CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIES

FROM AN INDIAN
PERSPECTIVE

Sunand Sumithra
Christian Theologies from an Indian Perspective

© Theological Book Trust 1990

ISBN : 81-7475-038-X

First published 1990 by Theological Book Trust

Revised edition 1995 by Theological Book Trust
Third edition 2002 by Theological Book Trust

All Rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any

form, except for the purposes of brief review in periodicals, without
prior permission of Theological Book Trust, P.O. Box 9529,
Bangalore 560095, India.

Theological Book Trust

Bangalore Printed at : The J & P Print & Allied Industries, Bangalore.
To the memory of my parents

i
 CONTENTS

Foreword v

Author’s Preface vii

SECTION 1 Introduction
Chapter 1 Why Theology from an Indian Perspective? 3
The contexts in which Indian theologies sprouted 7
The socio-political context 8
The religio-cultural context 14
The sources of theological traditions in India 22
Pramanas: Sources of religious authority in India 31

SECTION 2 Indian Contributions to Christian Theology

Chapter 2 Raja Rammohan Roy 41
Keshub Chunder Sen 46
Pratap Chandra Mozoomdar 57

Chapter 3 Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya 63

Nehemiah Goreh 76
Lal Behari Dey 81

Chapter 4 Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai 85

Surjit Singh 88
David G. Moses 90

Chapter 5 Sadhu Sunder Singh 96

A.J. Appasamy 104

Chapter 6 Vengal Chakkarai 115

P. Chenchiah 121
P.D. Devanandan 142

ii iii
Chapter 7 K.M. Banerjea 151 FOREWORD
Swami Abhishiktananda 154
Klaus Klostermaier 159
S.K. George 165 The need for attractive, readable yet scholarly Christian
books was a felt need among Indian Christians for a long
Chapter 8 M.M. Thomas 169
time, as is evidenced by numerous national level confer-
Raymondo Panikkar 181 ences and their findings on Christian literature during the
S.J. Samartha 187 last half a century. Among the valid reasons for slow
progress in meeting the need lack of expertise, cooperation
Chapter 9 Russell Chandran 199 and financial limitations were the major ones. Though many
Vinay Kumar Samuel 206 Christian communities, particularly Christian social activ-
Vishal Mangalwadi 209 ists produced sizable fruits in the area, conservative had
lagged behind. Now Theological Book Trust seems to be the
Paulos Mar Gregorios 211
appropriate agency under which such theological creativity
Saphir Athyal 212 can be and is undertaken. The organisation did sense the
need much earlier, but printing of books at a price an
Chapter 10 Mahatma Gandhi 215 average Christian reader can afford materialized just a few
Swami Vivekananda 223 years ago. Encouraged in its early efforts, now TBT has
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan 230 launched a mammoth project of bringing out several series
of Christian books, both for the seminary students as well
as for the people in the pew:
SECTION 3 What is Indian Christian Theology?
Text Book Series: M.Div. level course-, text-, work- and
Chapter 11 The Three Confrontations 239 source- books on theological and biblical subjects, pastoralia
Indian christian theological expressions 243 etc., meant primarily for theological students;
Some guidelines for contextualising in 250 Research and Reference Series: such as library and
Hindu cultures concordance helps, theological dictionaries, commentar-
Guidelines for Indian evangelical theology 257 ies, compendia, etc.;
Beyond contextualising 265 Theological Issues Series: dealing with religious topics
such as pluralism, inter-religious dialogue, syncretism,
Appendix 271
and ideological issues, revolutions and signs of the times;
and
Suggested Bibliography 273 Devotional Series: Dealing with practical personal help
for all ages in Christian growing.
Subject Index 281
In Thinking Be Adults (1Co.14:20) -- is the motto of
Person Index 287 Theological Books Trust. The only determining criterion for
these series is that they all gladly confess their allegiance to

iv v
the Bible as the final authority for all theologizing. Within
that guideline there is a bold freedom for innovative theo-
logical creativity in all the works.
We heartily commend the present volume, Christian
Theologies from an Indian Perspective by Sunand Sumithra
to theological students in particular and the Christian
public in general. It is the second in our Text Book Series.
Though written primarily for the M.Div. level students, the
book is planned for a greater circle of readership beyond the
borders of the seminary. The author is well qualified to write
this book with his experience of teaching the course on
Indian Christian Theology at B.D. level in the Union Biblical
Seminary, Pune for more than a decade. End notes are
added for ready reference. Extensive indexes include the
Names of Person and Subjects. A glossary of foreign and
difficult terms is another felt need for seminarians and has
also been added.
We are grateful to Sevasadan printers for their very good
and prompt service.
General Editors
vi
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
This book is written with the express purpose of benefit-
ing primarily the Indian theological student—either in semi-
nary or outside it—as a text book. Hence some assumptions
are made in presenting this work, such as that the reader
has certain basic theological knowledge and skills. This also
explains why certain concepts and terms are elucidated and
others not, which may not be useful to a professor in
theology. For the benefit of the non-Indian reader a glossary
of terms is provided.
The overall aim of the course on Indian Christian
theology is to make the student aware of the Indian attempts
to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that (s)he may
relevantly interpret the whole gospel in her/his own con-
text. With this in mind, it is hoped that at the end of this
course the student will be able to achieve the following
objectives:
1. to discern the Indian religious, cultural, philosophical
and socio-political interaction on the interpretation and the
universality of the gospel of Jesus Christ;
2. to describe both the nature and development of Indian
Christian theology, the divergent Indian thought patterns
and the consequent types of Indian Christian theology;
3. to develop a critical openness to indigenous theologi-
cal expressions;
4. to acquire skills in creating relevant and meaningful
interpretation of the gospel in a given context.
Though I have used several already existing anthologies
on Indian Christian theology (see bibliography), of necessity
I have drawn heavily from Robin Boyd’s definitive work, An
Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (1975). Yet not
only is his analysis supplemented by going back to the
vii
originals in most cases, but a lot more material is added,
which is not found in Boyd or elsewhere.
For economy and readability footnotes have been largely
avoided, but wherever needed references and notes are
provided. I hope that the book would meet a crucial need not
only for text book in our theological training institutions,
but also for indigenous scholarly works for the thoughtful
Indians. I heartily welcome your criticism on this present
volume, in order that the husk may be thrown away and
grain preserved.
This revised edition has some important corrections and
additions. One important correction is the change in the
title. We cannot talk anymore of one, single theology of
Indian Christians but of a host of theologies. As there is no
single Indian culture or forms of religion so there can be no
single theology applicable to the whole of India. Each
attempt to interpret the Christian message has its validity
and usefulness in its locality. Apart from this change notes SECTION 1
and references are supplied wherever necessary and a
detailed index is included. I must say thanks to the friends
who worked on the second edition of this book, especially, INTRODUCTION
Mr. Augustine Bhasker and Mr. Philip Peacock.

