FOCUS October 2019

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FOCUS October 2019 Vol. 7 No: 4

Uunderstanding the Logic of Spiritual Life, Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum – Page 18 Cover Photo: Faith, History and Religiosity (Cover Design by Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas)

A Publication of Diaspora FOCUS

Journeying with the Cross of Christ, Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas – Page 21

Editorial, Faith, History and Religiosity – Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum - Page 3

The Book of Job and the Transcendence of the Ego, Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum – Page 23

New Testament from a Sociological Perspective, Revd Dr. Abraham Philip – Page 7

“Ask FOCUS”, Reflection on Dr. Zac Varghese’s Article on Faith in July 2019 issue, – Page 27

‘Faith’ and ‘The Faith’ Dr. Zac Varghese, London, UK – Page 13 The Holy Books: Part-3, Dr. Ian Fry, University of Divinity, Melbourne- Page 30

Joy of living Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam – Page 16

The End of the World is Near . . . With the Blessing of Religions, William E. Swing, Burlingame - Page 33

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EDITORIAL FAITH, HISTORY AND RELIGIOSITY Let me begin by stating something that bothers me greatly. We glory in the fact – which is undeniable – that Christianity is a historical faith. It does not drive its origin, or sustenance, from myths and fables. Jesus entered history, engaged with its essence, illumined its logic, and re-defined its genius.

Yet, as Christians, we lead an a-historical existence in the name of a religion, which is quintessentially historical. We talk about Jesus being historical, but rarely bother to understand what that entails, though the Gospels leave us with no excuse for doing so. It is time we asked what is ‘historical’ about the way we live the Way of Jesus, whom we acknowledge by force of habit as the Lord and redeemer of history. We are voluble about the power of the faith in changing lives and transforming societies. But that power, to which we pay lip-service, is seen nowhere in our life, or in the corporate practice of our religiosity.

Perhaps we should ask – When, where and how have I expressed or experienced the spiritual power of my faith, which I am forever ready to affirm has the ‘power to move mountains’? – Could I be scared of the power of the faith, because I do not want to accept and endure the challenges it could pose?

As a rule, ‘power’ is superfluous to orbiting in habituated routines, the very value of which is that they are undemanding vis-à-vis effort and struggle. It is economy of effort and the solace of effortlessness, not power that characterize habitual religious life from day-to-day. Have I ever been aware of how my faith-life connects to the dynamics of history? Do I have, for that matter, any sense or intuition of history? Or, do I live as a faith-infant, counting on God and others to make my life smooth and trouble-free? What is the larger relevance of the faith-life I lead? Does it have a resonance or relevance to anything beyond my life or, even, the needs and expectations of my ‘dear ones’ at home?

The Historical Genius of the Bible: The Bible begins by affirming the historical genius of faith.

Let us consider the instance of Abraham, who is acknowledged as an exemplar of faith. When I read chapter 12 of Genesis, what strikes me most profoundly is that God’s invitation to Abram – as he was named then – into a life of faith, which is couched in the phraseology of history. Here’s the text: [1] Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. [2] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that

you will be a blessing. [3] I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Abram is asked to abandon the familiar and the habitual, and to go a land he had never seen before. It is a faith pilgrimage into the unknown, which is akin to the dynamic of history. Abram had the choice, at that point, of turning his face away from the unfamiliar terrain of history and to lead an a-historical existence, hiding in the undergrowth of familiar customs, ways, and possibilities, and ‘safe in the arms’ of the given.

The second historical resonance in Abram’s invitation into the adventure of faith is that, given the scope and potential that faith holds, ‘the families of the earth shall be blessed’ through him. It is thus made clear that faith is meant to make a difference in the world, besides transforming the life of the believer. This is not a matter, as Jesus makes clear centuries later, of scale or size. It is a matter of principle, of vision, of outreach. It is enough if even one family, one life, is blessed on account of one’s life. So, Jesus could go into Samaria and stand at Jacob’s well, with the noon sun spitting its fire on his head, for the sake of a lone woman, who no one cares for.

The third significant aspect of the historical genius of faith revealed in this text is perhaps the most important. Faith is not – if I may use a cliché – a walk in the park! It involves an uprooting as well as a casting away – as it would seem at the given moment – one’s life like the breads in Ecclesiastes on the waters of time (Eccles. 11: 1). Abram does not go to the land ‘only God has seen’, armed with a life insurance plan, guarantees of safe passage, or assured supply of manna on the move! There is no ‘proof’, either, that the adventure would be profitable, happy-ending, or its outcome an improvement on the status quo. I can’t speak for others, but I know this about myself: the prospect of the families of the earth being blessed some time in the distant future through my traumatic uprooting and displacement – virtually gambling on what seems at the time to be no more than a grandiose dream – is unlikely to recommend itself to me.

But that does not prevent me from getting excited about the historicity of my faith and waxing eloquent in public, as indeed I have done.

I did this for the reason that I did not ‘waste’ much time trying to understand the essence of the biblical faith.

Unlike most of my fellow Christians, perhaps, I was too much of a habitual or nominal Christian, to whom the appearance of faith mattered more than its lived truth. So, today the words of Jesus, said to the woman of Samaria, strike me with particular force: that God must be worshipped “in spirit and in truth” (Jn. 4: 24).

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What does ‘historicity’ mean in respect of religion?

The prevailing notion that a faith is historical because its founder has had authentic historical existence is naïve and inadequate. Whatever exists in time need not be historical. You and I exist in time; but a few years, in my case, or a few decades, in your case, from now no one will know us and it will be, for all practical purposes as if we never existed. The grass, the Psalmist would say, is not historical; for it today is and is tomorrow no more, and its place knows it not. So, one thing is pretty clear: mere existence in time is hardly historical. We compare Jesus with the mythological founders, say, of Hinduism and feel superior on account of Jesus having been a discreet historical person. Surely, he was. But that is not the reason he is historical.

it became embarrassing for the members of ‘advanced civilizations’ to entertain this worldview. So, they, by way of improving on the previous model of viewing history, ascribed its authorship to blind chance! But let that be.

It is enough for us to know for sure that man, no man whatsoever, can play god in history. But there is, all the same, an element of complexity about what is involved in history. While no man directs history, all empirical and material aspects of human existence – the life and work of every human being – is bounded by the laws of nature, or physical laws, or the logic of history. It is easy to understand this at the micro level. If you work hard, there is a good chance that you will succeed. There is no hope in hell that you will succeed, if you languish in laziness.

This point is amply made by the writer of Proverbs.

Medieval theologians recognized sloth, or laziness, as one of the Seven Deadly Sins.

Christians rarely recognize that Jesus’ stern refusal to deploy miracles to his own advantage – and thereby disrupt or de-stabilize the law of history – is quintessentially historical. That is what it means to live, and not merely exist, in history. As Immanuel Kant pointed out in his essay titled ‘What is Enlightenment?’ the tendency is to ‘depend’ on something beyond oneself – ‘depend’ means, literally, remain suspended from – it is a sign of “immaturity”. He said –I must hasten to add – with reference to depending on human functionaries. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer was to say later, we should live as though God is dead. The idea is not that God does not exist! It is that we honour God by valuing the unique and incomparable powers so liberally given to us by the Maker in order that we struggle, seek and find the fullness of our stature and potential. That is akin to the paradox of faith: the real proof that God is God and that He exists is that we live as though He does not; that is, in a state of existential autonomy, thanks only to the greatness and generosity of God as the Creator to whom I bear witness, not by being a “beggar at the gate called Beautiful” (Ac. 3: 2), but exemplifying life in all its fullness (Jn. 10: 10).

History is a domain of action. Not just any kind of action, but action that has a futuristic momentum. Something is being shaped on the anvil of time in the workshop of history. Who shapes this? What we can say for sure is this: “Not man!” Is not history, then, a domain of human action? Yes, it is. But man does not, for that reason, shape, direct or make history. History, if anything, makes him. Until the dawn of the modern age, it was assumed that God was the author of history. Things moved and shaped as per providence. In the wake of Enlightenment,

Immanuel Kant, in Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (1793), points out that, while God can perform miracles – else, he would not be God – it is detrimental to the moral development of our species to feed on miracles. While conceding that miracles could play a role in germinating faith, he insists that miracles obstruct the development of spiritual maturity. This is easy to see. If miracles were a routine option for our species, there would have been no progress at all. Instead of inventing the airplane or ship, for example, we would have simply expected to be transported miraculously to our destinations. As a rule, human beings choose easier options. Arguably, thriving through miracles is a whole lot easier than carving your way with hard and hazardous work.

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A second and important aspect of our ‘historical’ existence is akin to this but needs to be seen as distinct and important in itself. Let me illustrate it with the words of Jesus Christ. “Jesus said to his disciples, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to the one through whom they come!” (Lk. 17: 1). Our idea of living as the children of God does not accommodate this enigmatic reality, which captures the very essence of history. History is a sphere of hindrances; it will never be otherwise. Even the Son of Man had to put up with them.

Unlike us, he did it manfully. Faith is proved not by dodging these stumbling blocks but by engaging with, and overcoming, them.

I plead with the readers of FOCUS to ponder earnestly on this. It is because we have not bothered to recognize or understand this inalienable principle of historical existence that we stay so shallow and anemic in our faith life. It is necessary that offences come. Read the 10th chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew. There Jesus is brutally frank in setting out before his disciples the trials and tribulations that discipleship necessarily involves. Since Jesus had a clear sense of history – it is not clear how anyone can be the light of the world without it – he realized this to be a source of blessedness: “Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake; rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven…” (Mt. 5: 11-12).

It is in the will of God for us that we face and overcome difficulties, stumbling blocks, and privations of diverse kinds. Why is this so? To understand this aright we need to recognize an essential difference between what we will for ourselves and what God wants of us. Often, we use – read, abuse – religion as a magical means to make God conform to our petty plans and proclivities. We feel comfortable with, and comforted by, those who pander to this spiritual aberration, mistaking them to be our earthly solaces and shepherds. The truth, though, is that they are hindrances to spiritual growth and fruitfulness. While we want to lead an easy life, free from troubles and vexations, God wants us, as his children, to grow in stature as individuals created in his image and likeness.

We mock God by staying petty and puny, de facto paralytics carried on pallets by all and sundry. We dig deep into our pockets to amply reward our well-meaning religious porters and pallet-carriers. But, as in the account of Jesus healing the paralytic (Mk. 2: 1-12), our spiritual paralysis aggravates. We remain a heart-break for our Father in heaven . . . All my life I have been an ardent church man. I became a priest out of zeal and passionate conviction. I have endeavoured to live this faith, seeking to know it in truth and in spirit all along, for half a century. So, no one should doubt my intention when I say that I have, in light of what is stated above, acute disappointment with church life as it has come to be practised and maintained. Nothing of the ‘historical’

truth, vitality and power of the biblical faith is reflected in our congregational life. Nor does it prepare us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Mt. 5: 13-16).

The reason for this should be intelligible in light of what we have seen from the scriptures.

I have no doubt at all, given my bare-bone acquaintance with the teachings of Jesus Christ that restricting the life of faith or of worship only to a set of rites and sacraments fails to do justice to the Way of Jesus Christ. No one with a nodding acquaintance with the four gospels can doubt that rites and rituals occupy only a small and marginal place in the spirituality of the Kingdom of God, as Jesus expounded it. The Kingdom of God is a celebration of life.

The Supreme Sacrament – the Eucharist or the Holy Qurbana – also is a celebration of life. “Giving’ is the essence alike of sacrament and of celebration. Alexander Solzhenitsyn recounts one of his sacramental experiences as follows. He, together with a band of fellow prisoners, was being shifted from one prison to another in the bitter chill of a Russian winter morning. They were kept, ill-clad and famished, on the platform with guntotting soldiers standing guard with feral alertness. An elderly, emaciated beggar woman came along. She noticed Alexander and read the hunger on his face. She reached out for the moldy loaf of bread she had in her sling bag. Took it out, broke it in two, and flung one-half to Alexander. She was weak and the throw did not carry to him. He recalled the scene in these unforgettable words – “The holy bread, broken in two, lay there in the puddle; while we were driven away like cattle.”

To Alexander Solzhenitsyn, it was a sacramental moment.

You will agree with him if you are as famished, alienated and miserable as he was. Where does our celebration of the Eucharist or Holy Communion stand in relation to this? What, after all, is the Holy Communion about? Is it not a commemoration -anamnesis- of Jesus’ atoning engagement with the depravity of history itself?

“The Son of Man” said Jesus “must suffer many things” (Lk. 9: 22). It is to give his life as a ransom for the sins of many, after all, that he came into the world. It was not, in otherwise, a cosmic excursion, vaguely comparable to the “trips to the Holy Land” fashionable with us these days. Suffering authenticates our points of contact with history. It has never been otherwise; nor will it ever be.

The historical mandate of our faith is that we grow and develop. Jesus put it crisply, “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect”. (Mt. 5: 48). That, however, is not our goal. Our goal is to get along uneventfully, untouched by the sting of life. We insist that life is a fairytale and that God is obliged to ensure it stays so, just because we have faith!

Yet another important aspect of ‘historicity’, on which we shall close, is that we can benefit only from who we are

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and our own efforts. That explains why Jesus puts the spotlight on who we are. It is in sync with how we are created by God. An animal, at the point of its birth, possesses just about everything it needs to survive and live. It adds very little through the rest of its life. Not so, in the case of human beings. We begin at ground zero.

Whatever we can claim to be our own has to be gained painstakingly over the years. God has, in his mercy, ordained enabling provisions in respect of this process of struggle and growth, but never appointed short-cuts or exit-routes. The Cross of Jesus is the definitive rejection of such specious and delusory options. Jesus sought no short-cuts; we too ought not.

It is in this reality that human accountability to God stands rooted. There is no historicity without accountability. That is the principal message in the parable of the talents. God gives us talents. He fortifies them with opportunities for their application and cultivation. But he doesn’t get into, or miraculously manipulate, how we apply and multiply them. He leaves it wholly to our freedom and responsibility. Also, he offers no alternatives to walking the way of the cross.

may seem like anger towards those who canker its wholeness, but is wholly devoid of it. When Jesus calls the Pharisees ‘whited sepulchre’, he would not have been hissing these words in anger – as we imagine – but weeping with a broken heart. The priest-craft they were plying was counter to the logic of history, which is after all appointed by God. God would not go against his own discipline. God is not a God of self-contradiction. If the laws of nature and the logic of history are indeed created and appointed by God – and this was Spinoza’s main contention – why would he play fast and loose with it?

Would God create anything superfluous?

I am in full agreement with Immanuel Kant that man’s historical existence is necessarily governed by natural, or historical, laws. If you toss a load of bread, it will come down; irrespective of your being a saint or a scoundrel. If you are born, you will die. Even Lazarus, raised from the dead, died and disappeared. The power of faith – the power to move mountains, if you like- does not lie in manipulating laws of life and history to one’s own undeserved advantage. It lies, instead, in the empowerment to attain higher states of spiritual and ethical development not in spite of the laws of nature and history, but because of them. He who has ears to hear; let him, or her, hear.

