I BELIEVE!
Before & After Vijai Kuruppacherry LIFE BEFORE CHRIST They still call it “God’s Own Country”- the southwestern state of Kerala, India, known for its then-pristine lakes, lush, green hills and waterfront lowlands. A ponderous weight of history and romance lingers around its freshwater bays that shield the coast from the sea, called “backwaters,” recalling commerce with Ancient Israel, the Roman Empire, the Arabs, royal emissaries of the King of Portugal, led by Count Vasco da Gama, and then the Dutch, French and British traders who thronged its port city, Cochin (now Kochi). This is where I was born and spent the first seventeen years of my life. Legend has it that St. Thomas the Apostle landed in this region about ten years after Jesus’ resurrection and won many converts. Subsequent Jewish migration after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70 added numbers to both Jewish and Christian groups. Doctrinal differences, the Orthodox-Catholic split, and later waves of European traders changed the landscape considerably in the two millennia that followed. Every family, Christian or not, bears markers of this eventful past, sometimes remarkably well preserved and remembered to this day. I was raised in a nominal Catholic family with stories of heroic conversions to Christ from an insular, Hindu-background centuries ago, but for all that, there seemed to be no anchoring conviction. We went to church every Sunday, went through the Sacraments and led lives that were not very different from those of non-Christians, but rooted in conforming to a set of acceptable behaviors in our close-knit community. Relationships were built around this code of conduct. I was not well-informed about Catholic theology even though I scored well in my Catechism tests. Guilt and emptiness pervaded my life throughout this period. In hindsight, this may have been the result of traditions that privileged merit and earning good graces from authority figures – parents, teachers and church leaders – over forgiveness or grace. I didn't think in terms of purpose, identity or security. I moved along life blind and directionless. Many others my age talked in very definite terms of what they wanted from life, from the colleges they wanted to attend to years far beyond. For some reason, I simply didn't think that far ahead. THE LETDOWN Changes in life circumstances always made me uneasy. We all experience change throughout life, and I now see how it affects
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my own kids. Moving to the city of Madras (now Chennai) for college was the first significant change I experienced. Nothing was predictable. People around me were different in temperament, and I felt truly alone for the first time. Madras Christian College (MCC) was created in 1837 by Presbyterian missionaries for the purpose of evangelization among Hindu people groups in Southern India. Its high academic standing in liberal arts and reputation as a center for Christian education attract both secular Indians and highly committed Christians—a heady mixture, as though Wheaton College and Berkeley were merged together! It would have been commonplace to find kids smoking pot in a corner of the wooded, 365-acre campus, and not too far, another group strumming on guitars and singing praises to God. Not the kind of place most Christians would want to send kids, although from my experience, the danger of de-conversion was squarely on the secular side. Every year scores of unbelievers would come to faith. To date, I have not heard of a single case that went the other direction. Every evening, our hall of residence, called Bishop Heber Hall (after Reginald Heber, the hymn writer who was the Anglican bishop of Calcutta) would have Compline services. They were very comforting, but I had no understanding of the forgiveness of God when I attended these. I joined the chapel choir to escape the mild hazing that went on among resident students on campus. I wasn’t familiar with the hymns, but the more I considered verses written by Isaac Watts, Reginald Heber, Augustus Toplady and others, the more I was intrigued by the strange mixture of chastisement and triumph in them, which I hadn’t encountered in the ones I’d heard at home. I was searching, in my own fumbling way. I didn't know where to look or what I wanted, but I realized that I couldn't come to terms with my own blasé attitude and the rapidly changing circumstances in my life. My parents were anxious about me, and I didn't have an anchoring relationship that could guide me to find purpose. A DIVINE AND PERSONAL TRANSACTION The first time I heard someone speak about a personal relationship with Christ was my freshman year of college. There were older students who would come up to me and talk about this relationship they had with Jesus and ask me questions which, at the time, did not make much sense to me. The idea