Sunand Sumithra
October 1995

viii
1

WHY THEOLOGY FROM AN INDIAN PERSPECTIVE

Some rash critics — such creatures, we regret to say, do

exist — have insisted that Indian Christians have produced
not even a decent heresy, let alone theology! Like those who
mocked the prophet Elisha and were eaten up by bears,
probably these carpers also have received just recompense
for their rashness. But they demonstrate one fact, though
(beside their jaundiced eye): that they either equate theol-
ogy with Tillich’s system, Barth’s Dogmatics or Aquinas’
Summa, or they do not understand at all what theology is,
considering how they divide theology and heresy.
The fact is, in the Indian scene there is now not only an
abundance of heresies, but of theologies as well, even
systems. Every time the message about Jesus Christ en-
counters the Indian people in their own contexts, there
Indian theology is being created. This is doing theology in
Indian context. Doing theology is inevitable — it is risky no
doubt, with the possibility of the product becoming a heresy
always at hand — but it is inevitable. For, from God’s
revelation (the Bible) to its receivers (the Church), theologiz-
ing is a necessary step. The current situation in India is so
vastly different than that of the apostles, in ever so many
ways. Every time a new aspect of the gospel shows its
relevance to a particular Indian context, there Indian theol-
ogy is born. Since this is happening all the time, it is not an
overstatement to say that now Indian theology has not only
arrived, but is advancing full steam!
Or to go one step further: theologizing in India (that is,
doing theology in the Indian context, or verbalizing the
message of the whole gospel in such a way that it is