Revd Dr. Valson Thampu Member, FOCUS Editorial Board http://www.issuu.com/diasporafocus http://www.scribd.com/diasporafocus

The way of the Cross did not begin, in the case of Jesus, with his arrest and trial. It began at his birth. Life is the way of the Cross. The victory of the Cross – a familiar cliché with us – is to be counted not in triumphalist terms, but in ethical terms. Historical spirituality, in the end, is an unfolding story of the ethical development of the human species. It was his, perhaps, that made Hegel believe that history is ‘God making himself’. From the Old Testament – with the Mosaic Law as its apogee – to the New Testament, there is a profound ethical progress. That progress, however, is not reflected, or even noted, by ritual-centred priest-craft. It goes on with business as usual. That was why it became necessary for Jesus to condemn the priestly class of his times.

It is noteworthy that the vehement condemnation of the Pharisees –read the 23rd chapter of St. Matthew – is issued by one who commanded, “I say to you, do not be angry” (Mt. 5: 21-22). So, these words of condemnation are not uttered in anger, but in love; love for humanity.

Love for humanity, which is immanent in love for God,

Disclaimer: Diaspora FOCUS is a non-profit organization registered in United States, originally formed in late Nineties in London for the Diaspora Marthomites. Now it is an independent lay-movement of the Diaspora laity of the Syrian Christians; and as such FOCUS is not an official publication of any denominations. It is an ecumenical journal to focus attention more sharply on issues to help churches and other faith communities to examine their own commitment to loving their neighbors and God, justice, and peace. Opinions expressed in any article or statements are of the individuals and are not to be deemed as an endorsement of the view expressed therein by Diaspora FOCUS. Thanks.

Web Site: www.facebook.com/groups/mtfocus E-Mail: mtfousgroup@gmail.com

FOCUS EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS: Dr. Zac Varghese, London Dr. Titus Mathews, Calgary Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas Dr. Jesudas M. Athyal, Thiruvalla Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum

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New Testament from a Sociological Perspective Revd Dr. Abraham Philip, Mar Thoma Theological Seminary, Kottayam I.

New Testament Interpretation: an Overview New Testament was written almost two millenniums back. Hence it is related to the time and space in history during the time when Jesus Christ lived. The vision and the message of the New Testament are eternal. New Testament interpretation attempts to interpret the truths conveyed through its pages in contemporary language and style so that it could be understood by people who live in the early decades of the 21st century. Hence we need a clear understanding of the time during which the books of the New Testament were written.

Today there are numerous methods for interpretation and re-reading of the Biblei. Though it is very difficult to bring them under any structure, here is an attempt to bring them under certain broad categories. The first series of studies look back in to the historical time when the books were written and they give great importance to history.

The historical critical methods come under this first group. It includes form criticism, redaction criticism, canonical criticism and so on. According to John H. Elliott, it includes sociological criticismii as well.

The second set of interpretations look into the written text giving it more importance. Therefore, the theories that are applied to linguistic studies in various languages are applied to the text of the Bible. The text is submitted to a linguistic (morphology and syntax) and semantic analysis, using the knowledge derived from historical philology.

Thus there emerged a number of criticisms such as narrative criticism, rhetorical analysis, reader-response criticism, Genre criticism, Semiotic analysis etc. and there is the possibility of multiple interpretations also. Along with them, we also have Textual criticism, Structuralism, Deconstruction, etc.

The third group of interpretations looks into the present day situation, and gives it great importance. In the light of the present day epistemological context, interpretation is made. Here one looks forward in to the contemporary society. It also looks at the Bible from various perspectives: liberation, feminist, tribal, dalit, subaltern, postcolonial etc. Today theological readings also include liberation, political, Marxian and other ideological approaches, ecological, Black, Adivasi readings as well.

From another perspective they are read as sacred texts seeking to express a relation to the divine.

For hermeneutics one’s theological position is also very important as to whether one is a fundamentalist, conservative, evangelical, neo-orthodox, liberal etc. The theological position can colour one’s interpretation. Thus

the Bible is studied looking back, historically (author centred), looking in, literally (text centred); and looking ahead, theologically or perspectivally (reader centred). We see that a plethora of methods, approaches and theologies have made hermeneutics a very complex phenomenoniii.

From the ancient days through the classical period till the modern times any text has been seen as complete in itself. But in the postmodern times any text is seen as incomplete. The text is seen as a discourse. It is regarded as a product of its time. Postmodernity rejects the standardization of knowledge and all metanarratives.

Certainties are taken away and suspicion has been brought in. With this introduction on hermeneutics we look at the New Testament from a sociological perspective.

II.

New Testament and Sociological Criticism

1) Emergence: Many New Testament scholars became dissatisfied with the so-called idealism of the traditional historical critical methods and its concentration of ideas or theologyiv.

Sociological Criticism is the study of the interaction between the reader and the various social structures that influence and control both the writer and the reader.

Biblical interpretation as the investigation of linguistic communications from the past requires at least two sets of tools: one set of linguistic sort that can deal with texts as texts, and not as words or sentences or super sentences, and another set of a historical sort that can deal with the past in some cross-cultural way. The value of social sciences for biblical interpretation is that they can provide some of the important tools for both the linguistic and the historical dimensions of biblical scholarship.

2) What is Social-Scientific Criticism?

It was John H. Elliott who coined the term “SocialScientific Criticism” in 1986 and according to him, “Social-Scientific Criticism is that phase of the exegetical task which analyses the social and cultural dimensions of the text and its environmental context through the utilization of the perspectives, theory, models and research of social sciences…” that would bridge the cultural divide of the world of today and the then worldv.

Sociological Criticism uses the categories of sociology and culture to understand people’s contexts and to study the text as a reflection of and a response to the social

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and cultural milieu in which it was produced. The discipline is based on the assumption that the New Testament cannot be understood on theological grounds alone. It affirms that the social setting of the writing is an indispensable source for understanding the text and for its proper interpretation. Hence Sociological Criticism does a study of the social background of the writer and the social background of the reader in order to ensure proper communication and interpretation of the textvi. Of course one may trace its use in some previous studies before 1980s. John H. Elliott opines that all interpretations are perspectival. That is the interpreter approaches the text not as an objective impartial observer devoid of all pre-knowledge, pre-suppositions, and pre-judgments, but as one whose social location, socialization, experience, and self-interests colour and refract that which s/he chooses to think, do, study, and in the case of exegetical activity, interpretvii. He sees it as a “component” or “sub-discipline” of historical critical methods, which “investigates biblical texts as meaningful configurations of language intended to communicate between composers and audiences”viii.

in some particular culture and historical milieu. At the same time each writer represents the wider society of his time. As the writing of the New Testament is related to the society, its reading also becomes a social endeavor. Our language, customs, social order, political setting, ethics, culture consciousness, life style etc. are all quite different from that of the first century. First century was an agrarian one compared with the highly industrialized world of today. Our consciousness about individual, development, freedom, social ladder etc. has also changed. The mode of transport is drastically different. At the same time we look at the New Testament trying to understand the totally transformed society today through its lens.

Apart from the Greco-Roman and Jewish cultures there were a number of other cultures prevalent in West Asia during the time of Jesus. Today there are a number of sociological studies that enable us to understand such cultures and societies. New Testament scholars today attempt to understand the culture and society behind each writing. Their history and epistemology are traced through applying certain social scientific models and anthropological tools and theories. According to J. H. Elliott the social environment of each New Testament writing has to be investigated.

Social-Scientific Criticism studies the text as both a reflection of and a response to the social and cultural milieu in which the text was produced. Its aim is the determination of the meaning(s) explicit and implicit in the text, meanings made possible and shaped by the social and cultural systems inhabited by both authors and intended audiencesix. Two types of sociological interpretations are evident: social history that tries to identify the social composition of Christian groups, and sociological analysis that seeks to discover the larger underlying dynamics at work within the groups and their relation to the wider society.

3) Principles of Sociological Criticism:

The New Testament writings are products of certain societies. They represent and address certain society and its environment. Each New Testament writer took shape

M. Robert Mulholland Jrx brings out five general principles of Sociological Criticism as follows: (1) The preliminary level is the study of the social setting of the New Testament. It is almost entirely descriptive, drawing from textual, archeological and inscriptional evidence the political, economic, cultural, religious, social, educational and communal structures of the period of the New Testament; (2) The secondary level is the description of the sociological dynamics of the New Testament world, understanding the interactions between the various social structures that either maintain the balance of the status quo or bring out the disequilibrium and subsequent change - growth, decline, or the emergence of new structures; (3) The third level is the use of sociological models to help define and analyze the ways in which groups and individuals exist and function within the

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multifaceted sociological matrix of their world; (4) At the fourth level as part of the process of coming to some grasp of the sociological matrix of the New Testament world and the dynamics of the Christian movement within that matrix, the text of the New Testament is studied within the sociological context of the Christian communities in the Greco-Roman world of the first century; (5) Throughout the process of Sociological Criticism a careful distinction must be maintained between the sociological horizon of the interpreter and that of the text.

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4) Modus Operandi: Presuppositions Social-Scientific pre-suppositions like theological presuppositions pertain to three aspects of the interpretive enterprise: the interpreters, the objects to be interpreted and the method of interpretation. The exact background of the text using the proper tool will have to be determined. The Social-Scientific approach uses anthropological theory which has two types of reading in this regard. The Emic and the Etic readings. In Emic reading the interpreter analyses the person as the product of his social standing. The Etic reading is the analysis and description made on the observations by the professional ethnographer.

Through this the anthropologist would investigate the symbolic universe, its social institutions, economics, cultural values and conflicts.

Besides social anthropology, Social psychological, ethnographic theories are also used in this approachxi.

John H. Elliott brings out some of the chief presuppositions of Social-Scientific Criticismxii.

1. Social-Scientific critics pre-suppose that all knowledge is socially conditioned and perspectival in nature. This applies to both the knowledge of the interpreter and that of the authors and groups under examination.

2. This implies that the method of analysis must include means for distinguishing and clarifying the differences between the social locationxiii of the interpreter and the social location of the authors and the objects to be interpreted.

3. For the clarification of the differences between the contexts of ancient texts and of modern readers, and of further clarification of the properties and relations of ancient social and cultural systems, theory and models likewise have always played an essential role.

4. Social-Scientific Criticism involves a process of logic that is neither exclusively deductive (from model to material) nor inductive (from material to

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hypothesis) but inclusive of both in a procedure characterized as “abductionxiv”.

Social and cultural models most appropriate for the analysis of the Bible and its environment, it is presumed, are those constructed on the basis of research and data pertaining to the geographical, social and cultural region inhabited by the biblical communities, that is, the area of the CircumMediterranean and ancient West Asia.

Practitioners of Social-Scientific Criticism presume that this method is different from, but complementary to historical orientation.

A further pre-supposition of Social-Scientific Criticism is that the study of “religion” in the Bible and its environment requires a study of social structures and relations.

It is further presumed that the particular of this method may draw full range of social-science theory, methods and research. At the same time the researcher will have to be aware of the theoretical, methodological and developmental differences among the various disciplines and orientations within the social sciences.

Social-Scientific Criticism is concerned not only with the original meanings of biblical documents, but also with the aggregations of meanings down through the centuries.

5) Different Stages in Social-Scientific Criticismxv 1. Descriptive: This stage deals with the political, economic, cultural and religious environment of the New Testament period.

2. Analytical: Here is an attempt to analyze the social dimension of the New Testament times.

3. Descriptive and Analytical: It is an attempt to describe and analyze and thereby reformulate the world of the New Testament times.

4. Sociological Matrix: Here the text, words, metaphors etc. are being interpreted in the light of the sociological milieu/matrix of the New Testament times.

5. Contemporary relevance: Here is an attempt to make the New Testament times relevant and meaningful to the present times by relating them mutually through comparison and discernment.

6)

Theoretical Models of Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testamentxvi

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1. Typological Model proposed by Robins Scroggsxvii and G. Schneider.

2. Millenarian Model and Cognitive Dissonance Theory of John Gagarxviii 3. Role Analysis of Gerd Theissenxix 4. Sociology of Knowledge of Wayne A. Meeksxx.

5. Historical Materialism and reductionist Model of Milan Machowechxxi.

7) Interpretation of Two New Testament Texts using Social-Scientific Criticism

“strangers and aliens”. Some even think that they revealed the qualities of a “sect”. The author writing from Babylon (5:13 – which many think points to Rome) wants to prepare the readers to face their challenges with regard their Christian faith courageously and with complete commitment and that they be a royal people and priesthood wherever they are placed and that they live in unity (1:8; 2:7, 13; 3:15; 4:14, 16) and willing to serve one another (1:22; 3:8; 4:8-11; 5:1-5).

8) Strengths and Weaknesses

M. Robert Mulholland Jr has attempted to interpret Philippians 1:27-28xxii and John H. Elliott 1 Peterxxiii in the light of Social-Scientific Criticism. Here below is a gist of some of their main findings.

1. Philippians 1:27-28. According Acts 16:13, on a Sabbath, Paul and his companions went out of the city of Philippi to the river side for prayer and there they meet Lydia and others. According to Social Scientific study, the Romans had given permission for worship to all the official religions recognized by them to worship in the city. As Emperor Claudius had banned Jews from the city of Rome in 49 CE, it was applied to the Roman colony of Philippi also. Hence the Jews had to go out of the city for worship on the Sabbaths.

Whenever the Jews had indulged in proselytism or caused some communal tensions in Rome, the Romans had turned against them in this way.

Therefore, Paul had to preach to the people on the river side outside the city. These things are in some ways reflected in Philippians 1:27-28 and also in 3:20 where Paul asks Christians to live worthy of the gospel and as heavenly citizens.

2. 1Peter: This epistle gives a clear picture of the social situation of the period when it was written and it also reveals the relationship of the Christian community mentioned in its pages with the surrounding society. The audience of this epistle is referred to in 1:1. The geographical area covers a place as large as South India. It points out that Christianity had by then penetrated into many even interior regions. The epistle reveals the identity of the Christians and that they were under persecution (2:17; 5:9). There were free people (2:16), as well as people doing varied jobs in various regions (2:13-17), and household workers (2:18-20). People of all age groups (3:1-6; 5:1-5), converts from Jews (1:16, 24; 2:4-10; 3:10-12) and gentiles (1:14, 17; 4:1-4) as well were there.

Some were rich and many poor (1:17; 2:11). Their social standing is revealed by the terms

Social-Scientific Criticism is not sociology or anthropology of the New Testament. Rather it merges the social sciences with exegesis as a composite theological as well as literary, historical and social scientific operation. It is concerned with determining what an author said and meant to say to his/her contemporaries.

Meaning is controlled by the social system in the past and in the presentxxiv.

Strengths: If we analyze the strengths of sociological criticism we find its ability to help the readers to distinguish between one’s own sociological matrix and that of the New Testament. Besides, we find its ability to clarify the sociological matrix of the New Testament world and the life and activities of the Christian communities within that world. Another important strength is its insights into the essential sociological dimension of language. And the greatest strength of it is its focus upon the incarnation reality of human life. It thus helps in a bridge making between the period of the New Testament and our postmodern times. When the other historical critical tools make a historical approach in a diachronic manner, sociological criticism makes use of all the contemporary means in a synchronic way. When form criticism operates on several assumptions, sociological criticism is more reality oriented and down to earth.

