words
have disappeared! The face of Gandhi is now found on the
Indian currency with which corruption in public life is widely
practiced! What a great travesty of facts!

Conclusion

In our search of the Holy Books of different religions in terms of
their spirituality, the glory of love urges humankind to affirm
with one voice that love is the principle of cohesion in our
social fabric. Among the five tenets of Islam, Charity is included
as the divine light in our midst. Let us fill the universe with the
enlargement of love, the enrichment of love and above all the
employment of love. Love is to be reflected in our relationship
with human beings and other living creatures. Let me conclude
this paper with a few words of wisdom. “The sunlight is one
and the same wherever it falls but only bright surfaces like
water, mirrors and polished metals can reflect it. So is the
divine light. It falls equally and impartially on all hearts, but only
the pure and clean hearts of the good and holy can fully reflect
it.”(Ramakrishna Paramahamsa). The words of Dr. Tawfik
Hamid, an Egyptian scholar is worth recalling.” I am a Muslim
by faith… a Christian by spirit… a Jew by heart… and above
all I am a human being.” In Mahatma Gandhi!s philosophy of
Sarvadharama Samannya, Gandhiji maintains that a good
Hindu is a good Christian and a good Muslim, a good Christian
is a good Hindu and a good Muslim and a good Muslim is a
good Christian and a good Hindu. What he upholds is bonding
of all religions, which is the glory of love.
Editor!s Note: Rev. Dr. M.J. Joseph, M.Th., D. Th, is the
former Director of the Ecumenical
Christian Centre, Bangalore. He has also
served as Professor and Principal, Mar
Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam,
India. As a former member, Faith and
Order Commission of the World Council
of Churches, he is widely known for his
ecumenical and ecological contributions.
He has served as Secretary Board of
Theological Education, Senate of
Serampore College (University). He currently serves as
Convener, Ecological Commission, of the Mar Thoma Church.
Dr. Joseph has also authored several articles, poems and
books available both in English and Malayalam languages. E-
Mail: [email protected]
Marks of a Disciple*

Rt. Rev. Dr. Thomas Mar Athanasius Suffragan Metropolitan (1914-2014)



Photo courtesy: Mr. Jacob Joseph, Toronto
In every generation, there are those who accept the call of
Jesus and those who remain only would – be disciples.

The three would be disciples:
In the Gospel for today (Matt 4:19; Mark 2:14; Luke 9: 57-62),
the first would be disciple offers himself, without receiving the
call and therefore without counting the cost of discipleship.
The second one received the call, but gave priority to legal
requirements. The third person brings human conditions, on
the basis of which alone he expresses willingness to become
a disciple.

True Christian discipleship is based on the call of God
through His son, the mediator and the response of obedience
of man. Without unconditional obedience, at no time,
discipleship is possible. If it remains exclusively on human
offer, the self is eventually enthroned. Priority to human
requirement degrades into the religion of legalism.
Conditional discipleship has a hidden god other than Jesus.

Jesus crosses the path of human life and brings the divine
imperative, "Follow Me.! The instantaneous obedience raises
the question about the authority of a person who announces
the call–without a parallel in history–not to accept ideas, nor
to follow a program; but in unambiguous terms "Follow Me.!

Only Christ the mediator has such a right. He is God in
human condition; the God-man, who has the authority over
human lives. He asks for exclusive devotion to Him. There
can be no Christianity without obedience to the call of
discipleship. Christianity without discipleship is Christianity
without Christ. No form of enthronement of self can stand in
the way. It is to forsake everything for the sake of the call.
Levi had to leave the place of familiarity, of authority, of the
means of income. He moves from the economy of getting into
the economy of giving and distributing. Peter and Andrew
changed the net. The new net is not suitable to catch fish, but
only to catch men into the fellowship of Jesus.

To them as to all who gave obedience to the call Christianity
is no longer a religion of security; it becomes the religion of
promise, summed up in the person of one who stands before
them, Jesus.

To those who obey, from that time onwards, he gives the gift
of friendship; to sinners and sick, soldiers or prostitutes,
Pharisees or publicans. He entrusts them with a most
attractive message, which is the highest good of everyone
and of the whole mankind–the kingdom of God. The
message contains a criticism of the present condition as well
as a vision of mankind yet to come.

From the moment of rising up and following, Jesus begins to
shape the life of his followers. Peter found in Him one who
brought order in his turbulent nature, Andrew, a companion;
John, a friend; Nathaniel, the innermost secret of life;
Thomas, the way of life. In every age the disciples found in
Jesus this and more–Paul, Augustine of Hippo, Luther, Albert
Schweitzer, Kagawa of Japan, Sunder Singh of India,
Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Among them are theologians, poets,
evangelists, reformers, missionaries, and pioneers of
ecumenical movements. This list cannot be exhausted. They
belong to every country, every generation. Jesus is "this!, but
more. "This! becomes part of human experience; the more
belongs to inexhaustible riches of His grace.