3
meaningful and relevant to the Indian ears) is a matter of
communication. If, for example, a boy’s experience of his
father is only that of a drunkard, who comes home to beat
his wife and children, and does not have any thought for the
education or the future of his children, then to tell to this
boy that God is a ‘father’, would not be communicating the
truth about the God of the Bible, as Jesus revealed Him. If
in a tribe a lamb has the basest significance, to speak about
Jesus as the “Lamb of God” would hardly express what John
the Baptist wanted to convey about Jesus when he identi-
fied him as such. In these examples (which, incidentally, are
true stories), it is necessary that the hearers’ images of the
father or the lamb be first understood, and if possible
corrected, and then the truth of the Gospel be communi-
cated to them in these redefined categories.
A Hindu may understand by Brahman the highest
reality which is necessarily impersonal, and by Ishwara he
may understand a personal deity who is necessarily lower
than Brahman, of second rate reality (belonging to Maya).
So to use these terms either for God the Father or for Christ
without previously ‘baptizing’ them carefully with Christian
content would not be communicating the truth of the
Gospel to the Hindus.
No doubt it is theoretically possible to introduce the
Gospel message in new terms and concepts: but, such a
process of creating new terms and expressions takes excru-
ciatingly long time and hard work; besides, the ‘foreignness’
of the Gospel remains, since the gospel is foreign both to the
hearer and to the new media created, and so cannot produce
any fruit without grafting. And finally, such new expres-
sions have often meant deformation, at least partial, of the
gospel message.
As such, in order to produce fruit, theologizing in Indian
context (which is another way of saying ‘contextualizing the
gospel in India’) is necessary. It is necessary that we make
use of the thought patterns (or pre-understanding) of the
hearer as much as possible so that the message of Jesus
Christ will be as meaningful as possible to the hearer,
4 5
evoking a meaningful response. For we as human beings
grasp the new concepts only in terms of the old, the
unknown in terms of the known concepts.
Effective communication of the Gospel to the non-Christian
man of faith depends on the effective use made of the
religious vocabulary with which he is familiar, and of the
cultural pattern of life in which he finds self-expression and
community being. 1
Since each hearer approaches the Gospel with his/her
own ‘pre-understanding’, to a certain extent different people
may understand the Gospel differently. In Indianising Chris-
tian theology this pre-understanding is taken into consid-
eration.
You remember the case of King Saul in the Old Testa-
ment: God instructed him to utterly destroy the Amalekites,
including their cattle and property. But Saul tried to do
‘better’ than that! He not only killed the animals, he killed
the best of them for the sake of God: he sacrificed them to
God in worship! But the point is, when God asks us to do
something, he expects that we do no less than what he
wants, nor more! Both extremes belong to the realm of
disobedience. If a tired father asks his son to bring him a
glass of water, the son may do better by bringing orange
juice or wine, but he is not obeying his father! Similarly, if
we are serious to bring the message of the Gospel to Indian
brothers and sisters, we must be absolutely careful not to
bring neither more nor less than the Gospel. It is in
‘contextualizing’ that it is possible to remain faithful to the
context of the Gospel. This is our third rationale for Indian
Christian theology, namely, to show the relevance of the
Christian message to Indians, by making the content of the
Christian message meaningful to them in their own thought
forms, yet at the same time remaining faithful to the content
of the message. In short, contextualization means: faithful
to the text and relevant to the context.
The phrase ‘relevant to the context’ has another implica-
tion. It implies that since there are ever so many contexts
(Indian, Chinese, African, European...), each context may
have its own expression of the Gospel message — one
context cannot impose its form as valid for another context.
This is the burden of de-Westernizing theology in India.
Even among the Indians, all do not have exactly the same
pre-understanding and so it may be necessary that the
Gospel should be communicated to each person/homoge-
neous group meaningful to that person/group, just as for
example, Jesus communicated to the Samaritan woman
(John 4). It also implies that the form of theology of one age
need not be binding for another — tradition need not be
followed blindly. Thus this principle of relevance helps one
to be constantly in touch with the living realities of one’s
time and its issues. Otherwise we may be giving answers to
questions which the Indians have never asked!
Some limitations of this principle of relevance also need
to be noted. It was already mentioned above that the danger
of producing a lopsided Gospel is always present. But a
greater limitation perhaps is that once the Gospel is shown
to be relevant to a particular context (say, Hindus) mostly it
will be irrelevant to any other context (say Muslims). In fact,
a major reason why not many Muslims have positively
responded to the message of Christ in India is precisely this:
it is alleged that the gospel has been ‘hinduized’. Or vice
versa in Muslim lands. It is well nigh impossible to find a
common factor in all human beings to produce an expres-
sion of the Gospel relevant to all of them. Did not Paul say
that he became a Jew to the Jews and a gentile to the
gentiles? This is our rationale too.
There is a fourth rationale: Bishop Westcott once said
that a commentary on the gospel of John which does full
justice to the rich content of the book can only be written by
an Indian. By this he meant that the spirituality of India was
nearer to that of the Gospel, hence it is Indians who grasp
the fuller meaning of John’s Gospel than others. Therefore,
it is not an exaggeration to say that a theology in Indian
context can re-discover those aspects of the Gospel mes-
sage which have been either under-emphasized or are
completely left out in other attempts. As such,
6 7
contextualization helps Christians all over the world to-
wards a fuller understanding of Jesus Christ — to help
recover the universality of the Gospel, or what Paul called
“the whole counsel of God” (Ac.20:27).
For example, Jesus’ deity has been a crucial issue in the
West for generations, owing to their Aristotelian logic (finite
cannot comprehend the infinite). But in India, where almost
every other citizen claims to be some kind of a divine
incarnation and where exist three hundred and thirty
million gods in the pantheon, the doctrine of Jesus’ deity
hardly needs to be proved! This is one reason why in Indian
theological thinking, especially in recent times, the human-
ity of Jesus gets greater treatment. Similarly, the new trend
of reading the Scriptures with the eye of the third world (the
poor, the oppressed, the marginalized, the dalits...), has led
to revolutionary reinterpretations of certain passages of
the Bible. This kind of reinterpretation may not always be
valid; but the point is that contextualization has given the
necessary corrective to the earlier one-sided interpreta-
tions. Hence we can heartily agree with the affirmation that
Indian Christian theology is not the already formulated
Christian theology put into Indian terms but rather it is the
contribution from India in the very formulation of the
human expression of the revelation of God in Jesus. Until
India’s contribution is received “revealed truth” has not
become “the revealed truth” in its possible expressive
fullness.
THE CONTEXTS IN WHICH INDIAN
THEOLOGIES SPROUTED
We have seen already in the last section that a living
theology is faithful to the biblical text and relevant to the
receiver’s context. Both are necessary. Mere faithfulness to
the Scriptures may be orthodox but fruitless; and exclusive
emphasis on relevance to a given context might be beneficial
but could be heretical too. Therefore it is necessary that we
know both the Scriptures and the contexts well, in order to
do theology. In this section we summarize only the second
part, namely, the contexts. The study of these contexts will
help us see why and what kind of theology could have come
out of them.
There are two important contexts to which every church
must respond to — happily the Indian Church also has
responded to these — the socio-political and religio-cul-
tural contexts. A study of these contexts in approximately
last two hundred years would be quite adequate to under-
stand the present contexts.
The Socio-political context
Clearly, the dominant feature of this period is Western
colonialism — of the French, British, Portuguese — pre-
dominantly of the British. It is of utmost significance that