Sociological Criticism awakens us to the reality that all human endeavour is lived within specific, even if

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tremendously multifaceted and confusingly interactive sociological matrices. Robert Mulholland opines that Social-Scientific Criticism can be an effective means of radical encounter with God by enabling us to enter into the life-matrix of the community of faith, understand the reality of God’ incarnation in that particular sociological milieu, as we open ourselves and our own life matrixxxv. It has presented an array of relevant social research, along with tested theory and models for exposing specific features and relations of ancient society and of the biblical communities in particularxxvi.

readers in discovering and appreciating the historical, social and cultural particularity of the biblical writingsxxviii.

10) Social Science Model for New Testament Interpretation What would characterize a good social science model for biblical interpretation? Bruce Malina puts the following features: (1) it should be a cross-cultural model, accounting for the interpreter as well as those interpreted in some comparative perspective; (2) it should be of a sufficient level of abstraction to allow for the surfacing of similarities that facilitate comparison; (3) the model should be able to fit a larger socio-linguistic frame for interpreting texts; ((4) it should derive from experiences that match what we know of the time and place that conditioned the biblical world as closely as possible; (5) the meanings it generates should be relevant and understandable to us and our contextxxix.

11) Important Works/Literature on this Method

Weaknesses: The New Testament was written for an audience during the first century. Even the audience of that time cannot be considered as one uniform community. When it is studied using the study methods of the postmodern period, certainly there will be many weakness for it. The tendency of Sociological Criticism is to apply to the world of the New Testament sociological paradigms developed in the present world whose social, political, economic and cultural dynamics are radically if not totally alien to the Greco-Roman world of the first century. The most subtle weakness of it, implicit in all that has been said, is the tendency toward sociological reductionismxxvii - New Testament texts are seen merely literary texts of the first century.

It is possible for the process of sociological criticism to be employed wisely, sensitively, accurately, and with care to avoid the weaknesses noted above, but one has to arrive at conclusions without leaving the reality of God’s presence, power and purpose from out of the interpretive equation.

9) Contributions Social Scientific Criticism has presented an array of relevant social research, along with tested theory and models, for exposing specific features and relations of ancient society and of the biblical communities in particular. The clarification of the differences between ancient and modern environments, moreover, has also enabled us to become more self-critical. It enables

Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus.

London: SCM Press, 1969.

Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism 2 Vols.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974.

Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of Apostle Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983.

Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. London: SCM Press, 1983.

Philip F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987; Modeling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in its Context (ed) London: Routledge, 1995.

Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity, 2nd edition. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988.

Howard Clark Kee, Knowing the Truth: A Sociological approach to New Testament Interpretation. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989.

Richard Horsley, Sociology of the Jesus Movement.

Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989.

Gerd Theissen, Sociology of the Early Palestinian Community. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978; The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 1982; The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History of Synoptic Tradition, 1991.

David Rhoads, “Social Criticism: Crossing Boundaries, Mark and Methods: New approaches in Biblical Studies.

Minneapolis: Paternoster, 1992.

John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?

Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993; A Home for Homeless: A Social Scientific Criticism of 1 Peter: Its Situation and Strategy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.

M. Mulholland Jr, “Sociological Criticism”, New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, edited by David

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Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 303-304.

D. C. Duling , “Ethnicity, Ethnocentrism, and Matthean Ethnos”, Biblical Theological Bulletin 35/4 (2005).

Bruce J. Malina, “The Social Sciences and Biblical Interpretation”, Interpretation 36/3 (July, 2015) Abraham Philip (ed), Puthiya Niyama Vykyana Reethi Sastram; Samuhya Sastra Veekshanam. Tiruvalla: TLC, 2019.

12) Conclusion Sociological approaches have taught to broaden our vision for interpreting the New Testament. It is done by encouraging us to use many of the basic methods that we have used in the past. The social settings of the New Testament and early Christianity have been seen as an indispensable ingredient in the holistic interpretation. One can note that each New Testament leader/writer is a product of his/her society and times. This promoted a lot of research into the various societies and communities of the New Testament times. The then social relationships came under close scrutiny. Above all, the Social-Scientific Criticism has enabled a better understanding of the message and vision of the New Testament.

References: 1

Steven L. McKenzie (Ed), The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: University Press, 2013); John Barton (Ed), The Cambridge Companion to Biblical Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Alan J. Hauser & Duane F. Watson (Eds), A History of Biblical Interpretation (Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 2003).

2 John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?

(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 7.

3 Hence some scholars try to sort this out using the concept of “paradigm”. A paradigm can be defined as “any idea or set of ideas that provides the framework within which a given set of phenomena is understood”. In the field of biblical hermeneutics three paradigms are identified namely historical, literary and theological. In other words, the Bible can be seen as history, literature and theology.

4 Christopher Tuckett, Reading the New Testament: Methods of Interpretation (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), 136.

5 Dietmar Neufeld, “The New Testament”, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, edited by Steven L. McKenzie, Vol 2 (Oxford: University Press, 2013), 301.

6 Richard E. A. Rodgers, The New Testament: An Introduction – Background Studies and the Synoptics, Vol 1 (Delhi: ISPCK, 2018), 80.

7 John H. Elliott, A Home for Homeless: A Social Scientific Criticism of 1 Peter: Its Situation and Strategy (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), xxi.

8

John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?..., 7.

Ibid, 8.

10 M. Mulholland Jr, “Sociological Criticism”, New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, edited by David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 303-304.

11 Jerome S. Neyrey, Paul in Other Words: A Cultural Reading on His Letters (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1990), 13.

12 John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?...,3658.

13 Social location is an encompassing category involving all the factors that influence one person or group, their socialization, experience perceptions, frameworks of rationality, and views of reality. This would include such factors as gender, age, ethnic roots, class, roles and status, education, occupation, nationality, group memberships, political and religious affiliations, language and cultural traditions, and location in place and time.

John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?...,3738.

14 “Abduction” is also called “retroduction”. It is a process in logic of the discovery procedure of working from evidence to hypothesis, involving a back and forth movement of suggestion checking. In this process two pieces of data could be explained by a hypothesis, the validity of which could be corroborated by the finding of another piece of data. John H. Elliott, What is SocialScientific Criticism?...,48.

15 Saji Varghese Amayil, “Puthiya Niyama Vykhyanavum Samuhika Sastra Tatvangalum”, Puthiya Niyama Vykyana Reethi Sastram; Samuhya Sastra Veekshanam, edited by Abraham Philip (Tiruvalla: TLC, 2019), 34-35.

16 Saji Varghese Amayil, “Puthiya Niyama Vykhyanavum Samuhika Sastra Tatvangalum”…35.

17 Ibid., 35-37.

18 Ibid., 37-38.

19 Ibid., 38-39.

20 Ibid., 39-40.

21 Ibid., 40.

22 M. Mulholland Jr, “Sociological Criticism”, New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, edited by David Alan Black and David S. Dockery (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1991), 309-311.

23 John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?...,7086.

24 Ibid., 91.

25 M. Mulholland Jr, “Sociological Criticism”…, 308.

26 John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?..., 103.

27 M. Mulholland Jr, “Sociological Criticism”…, 305-06.

28 John H. Elliott, What is Social-Scientific Criticism?..., 103.

29 Bruce J. Malina, “The Social Sciences and Biblical Interpretation”, Interpretation 36/3 (July, 2015): 229.

9

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‘Faith’ and ‘The Faith’ Dr. Zac Varghese, London, UK Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote ‘Tractatus LogioPhilossophicus’ to identify the relationship between language and reality. We often do not appreciate the problems of exchanging ideas that may emerge from the misunderstanding of what he calls the ‘logic of language’.

Therefore, he famously wrote: “What can be said at all can be said clearly; whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent.” A similar sentiment was expressed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, when he quoted a saint who said, “God was evident when bishops were silent.”

We regularly use words like, soul, spirit, spirituality, belief, faith and ‘the faith’ without paying much attention to it; these words have different meanings and it is important to realize its differences. I became more aware of this when I was reading a book by A.W. Eaton on ‘The Faith, History and Practice of the Church of England’. He says, “But we must be clear from the start that there is a difference between ‘The Faith’– and ‘Faith’. The Faith: is the whole body of teaching involved in what we call Christian Religion, particularly as contained in the Creeds.

Faith: is the right and essential attitude between God and ourselves. For example, the Christian puts his/her faith in Jesus: or another example, a person ‘holds sure in God’– such a person may be said to have faith.”

Eaton further describes that ‘The Faith’ is the concern of the mind and ‘Faith’ is the concern of the heart or will.

Faith is not primarily a matter of head or understanding, but of the heart and the whole personhood. Heart signifies the most profound and noble emotions in the human person, his innermost being. Therefore, there is a corporate faith involving a faith-community and a personal faith, which may eventually lead to fellowship with others in a faith-community. The centrality of Christian faith is an obedient trust in the reality of the love of God experienced individually or collectively through His salvific actions in Jesus Christ and awaiting with hope in prayer for ‘His will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

The often quoted definition of faith in the NT is in Heb. 11: 1: “Now faith is sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” A whole body of examples of people of faith is described in Hebrews chapter 11 beginning with Abel and then of Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Gideon and so on and on to David and the prophets. They were giants of faith and a model for us to give confidence in continuing our spiritual journey under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Although these giants were praised and remembered for their faith under very many difficult circumstances, “yet none of them received what they

had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (Heb. 11: 39-40). Here the phrase ‘together with us’ is very significant and it is in the company of faithful believers of the past, the present and the future our journey will be made perfect. Sri Aurobindo, an Indian mystic, wrote: “A solitary salvation leaving the world to its fate was felt almost distasteful.”1 Hence both ‘faith’ and ‘the faith’ are important for our spiritual journey. Let us briefly look at these two.

‘The Faith’ is the large body of teaching, specific to a particular denomination, such as infant and adult baptism, liturgy, Eucharist, Creed, Filioque and so forth.

Therefore, ‘The Faith’ provides the identity and signature of a particular denomination of the church. When faith is reduced to a set of principles or seamless doctrines or ideology, it can turn itself into a slavish worship of rules, constitutions and codes. From this emerges, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Pentecostals, Baptists, Methodists, and Evangelicals, Charismatics and other faith groups and their theology. There are over 41,000 Christian denominations in the world. It is expanding. The question for us is whether faith is primarily the acceptance of doctrinal propositions (The Faith) stipulated through denominational boundaries or the response of personal trust in God. Inevitably ‘The Faith’ takes different routes in different Christian traditions. These denominational issues have prevented genuine human fellowship and solidarity in the name of dogmas and legal axioms. Hans Kung, a great Catholic theologian, wrote:2 “As theology cannot provide reasons for faith, neither can it destroy faith. The ground of faith is not theology, but God himself.” Kung continues, “And it is in the strength of the different traditions the weaknesses also lie. The specific danger of Protestant belief is Biblicism; the danger of eastern Orthodox belief is traditionalism. The danger of Roman Catholic belief is authoritarianism.” These are some of the problems of ‘The Faith’.

Hans Kung gives us a clear statement of what faith is all about in the following way: “the Christian (the Protestant too) believes not in the Bible, but in him whom it attests; the Christian (the Orthodox too) believes not in tradition, but in whom it transmits; the Christian (the Catholic too) believes not in the Church, but in whom the Church proclaims. What man can turn to as absolutely reliable for time an eternity are not the texts of the Bible, or the Fathers of the Church, nor indeed an ecclesial 1 Satprem, ‘ Sri Aurobindo’ Mother’ Institute of research ,

Delhi, ISBN 81- 85137-60-9, 2003; page 41.

2 Hans Kung, ‘On Being a Christian’, Collins, 1974, page 163.

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magisterium, but it is God himself as he spoke for the believers through Jesus Christ. The biblical texts, the statement of Fathers and ecclesiastical authorities, are meant – in varying degrees of importance – to be no more and no less than an expression of this faith.”

The 2015 Lent talks for the ‘Churches Together Group in north Harrow, London,’ were given by the Revd Dr. Leslie Griffiths on the theme ‘I believe in One, Holy Catholic, Apostolic, Evangelical, Charismatic, Radical and Liberal Church’. The main thrust of the theme was that over the centuries various churches and groups confiscated and owned these Spirit-filled words for their own exclusive needs and for controlling members of the churches, and directing them in various ways. The five weeks’ journey with Lord Griffiths was an amazing liberating experience to realise that one does not have to move out of one’s denomination to declare without hesitation that one belongs to ‘one holy, catholic, apostolic, charismatic, radical and liberal church.’

faith; it is about “Be still, and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10); it is also about “Taste and see that the Lord is good; . . .” (Ps.34: 8). Faith is a simple trust in a God who loves us, but we make it incomprehensible with theological jargons, codes and prescriptions. A child who was asked to memorise and recite the Athanasian Creed; in desperation when he reached: “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.” He ended it by saying, “The whole . . . thing is incomprehensible!”

Faith in Christ should lead us to an indwelling experience with him. St. John describes the nature of this fruitbearing experience in chapter 14 of his Gospel and also in the high priestly prayer in chapter 17. “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing” (Jn. 14: 13). Jesus did God’s work during his short earthly ministry and we are expected to do the same in our faith-led life; it is a faith-lead Eucharistic life of self-giving; it is a life of helping needy neighbours, clothing the naked, caring for the orphans and widows, caring for the sick, caring for the homeless and helping with food banks, etc. (Mt. 25: 31-40). The relationship with faith and work is very clearly expressed in the letter of St. James chapter 2. “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?” He concludes: “. . . so faith without work is dead also.” Therefore, under the grace of faith we should become image bearers of God and do God’s mission (Missio Dei).

The recent exchanges in the Facebook pages on ‘Heretical Thoughts’ by Revd Dr. Valson Thampu and Mr. Chhotebhai made me think about our faith orientations and write this short article. Martin Luther once said, "Anything one fears, loves, and trusts above everything else – whatever it is riches, self, prestige, or whatever – it is one's God." Then the question arises, do we serve many gods? If the answer is yes, then it is time to reevaluate God's covenantal relationship with humanity through Abraham.

Faith is a gift from God and this faith is friendship, a relationship and abiding experience of God. The real friendship is defined as living within the life of the other.

Thus the Christian faith has the power to transform a person in developing an ‘I-Thou’ relationship with others.

Faith thus becomes a real living of the Gospel in everyday life; it is a celebration of ‘the Liturgy after the Liturgy’. St. John describes this abiding experience in his Gospel (Jn. 15). In answer to Thomas’ question Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the Life” (Jn.14:6). Following Jesus and having that indwelling experience (perichoresis) is

The book of Exodus is about a God who comes down to deliver his people so that he might continually abide in their midst. This and the subsequent events in Jesus Christ are to make us a 'kingdom of priests and a holy nation'. The blessed will be blessings to all nations. The abiding presence of God and our personal relationship with him is what matters. We are temples of God; we should be walking tabernacles and God's image bearers. The early Church was described in many different ways and under many different images. St. Paul preferred the image of the body, which he applied to the individual churches and to the Church as a whole. We often forget that we are a community and create divisions within the faith-community for playing power politics and games. As I described above, we now have two kinds of faith, our God-centred individual faith,

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which is a gift and ‘The Faith’ handed down to us by various denominational, institutionalized, power structures. 'The Faith' which is codified and written on tablets of stone is the problem, preventing us from sharing the Holy Communion to give glory to God. It may be interesting to think and meditate about the differences between the two. I realize that some of us highlight these issues in our communities out of our pain; this God-given understanding is indeed a cross to bear. The church hierarchies and ‘Sunday Christians’ may not always appreciate the value of these insights. I have been wounded by the lack Eucharistic hospitality for a very long time and I have written about it in the past. Even Judas was allowed to share the last Passover meal.