He shapes His followers. Does Jesus shape us or do we
shape Jesus? This is a question we will do well to ask
ourselves. Following Jesus remains the unchanging condition
of Christian discipleship. The invitation is repeated down the
centuries.

How does the Holy Spirit lead us to Christian
discipleship?
In the context of socio–economic–political situations, the call
to follow comes to us today from the one who was part of
history and yet it is contemporaneous with us. The historical
is the womb of revelation. The historicity and
contemporaneity of Jesus have to be seriously considered in
the obedience we offer. He was "born of woman under law,!
as St. Paul says in his letter to Galatians, He entered history
at a particular religious, social and cultural situation. In
discipleship, we are not concerned with discarnate news, but
with a particular piece of news, as CH Dodd reminds us,
regarding the incarnate sense of God. This piece of good
news is supremely concerned about life of man upon the
earth. Incarnation can take place within any culture,
anywhere, at any time because the Gospel is true at one time
and in one place, it is also true at all times and in all places.
Discipleship does not depend up on making Jesus relevant to
any culture, but it means making us and our situation relevant
to Jesus. How can we do that? It means that we must take
history, modern history seriously. It is in the context of
modern history with nuclear weapons, increasing cruelty,
poverty, and denial of justice, side by side with church!s
pursuit of mission, that Jesus, the same yesterday, today and
ever, of historicity and contemporaneity, calls us for
discipleship. Jesus must me understood afresh and obeyed
afresh.



As one coming from the sub-continent of India, the cradle of
world religions, which have now become powerful, I may
mention that, to us the call to Christian discipleship comes in
a context of religious pluralism. There are some questions,
which no one can ovoid. Are all religions equal? Is
Christianity the crown of Hinduism? Is syncretism the
answer? Is Christianity unique or is Christianity meant to say
something unique? Some of our friends in India say, to
obliterate other religions for the sake of one faith would be
Bolshevism in religion. We can no longer claim that the
mission is from the Christian West to the pagan East. It is
from everywhere to everywhere. We must have a Christian
approach to men of other faith. What is the most loving
approach?

Is tolerance the answer? Tolerance should not degrade to
indifference to truth. What is the authority by which we can
say, "come to meet God where God came to meet man! and
claim that the discovery of Jesus is the discovery of God and
repeat the claim that there is no other name. Jesus is the
object of religion. The International Missionary Council at
Jerusalem in 1928 said, “Our message is Christ, we cannot
give more, we dare not give less.” In the biblical garb, we
have to confess in the final analysis, that following Jesus is a
matter of "choice and decision! a conviction to which, we are
compelled to by the work and person of Jesus Christ.

Finally we all have to follow Jesus in the difficult territories of
daily life-areas where we meet people. In the circumstances
of our personal life, who are those whom we meet in the
journey of life? Are they simply fellow citizens or are they
friends? Christian discipleship means following Jesus in our
brothers and sisters. We are surrounded by poor people,
exploited people, people to whom justice is denied. The
measure of the presence of the poor is the measure of the
absence of the kingdom. Who is the neighbor? Our neighbor
is the one who is in need. To the Samaritan the neighbor was
the one lying on the roadside, robbed, naked and wounded.
He was rich enough to be robbed, and then he was
sociologically poor. We are not naturally brothers to them; we
are to become brothers by option.

In the parable the Levite and the priest avoided commitment.
The Samaritan committed himself to the poor man; "my
neighbor is the one to whom I am committed.! In the world
today, commitment to the poor is part of Christian
discipleship. There can be no Christianity without the sense
of the poor, a sense of brotherhood. Following Jesus means
following the poor Jesus, who became poor for our sake.
Renounce is part of God!s call in Jesus. In the picture of the
final judgment in St. Matthew 25 commitment to the poor is
the decisive criteria for our salvation.

How do we discern God!s will as followers of Jesus? Leonard
Hodgson, Regis Professor of Oxford 35 years used to say,
"Christian life consist of obeying the will of God, revealed in
Christ by the Holy Spirit.! The Holy Spirit, the guide to all
truth, takes the things of Christ and reveals the meaning of
God!s rescuing activity in the world of today. To be fishers of
men, He leads the church into the discovery of new biblical
truth. Reformation is always a fresh discovery of biblical truth
bringing renewal and advance. The 19
th
century, the century
of great advance, was the result of new obedience for
worldwide missionary task. God the Holy Spirit is ever alive
and ever active. The Holy Spirit led us into the realization that
we need the whole world to understand the whole of Christ.
Modern ecumenical movement is a movement of the Holy
Spirit. The Missionary task, as Bishop Stephen Neil–
theologian, church historian, outstanding missionary of the
2oth century, who was with us till a few weeks ago said, is
still "an unfinished task. Evangelism is compulsion from within
and challenge from without; so is Christian discipleship….
Compulsion from within and challenge from without.! The
Holy Spirit leads us to new understanding of the working of
God in the world today and summons us to new obedience.
Our temptation is to ask the question. "What can I do for the
Lord?! It is an egocentric question mark of the would-be
disciple. We should ask, "What does the Lord want me to do.!
It is a Christo-centric question mark of the Christian disciple.