Christian missions and foreign imperialism came together
and appeared to support and benefit mutually, though they
were often in sharp disagreement with each other. The main
result for India of such an alliance was that, to a normal
educated Hindu, Christian faith became a foreign faith, the
faith of the oppressors. So, more often than not, the majority
of Hindus looked down upon it as the religion of Mlechhas
(the pagan). Even today this antipathy is no less towards
non-Hindu religions — only, it is now more thoroughly
based and more militantly organized.
Nationalism is the inevitable fruit of imperialism. Soon
Indians began to desire self-rule rather than foreign rule,
and the Indian Mutiny of 1857 became the starting spark.
And exactly as colonialism provoked Indian political self-
consciousness, Christian missions evoked the Hindu reli-
gious self-consciousness. That is why people like Chenchiah
could say that Christianity has in itself the rare gift of
creating its own opposition! And when we consider that
during this time — and to a lesser extent, even now — there
was an amorphous unity between religion, philosophy,
politics, culture and economics of which religion was the
nerve centre, we can realize how a disturbance at this centre
could be very far reaching in its consequences for the Indian
society. But the point we want to make now is that, it is
8 9
through political nationalism that disturbances in other
aspects of Indian society were catalyzed.
Early Indian nationalism was anything but fascism. It
was positive in the sense that it concentrated only on the
freedom and development of India. It was therefore far from
a fanatic my-country-right-or-wrong kind of spirit. No doubt,
there were also some negative zeal, in the sense that ‘self-
rule, even if it be worst, is the best rule!’ This was the period
of national political organizations, activity and corporate
thinking. Under the wise leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, it
took the form of Indian National Congress (founded in
1885), and was kept free from all communalistic overtones.
As such secularism became the ideology of the Congress
party of the time. In 1942, the Indian National Congress
passed its historic Quit-India Resolution and set the stage
for independence struggle — of peaceful non-cooperation
movements, of civil disobedience, of passive opposition, of
satyagrahas.
All this was buttressed by Gandhi’s ingenious resources
of Swadeshiwad (the doctrine of patriotic self-rule), of
rejecting everything foreign in preference to indigenous
products — from salt to clothes. The Dandi March and its
sequel became nationwide symbols of the things to come.
His methods of Ahimsa (non-violence) and Satyagraha
(pursuit after truth, literally) mostly drawn from Christian
resources (in fact, primarily from Jesus’ Sermon on the
Mount!), were opposed to the use of any kind of physical
force. ‘Blunt-the-blade-by-the-blood’ strategy was morally
bound to win: for, was it not the strategy of the Cross!
Partly in reaction, but partly also as tactics, communal
parties began to attract public attention. The Muslim League
(founded 1905) came into being with the express blessings
of the British, to care for the allegedly neglected minority
Muslim community. Later this move culminated in the
Partition. This was the master plan of the British, using the
ancient but corrupt principle of divide et impera (divide and
rule). What an example of a ‘Christian’ nation confessing the
name of that Lord who came to unite! In any case, the birth
of the Muslim League catalyzed many Hindu communal
groups to sprout — such as Hindu Mahasabha, Rashtriya
Swayam Sevak Sangh, Rashtriya Jan Sangh and the like. It
was Hindu Maha Sabha which later master-minded the
assassination of ‘the father of the nation’, Mohan Das
Karamchand Gandhi, in defense of Hindu communal rights.
As such, this pre-independence era including several years
after the independence is characteristically a period of
Hindu-Muslim communal rivalry — future historians will
add: unnecessarily. It was a British creation.
Not every one accepted Gandhi’s policy to oust the
British. Subhash Chandra Bose separated himself from the
Congress because he was convinced that only the use of
armed force can bring for India the necessary liberation from
the British yoke. But as the subsequent history shows, he
and his ‘Indian National Army’ were both short-sighted and
short-lived, and so came to be known as reactionaries — an
indirect tribute to the foresight of the Congress leaders,
Gandhi and Nehru.
On the economic front, Nehru’s vision of industrializa-
tion won the day. During the world wars, India supplied
more to war arsenal than any other British colony (one
estimate has it at the level of ten billion sterling pounds, and
that the amount is still due to India). This supply obviously
necessitated the building of rails and roads, factories,
national communication systems and the like. In the face of
this strong evidence, Gandhi’s revivalist ideas, such as
cottage industries, Gram Panchayat (which, only recently,
is struggling to stand) and the like could not win support,
and so modernization of Indian economy has come to stay,
in the form of Five Year Plans, Mixed Economy. It is
significant that only in the 1989 elections these ideas began
gaining nationwide support.
The post-independence India is very different from the
pre-independence one, as far as the leaders are concerned.
Earlier, in the heat of independence struggle the big prob-
lems nagging the nation were forgotten. But once self-rule
was realized, the leaders at once awoke to the well-nigh
10
insurmountable obstacles towards a free sovereign nation.
The greatness of these freedom fighters is that overnight
they were converted into nation-builders.
In the wake of Pakistan, national unity was of first
importance. As the Partition resulted in hundreds of thou-
sands of Hindus and Muslims being massacred, Nehru and
his cabinet had to reject an overtly Hindu government. India
was forced to become a secular democracy. Other forces of
division, such as casteism, linguism and regionalism were
taken care of by constitutional measures. Discrimination of
any sort was unconstitutional. This is at last partly the
background for article 25 in our Constitution, which pre-
serves the right of every Indian citizen to practice and
propagate any religion he chooses. Gandhi’s Harijan move-
ment, aiming at the upliftment of the low caste and espe-
cially the untouchables, was fruitful to begin with, but
today the demon of caste has returned with sevenfold force.
One very significant benefit freedom brought was the
emancipation of Indian woman. Traditionally, according to
Manusmriti’s injunction, an Indian woman is always sub-
jugated to men — as a child under father’s custody, in
marriage under husband’s, in old age under son’s and in
death under Yama, the god of death. She could not be
liberated except by legal measures, such as the abolition of
sati, compulsory female education, raising of marriage age,
anti-divorce acts and social equality of sexes and, most
recently, laws concerning sexual harassment on women. All
these have made the modern Indian woman a person as
never before in Indian History.
Another giant obstacle was the bonded labour and its
allied zamindari system of agriculture, in which the small
farmers were exploited by the richer landlords and became
debt-slaves to the latter. Social justice to the farmers was
attempted by a number of land reform acts and legislations
by the new government. In response to these legal reforms
(which necessarily would result in forcible redistribution of
land) Vinobha Bhave organised the Bhoodan movement for
a peaceful, moral redistribution of land.
11
 Industrialization brought along with it the age of giant
irrigation projects, such as Bhakra Nangal, Hirakud,
Nagarjunasagar etc., which also tackled the problem of
unemployment to some extent. But it also true that some-
times these irrigation projects are overdone, to the detri-
ment of local cultures and peoples. The planned economy of
the Five Year Plans put India on the map of developing
countries. As one survey initiated by the late Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi shows, India is a now a creditor country to
many nations, to the tune of twenty five billion US dollars.
India is also fast becoming self-sufficient in technology. The
harnessing of natural resources like oil, coal, steel and
minerals, gigantic strides in exports, greater international
trade — all these are gradually making the nation a super-
power. Quite recently the floating of the Indian Rupee in
international trade is hailed as a major breakthrough for
attracting foreign investments.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CONTEXT ON CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
The changing socio-economic situation in India had its
effect on Indian Christian thinking. As we saw, colonialism
and freedom are the dominant features of the early years.
Patriotism is thus characteristic of this pro-independence