International conferences and interfaith dialogues on wider ecumenisms, faith and order, Eucharistic hospitality, gender bias, and ecological problems are just mere words and reports; they do not flow down to the grassroots for living out the Christian faith the way it is meant to be. Volumes of good Vatican II documents remain unfulfilled, though the vernacularization of the Latin Liturgy is a very welcome change. Although the Faith and Order Commission of the world Council of Churches spent a very long time for developing ‘Lima liturgy’ in 1982, it is very seldom used for Eucharistic service. Mar Chrysostom of the Mar Thoma Church once commented that ecumenism for some is just a holiday in Geneva. Many such conferences and commissions are just travel opportunities for paticipants. Christian faith is genuine only when it is oriented towards the community of believers. The freedom to address God as our Father makes mankind brothers and sisters in Christ. This brotherhood and sisterhood stand at the centre of Christianity; Christian faith is nourished and sustained in the community. Therefore, there should be a spirit-lead organic movement and growth of the personal faith of the individual believer to that of ‘The Faith’ codified by the church. Kuitert3 wrote: “Ordinary life is the place we encounter God. If we don’t encounter God there, an encounter in the church is of no help.”

In conclusion, Christians belong to one another because they belong to Christ. ‘Faith’ finds its authenticity and fulfilment only in the relationship and fellowship in ‘The Faith’ of all others in the church to remove the built in barriers between ‘Faith and The Faith’. I leave you with a question to reflect. Do you think that a denominationallyfavoured church dogmatic has a tendency to lose the whole truth in its parts? Aristotle had the vision to say: “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In losing the whole truth, we lose the vision of one Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Charismatic, Evangelical, Missional, Radical, Liberal, Ecumenical, and Reforming Church.

Obituary Mr. O. C. Koshy, Seattle (1928 – 2019) Mr. Koshy was one of the earlier immigrants to the U. S. A. and took very active part in the early stages of the formation of the Diocese of North America and Europe. He was born on January 4, 1928 to late Mr. and Mrs. Kochukunju and belongs to Ooriapadical family, Kumbanad, Kerala, India. He attended University College, Trivandrum, from where he obtained his B. Sc., in Physics and Mathematics. He obtained his got his bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from Madras Institute of Technology (MIT). He married Dr. Saramma Koshy M. D., in 1958 and worked in England, Scotland and Ireland. He also served as scientific officer for the Secretary of Defense in India. Later he obtained his master’s degree in aerospace engineering from Ohio State University. He worked for the Boeing Company, Seattle in stress analysis for about 40 years.

He was very much involved in many social and religious activities and philanthropic ventures, including being a founding member of the Mar Thoma Church in Seattle, Kerala Association of WA, and the Newport Shores Yacht Club. He was a vital participant in the Democratic Party also.

Some noteworthy mentions were his role as a Clinton delegate at the National Convention in 1996 and his nomination for a Lifetime Achievement Award for the party.

He was also an entrepreneur and he even held a real estate license. He held many leadership roles and received many awards and accolades.

He is survived by his wife Dr. Sara Koshy, daughter Dr. Sherin Koshy, son in-law Dr. Daniel Eitzman, and grandchildren Sara, Emily and Matthew. His contributions and support to Kumbanad Fellowship Hospital and Diocese of North America especially without any publicity is commendable in the eyes of the Lord. He was also a founding member of the FOCUS group and attended it conferences held at Santhigiri Ashram, Alwaye.

Funeral Service of Mr. O. C. Koshy was held on Friday, September 6th 2019 led by Rt. Rev. Dr. Isaac Mar Philoxenos Episcopa (Diocese of North America and Europe) and he was laid to rest at Glen Eden Lutheran Memorial Park Cemetery, Livonia, MI. FOCUS expresses its deepest condolences to the bereaved family May his soul rest in peace and resurrect in glory.

Contributed by: Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas

3 H.M. Kuitert, ‘I have my doubts’, SCM Press Ltd, London,

1992, Page 83.

FOCUS Editorial Board

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Joy of Living Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam Enlargement of Joy in divine-human relationship: Remembering the imperative of Christian discipleship, one should explore the cardinal principles of Christian calling. “Called by God” and “sent by Christ” as “God’s co-worker” (1Cor.3: 9) and “apostle of Christ” is the foundation stone of one’s ministerial calling. In every Christmas season, we celebrate God’s involvement in human affairs by singing the Chorus, “Joy to the world!

The Lord is come”. The song continues with the following lines: He rules the world with truth and grace, And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of his love. . .”

The heavenly hosts expressed their divine joy on the birth of Jesus, the Saviour, and singing, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased”. As God’s fellow workers and servants of Christ, we are called upon to continue the divine joy of mission as the gospel imperatives of Jesus: “Go, and preach; “Go and heal “and “Go and teach” (Max Warren). “To give light to those who sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (LK.1: 79) is indeed an exciting business. As Helen Keller puts it,

“it is most exciting when it is lived for others.” Therefore, joy in commitment is to be generated and shared through words of humility, compassion, justice, concern and action as the know-how of the Kingdom of God which Jesus preached. “Serve one another in love” and “forgiving one another” are compulsions from above for common good . . . ” “Be good, get good, and do good” (C. H. Spurgeon) which alone will generate joy in our commitment. “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and love” (William Wordsworth).

Pilgrimage of Christian life: What more do we need to commitment for “fruit bearing”, “burden bearing” and “brand bearing”(Gal.5, 6) in the name of Christ? Mission in Christ’s way helps a gospel activist to enlarge his/her territory and to keep him/her safe from evil, as Jabez prayed in I Chro.4: 10. The divine call is “to live the gospel” (Fr. Francis of Kurusumala) with commitment, concern and action. Giving praise to God for everything generates joy in the faithful. Living in gratitude is nothing but focusing on “love which binds everything in prefect harmony” (Co.3:14). In family relationship, Pope Francis has exhorted the couple to have the joy of living by saying and practicing the words of wisdom such as “I thank you”, “I forgive you” and “I am sorry”. Welcoming strangers is also the hall-mark of true discipleship.

In order to be joyful and triumphant, one should always live with a social vision. This is well stated in Job 29: 1517: “I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame. I was father to the poor and I broke the fangs of the unrighteousness and made him drop his prey from his teeth.” This is in tune with the divine testimony in St. Matthew 25: 40: “… as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”. Living with a sense of stewardship as partners of God’s creation also adds joy to the earth. This is in tune with Sib.18:13 where we find the inclusive character of the compassion of the Lord. In the Encyclical of Pope Francis under the title, Laudato Si (I praise Thee), one may find the factors that diminish our joy of living together on earth. In Isaiah 24: 5, we read, “The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants”.

This is due to the lack of commitment to protect God’s creation. Preach the gospel to the whole creation” (MK.16:15) is also a gospel mandate in our Christian commitment. A caring attitude to nature speaks of our commitment to the integrity of Creation. Our relationship with nature is also a contributing factor to human wholeness.

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Be prepared to overcome hurdles: In 2 Cor.6b -10, St. Paul teaches us a noble lesson of divine grace upon his servants: “We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich…” “As the fragrance of Christ, we are asked to give thanks to God in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess.5:18). As St. Augustine puts, “man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” For this we need to get involved in God’s concerns as the servants of Christ, remembering that “service is the rent we pay for our room on earth.”

The power of love rather than the love of power empowers us with the noble ideal of giving the best for the divine cause. Abel is remembered in the Christian liturgy for what he gave” (Heb.11:3) having set an example to live by the Words of Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts.20:35).The service we render to others by word and deed is only “a drop in the ocean”. Joy comes to us through that one drop. Our lives are to be like rivers, not reservoirs and not cisterns”. Do we live by the environmental legacy of the Dead Sea or the Sea of Galilee? One would recall the words of Mother Teresa when someone commented on her work of charity. To quote: ”Mother, what you are doing is only a drop in the ocean”. Mother replied: “True, what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, but the ocean would be that much poorer without that drop.” Yes, we need to keep the spirit of service at the boiling point” (Rom.12:11William Barclay’s Trans.).

In a world of exploitation, manipulation and competition, Christian workers/ministers should uphold the mission in Christ’s way. In 1 Pet.2:21, St. Peter urges us to imitate, to initiate, and innovate Christ’s noble example. We read: “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps” (cf.Jn.13:15). Joy of leaving foot prints on the sands of time requires willingness on our part to live by the demands of the gospel (cf.Jn.12:.24).We need not have to be great to do something, but we need to do something to become great. A quote from the prayer of Mar Aprem, the Father/Teacher of the Church, is to be remembered. Looking at a bird, being seated on the branch of a tree in his courtyard, he said: “O bird, unless and until you take the figure of the Cross, you will not be able to fly. If your wings do not take the shape of the cross, you will always remain on the earth”. The prayer of Dag Hammarskjold, former Secretary General of the UN, is worth recalling when we desire to live with a joyful heart: “Lord, give me a pure heart that I may see Thee; a humble heart that I may hear Thee; a heart of love that I may serve Thee; a heart of faith that I may live Thee”. The secret of joy lies in this prayer.

THE BOOK OF JOB AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE EGO Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum First: a question: Have you, dear reader, heard any expert convention preacher, holding forth on any text in the book of Job? I would be seriously surprised if you have. In half a century of attending conventions and listening to preachers, I haven’t heard a single sermon on this profound and pivotal text.

Yet, the book of Job is the one that is most frequently referred to by ethicists, or philosophers of ethics. If you go by Gandhi, the heart of true religion is ethics. Religion minus ethics is no better than superstition. The strongest bulwark against superstition in religion is ethics. It is the essence of the teachings of Jesus Christ, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his justice.” His teachings pertain mostly to ethics and only indirectly and critically to rites and rituals.

Of course, you and I don’t expect members of the church hierarchy and Christian godmen to wax eloquent on ethics, or the discipline of doing what is right and of avoiding evil. The essence of ethics is: “Do to others what you would that they should do to you.” According to Kant, this is the foremost Categorial Imperative of Practical Reason. The operative difference between a shepherd and a wolf is ethical.

What does this indifference to biblical, Christological ethics, point to? Why has this come about? Why does it thrive unquestioned? The practical purpose of religion is to strengthen us against the tyranny of ego. What else does Jesus’ teaching mean: “If anyone would come after me (i.e., be my disciple), let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” The three steps involved -selfdenial, unconditional acceptance of the Cross-principle, and the discipline of following Jesus daily - relate to three stages of overcoming the dominion of the ego over us.

But for this discipline, all of human actions will be dictated and dominated by ego. Human beings are inherently egoistic; and ego is penetrated by the power and mystery of evil. As long as ego rules over an individual, he will remain worse than a brutish beat.

Humankind knows only two ways of dealing with ego: the political and the spiritual. In the political domain, the brutishness of individual ego is sought to be curtailed and contained by the power of the State, or via external control. In this model, doing what is just is a matter of fear of consequences only. Self-control, or self-denial, is no legal requirement. Rule of law works punitively and by means of external control.

(Contd. on Page 23)

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UNDERSTANDING THE LOGIC OF SPIRITUAL LIFE Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum Many Christians are, alas, inclined or induced to believe that logic has nothing to do with spirituality. Another aspect of the same superstition is that spirituality is endangered by scholarship. Doesn’t St. Paul say, after all, that ‘knowledge puffs up’? It is overlooked that St. Paul nowhere says that ignorance breeds true humility! If it did, the donkey would have been the most spiritual of all animals. Paul, on the other hand, is unapologetically proud of his scholastic background.

In the history of Christianity, it is not the un-scholarly Jerusalem faction of Christianity headed by James, the brother of our Lord, but the erudite version of St. Paul that that prevailed covered the face of the globe. No serious historian disputes that it is the Pauline version of Christianity, and not the native, Jerusalem version of it, that we practice today. The predominance of St. Peter, with Rome as its centre, is a politico-historical anomaly.

Rome is not the heart of Christianity, but the historical marker of a compromise in which the of soul Christianity accommodated itself within the muscle of the Empire something that continues to ripple through the historical body of Catholicism.

As we take an over-view of the historical development of Christianity, we see two obvious trends. The first is the Way of Jesus as an individual choice and affirmation. In this process, as Soren Kierkegaard was insistent on arguing, the individual stands ‘naked’ before his Creator and accepts no intermediaries of any kind other than Jesus Christ. Faith is purely individual. No external element or authority is relevant to the spiritual destiny of the individual. This is the essence of religious individualism and it is native to theistic existentialism.

The second is the communitarian, or corporate dimension in the practice of faith. This puts the spot-light on the need for church. For the most part, Jesus went about meeting the needs of individuals. But, at a significant moment, with Philippi as the setting, he introduced the idea of the church. In Pauline epistles the emphasis is, increasingly, on church, even as the individual aspect is not lost sight of.

Why should one belong to a congregation at all? Why can’t individuals fulfil their spiritual destiny strictly through their relationship with the Christ of faith? How does it help to belong to a congregation? And what should a congregation be like, if it is to be a spiritually helpful thing to participate in it? It is indeed surprising that these questions, though obvious and basic, are rarely raised.

We are urged to maintain the discipline of attending Sunday services, and cottage prayers, regularly. But why we should do so is never explained logically. Often it

seems that it is to avert the contingency of having to face searching questions that a dichotomy is created between faith and reason. Surely, there must be some logic to the need for having congregational life? Nothing exists without a logic. Randomness, or gratuitousness, is mere appearance. The fact that we are indifferent to causative factors does not mean that they don’t exist.

Church life, over the centuries, has formed itself around the idea of belonging together through adherence to set rites and rituals. But the purpose of spirituality, in the teachings of Jesus Christ and in the understanding of the early church, was the total development of the human person. Sin is understood as self-alienation. We are alienated from our true self. The operative logic of this self-alienation is inner dis-relationship. Sin alienates us from the inner core of our spiritual being. Sin reduces us.

It makes us less than ourselves. In this state we tend to think of ourselves more and more as bodies. So, we get absorbed exclusively with the things of the body. Hence the teachings of Jesus Christ to the effect that we should not ‘be anxious’ about what we would eat, drink or wear.

The point is that a way of life that reduces human awareness to physical needs alone is prone to, riddled with, anxiety. Historically, anxiety is the hallmark of materialism. It is a byproduct of worldliness. The antidote to anxiety is faith. Faith involves an expansion of awareness. It is a breaking out of the narrow prison of the physical and the material, and the growing awareness of a scheme of things wherein extra-material resources are real and available.

Here a problem arises. Does faith have a natural aspect to it, or is it only a gift of divine grace, understood in its random sense? Surely, the will of God is germane to faith.

