Diaspora Community: A Christian Paradigm : Its identity, mission, and integration with the local community, Community without walls

Late Professor Dr. George K. Zachariah*

[This article is a transcript of a talk given by late Professor George K. Zachariah in August 2003 at the 3rd and final FOCUS Seminar at Santhigiri Ashram, Alwaye, Kerala. He passed away at the age of 90 on 31st Dec, 2020, at Vienna, Virginia, USA.]

As I was thinking about the upcoming FOCUS meeting and reading the communications, many questions connected with the theme presented themselves. Some of these questions need clarification. It is easy to consider some of these abstractions. But what we need is more pragmatic deliberations with a view to how we can move in the direction of a dream of a ‘beloved community’ that we may share. It seems to me that our focus must be on the limits and the possibilities of how we as a diaspora community can identify and integrate with the local community.

There ought to be different levels of discussion. First, the biblical vision of a Christian community and the reality that we face based on the faith and practices of the Mar Thoma Church. Second, our relationship with other Christian communities. Third, what our relationship ought to be with local community which is relatively non-Christian. In all these discussions we must concentrate on practical ways of dealing with the challenge we face. My own personal temptation is to discuss is to discuss these from a purely practical frame of reference. But we should resist that temptation as far as possible. The discussion must definitely bear on he willingness of each of us to follow the guidance our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit no matter how revolutionary they might be. The task is a daunting one, the challenge formidable, and the stakes are enormous. I would enjoy the fellowship and philosophical discussion we will have, but we have to ask ourselves what good it does in our vocation to follow Jesus. A talk is easy and cheap. Can we consider our meeting as a serious business as children one Father, all of us, both Christians and non-Christians? We are good people, but that is not enough.

Understanding the nature of the community, the need for community and the concern of God that we work at being open to experience community as the concern of Good that we work at being open to experience community are some of the elemental thoughts behind the ruminations that will be presented. It has become a fashionable cliché that it is the chief business that is the chief business of the Church to build community. If we are to escape solitary prisons our individual egos or the group prison of our collective ego (both based on will-to-power), we must exert consider willto-love. Paul’s vision of a community in the letter to Ephesians is a community without wall of hostility. That is the quality of the communal life which God through Christ makes possible in the Church.

The Gospel delivers us not from our distinctions, but from our idolatrous worship of them. Urbanisation, industrialisation, and bureaucratisation have contributed to the withering of community. There is a big gap between the community we have and the community we want. It is important to remember that Christian community is not an epiphenomenon. Let us be hones to ourselves. We have certain deals, noble goals we preach. What we need is not talk but power. We are accustomed to double-think, double-talk, and doubleact. We know that our selfishness and sinfulness will not get us there. Therefore, we are content with what is convenient and what appeals to self-interest and are satisfied taking a position – limited to our experience – contending that is all what is possible.

The local Church community can serve as a veritable laboratory for experiencing new ways community living and practice. Almost all the experiments in community I know have been either short-lived or shallow. The word community is valueless as a sociological concept unless it is defined in terms of observable behaviour. It is true that we have to go a long way before we can arrive at an operational definition. We are essentially a community of ‘atonement’., a community of faith, the faith which undertakes to become flesh in a people. Genuine mutuality will never more than wishful thinking as long as our imaginations are dominated by symbols of control and competition rather than lived by those of care and cooperation.

Diaspora community is as far as I can see is a closed one, a sort of a ghetto community. Apart from the fact many persons participate in local community affairs on an individual basis without any substantial systematic collective effort being made for such a participation leaving the whole outcome to chance. There is a need for more active, concerted effort to bring our community to be a more visible part of the local community. Perhaps our problem today is not that we lack articulators of dreams but the livers of dreams. Successful community demands charismatic leaders. Diaspora communities historically have been communities at risk. Because of its very nature the diaspora community is a community of sympathy as well. The question is how we can sharpen our sense of sharing and see the building up of the community as a living community of prayer? Christian prayer is God made present. A community that that shares a sense of presence is a community that prays. We must rethink our images of community in the light of scriptures and our Christian experience.

*Professor George K. Zachariah was a very early Mar Thoma settler in the USA, a pioneer, and had a very distinguished academic career. He taught psychology, philosophy, education, religion, and ethics, and was a professor at Canisius College, the University of the District of Columbia. He was an active member of the Mar Thoma Church his entire life, serving in various leadership positions and activities, including the Diocesan Council of North America & Europe and the Editorial Board of the Mar Thoma Messenger