period. To the Christians of this generation, the
indigenisation of the Church in terms of its theology,
worship and the like was inevitable. The theme of liberation
also obviously played a major role in their thinking. For,
from nationalism to indigenisation of Christianity, from
political freedom to religious freedom is but a short step.
Unity is another major motive of this time, because of the
communal disturbances in the post-independence months.
Church unity was a barrier against any type of denomina-
tionalism or casteism. Secularization of the gospel was
parallel to the secularization of Indian politics. But as caste
has re-emerged as an unbeaten force in the Christian
Church, the question of human dignity and equality irre-
spective of one’s caste has become a burning issue. So
Christians have often resorted to the biblical doctrine of
creation, of man in the image of God for their support.
12
Brotherhood and fellowship were thus emphasized far more
as the result of the Gospel than shanti or the peace one gets
as an individual.
In general, Indian theologians have tended to place more
emphasis on the experience of Christ and his power at the
cost of purity of the dogmas. For the same reason, especially
in more recent times, questions of social ethics have caught
the attention of several Christian and Hindu thinkers.
‘Ethics before dogmatics’ is generally true of this period.
As against the traditional Hindu lack of participation in
historical process, this period of activity was full of histori-
cal dynamism. Several top Hindu leaders attempted to re-
interpret maya as a second order reality thus giving full
significance to one’s actions in history/society. This stress
on history underlined the significance of the human person
making anthropology another dominant theme. Justice to
farmers, untouchables, women and other oppressed classes
made social justice the hot theme of the newer theologians.
Corporate thinking is another aspect of the time. To
develop not just individualistic ideas but corporate Christian
thinking in the church was the burden consciously carried by
many Christian leaders. Democratization of church polity,
church union negotiations, the active participation of the
laity could all be traced back to the organizational awakening
of the Indian society during the time.
The idea of progress was another element of this period.
Strangely, modernization and industrialization ushered in
the idea of progress in all national level government policies.
Strangely, because the two World Wars had just proved the
bankruptcy of any faith in scientific, technological progress!
So the attitude of ‘back to the golden age of Ramraj’ was
ridiculed as anti-progress. Yet it is strange that hardly any
Indian Christian theologian has taken up the question of
eschatology seriously.
Two cautions need to be mentioned at this juncture.
First, the above pairing of one element from the context with
a corresponding element in Indian Christian theology is not
13
always so neat. Several other factors have contributed to the
emphasis on certain themes in theology besides these
mentioned above. But at least it shows a general pattern as
to how Indian Christian theology came to be selective in its
subject matter.
Secondly, we must bear in mind that, though the con-
texts have their decisive role in shaping one’s theology, they
are not determinative. That is to say, the context does not
determine the content of theology. Though the questions
are asked by the contexts, all the answers must be found
outside it — in the supreme authority for any Christian
theology, namely, the Bible. But we shall come to these
methodological questions again at the end of the book.
The Religio-cultural Contexts
THE RELIGIOUS REVOLUTION
It took several centuries in the Western world to prepare
for revolutions of global significance. The industrial revolu-
tion, social revolution, political revolutions, educational
revolution and other revolutions took place over a few
hundreds of years. But in Asia and particularly in India,
corresponding revolutions broke out, though on a lesser
scale, within just a few decades! Dr. Takenaka of Japan
beautifully calls this phenomenon the telescoping of revo-
lution in Asia. In Asia, all these revolutions are taking place
simultaneously, and so their consequences in Asia are far
more complex and disturbing than in the West. In India, the
land of religions, another revolution steals the main stage:
the religious revolution. In this section we shall study this
as the second context of Indian theologization.
REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES IN HINDUISM
Though religious pluralism is a stubborn fact in India,
as we have already noted, by far Hinduism is the most
dominant religion. More in the past than in today’s competi-
tive conversions, Hinduism had the greatest number of
adherents. What was the condition of Hinduism in the last
two centuries? What revolution did it undergo?
14
We need to realize at the outset that Hinduism is no
religion. It is an ocean of different — and conflicting —
philosophies and logics, religions and cultures, social and
ethical systems. Modern writers prefer the term Hinduity or
Hindudom (parallel to Christianity and Christendom!) thus
depicting it as a way of life. It has no founder — a matter of
pride for our Hindu brethren — as its roots reach back to the
dark ancient past. Hence it is called the sanathana dharma
— the religion from time immemorial, the eternal religion.
In principle, Hinduism incorporates all forms of belief
and worship without necessitating the selection or elimina-
tion of any. The Hindu is inclined to revere the divine in
every manifestation, whatever it may be, and is doctrinally
tolerant, leaving others — including both Hindus and non-
Hindus — whatever creed and worship practices suit them
best. A Hindu may embrace a non-Hindu religion without
ceasing to be a Hindu, and the Hindu is disposed to think
synthetically and to regard other forms of worship, strange
gods and divergent doctrines as inadequate rather than
objectionable, he tends to believe that the highest powers
complement each other for the well being of the world and
mankind. Few religious ideas are considered to be finally
irreconcilable. The core religion does not even depend on
the existence or non-existence of God or on whether there
is one God or many. Since religious truth is said to tran-
scend all verbal definition, it is not conceived in dogmatic
terms. Hinduism is, then, both a civilization and conglom-
erate of religions, with neither a beginning, a founder nor a
central authority, hierarchy, or organization.
Before the period of our consideration (that is, before the
18th century), the various schools of Hinduism had already
fallen in the rut of their own traditions. There were several
schools of Vedantic philosophies like Dvaita, Advaita and
Vishishtadvaita, along with their logics. Manu’s Code was in
force, particularly his varnashrama Dharma (duties of a
Hindu according to his caste and stage in life). The rebel-
lious movements of Buddhism, and Jainism had already
become separate religions themselves. Through the centu-
15
ries several aspect of Hinduism had become cold traditions,
more a burden than a support for the common man. But as
we saw already, the spark of reformation in Hinduism was
kindled by the arrival of Christian missions. When we
realize that neither the arrival of Arabian Muslims in the
11th century nor of Moghuls later that such an opposition
was noticed, we see the significance of the truth that
wherever the Christian gospel went, it disturbed. Thus
during the 19th and 20th centuries Hinduism entered its
renaissance period — because of the gospel.
RENAISSANCE AND RESURGENCE
This reformation took essentially two forms. On the one
hand, there were leaders who looked at Hinduism from a
new set of values acquired from resources other than
Hindu. They began to transform Hinduism from within
towards this new set of values. The other became defensive
in the face of encroaching religions and ideas. So they began
to preserve the original Hindu systems as they were. The
former could be called the renaissance and the latter the
resurgence of Hinduism. The former were progressive, while
the latter were revivalist. Self-development motivated the
progressive, while self-preservation was the aim of the
revivalist.
Raja Rammohan Roy is called the father of the Indian
Renaissance. We shall study his thought in detail later. His
criticism of Hinduism was obviously based on Christian
values, and centred more on moral aspects. Abolition of
Sati, upliftment of womenfolk, emphasis on monotheism —
all these were more or less new to Hinduism. He resorted to
the upanishads, instead of Vedas. Though Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa his guru had done the opposite: he encour-
aged the popular type of Hindu thought — polytheism,
ecstatic experiences (by the possession of gods) and idola-
try.
Dayananda Saraswati discovered the back-to-the-Vedas