But God is not arbitrary or random. He does not bestow gifts in an indiscriminate or random manner. Recall the parable of the talents. There is a logical connection, howsoever hidden at the beginning, between the number of talents given and the dispositions of the servants. It is not an ‘accident’, that is, that one servant got five talents, another two and the third, only one.

Experience convinces me that true faith is at once a product of inner liberation and a means for further liberation. In the spiritual mode, growth is the essence of liberation. That is because the spiritual idea of liberation is positive. In political terms, liberation can be negative; it is freedom from. Spiritually, it is freedom for. To understand faith otherwise is to turn it into a fetish, which happens all the time. The faith and faithfulness of the good and faithful servants in the parable are proved by their orientation to growth. It is not merely the talents that grow in number. The faithful servants grow, in the process, in

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their stature and the scope of their faithfulness. It is impossible, and irresponsible, to separate our understanding of faith -its nature and purpose- from this divine intent. God is not a distributor of ornaments or trinkets! He is a facilitator of life in its fullness. One has to be particularly irrational to assume that ‘fullness of life’ is possible without the full development of the human person within the plan of God encoded in creation.

Even a nodding awareness of the four gospels will convince us that the emphasis in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ is on the total growth and development of human beings. His spirituality is the spirituality of growth.

Growth is of the essence of life. So, if Jesus is the light, and not a tomb of death, one must expect a sustained emphasis on human growth of a spiritual and integrated kind. Jesus has appointed, broadly speaking, two resources for our spiritual growth. The first is a personal relationship with him. Hence St. Paul’s view that those who are in Christ become a new creation. This new creation is a re-creation of the old, freed from its limitations and distortions. The new creation is the complete creation. It is completeness, or wholeness, that is ‘new’. It is this that ‘the world cannot give’. Why it is so, is hard to explain but still possible to intuit. Hence the following thoughts…

The core of spirituality comprises the meeting point between the individual and God. Jesus is that meeting point. Incarnation is the meeting point between the metaphysical and the historical, between the divine and the human. The wholeness of the human implies this synthesis. This intuition underlies the creation story.

Adam is animated by the breath of God. The meeting point between God and man is both dynamic and internal, as symbolized by breathing. But, though internal, it also involves the external. It is a state that rejects the antinomy of the internal and the external. It is internalexternal, which makes it paradoxical. Breathing is not merely the inhaling or the exhaling of air. It is both. Any separation between the two is tantamount to the death principle. Godless existence, as St. Augustine says, like exhaling without inhaling. It keeps us restless.

Restlessness is a function of incompleteness or imperfection. So, the peace that Jesus promises (Jn.14:27) is the peace blossoming on the fullness, or perfection, of life (Mtt.5:48).

Peace, at the individual level, is impossible without holistic personal growth. Assuredly, the shaping purpose of ‘abiding in Jesus, and he in us’ (Jn.15:4) is our fruitfulness, which is a symbol of growth. Human identity, in the spiritual sense, is predicated on growth. A tree, Jesus said, is known by its fruit. Fruit is a product, and proof, of growth in nature. No growth, no fruit. No fruit, no identity. The ‘new creation’ (2 Cor.5:17) we become by abiding in Jesus points to a well-defined identity, resulting

from holistic growth. It is not a magical, but logical, reality.

There is a text that every one of us readily quotes. It is to the effect that Jesus is the way (Jn.14:6). It is doubtful, though, if its meaning is understood. Why is it that abiding in Jesus is an assured way to fruitfulness? Isn’t it because of who Jesus is? Otherwise, any kind of relationship should suffice. Jesus represents the fullness of humanity, which also means of divinity -for one implies the other in biblical thought. By abiding in him -effecting a communion of the physical and the metaphysical in us- we attain a state of continually experienced inner motivation, and empowerment, to seek perfection. Logically speaking, only what can be done should be put in the form of an obligation. Or, as Kant says, ‘ought’ implies ‘can’. So, our duty to be perfect implies that we can be perfect. But there is no ‘way’ to this perfection other than Jesus Christ. He is the Way.

This too is common sense. We are shaped by the company we keep. Associated with the petty and the shallow, we become likewise. The profoundest need that young people have -male and female- have, says Nietzsche in The Future of German Educational Institutors- is for an Authority they can submit themselves to. The same is echoed by Matthew Arnold in Culture Anarchy. Christian leaders remain blissfully ignorant of, or willfully indifferent to, the fact that the greatest good they can do their people -especially the youths- is to be good role-models to them. In this respect there is, alas, a famine in the land today.

This gives us a basic, working idea of the scope and significance of personal relationship with Jesus. It can be readily tested against the many encounters of individuals with Jesus recorded in the gospels. Except in the case of those who were hard-set against liberation-as-personalgrowth, the outcome in each instance corroborates what we have considered so far. This brings us to the second dimension: the ecclesial-communitarian. Why is congregational life essential for our spiritual wholeness?

Story is told of D. L. Moody, who came across a rich man who lived in singular alienation from the local church community. Moody visited him. In the course of the conversation, Moody got up, walked to the fire-place and, with a tong, picked up a glowing ember and put it aside.

As the rich man watched, it began to bedim. Soon it became an ashy, dull thing. The rich loner got the message.

Now think of a different possibility. You take a glowing ember and put it with a heap of coal. If anything, its glow will die out faster! It is not the coal, but the state in which it is, that matters. We are all, generically, human beings; but not spiritually. When Jesus said we are the light of the world (Mtt.5:14), he meant that we should be like glowing embers, not like cold pieces of coal.

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An assembly of Christians can be a heap either of coal or of burning, glowing embers. Only the latter qualifies to be church. A congregation of cold coals is no congregation.

It cannot claim Jesus Christ to be its foundation. This helps us to understand what a congregation is meant to be, and how belonging to one promotes our spiritual welfare.

The practical principle is that awareness stimulates our growth. Awareness depends on what or who we are exposed to. The most acute form of awareness awareness that takes place in the depth of the soulhappens, not through mere exposure, but through encounters in depth. Jesus indicated this state in his own inimitable style: ‘abide in’, which is exposure without limits and conditions. It is depth-exposure. So, a spiritually vibrant congregation must have two essential strengths. Its members must be oriented to growth: or, in the words of Jesus, to seeking perfection oriented to life in all its fullness. Second, they should be open to each other in the depth of their being. Stagnation and superficiality denote spiritual death. It is because this is not understood that commitment to orthodoxy, in itself a great and necessary strength, brings about stagnation and paralysis.

This means that belonging to a congregation, or to church in general, implies a specific duty: the duty to be the new creation, or to be born again (in its spiritual, not cultic sense). At this stage, we need to bring in the idea of individual uniqueness. Human beings are not machinemade clones of each other. Each person is distinct and unique. We all have our distinctive qualities, strengths and talents. We are to seek perfection in relation to these ‘talents’. If we do, and bring the cumulative outcome of these individual effervescences to the life of a congregation, it will become a reservoir of variegated talents and resources. That is the idea of a vibrant congregation, a congregation that kindles freshness in us and motivates us to seek perfection as a core spiritual discipline. A congregation must be an implicit celebration of the goodness and glory of life.

Now recall the Old Testament image of the valley of dry bones (Ezek.37:1-10). It could well be an appropriate image of our congregational life! All the bones are together. And it is, like the congregations we are proud of, a large heap! There is no quantitative dearth. All it lacks is life. It also means that each of the dry bones exists by itself -despite being in a heap- unrelated to the rest. It is a heap, not a body, an organic unity. It has no life. What lacks life cannot kindle life; just as a dead body cannot give birth to a new life. The transformation of this heap of dry bones, all belonging together spatially, but alienated from each other spiritually and proximally, into a living army is the rebirth that congregations need to undergo today. Only in such congregations will God be

worshiped, as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “in spirit and in truth”.

If I have the singular advantage of such a congregation, I’d enjoy the blessedness of being exposed to an ensemble of life-kindling, spiritually ennobling, influences!

This very exposure will stimulate something precious, godly in me and I’d grow in spirit even unawares. Each person I ‘have fellowship with’, would be a cherished spiritual stimulation. And I would grow! Sadly, we have come to think that rites and rituals can be a substitute it.

Jesus never thought or taught this. We have bigger congregations and magnificent church buildings; but it is doubtful if we have church, the body, with Jesus Christ as its head.

Only think of this: Jesus chose a handful of individuals, who counted for nothing in the eyes of the world; fisherfolks, most of them. It was, besides, a hopelessly disparate group, though a small one. But in a span of three years, they grew, and grew, and grew in stature.

They out-grew themselves! When Jesus said to Peter assuming that this text is authentic- that the church would be built on Peter the rock, he meant something very practical, not mystical. It was not the person of Peter, unlike what the Catholic Church felt expedient to infer, that mattered, but his rock-likeness. “Upon this rock…will I build my church”. What is this ‘rock’?

Certainty not the person of Peter; for Peter was a volatile and vulnerable character, as is indicated by his collapse in the courtyard of the High Priest when the trial of Jesus was in progress. The ‘rock’ is the reality of growth as transformation, with its framework as the community of faith in a state of unshakeable spiritual solidarity, over which the gates of hell shall not prevail. The church will never be Petrine; it will necessarily be Christ-centric.

A mere human assembly, in which individuals stay stagnant, is similar to a valley of bones. It makes little difference by which denominational colour or label it is known, or who leads it and with what pomp and power. If it is your misfortune to belong to one such, you are sure to wither away. It could take time, but the outcome is never in doubt. You become a nobody in the eye of the Lord (Mtt.7:21-13). Remember the message of the Spirit of God to the church at Sardis? You have the name of being alive; but you are dead. “Let the dead,” Jesus says, “bury their dead”. It is a good thing to do; it is desirable social service; but, for God’s sake, don’t call its compound a church! Our spiritual life exists between two axes: the vertical one on which I abide in Jesus, and the horizontal one, on which I have ‘fellowship’ with fellow believers. The two together constitute the church. One axis cannot exist without the other. Nor can the two axes be wrongly aligned. Cross, as an instrument of torture and oppression, is the wrong alignment of the two axes.

Hence it is that a congregation is either the body of Christ, or a cross on which that Body is crucified.

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Journeying with the Cross of Christ Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas Jesus’ journey to the cross began at the very beginning of time when humankind rebelled with God. It was the providential plan of God. Jesus’ journey to the cross took him throughout the cities and rural places of Judea and Galilee. He visited the never treaded roads and Samaritan wells and invited ordinary people to become his disciples and to do the extra ordinary things for him. Our Lord crisscrossed these territories, teaching the truth in a world choked by false beliefs and dogmas Jesus’ journey took him to the cross, where he suffered, died and resurrected so that we can be saved from our sins and can have eternal life. Jesus’ journey took him beyond that cross, through the empty tomb, and into the very first Easter morning. His journey did not culminate there, but it gives us the eternal hope that he will return to gather us to be with him for an eternal life in heaven. Our journey is not without challenges, but we’re assured of God’s presence. Jesus told His disciples, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) and he will be with us also in our journey.

God’s plan was executed exactly at the right time. Jesus came down from eternity and into time, entering Mary’s womb just as the angel had promised. Joseph and Mary traveled together to Bethlehem, their ancestral home, to be part of the census as per the decree of Herod. There in Bethlehem Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in a manger, greeted by farm-yard animals and dusty shepherds. The Heaven touched the earth, but not in the mansion of a King, but in a manger. God’s eternal, cosmic plan had begun to unfold and thus the journey to the cross also began.

God’s great plan of salvation intersects with our very own life and journey. That same God have plans for us also.

His plans for our life are built on the foundation of his love and on the great salvation his Son has won for us in his journey to the cross and beyond. No matter what comes our way on any day of the week, God intends to draw everything in our life together for our good; those plans will come together at just the right time. We need to believe that his plans are beyond our plans and his ways are beyond our ways. He will guide us in our journey at the right time and place.

No matter how dark the valley becomes on any day of the week, our Savior walks beside each one of us. No matter how high that mountain of tasks that we have set aside for each day, our heavenly Father will somehow include them in the eternal plan of love he has set in place from all eternity just for each one of us.

Pope Pius XI issued an encyclical against the Nazi "cult": "Race, nation, state . . . all have an essential and honorable place within the secular order," he wrote. "To abstract them, however, from the earthly scale of values and make them the supreme norm of all values, including religious ones, and divinize them with an idolatrous cult, is to be guilty of perverting and falsifying the order of things created and commanded by God."

Long before Jesus walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem, God through his prophets had predicted the Savior’s journey to the cross. Generations before Jesus was born into the line of David, God had promised to send his Son to the earth to remove the curse of sin, the curse that every human being carried since Adam and Eve. The Bible reminds us, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). Thus the 2nd Adam redeemed the sins caused by the first Adam and the subsequent generations.

Adam and Eve were guilty of perverting and falsifying God’s plan, when they disobeyed God and listened to the devil and ate the forbidden fruit. Abraham, whom God promised to make the father of nations, also disobeyed God by having a son with Sara’s maid. Both King David and King Solomon also followed the idolatrous cult and were guilty of perverting and falsifying the order of things created and commanded by God through prophets and Moses. Israelites, even though they were rescued from the bondage from Egypt, they again and again disobeyed God and worshipped idols and thus were forced to leave to Babylon as exiles.

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We, the so called faithful believers, in our day to today life are making the earthly values as supreme of all values, including religious ones and divinize them with an idolatrous cult; we are guilty of perverting and falsifying the order of things created and commanded by our Lord Jesus Christ. The religious leaders are also not exempt from guilty of perverting and falsifying the order of things created and commanded by God. Faithful believers evaluate things from the earthly scale of values and then make them the supreme norm of all values, including religious ones, thus guilty of perverting and falsifying the order of things created and commanded by God. “No, the journey to the cross didn’t begin in Jericho. It didn’t begin in Galilee. It didn’t begin in Nazareth. It didn’t even begin in Bethlehem. The journey to the cross began long before. As the echo of the crunching of the fruit was still sounding in the garden, Jesus was leaving for Calvary. “And the Angels Were Silent” (‘Grace for the Moment’, Volume II by Max Lucado). Our journey to the cross also began when we were woven secretly in the wombs of our mothers (Psalm 139:13). On His way to Jerusalem and to the cross, Jesus met a lot of people.

Same way, we will also meet lot of people of different beliefs, non-beliefs and opinions, even with faith in Jesus different than ours. If we have the right attitude to the people we encounter, our journey with the cross will be successful. The cross dominates the New Testament; the cross transforms everything. It gives a new worshipping relationship to God, a new and balanced understanding of ourselves, a new approach to give ourselves in mission, a new kind of love towards our enemies, and a new courage in Christ to face troubles and tribulations.

St. John wrote: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (Jn’16: 33).

It worked out for Jesus since he had the right attitude. He considered everyone greater than himself; he had chosen the fisherman to fish the men. He humbled himself by keeping silence when everyone accused the prostitute brought before him. He humbled himself before Pilate, when the crowed uttered to crucify him and false accusations were leveled against him. Jesus humbled by embracing and honoring a little child to illustrate the humility the disciples not yet begun to understand.

(Mathew 9:36-37) “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Mathew 11: 28-30).