Editor!s Note: This sermon is a spiritual classic; it was
delivered at the Oxford University by Thomas Thirumeni in
October 1984 after his parathyroid surgery. One of editors
had the good fortune to be present at this most memorable
occasion.
Chickaballapur Mission in Karnataka of Chennai-
Bangalore Diocese

Chickaballapur Mission is a field near Bangalore in
Karnataka State in India under the Chennai
Bangalore Diocese of the Mar Thoma Church. Rt.
Rev. Dr. Isaac Mar Philoxenos is the Diocesan
Bishop and Rev. James K. John is the missionary in
charge of this mission field and 5 evangelists are
serving in various areas in various mission activities.
Chickaballapur is a rural place in the outskirts of
Bangalore city in the Chickaballapura District. The
mission field aims at the holistic development of
people, societies and villages especially in and
around Bangalore rural and Chickaballapura Districts.
The illiteracy, poverty, child marriage are some of the
major social issues which hinder the development of
the society in the village. The mission filed began in
2008 and is making steady progress by providing the
basic needs including education, health, and training
to the residents of the village.

The major activities include Vishwa Jyothi Hostel run
by the mission is exclusively meant to address the
struggles of the girl children in the villages. At present
there are 26 girls students in this hostel. Some of
them orphans and rest are coming from economically
poor and backward families. God has tremendously
used this hostel for providing education to these
children and by God!s grace quite a number of
children are living a victorious life. In order to provide
a shelter for these children, the mission has
undertaken a hostel building construction and need to
complete as soon as possible. The successful
completion of this project would enable the mission to
reach out for more deserving children in the rural
areas and to provide them with shelter and education.

Divya Jyothi Child Development Center is another
project of the mission. It is undertaken in association
with Compassion International and started in 1987. At
present this center has 250 students and 15 staff and
the missionary priest is serving as the project
director. This mission provide

The other projects of the mission are "Manava Vikasa
Kendra, a project started about 16 years ago with the
support of CCCYC, Bangalore. There is a Day Care
Center, Tuition Center, and Tailoring School. The
center is undertaking programs like health awareness
classes and women and family development
programs. Musthoor Village Vikasana Samithi is a
project supported by the Bangalore Center Mar
Thoma Voluntary Evangelistic Association. Under this
project there are three tuition centers where five
teachers are working and around 120 children are
being taught in regular classes held in remote
villages.

There are two parishes, two chapels, seven
congregations for the believers and seekers of about
700 people. There are five Sunday Schools for
around 200 children, four Youth Fellowship for
around 250 members, four Sevika Sangham for
about 400 women members. Four VBS are
conducted in different places in which about 400
children participate annually. Under the health work
program led by one health worker, village medical
camps, medical aid for needed people, and de-
addiction program were given to people in the
villages.

Under the education aid programs, there are four
tuition centers and four tailoring schools in addition to
the Vishwa Jyothi Girls Hostel, Divya Jyothi Hostel for
Girls, Manav Vikasa Kendra and Musthoor Village
Vikasana Samithi. Training for women includes
candle making, home for homeless project and
tailoring training.

Help is needed both by prayers, visiting the mission
field and providing services to the villagers and also
by financial help. The immediate needs are many
including sponsoring for the new hostel building,
sponsoring a child in the hostel, sponsoring a
vehicle for the mission field. There is a need to buy
land and build a mission house and church in
Chickaballapur, CN Hosur, Perresandra and V. Kote.

Courtesy: Rev. James K. John, Chickaballapur
Mission, Karnataka, Bangalore

Contact Information: You can contact the missionary
priest at his address: Rev. James K. John, Mar Thoma
Mission, No. 161, Cerahalli Gate, Gerahalli P. O.,
Chickaballapur Dist., Karnataka, India 562101 by mail or by
phone at 011-91-8156-270460 (land line) or 011-91-
9845241851 (cell) or at his personal e-mail address:
[email protected] or [email protected]. You
may also obtain more information from Rev. Thomas John,
Vice President, Jerusalem MTC, Bangalore at 011-91-
9448803393 or Mr. Shajan M. George, Treasurer, Jalahalli,
Bangalore at 011-91-9448388280 or at his e-mail
[email protected] (Please see the photos of various
activities from the mission field on the next page)

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