principle. He rejected idolatry and other corrupt elements
as post-Vedic corruption and founded Arya Samaj.
16
Under the influence of both the Christian Gospel and
British liberal politics, Gopala Krishna Gokhale gave a
political face-lift to Hinduism in his Servants of India
Society.
As the arch-disciple of Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda
made Vedanta (Advaita) his basis, and sought to project
Hinduism as a universal religion. Thus far, Hinduism had
been the religion only of Indians. As the result of the
Ramakrishna Mission Hinduism became, contrary to its
own nature, a missionary, militant religion. Even now
almost every aspect of this Mission (headquarters in Belur
Math) is a counterpart of Christian missions, both in
content and form. Philanthropic efforts, corporate disci-
pline, religious teaching and training of missionaries — all
are copied from Christianity.
Gandhi turned, like Roy, to the moral regeneration of
Hinduism, but made Bhagvadgita for the first time his basis,
rather than the Vedas or Upanishads or other popular
sources.
Following Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan emphasized the
religious resurgence of Hinduism, and saw in Hinduism the
ultimate, perfect religion. Yet, in the face of the pressing
need of the time, namely, the nationwide phenomenon of
liberation struggle, he was compelled to reinterpret some
aspects of Hinduism to move Hindus to participate in these
historical struggles.
So scholars speak of two types of neo-Hinduism emerg-
ing out of this period: one in the line of Roy and Gandhi
aiming at the moral regeneration and the other in the line of
Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan aiming at the religious.
Beside these main changes there are no doubt scores of
others, all of which are discussed in detail in another M.Div.
course, “Modern Religious and Secular Movements”, so we
will not deal with them here. We only note here this: the
recent decades are exploding with new types of gurus,
mathas, movements, swamis and what not. The picture
now is thoroughly confusing. Several of these are spreading
17
fast in the spiritually empty West. Many of them are advo-
cating syncretistic solutions. If we remember that syncre-
tism and not mission belongs to the essence of Hinduism,
we could say that actually these latter are genuinely Hindu!
Bahai and Rajneesh teachings are good examples of this.
Some others have taken up social responsibility seri-
ously, such as J.P. Narayan’s Sarvodaya, Vinobha Bhave’s
Bhoodan, Ranthodji’s medical missions and scores of oth-
ers. Still other efforts deal with ancient values like the anti-
cow slaughter movements, gurukul ashram, rishis and
maharishis taking the vow of silence and meditation, and
many following different types of yoga or tantric practices.
As never before the power and organization of four
Hindu “Popes”, of the four Shankaracharyas — is increasing
steadily on a national scale, even in political and business
circles! It is truly a rich kaleidoscope.
By way of summary we can say the following :
1) Unlike the Hinduism of last several millennia, Hindu-
ism in the last two centuries underwent revolutionary
changes with far-reaching consequences. The Christian
Gospel has been the main catalyst.
2) These changes were both radical and apologetical in
nature. New elements were also added, such as the dimen-
sion of mission.
3) Syncretism was another aspect of this period.
4) A new emphasis on the ‘horizontal’, on man/society
gained ground, at the cost of the earlier ‘vertical’ approach
to god/religion/priests. Hinduism of this period is hence
slowly but definitely experiencing secularization! If we re-
member that in one way or the other renunciation of this
world is the heart of Hindu salvation (Moksha, liberation
from this life-death circle), then this focus on the mundane
is an earth-shaking change for Hinduism.
What is the relevance of all these changes to Christian
theology? We could say several things. Firstly, in the light
of these revolutions in Hinduism, there is a constant effort
18
made by Indian Christians either to reinterpret Hinduism to
become a fitting container for the message of the gospel, or
to reinterpret Christianity to make it more palatable to
Hindus.
Secondly, since primarily it is the Christian gospel
which sparked off this change, there are numerous at-
tempts by Indian Christians to see the effect of Christ in
Hinduism in particular, and religions in general. This is why
we have themes like the Unknown or Undiscovered or
Acknowledged or Unbound Christ of Hinduism running like
a refrain in modern Indian Christian theology.
Thirdly, the question of syncretism has become a live
subject for almost all Indian thinkers. As such, inter-
religious dialogue is becoming India’s contribution to world
christendom, and not spirituality itself, as is often judged!
Fourthly, for the same reason, the question of philoso-
phy or sociology of religion along with the allied question of
secularization has become an issue of repeated discus-
sions. Without mentioning details (which will emerge in the
course of this book), we merely note that a lot of theology is
being done in these corporate discussions on the question
of religious pluralism.
Finally, in the light of the Hindu sociology of castes the
doctrine of the Church also has become a burning issue for
all of us Christians — Protestant, Orthodox or Roman
Catholic. The amount of literature produced on Indian
ecclesiology is quite substantial in recent years.
CHRISTIANITY AND THE OTHER RELIGIONS OF INDIA
Beside Hinduism there are other religions in India —
Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikkhism and tribal religions.
Very strangely, there is minimal attempt made by Indian
Christians to develop theologies relevant to these religious
contexts. Many factors explain this lack.
Firstly, since Hinduism is the most populous religion, it
was studied more than any other religions. The study of
Islam was confined primarily to the Muslim countries and
19
the study of Buddhism to countries in the Far East, while
they seemed too small in comparison with Hinduism to
draw enough attention. Secondly, as the gospel was trans-
lated more and more into Hindu thought patterns, it was
misunderstood to be a syncretistic product by people of
other faiths and so they shunned it.
Thirdly, as early missionaries concentrated, except in a
few cases, on evangelizing Hindus, those who wrote theolo-
gies later also came out of Hindu background and so could
not relate the Gospel to other religions. It is a vicious circle
indeed. And Hinduism being a non-missionary religion,
response from Hindus was greater than that from others.
Even the so-called people-movements took place mainly
among the Hindu Castes and the casteless.
There are also some in-built oppositions to Christianity
in other religions, such as the Jihad (religious war) of Islam,
atheism of Buddhism, extreme asceticism (World renuncia-
tion) of Jainism, militarism of Sikkhism, etc. so that Hindu-
ism was comparatively most responsive.
Finally, compared to Hinduism these religions are new,
and so are considered foreign (Sikkhism being a syncretistic
religion has already taken into itself some Christian and
Muslim elements consciously); hence they had to hold to
their own for survival. In any case it must be admitted that
indigenisation of the Christian message in India has meant
largely Hinduisation, and there is a lot to be done as far as
other religions are concerned. We shall briefly survey the
condition of these religions.
Change in Islam
The dictum that “Reformed Islam is no Islam” was
negated by the new developments in the Indian Muslim
community during these last two centuries. In Islam also
one can discern both renaissance and resurgence move-
ments. Leaders like Mohammed Iqbal and Syed Ahmed
Khan were consciously under the influence of Christian
values of Western education, and so tried to bring Islam up-
to-date, at par with Christian values, through the abolish-
20
ing of ancient and irrelevant customs. Interpretation of
tradition in the light of modernity was their goal. Syed
Ahmed Khan went so far as to found a Western type of
education system for Muslims at Aligarh. Even now Aligarh
Muslim University is the main Indian centre for training
Muslim leaders of every sort.
After the emergence of Pakistan, an average Indian Mus-
lim considers himself an alien in a Hindu society, and has
developed a minority complex. This has resulted in some
resurgence movements. Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca) has in-
creased. A sense of solidarity with Arab countries is stronger.
The rich petro-dollar countries are regularly pouring vast
amount of money into India toward Islamization. The
Ahmadiyya movement of Mirza Ghulam Ahmed is a militantly
missionary Muslim sect. It is true that Indian Muslim com-
munity is not yet Dar-ul-Islam (house of Islam) but is still dar-
ul-Harh (House of war), but things are moving rapidly towards
that goal. At the same time, the Christian attitude to Muslims