He was compassionate, by healing the sick, the lame, the blind and even the legion. The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is full of compassion. (Psalm 116: 5) There’s something in us that thinks it’s in the form of God too and it’s the flesh. So we need to be emptied of our self, our self-sufficiency, and our own control. However,

we can’t empty our self as Jesus did, but we can be emptied through the grace of God. Now this matter of humility is important. Let us be humble in our faith journey under the cross and not to be proud in nature.

Thomas a Kempis, Dutch mystic and devotional author of “The Imitation of Christ”, in his classic wrote, "We must imitate Christ's life and his ways if we are to be truly enlightened and set free from the darkness of our own hearts. Let it be the most important thing we do, then, to reflect on the life of Jesus Christ.” We need to look at the biblical picture of Jesus’ Journey to the Cross as revealed in Philippians 2:5-11. “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Our faith journey under the cross should be to find out this resurrected Jesus and his glory.

This is the true picture of Jesus journey to the cross and our journey should mirror Jesus Journey. Our cross should correlate with His cross. That is to say, we need to come to an experiential awareness of the cross through, humility, suffering, compassion, righteousness and brokenness. That’s what Jesus did and that’s where we must go on our journey to the cross. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are at the very heart of Christianity. The good news of the gospel is that God has acted in history to conquer evil and reconcile sinners to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

For those who have been united with Jesus – who have submitted to Him as the savior and Lord – have been united with Him in the likeness of His death and will one day be united with Him in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom. 6:5). We are crucified with Christ and will be resurrected at the end of our faith journey.

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When Jesus went to the cross He gave up several things, which we hold on to, all rights to his own reputation, all rights to His possessions, all rights to be rescued, all rights to be loved by people. “Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up the cross and follow me” (Mathew 16: 24 NIV). Let us also join in with all God’s people down through the ages whose lives have proven that his promises are true. Let us give up our self, our reputation, our possessions, our safety and join in with them with confidence: “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose” (Romans 8: 28).

Journey under the cross of Christ should be able to enable us to move beyond “doing penance” and to help Christians focus on Christ’s sacrifice for us—the real meaning of Easter and the reason we celebrate. The foundation of Christian living is faith in Christ. Faith is the central loyalty that gives purpose and direction to our lives. Christian faith is grounding our lives in the living God as revealed especially in Jesus, the Christ. This faith does not happen overnight; it is a journey from birth to death since we are growing in faith.

The faith journey with the cross is complex, which involves, trusting by relying on God by knowing that “Lord is my Shepherd” (Psalm 23). It also involves believing that God the father the almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

The journey with the cross is following which involves doing as well as being, so Jesus asked his first disciples to ‘follow me’. Such discipleship is not an easy matter.

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.

For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:2425).

Finally, journey to under the cross is also a matter of hoping, of leaning into the future that God has promised. On the cross ‘Jesus took our place’ and bore our sins for our redemption; it is atonement, the biblical teaching of atonement is substitutionary from beginning to end. It’s living with the assurance that God is bringing in the time of shalom, God’s reign here on earth, the kingdom of God on earth. As Easter people, we have a hope born of the Resurrection: God has already conquered sin and death, and the kingdom of love, righteousness, peace and justice is even now breaking in. To abide in hope is to watch and pray for ‘God’s future in the present’ and to join in the ministries through which it will be realized. Jesus had given us the hope and assurance that he will return to gather all of us to be with him for an eternal life with him in heaven. Until his return, our faith journey under the cross is to be continued faithfully. Our journey begins with our birth and continues until our death and until we join with our Lord for an eternal life in heaven. Let us continue our faith journey under the cross of Christ by living a life worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE BOOK OF JOB AND THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE EGO Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum (Continuation from page 17) Spirituality is the second means. This excludes external control and coercion. It puts the emphasis entirely on self-control. The reason is obvious: human freedom is a paramount value in spirituality. External coercion, even for ethical purposes, imperils freedom. The voluntary acceptance of the ethical discipline is, hence, a basic condition for living in freedom. Corruption and freedom cannot coexist. The corrupt can never be free. Also, they will always be enemies of human freedom. The one absolute principle is this: the violent are inherently and inevitably corrupt. That is so, even if they appear in sheep’s clothing. The corrupt are wolves, not sheep.

Corruption involves unbridled indulgence in egoism.

Remove egoism from corruption, it looks weird. Each rupee or dollar or pound sterling gained through corruption, each advantage gained by unfair means, is a loss, not a gain. You lose in the coin of the soul what you gain in the currency of the world.

This should open our eyes to the meaning of corruption in religion. The very purpose of religion is to keep us pure and pristine. We are meant, says Peter, to be a royal priesthood. That is, we are kings; but the secret of our authority is not power, but purity. Such a King Jesus was; the one who did not have a shirt to his back, or a penny to his name. He alone is the King, whose Kingdom never ends.

It is this issue that is examined with extraordinary candour in the book of Job. The book opens with one of the most important questions in spirituality: Does Job love God for nothing? Is his godliness, that is, disinterested, or free from egoism? Is it not a clever, calculating, egoistic investment motivated by mega returns?

Consider also God’s verdict on Job. “There is none more righteous than Job in all the earth.”

Theologians tend to lose their way by making Job a case study on the suffering of the innocent. In doing so, they lose sight of the heart of the matter. It is not innocence per se that is focused here; but the “character” or spiritual mettle of that innocence; for even in the case of innocence there can be an egoistic variety. Such innocence - erected mostly on not doing what is wronghas little spiritual value. This explains why, in the teachings of Jesus Christ, the emphasis is not on ‘not doing what is wrong’ but on ‘doing what is right’. No one can do consistently what is right, unless the ego is

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surrendered to the authority of God; whereas one may avoid doing evil, at least for a period of time, out of inspired self-interest; that is, to avoid harmful consequence.

Job needs to be re-visited That is why we need to return to the Book of Job with an open mind. It’s not easy, but it needs to be done, nonetheless.

In Greek philosophy, a person’s character is to be understood in terms of his total orientation, and not in terms of some isolated gestures or actions. From this point of view, either one is oriented to virtue or to the lack of it. A coward, for instance, may, under certain circumstances, do a brave deed because the consequence of cowardice is worse than that of bravery.

This is the case with acts of heroism in the battle field. A soldier has no option but to be brave unto death. If he flees, he will be shot. Fighting the enemy, risking his life, offers a better chance of survival than flight in cowardice.

Seen thus, military courage is an aspect of moral cowardice. The ‘self-denial’ exemplified by a soldier in the battlefield does not involve voluntary self-denial. That is why alcohol-culture is rampant in armies. An alcohol-free army did not exist in history! A valued perk of being a solider is subsidized liquor.

First, it is a strange book. Its hero, the spiritual locus, is not a Jew. Imagine, what is worse, God himself saying there is none, including the Jews, more righteous than this Gentle! Sounds, heretical, right? But it is God who says it. So, we better take it.

The need for religion exists on a universal principle. The need for all ethical teachings also exists on the same basis. That principle is: natural man acts only out of selfish, or egoistic, motives. The capacity to act out of purely self-less, altruistic motives is alien to human nature. Also, the power of ego is intractable. It is not given to unaided human nature to keep one’s ego under bit and bridle. The ego, furthermore, is a sphere of deception, subtle and broad. People play games not only with others but also with themselves. They don’t spare even God in this regard.

The most brutal war is, therefore, the war against one’s own ego. This is the only Holy War that has any human significance or value. It is the War of wars that every human being has to wage. In respect of this war earthly armour is irrelevant.

The bad news for organized religions of every kind is this: the paraphernalia of religiosity -rites, rituals, customs, symbols, structures, practices, make-belief of every kindis as irrelevant to this Holy War as the resources of the world are. If you are not convinced, just consider this: in the last fifty years, religiosity has increased in scale and scope in our midst; but the moral stock of Christians has declined. Individual stature too has, correspondingly, dwindled. The Christian community is poorer today in spirituality and humaneness for all our massively organized and heavily invested-in religiosity. The axe, said the Baptist, should be laid at the root of the tree that produces no fruit! Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down, said Jesus Christ. But the barren tree continues to flourish; nay, more; it now yields a bumper harvest of poisonous berries!

Of course, it is hard to swallow. Suppose God were to say today, “Look at this man, he is not a Christian; but he is more righteousness, and dearer to my heart, than all you Christians put together!”

I won’t be surprised if all-denominations meeting -on the analogy of all-party meetings- is called, and a decision taken to boycott God. At the very least, to register a cosmic protest with the help of those who have hotline facilities with God. The second issue is this: God says Job is righteous. But not much is said about the expressions and exercises of his righteousness. This too should puzzle us no end. We have our checklists for righteousness. I doubt if Job would fare well by that list. Let me leave it at that.

The text lays bare the essence of Job’s righteousness. It is encapsulated in an unforgettable sentence. “I will love him, even if he slays me!” Job’s love for God is not determined by calculations of profit or loss. It is beyond the reach of his ego.

The principle that emerges is this: we are as godly as we are delivered of our egos.

Each one of us knows where we stand in this respect.

Our religiosity is driven and sustained, for the most past, by fear. Fears pertain to ego. It is only in our ego, as Indian seers and mystics perceived very clearly, that we suffer hurts. The more vulnerable to exasperation or grievance we are, the more egoistic we should recognize ourselves to be.

The trainers and drivers of our religiosity use fear as their principal weapon. It is incredible how eloquent some priests and preachers become when they come to envisioning people being roasted alive in hell-fires! With what relish they unleash the flourish! And how mighty impressed, and intimidated we are! And, therefore, how pliant and submissive!

Job would say, “You hypocritical Christians! You taught you to be slaves?”

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With each successive Satanic blow, Job should have sunk deeper and deeper into the quagmire of fear. He doesn’t. Instead, he gets bolder and perseverant with his questions. Why? His godliness is not a business transaction with God.

gospels- in asking questions meant to confuse and to cloud the truth. Job’s questions are born in the furnace of his experience, couched in a language of bewilderment, addressed to the One who hears and responds. They are addressed to the One, Job knows, who is himself the answer. Not asking such questions, when they are real and imperious, is to bear false witness to God as one incapable of being the answer. It assumes God to be anxious and insecure himself about the questions we ask!

Poor God! An important emphasis in the Book of Job is on the duty to ask questions. Let me explain why I understand this as a spiritual duty. Spirituality is akin to light. Jesus is the light of the world. Light is a symbol of clarity. To abide in light is to abide in a way of life oriented to clarity. We cannot be clear enough, especially on spiritual and metaphysical truths, at any given point in time. Hence the teaching of Jesus: “Seek!” (Mtt.7:7). Seeking of the spiritual kind is not any exercise driven by mere curiosity.

It is quest that craves clarity. The alternative is to ‘sit in darkness’; or to languish in a world of shadows in a short of ghostly existence, the like of which Plato sketches in the famous allegory of the Cave in the Republic.

Is our church relationship, may we ask, any different from the transactional? A thousand respectable Christians have told me, “Baptism, wedding, school admissions, jobs, burials… I need the church.”

In Sunday schools and Christian homes tiny tots are told, “If you don’t pray regularly to Jesus papa, he will be angry.” So, children grow up assuming that religion is all about keeping God in good humour by hook or crook.

Most people do not outgrow this infantile religiosity.

Beware of the defenders of God! This brings us to the next strange thing about Job; something that should mark him in our eyes as outrageously ungodly, as it does in the eyes of his comforters, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. These comforters -whom Job describes aptly as ‘miserable comforters’- are our representatives in the story. Job dares to ask questions of God! He puts God in the dock! Unthinkable, no? But, that is exactly what he does. It is this that convinces the ‘miserable comforters’ of Job that he is sinful and deserving of his misery.

But God thinks otherwise! He too asks questions. A Tsunami of questions, in fact. The point is this: there is nothing wrong about asking questions. The only condition is that such questioning should be rooted in the truth of one’s life. There are experts -we see some of them in the

To stay stuck in such a state is to embrace slavery. This way of observing religion, as against fulfilling it (Mtt.5:17), makes religion a sphere of darkness or, as Jesus said, a den of thieves. We get used to this, just as a frog kept in a saucepan of water and heated gently gets used to its peril to the point of death. Anything and everything suffice in darkness; the only requirement is familiarity, or ‘use and custom’. Religiosity of darkness is driven by habit; spirituality is sustained by questioning or seeking aimed at ever-increasing clarity.

It doesn’t have to be argued that blind faith does not make for clarity! Getting inured to spiritual darkness, we become afraid of light. Of late I have been, given the emerging context of evident moral decay in churches, posting simple interpretations of biblical texts. A fairly well-informed, right-minded fellow Christian remarked in response, “Reading your posts makes me depressed. It is hard to realize that all my life I have been living a lie.”

Nearly a cry to be spared. Well, that is the ground reality even regarding the more enlightened among us. But we also parrot, “Jesus is the light of the world.” “Jesus is the Way”. Presumably, the Way of Light as well!

Do we bear false witness?

The daily consequence is that, unwittingly, we bear false witness to the Way of Jesus. Gandhi in his autobiography tilted The Story of My Experiments with Truth, recounts his encounters in South Africa with Christians and comments that, but for Christians, he might have become a Christian. As it is, he stayed Christian without becoming

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a Christian. Historians argue that if there is one political leader in world history who practised the teachings of Jesus Christ on the grand stage of a nation’s destiny, it is Gandhi, and Gandhi alone.

Consider that historical fact against the nervousness that almost every ordained Christian leader has that the church will come to grief if biblical principles are adhered to. I remember the Moderator of the Church of North India reprimanding me, when I refused to transfer money out of St. Stephen’s College into church funds and prevented the bishop of Delhi from selling college seats.

‘How do you expect,” he sounded indignant, “the church to run?”

The amazing insight in the book of Job is that God grants us the freedom to ask questions. Rather, he welcomes them. Why? Because God respects our freedom. Free human beings are not required to swallow anything undigested. Blind faith is harmful to freedom. It is ungodly. It is satanic.

Then, why don’t we ask: How come we have together created a culture in our midst -in the name of church, which is founded on Christ- where asking fundamental questions is stigmatized and criminalized? Where the faithful are required to fall in with whatever is dished out to them? Where thinking responsibly and seeking the truth fearlessly is deemed impious and rebellious? Where mental inertia, purporting to de facto slavery, is deemed a virtue?

What is more, how come we are indifferent to the fact that such a culture bears false witness to God, which is the principal point that the book of Job makes? Recall how the text ends. God condemns Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar -the self-styled defenders of conventional, blind faith- as unrighteous. Job is vindicated. These defenders of God are condemned by God. Can there be a more startling expose of the falsity of what has become habitual with us in the name of loyalty to church?

To the venerable Moderator, the only hope for the church is the market and its logic of corruption. By implication, Jesus was a naïve fool to have disrupted the temple market in Jerusalem. The CNI Moderator I referred to does not stand alone in affirming this pragmatic creed.

Many a lay Christian has told me that it is foolish to not run, while we are in Rome, like Romans. So, Jesus committed a terrible mistake, as Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus Christ, in Brothers Karamazov, in not falling down and worshipping Satan and gaining, by way of an easy, smart bargain, the nations of the world. The height of stupidity!