in India is changing, as evidenced by a more sympathetic
study of Islam by the Henry Martin Institute, the emergence
of missions to the Muslims such as the Fellowship of Neigh-
bours in India and other indigenous efforts.
Change in other religions
Among the other religions, changes in Buddhism are
more conspicuous. The neo-Buddhism of Ambedkar and
the recent conversion of several hundreds of thousands of
Harijans to this movement has made it a force to reckon
with, but the issues in these conversions are not really
religious but rather humanitarian and economical. The
recent extremist events among the Punjab Sikhs in claiming
a separate autonomy for the Khalsa have brought Sikhs into
conflicts with the secularist central government as well as
to a fanatic militancy. Jains and Parsis, as the Jews of India,
control the riches of the land as no other community in spite
of their size. Perhaps for this reason their need of Christian
faith and hence their response to Christ have been very
meagre. On the other hand, the unprecedented response of
the tribals in the middle belt of the land as well as among the
21
northeast and northwestern regions has been recorded as
the greatest recent growth of the Church in India.
In conclusion we can say that only with the birth of
indigenous missions and of non-denominational move-
ments is there a Christian interest among groups other than
Hindus. The field is vast and almost entirely new, waiting for
pioneers. Let us pray to the Lord of the harvest to send
labourers into His field.
THE SOURCES OF THEOLOGICAL
TRADITIONS IN INDIA
Beyond doubt the question of authority (to be discussed
in the next chapter) is the first question in any theological
undertaking. We Indian Christians should be thankful that
our own traditional thought-patterns also lead us to the
Scriptures, as we have seen above, to be the supreme
authority, whatever secondary authorities people may re-
sort to. Once this is settled, the next question would be:
what kind of theology is being done in India? By whom,
where, when and in what situations? What is their validity
and fruitfulness?
The answer to these questions is not as unambiguous as
one wishes. Having come out from under the foreign yoke
politically, we are still accused that our theology is not yet
genuinely indigenous! Therefore, it will be most relevant to
study these various streams of creativity, mainly under two
questions:
1) Who is engaged in doing theology?
2) In what contexts is it being done?
After these inquiries, we will study also a third area,
necessarily with a sense of shame. Now, don’t rush to this
third area! Unless you become aware of the first two areas
I am afraid the third may not be meaningful to you!
The Churches and their Traditions
This is what Boyd calls the sources of theological tradi-
tion, and he mentions three of them.
22
(i) The first of course is the Syrian tradition, because this
is the oldest, claimed to date back as early as 52 A.D., to the
landing of the Apostle Thomas in Malabar (Kerala). During
its nearly two thousand years of history, it included a
number of traditions, not just one — Nestorian, Syrian,
Jacobite etc. But not until the influence of Western theology
did any substantial writing emerge from this tradition.
There were two reasons given for this lack of creativity.
Firstly, the Syrian Churches, living in the midst of an alien
Hindu environment for centuries, became introspective;
and they also fitted into the caste-system as a special caste.
A concern for evangelism or apologetics was missing. Sec-
ondly, the church language was Syriac which the people did
not understand. Even the translation of the Bible into
Malayalam was done only recently. So the Syrian theology
remained completely Syrian. This meant of course the
rejection of the Chalcedonian formula (The christological
formula adopted by the Chalcedonian Ecumenical Council
in 451 AD, that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man in
one person) and a support for monophysitism (the doctrine
of one nature in Christ, not two).
(ii) The second tradition is the Roman Catholic one. This
dates back to the sixteenth century, when Francis Xavier
came to Goa in 1652 A.D. In this case Christian missions
definitely allied with imperialism. Boyd comments, “The
Padroado had laid down the Christianising of India as one
of the aims of the imperial expansion, and so a link was early
formed between evangelism and imperialism . . .”2
When Robert de Nobili (1577-1656) came to Madurai in
1606 it was this Europeanised Christianity, which was
deeply detested by the respectable Hindus which met him.
At once he decided to change all this. So, in order to win the
high-caste Hindus he became one like them, took to sanyasa
and studied Sanskrit and Vedas, used Aquinas and Aristo-
tle, Sanskrit in the place of Latin. But unfortunately without
much success. He wrote in purely Indian forms of literature,
Puranas, slokas, commentaries and refutations, both in
Tamil and Sanskrit. In spite of all this, it is only fair to say
23
that he simply reproduced the theology of the Council of
Trent. Several of the later Roman Catholic traditions built
upon de Nobili (later on in this course there is a chapter on
de Nobili and other names mentioned here). Subsequently,
it is in this line that greater theological creativity is to be
seen, to this day.
(iii) The third tradition is the Protestant one, the last of
the three to arrive in India. The East India Company was
established as early as 1608 in Surat, and chaplains came
to minister to the company’s employees. But they were
solely confined to the foreigners. When missionaries came
in the 18th century (Ziegenbalg in 1706 and William Carey
in 1793), there was a kind of tension between these chap-
lains and the missionaries, as the former were serving
exclusively the British, while the missionaries primarily the
native Indians. Naturally some relevant and creative work
was done by the latter, and in a rich variety as well. Carey’s
translation of the Bible into thirty four Indian languages
opened up a floodgate which was to be decisive for Indian
Christian thinking in ever so many ways. This was followed
by the printing press, which became instrumental in dis-
seminating Christian literature.
There were also other trends. Alexander Duff main-
tained that the British education and culture must be
considered as preparatio evangelica (preparation for the
Gospel), that therefore it was of utmost importance that
these be given to the Indians with urgency. But there were
also those like J.N. Farquhar who considered Hinduism as
a preparatio evangelica, and Christianity as the fulfillment
or crown of Hinduism, and so demanded a thorough study
of the same. Thus the product of this period in Protestant
circles seems to be an innovative, mixed variety than a
single tradition.
On the whole we could therefore say that theological
creativity in India began as early as in the first century,
though a genuinely indigenous product did not gain mo-
mentum till the Christian missionary movement, when the
Bible was available in vernacular languages.
24
In recent times the Church’s corporate creativity is seen
in a new dimension, namely that of Church Union negotia-
tions. The constitutions of these unions, and the literature
in connection with the negotiations and their consumma-
tion offer a large bulk of theological material, which are yet
to be analyzed and used fruitfully for the benefit of Indian
Christian communities.
Individuals
Though in the church traditions also it was individuals
who thought and wrote, here we are talking about those
individuals who were not strictly bound by particular church
confessions, and so were freer in their opinions. As such
creativity is greatest here — in fact, the bulk of theological
writings we study in this course is written largely by such
individual thinkers. At the same time they were not isolated
islands but had a good deal of interaction, following and
fruitfulness, so one can study them profitably.
We can truly say that it is here that real theological raw
material was being processed. There were first of all those
who belonged to the fold of the Hindu religion, after hearing
the gospel grappled with the person and teachings of Jesus
Christ, either in defense of their age-old beliefs or in refuta-
tion of certain Christian teachings (e.g. Ram Mohan Roy,
Radhakrishnan, Mahatma Gandhi). Then there were others
who belonged to the ‘mainline’ (that is, standing in the line
of established churches) Christians who defended Chris-
tian faith against any Hindu attacks. (e.g. Nehemiah Goreh,
Paul David Devanandan). These were perhaps more diligent
to preserve the tradition of the fathers than to give new
directions in theological activity. Thirdly, there are those
who, while still remaining in the Church’s fold, yet, because
they did not approve of certain aspects of the church’s
doctrine or practice, raised a prophetic voice against such
deficiencies. Thus they had a reformatory effect on Christi-