But St. Paul makes an important point in the Letter to Romans. “Professing themselves to be wise,” he writes, “they became fools!” It is our cleverness, our common sense laden with spiritual inertia and the deadweight of egoism that makes us prefer to stay stuck. It was this that kept the cripple beside the pool of Bethsaida to languish there for thirty-eight years! After all, he too had the blessing of a familiar community: the community of cripples. Very likely, he was scared of the stirring in the pool! Which invalid likes a stir? If you are open to a stir, you won’t be an invalid, in the first place.

Why have we done this to us?

If you ask me for the essence of the book of Job, I would say: this is a classic Holy War on human egoism that masks itself as habitual religiosity. The religiosity that is in vogue -the religiosity being systematically nurtured everywhere- is the sort that Satan refers to: Does Job love God for naught? Job is an allegorical warning against the sanctimonious selfishness that masquerades itself as piety.

Only when we reach the state of Job, in which we too can say, “Even if he slays me, I will still love him” can we be certain that we are a people of faith. Anything less is inspired selfishness. ‘Fearing God’ or ‘loving him’ or trying to be, somehow, in his good books, shows we value God only as a useful instrument. To use God as an instrument is to insult his awesome majesty. Even you and I would be offended at being used as tools. Do you think God needs to be grateful for being insulted in this manner?

So, we return to the question raised at the beginning.

Why it the book of Job rarely preached on? Well, it is simply because its spiritual insight, profound as it is, goes completely contrary to the nature of the religiosity in vogue. Our religiosity is a function of our egocentricity.

The more religious a person, the greater his egoism. This is writ large on our officialdom. You see that, and endure it, ever so often and in lurid colours. But you take it tamely because you are conditioned to think that this is the right stuff, irrespective of what the Bible says.

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THE FIRST STEP David Brand, London A Holy Man was travelling from village to village in his own country preaching and teaching. One day he arrived at a small village, where he saw a large and angry crowd intent on stoning a woman for misconduct.

He pushed his way through the crowd towards a very frightened lonely young woman and stood beside her and together they faced this mutinous mob. Holding her hand he knelt down, bowed his head for a moment, smiled and rose to his feet. Still holding her hand he looked directly at the threatening and angry mob and each individual in that mob felt as if their very souls were being examined and soon all became very quiet.

FOCUS The Editorial Board of the FOCUS has decided to introduce a new initiative of ‘Ask FOCUS' to enable its readers and well wishers to interact with issuesspecificity with FOCUS about the biblical and theological themes addressed in this journal. We request your active participation in this new interactive feature focused especially, though not exclusively, on the youth.

You could begin with sending us your thoughts and queries about the themes and insights offered through the FOCUS issues. It would help if you would be brief and limit your queries to, ideally, about 50 to 100 words. We are, however, somewhat flexible about the word limit.

Even so, brevity is the envisaged golden rule. You may send your thoughts by e-mail to Rev. Valson Thampu (you could address him as Valson) at his e-mail address vthampu@gmail.com The editorial board reserves the freedom to edit the submissions and also to reject any which is contrary to the editorial policies and mission of FOCUS. You may access all the previous issues of FOCUS online magazine by visiting any of the two web sites below and reading the thematic articles in each issue.

We guarantee that your privacy will be protected and that your name will be published only with your prior permission; otherwise, your views/statement will be published under the caption: A Reader’s View. We hope that our readers and wellwishers would make use of this new initiative and take part actively in the mission and purpose of FOCUS.

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He said to them “Search your hearts and minds, also examine your souls and then tell me that each of you is so perfect that you can justify throwing the first stone. If you cannot, then join me and this woman in order to demonstrate that you cannot support this inhumane conduct and that you are not animals”. For a moment nobody moved, and then the oldest man dropped his stone and joined the Holy Man and the young woman. There was a short pause then the remaining oldest dropped his stone and joined the group. This was followed by the next oldest and the next and the next until only one young man remained.

He was extremely angry and hate filled both in mind and heart, he said “I can justify throwing my stone at that woman who is my wife. I have kept the law, been good and generous all my life, I have honoured her, my parents and my friends and also tended to the sick and the poor, so I shall still throw my stone”.

The Holy Man then said, “Have you asked your wife why she did such a thing, maybe she was trying to protect you, your family, your parents, your reputation or possibly she had no option and had to submit, have you considered any of this?”

The young man paused and the Holy Man spoke again, “Stop and think, once you release your stone you can no longer claim to be perfect in any way and you will become by definition evil and be subject to its Laws, you will no longer contribute goodness to this world and you will die unwanted and unloved.”

The young man stood still for a minute as if frozen, he then dropped his stone and fell to his knees looked deeply into the Holy Man’s face and cried “Forgive me for I was about to sin.” The Holy Man said “My son you have just taken your first step towards God.” I claim no points for originality by choosing a public execution for the above but I have developed an incident that Jesus would be familiar in his time as it was common practise for women to be summarily executed in this way and most likely the culprit would have been in the crowd throwing his stone in order to ease his own guilt!

In your own personal life never forget that stones come in many shapes, sizes, formats and colours. They are all destructive and create more damage, not less, as they can have a nasty habit of coming back with interest and leaving permanent damage to the thrower.

Also remember that a majority opinion is not necessarily the correct one, so do not be timid about challenging it. Never be one of the unthinking herd and be wary of media manipulation - you are your own mind and nobody but nobody owns it. Please never be a stone thrower as it will prevent you from experiencing those many wonderful steps forward in your quest for that ultimate heavenly goal.

Editor’s Note: Mr. David Brand is an elder and a Lay Reader of the All Saints’ Church of England parish, Harrow Weald, London, where the Sinai Mar Thoma Church conducts worship services. He is a retired electronic engineer with a very deep interest in spirituality.

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ASK FOCUS REFLECTION ON DR. ZAC VARGHESE’S ARTICLE ON FAITH IN ‘FOCUS’ JULY 2019 Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum I am privy to the thought-provoking article by Dr. Zac Varghese, hinging mainly on the distinction between ‘the faith’ and ‘faith’. I note below the thoughts Zac fired in me, for which I am grateful to him. I am doing this, if only to underline the need for discussions and debates among us concerning what we, presumably, hold dear as articles of faith. Only then is there is a chance at all that we begin to understand what we profess. What is the use in professing anything we don’t understand? How is this different from mere ‘parroting’? If ‘the faith’ makes us religious parrots, shouldn’t ‘faith’ set us free from this and enable us to be human?

I note down my thoughts in this regard also for the reason that Zac’s reflections recorded in this piece were occasioned by a facebook discussion that took place on denominational confessions that I happened to initiate in the wake of the unfortunate developments in Indian churches.

The key distinction, for my thinking may be formulated as: while ‘the faiths’ root us in particular denominational confessions, ‘faith’ roots in Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith (Heb.12:1-2). Jesus said, “I am the Truth” (Jn.14:6). He also said, “The Truth will set you free.” (Jn.8:32) 1. The very relevant distinction between faith and ‘the faith’… There is a problem in identifying ‘the faith’ with denominational teaching. Each of these denominational confessions embodies only a part of the faith. The totality of ‘the faith’ is obtained in the ‘catholic’ or universal church, which is an organic unity of all confessions, from which we are light years away. The problem here is not merely one of multiplicity. It is also of incoherence. There no point of coherence among the many. A doctrinal point of unity is lacking. It is tautological to argue that Jesus is that point of coherence; for the reason that such coherence does not exist.

We need to reckon the reality of distortion, when the Whole is fragmented and the part is presumed to be, and paraded as, the Whole, which is inherently deceptive. It lacks truth. This situation is further aggravated by denominational theologies and doctrines of disintegration.

Hence the truth of Rowan William’s statement: God was evident when bishops were silent.

2. The problematics of faith and ‘the faith’. Does not ‘the faith’ inhibit faith? How are we to ensure that it doesn’t? The Jews and Samaritans too had their ‘the faiths’. We have a Babylon of ‘the faiths’. Hence the anxiety, “When the Lord of faith comes, will he find faith

on the earth?” – More specifically, why is it that those who profess different ‘the faiths’ are aliens and strangers to each other? When I encounter the alienation among confessional denominations, I am reminded of the great rupture that happened at the Fall, with which human history begins. Denominations, no matter how we justify them, can result only from a rupture of the Whole. And they are burdened by the consequences thereof.

3. Regarding the tension between faith and ‘the faith’, Zac writes: “…one does not have to move out of one’s denomination to declare without hesitation that one belongs to ‘one holy, catholic, apostolic, charismatic, radical and liberal church.” True, and I agree. But the problem is how to connect the two. If we don’t, we will lives split in two mutually exclusive zones, shifting, as the denominational occasion demands, from faith to ‘the faith’. This compromises our authenticity -our truthcommitment- in a serious way, forcing us, in effect, to live double-lives: a religious version of Jekyll and Hyde.

4. I find myself in instinctive agreement with Zac when he writes: “Faith is a gift from God and this faith is friendship, a relationship and abiding experience of God. The real friendship is defined as living within the life of the other. Thus, the Christian faith has the power to transform a person in developing an ‘I-Thou’ relationship with others. Faith thus becomes a real living of the Gospel in everyday life; it is a celebration of ‘the Liturgy after the Liturgy’.” But I have a few concerns that arise out of this.

Admitted, faith is a gift from God. Admitted too that “the Christian faith has the power to transform a person in developing an ‘I-Thou’ relationship with others.” The crucial question is what happens to this transforming, liberating faith when it is ‘contained’ -as is the ground reality- within the confines of denominational ‘the faith’? Does ‘the faith’ inhibit and distort ‘faith’? If it doesn’t, how do we explain the spiritual and confessional distance

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among denominations? From biblical evidence, ‘faith’ is a way of relating: first, to Jesus and, through him, to each other. It has to be a relationship of love, not of power. If so, how are we to account for, or justify, the acute hostility, bordering of diabolic malice between two factions of the same church: The Orthodox and the Jacobite factions? Are these factions free to practise ‘faith’, rising above their confinement to ‘the faith’? Is it not the case that their faith is overridden by their ‘the faith’? While the Christian faith has the power, as Zac points out, “to transform a person in developing an ‘IThou’ relationship with others”, should we accept a situation in which ‘the faith’ suppresses it altogether in any instance?

5. Zac refers to the Athanasian Creed. It is a necessary reference and a helpful one. What is the need for, and function of, the Creed? Why is it basic to ‘faith’? Creed is what we hold in common as Christians, though even here differences are sought to be introduced, which is reprehensible. The essence of the creed is meant to keep us reminded of those very elements which are not within the power of man to manipulate: the nature of God, the mysteries that envelop our faith, its universality, based on its transcendental character and so on. This is the substance of which ‘faith’ is formed and nourished. But at the level of ‘the faith’, we pay only lip-service to it. This is what I denote as ‘parrot-Church-ianity’. If the essence of the Creed is practised in honesty, denominationalism will be purified to the point of making denominations incidental, rather than absolute as it is today. For many denominational establishments, Jesus is the label and denominal interests and authority ultimate. This has been my experience, without exception, in relation to all denominations that I have known at close quarters.

6. Again, I find myself in spontaneous agreement with Zac when he writes, “Faith in Christ should lead us to an indwelling experience with him.” But, as I read these spiritually inspired words, I am also reminded of the image of the Church at Laodicea, where Jesus is excluded and kept knocking at the door for entry into the life of the church. Does, going by the Laodicean, Ephesian and Sardinian models depicted in Revelation chapter 2 and 3, Jesus ‘indwell’ in churches as denominations? If the suggestion in the Bible is to the

negative, what does it tell us of the predicament of the person of faith within these structures of man-dominance that has no place for the mystery of our faith in action? I remember Bishop Pritam Santram, the then CNI bishop of Delhi Diocese telling me with exasperation, “The bible of my church is the Constitution. I will run it only accordingly.” That is the ground reality in all churches.

Some may state it brutally; others may simply take it for granted, but the in-principle insights that Zac provides are invaluable and deserve to be internalized and held on to for dear life.

7. There is a point of distinction between ‘the faith’ and faith that Zac appears to rely on, but does not state upfront. That distinction is crucial for clarity of understanding, and so I need to identify it here. ‘Faith’ is metaphysical in essence. That is why Zac points out that it is a gift from God, a function of God’s grace. Faith is a mystery because it exists at the point of intersection between time and eternity, between the metaphysical and the historical. That is why man can practise it but cannot monopolize it. Life itself is metaphysical and naturalhistorical. If life is only historical -spread on the plane of time- mere reason would suffice. The Constitutions of all Christian denominations, like the Indian Constitution, are historical entities. They cannot accommodate the mystery of the metaphysical, which is the essence of faith. In a practical sense, Constitutions are an alternative to faith.

Or, they are the point of transition from ‘faith’ to ‘the faith’. Therein lies the problem.

There is dangerous lack of clarity on this issue. As a result, most Christians equate ‘faith’ with ‘the faith’ and assume, quite arbitrarily, that ‘the faith’ will, somehow, nurture ‘faith’. I doubt it very much.

I recall, in this context, listening to Fr. O. Thomas, the principal of the Orthodox Seminary in Kottayam, just a few months ago. He expressed his sincere anguish. “All of us have good inclinations. We want to do what is right and righteous. But, on account of our zealous loyalty to our denominations, we do the worst. Why does this happen? ”That question, I believe, is central to our quest, as the followers of Jesus Christ, for an authentic relationship with him and to find wholeness in our life as a people of faith.

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The Holy Books: Part-3 Dr. Ian Fry, Honorary Postdoctoral Associate, University of Divinity, Melbourne, Australia [This article is written for the 8th Holy Book Conference held a t Kuala Lumpur in April 2019 under the auspices of the United Religious Initiative (URI). Part-2 of this paper appeared in the July issue of the FOCUS, 2019, Vol. 7 (3), page 26-28] The Later Abrahamic Era: Axial Age Religions, Philosophies, Messianic Expectations, Jesus and Islam Israel was swept by a succession of imperial powers.

The age is dated from the second half of the Hebrew prophetic period and through the Babylonian exilic experience that extended beyond the formal exile years of 586 BCE to 538 BCE, to c.300 BCE, and involved two regions, west Asia and the Mediterranean. During that long period of instability and interaction a number of ‘outsiders’ had a significant influence on the prophets and scholars who were shaping the evolution of two of the religious streams. One was the Abrahamic Sub-Stream Two ‘A,’ the Israelite religion which was morphing into Judaism. The other was Stream Three that encompasses the series of Axial Age Religions and Philosophers.

The outsiders included Zoroaster, Mahavira the Jain, Siddhartha Gautama Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tzu, who established new religious systems and communities over two centuries between c.600 BCE and c.400 BCE.4 The succession of philosophers, Homer, Pythagorus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus, wrote and taught in Greece over three centuries from c.570 BCE to c.270 BCE, and that series of developments and interactions flowed through the evolution of all three sub streams of Abrahamic faith: Judaism.

Two of the outsiders, Zoroaster and Gautama the Buddha, had a big direct influence on the theology of the Israelites who moved from regarding Yahweh as their exclusive God to realizing that their God and Zoroaster’s concept of one supreme being meant that Yahweh must relate to the whole of humanity. If that was so, what were they to look for in their foreshadowed Messiah? The writer of Second Isaiah5 described the Persian King Cyrus, whose national religion was Zoroastrianism and who ended the exile and ordered the rebuilding of the temple, in messianic terms as the chosen instrument, shepherd and anointed servant 4

Zoroaster is generally thought to have lived just prior to, or during the period of the exile, but there is evidence supported by a number of scholars that he lived much earlier, possibly during the ninth or tenth centuries BCE. 12 Peter Ackroyd contributing ‘The Book of Isaiah’ in The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1971) p. 358 5 The chapters 40-55, authorship unknow, inserted in Isaiah at some stage of redaction, known as Second Isaiah.

of Yahweh.6 Could Israel have an exclusive messiah without an exclusive God? The religion of the community into which the Buddha is believed to have been born a prince and heir to the monarchy was an indigenous blend of shamanism and animism with a probable emphasis on the veneration of nature. Being concerned by the neverending fear and anguish of people in a repetitive cycle of birth, death, rebirth and suffering he was moved to find a solution to the human plight. He contacted two Vedic scholars who were presumably members of the Nordic Arian Sanskrit community to study with them, but apparently finding no satisfaction in their teaching and practice of meditation he found insights into the working of karma and his former lives, and found the right path of spiritual practice to end suffering from the accepted repetitive cycle by simple meditating under a Bodhi tree.

It is assumed that the Buddha’s final teachings would have been available throughout Greco-Roman regions before the Qumran community formed c. 150 BCE,7 but probably only in Pali and not as the complete Vinaya Pitaka which combines the principal Buddhist texts, (rules and discipline), Sutta Pitaka (Dhamma or main teachings), and Abidhamma Pitaka (higher teachings). Buddhism spread rapidly after these were all written in Pali c.25 BCE. Missionaries were despatched throughout the known world, to Rome in 22 BCE, and it was well established by traders travelling between India Sri Lanka, the Mediterranean, Greece, Macedonia, Libya and Magas in the 1st cent. BCE.8 It has recently been suggested that lay followers of the Buddha reached Arabia via the Red Sea and had established shrines there while he was still alive,9 and that Buddhist travellers were in contact with mainstream Jewish communities, the Qumran community and even with Jesus, who devoted a forty-day sojourn in the Judean wilderness to contemplation prior to his ministry and who is regarded by the Christian church as the Messiah in the line of Israel’s King David. So what were the Jews expecting of a messiah? The Buddhist missionary period from 22 BCE coincided with religious turmoil in Israel that began well before the Maccabees seized power in 164 BCE and continued after the 6

The chapters 40-55, authorship unknow, inserted in Isaiah at some stage of redaction, known as Second Isaiah.

7 The formal Babylonian Exile period was 586 BCE to 538 BCE but its influence was felt until c. 300 BCE. Two alternative periods are cited by scholars for the birth and death of the Buddha: 563-483 BCE and 480-400 BCE. In either case his teachings were available during its later years and beyond.

8 Arthur Lillie. Buddhism in Christendom or Jesus the Essene.

(London, Kean Paul, 1887) 9 A.D.T.E Perera. Buddhism in Ancient Israel and Arabia. (Daily News, Sri Lanka, 2005)

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slaughter of the last members of the dynasty in 37 BCE. The turmoil had been ameliorated somewhat by the publication of the Book of Solomon which raised expectations of a messianic era and, according to Brad Embry, encouraged hope for the purifying element in God’s divine redemptive plan in history.10 Embry provides evidence that this supported the development of New Testament Christology, and says it was “a masterfully wrought defense of the Jewish faith in a time of crisis,” although it can lead either philosophically or theologically to the Talmud, the Qur’an or Christology, and the use of the term ‘messiah’ clearly had heavy overtones of reform and political influence and was not necessarily anticipating a person with divine attributes.11 He adds that “the use of the term ‘messiah’ clearly had heavy overtones of reform and political influence that did not necessarily anticipate a person with divine attributes.

Similarly, for Moses Maimonides, the towering Jewish twelfth century scholar, it was one who would be a sociological delimiter, and political organizer, with the functions of the royal figure and primarily a purificatory figure, one who would make the longed-for rule of God on the earth a reality, a ‘Son of David’ who must first acquire and exercise the kingship of Israel, take the place of the hated and illegitimate kings of the house of the Hasmoneans, break the power of the lawless leaders and cleanse Jerusalem of the heathens (that is the Romans) who were crushing and ruining it.

He ridiculed the church’s claim that Jesus was the messiah, describing him as one who aspired to be the Messiah and was one of the vulgar who exalt themselves in an attempt to fulfil the vision, and was executed by the courts.12 The writers of the New Testament gospels had set out to show that Jesus of Nazareth fitted those expectations, but while Jesus was a Jew because he was born into a Jewish family, his ethnicity and an extended Hebrew heritage cannot be verified. There was no tradition of recording genealogies in that manner for family or public records and while the writers of two gospels, Matthew and Luke, purport to provide genealogies for Jesus these are not feasible.

13 14 , Fleming’s history of Nazareth15 establishes that

10

Brad Embry. Psalms of Solomon and the New Testament: Intertextuality and the Need for a Re-Evaluation (Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, Vol 13, No. 2. 2002) p. 101

Joseph’s forebears could not have settled in Nazareth until after the Seleucids defeated the Ptolemies and Antiochus III issued a decree requiring Jews to obey their ancestral law rigidly, and it does not provide any clues to Joseph’s ancestry or provide any clues to the origins or ethnicity of Mary’s forebears, and it leaves open the possibility that they were either paganized Samaritans or foreigners who were subject to Judaization under either John Hyrcanus in 128 BCE or Aristobulus I in 104 BCE. That cluster of writers’ notes is hardly a basis for redressing the divisions between Judaism and Christianity, or even within Christianity, and nor are Jesus’ instructions to his followers to respond to a New Covenant the final answer. What it provides is an opportunity to consider the pattern and significance of conflicts between them that are identified in Chart Two, and an excellent illustration of the need for scholars of all faiths, not only the Abrahamic partners, to cooperate in a critical examine of basic texts to identify inconsistencies so that when changes to claims, creeds and teaching need to be made there is a proper basis for them. Jesus had taught that, First: that the people of the New Covenant were not to inherit the territory of Canaan in the sense of it being a base from which to demonstrate humanity’s relationship with God through exemplary relationships with neighbouring nations. Second: the world was to be their area of positive activity and the obligation to fulfil that role of demonstrating humanity’s relationship with God through exemplary relationships with neighbouring nations. Third: the people of the New Covenant were not subject to the rigid religious practices and the means of identification as a community that were still required of the People Israel, including circumcision.

Fourth: the New Covenant was not restricted to people of one ethnic identity. It went beyond both the Mosaic Covenant with its restriction to descendants of Jacob/Israel, and the Abrahamic Covenant, which was restricted to the wider community of descendants of Abraham. It was open to people without restriction: essentially the people of the Noahide Covenant, which encompasses people of both prior specific covenants as sub-communities within the total human family.

It was clearly Jesus’ intention that the two communities of Judaism and Christianity were to work in tandem, not in competition,16but subsequent edicts by the church after it became embedded as the state religion of the Roman

11

Ibid. p. 134 18 Moses Maimonides. Mishneh Torah: The Laws of Kings and Their Wars (New York, Moznaim Publishing Corp., 1987) Chapter eleven, p.

234 13 19 Howard Clark Kee. The Gospel According to Matthew in Laymon.

The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. (New York.

Abingdon. 1971) p. 610.

12

14

20 William Baird. The Gospel According to Luke in Laymon. The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary on the Bible. (New York.

Abingdon. 1971) p. 679.

15

21 James Fleming. Nazareth History: The Importance of Nazareth in the Christian Tradition (LaGrange, Biblical Resources, 2009) 16 Mt. 5:17-18. Do not imagine that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I have come not to abolish. But to complete them.

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Empire to satisfy Constantine’s want for power in 324 CE.

It’s abuse of its authority in conjunction with the state in measures to suppress Judaism, and its enculturation of pagan beliefs into church liturgy to help it seize major pagan temples, made that absolutely impossible. Those edicts and the church’s support for the empire in the exploitation of small Arabian states then combined to trigger the call to the Prophet Muhammad PBUH, in 610 CE, and the formation of Islam in 622. The church saw that as a little irritant: like a fly to be swatted away. Rome would attend to that very quickly and the church would help it consolidate its empire. In fact, it was the church’s biggest challenge. By adopting its proempire position the church deliberately but unwittingly rejected a complex of challenges – i) to reflect on the reasons for the formation of Islam; ii) to review its selfunderstanding and the reason for its own existence, iii) to reconsider the theological statements it had adopted, and iv) to review the theology, authority systems and structures it established that were basic to Muhammad’s demands that Christian, Jewish and Pagan leaders should each adopt reforms. It had lost sight of covenantal obligations, refused 17

17

G.E. von Grunebaum. Classical Islam. A History 600-1258 (London.

George Allen & Unwin. 1st English edition, 1970). Heads of state listed are those of Persia, Byzantium, Abyssinia, Egypt, Ghassani and Banu Hanifa. Leaders of churches included Nestorians, Monophysites,

to reconsider the critical concepts of incarnation, the Trinity and priestly authority, and blundered on. Within four years Rome had been pushed back by Persia to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and within one hundred years the Muslim UmayYad Caliphate controlled all of that territory and North Africa and Spain as well.

However much worse was to come three centuries later when it had the opportunity to make amends and to work in partnership with two other covenanted faith communities instead of one. It reinforced the various abuses of covenant that it had operated under since before the circumstantial call to Muhammad, and the Hebrew Mosaic Covenant and the Christian New Covenant were both still clearly in force. It failed to understand the concept of trusteeship (al-amānah) that is basic to Islam and that binds Muslims to constantly remember that God, the holder of absolute authority, reposes trust in all humanity, not only Muslims, and that confirmed that Muslims were bound by an additional covenant that was perfectly clear from Qur’anic texts. “Allah doth command you to render back your Trusts to those to whom they are due, And when ye judge between man and man, that ye judge with justice: Verily how excellent is the teaching which He giveth you! For Allah is He Who heareth and seeth all things.” (Qur’an 4:58) That concept of trusteeship (al-amānah) is absolutely basic to Islam. It binds Muslims under covenant to constantly remember that God is the holder of absolute authority in matters of judgement, and reposes trust in all humanity equally, not only Muslims. But the church had learned very little and its most damning creed, the Creed of Saint Athanasian, was not in use in territories under Muslim influence until Islam well advanced with Arabic as its official language. Its core is: “Whosoever will be saved: before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith. Faith expects everyone to keep whole and undefiled: without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. … He therefore that will be saved: must thus think of the Trinity … This is the Catholick Faith: which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved. That creed was followed in 754 by the use of the fake Donation of Constantine by Pope Stephen II, to enrich and fortify the power of the church with a simple bribe: the appointment of Pepin as king of the Franks in return for land to establish the papal states. However the power grab had not run its course. A papal declaration and three devastating bulls had not yet been promulgated. The first, ‘Dictatus Papae’, was a grab for political power to consolidate the church’s authority across Europe that confirmed two things: its rejection of the challenge of Islam, and the concept that three faith communities were covenanted in a partnership to pursue a common cause.

18

19

Maronites, Armenian and those of Greek, Spanish, Roman and Latin affiliation.

18 A Prayer Book for Australia. First ed. (Alexandria NSW: Broughton Books for the Anglicn Church of Australia, 1995). Extracts, Creed of St. Athanasius, Creed. Pp.836-837 19 "The Donation of Constantine". Decretum Gratiani. Part 1, Division 96, Chapters 13–14. Quoted in: Coleman, Christopher B. (1922). Discourse on the Forgery of the Alleged Donation of Constantine. New Haven: Yale University Press. …

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The End of the World is Near . . . With the Blessing of Religions William E. Swing, Burlingame, CA, U. S. A. The nuclear nations have decided to “modernize” their weapons. With this almost fashionable announcement, the end of the world is all but guaranteed. The capability to destroy all life on our planet has been around for a while. What makes this moment unique is that we have now charted a course that points to an endlessly higher risk. Instead of using this moment to reduce our nuclear threat, we have chosen to build stronger, faster, more deadly weapons, weapons that can pulverize the world into thinner ashes. All of this is being done with the support of politicians, industrialists and religionists. Yes, religions have made peace with the nukes and with the hands that hold them.

What about the preachers in American pulpits? We are the only country ever to use such a bomb in combat.

We possess at least 40% on the world’s nuclear weapons. We are the 24-hour targets of Russian nuclear bombs. We have dodged man-made, catastrophic nuclear disaster on several occasions. Yet preachers don’t touch the subject. Prayers for guidance in nuclear matters are never uttered in our houses of worship.

Although official religious leaders issue anti-nuclear weapons statements, the folks in the pews don’t object to our nation having nuclear weapons. And there is no anti-nuclear religious lobby that has real influence among decision-makers.

Religions go along with the optimism of “Deterrence.”

We trust that if we have sufficient nuclear weapons available, then it will deter other nations from using nuclear weapons on us. But at best, deterrence is only a short term tactic. It provides sufficient time for all nuclear parties to get together and produce a path toward the elimination of the nuclear threat altogether. Deterrence only works up to the moment that it doesn’t work, and then comes the end of the world. Yes, that is what this is all about, i. e. the end of the world. Deterrence only works until it becomes our enduring strategy, until we decide to “modernize” our weapons.

On May 17, 2019, at Westminster Abby, a worship service was held which was a “celebration of the success of the Navy’s ultimate mission.” England had enjoyed 50 years of being free of nuclear attack, and so, four sailors of the nuclear armed Trident submarines were honored for protecting the country. God and Nukes and Nation!

Children play a little game called “Jenga.” Each child has a turn at using wooden blocks to build a tower. At the base, it is easy to add your block. But once you make the decision to keep going to the highest possible height, it is only a matter of time before it all collapses.

The nuclear nations are playing Jenga with loaded blocks on behalf of all life on this planet. When we “modernize” in 2020, then we will have to “modernize” in 2040 and 2060 and on till the end.

This theme is picked up by author Dima Adamsky in his new book, Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics and Strategy. Adamsky writes about the “longstanding nexus between the Russian Orthodox Church and the country’s nuclear-military-industrial complex.” He goes on to say, “Russian nuclear orthodoxy constitutes the collective belief that to preserve its Orthodox character, Russia must be a nuclear power, to guarantee its nuclear status, Russia must be genuinely Orthodox.”

The choice is the bomb or the family? The bomb or springtime? The bomb or music? The bomb or all of the soul-inspiring aspects of being alive on this Earth?

Radiation or Creation? Your choice! Life on this planet depends on you and me. The time has come to “modernize” your opposition to the virulent evil of nuclear weapons. Break the hold of the political, military/industrial, religious knot and set a realistic, moral and vital path toward nuclear reduction and elimination.

I remember being in Pakistan and hearing ordinary people talking about their first nuclear bomb. They would say, “India has a Hindu bomb, and now Pakistan has its Muslim bomb.” Nuclear pride has a way of wrapping its arms around nations and big business and religions.

Editor’s Note: A graduate of Kenyon College and Virginia Theological Seminary, the Rt. Rev. William E. Swing spent 27 years as the diocesan Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of California. The founder and president of the United Religions Initiative (URI), since 2000, Bishop Swing lives with his wife, Mary, in Burlingame, California.

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