anity as a whole in India, (e.g. Manilal Parekh, Subbarao,
Chenchiah). Finally, some of them went right out of the
Church traditions and became the pioneers of new direc-
tions. Many attempted to reconcile Hindu and Christian
25
messages and roughly chalked out the path for a movement
from the former to the latter (e.g. R. Panikkar, M.M. Thomas,
Samartha). Even a good sample of their creativity is not
readily available. Books like Boyd’s or Samartha’s or Baago’s
are at best selections according to the author’s self-chosen
criteria. A definitive historical theology in India, that is, a
history of the development of Indian theological thought is
yet to be written.
Conference and Para-church Organizations
This is basically a twentieth century phenomenon, for
twentieth century is the century of organisations. No doubt
the early Ecumenical Councils are the forerunners, but in
India, because of communal disharmony even in Christian
communities, there was a conscious effort made to develop
a ‘corporate Christian thinking’. Another major reason for
such efforts is involvement in the life of society, and the
demonstration of the credibility of the gospel. One can find
the roots of such approach in the watershed World Mission-
ary Conference at Edinburgh, 1910. As a consequence of
this meeting, several international co-operations sprouted,
The International Missionary Council, The Faith and Order
Movement, The Life and Work Movement, World Council of
Churches and the like. On the Evangelical side there were
the World Evangelical Fellowship (1951), the Berlin Con-
gress on Evangelism (1966), the Wheaton meeting of IFMA
and EFMA (1967), the Lausanne Congress on World Evan-
gelisation (1974 & 1989), and a host of their consultations
and conferences.
At a regional level, in India also all such international
efforts had their counterparts. The findings and reports of
these meetings are vast and rich in theological content.
Christian Participation in Nation-building and Debate in
Mission are two outstanding examples of such efforts —
each of these books is the outcome of numerous national
level Indian theological consultations.
The efforts of the National Christian Council of India (now
National Council of Churches of India) and its numerous
26
national level meetings, Evangelical Fellowship of India and
its numerous conferences, Federation of Evangelical Churches
of India are other important examples. In higher theological
education, researchers are resorting more and more to the
findings of these corporate bodies and less to ecclesiastical or
individual works. Association of Evangelical Theological Edu-
cation in India (AETEI) is emerging as a credible national body
handling theological education issues.
One note should not be out of place here. Almost certainly
you would have participated in at least one such conference
in India or even at international level abroad. In such meet-
ings one has the feeling that these meetings bring mixed
blessings. Though on the one hand they do blunt one’s sharp
edges and fanatic tendencies and thus correct our lopsided-
ness, on the other hand they seem to be effectively silencing
the prophetic voice. For example, if two thousand three
hundred world level leaders of the evangelical faith decided
such and such an action as mandatory for the church at the
Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation, it is very, very
hard for a ‘prophet’ to have the courage to speak up against
any deficient or even wrong or unbiblical tendencies of such
world bodies. Thus, these corporate decisions are to some
extent influenced by group dynamics and so must be taken
with a pinch of salt. For the same reason, the Ecumenical
Councils of the first five centuries are not infallible, but still
stand under the judgment of the final pramana (that is,
authority, see next section), the Bible.
On a different level, many non- and inter-denomina-
tional organizations like the missionary associations, social
action institutes, philanthropic or relief efforts, also have
their own theological emphases. But their theological out-
put is far less than that of the conferences.
IN WHICH CONTEXT IS THEOLOGICAL
ACTIVITY CARRIED OUT?
There is no doubt a slight overlap between this section
and the previous one, but yet, this section must be sepa-
rately dealt with, because there are two contexts to which
27
Indian theology has been addressing itself and will be
addressing in the future as well.
The first is the context of religious pluralism. Perhaps
more in India than anywhere else in the world, a solution to
the question of the relationship between Christianity and
other religions becomes an acute need. This is why a lot of
material has come from Indian writers on the issues like
inter-religious dialogue, discovering Christ in other reli-
gions, cultural synthesis, syncretism etc. Even at the world
level Indian theologians, like Stanley Joseph Samartha take
the helm in the theology of inter-religious dialogue. This is
also the area rich with Christian apologetics and that also
of a very high quality and, as we noted in the first lesson,
prone also to the danger of becoming heretical!
The second context is that of socio-political revolutions.
Nation building efforts preceded by the independence strug-
gle, is perhaps the most influential secular context (next only
to religious pluralism) which has shaped the recent Indian
Christian theologies. A theology of nationalism (in the sense
of nation-building), of liberation and social justice are the key
motifs of this context. The whole question of the secular
interpretation of the Christian message, and the development
of relevant Christian ideologies will occupy several years or
decades of future Christian thinkers in India.
In both these contextual theologies there is hardly any
consensus which can be labeled as the Indian position. The
spectrum varies from extreme conservatism to extreme
liberalism, and as such is still in a volatile state. The one
great distinctive advantage of these contextual theologies is
that there is an in-depth struggle with the contexts and so
most relevant and meaningful theologies are produced in
such struggles. You know of course that the outcome of the
Christian approach to these two contexts determines the
credibility of the Indian church in the years to come.
THEOLOGICAL CREATIVITY IN THE AREA OF THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION
Though there is a significant amount of theological
activity in the area of theological education (that is, by the
28
theological seminaries, professors, their publications etc.)
compared to the other areas described above theologization
is least here! If we consider the expertise, the resources, the
tools of research available and influential position such
educational institutions hold in India, it should have showed
much more creativity than is now the case. This puts those
of us in the enterprise of theological education to shame, as
we said above.
One reason is that unlike those “lay theologians” who
were in direct contact with life situations, the academic
nature of these theologies betrays their lack of contact with
Indian realities. Theological writings thus became “profes-
sional”, originating from the scholar’s pen and settling
down in another scholar’s notebook! Also, most of these
teachers are from ‘Western Christianity’ background, which
fact may explain the inertia of the status quo in the business
of doing theology. Only a few of the theological teachers have
substantial pastoral or missionary experience.
For a long time now, the whole theological education has
been hijacked for the sole purpose of producing candidates
for ordination. Further, to a large extent seminaries still
follow basically a Western pattern in these institutions in
their education, spirituality, life-style etc. The Serampore
Senate (which coordinates theological educations for Prot-
estant and Orthodox Churches in the Indian subcontinent)
and similar bodies still base themselves largely upon West-
ern textbooks, periodicals, methods of education etc. In the
last few years some indigenous efforts are discernible, for
example in the Indian Theological Library Series or the
CISRS series. Most recently, it is encouraging to see that
Theological Book Trust (TBT) has undertaken an extensive
theological text-books programme, written and published
by indigenous experts. Yet, generally speaking,
indigenisation in India has indeed sprouted, but it is yet to
be watered and cultivated to bear its due fruit.
Several national level consultations have been held in
India on the subject of theological education. These confer-
ences struggle to evolve an indigenous theological educa-
29
tion for India which is at the same time Christian, relevant
and fruitful. The reports of many such conferences, such as
those of Charles Ranson, M.H. Harrison, and the Board of
Theological Education of N.C.C. recommend that in the
future Christian theological education must share “in In-
dia’s search for new meaning, New Humanity”, “to be open-
minded, in encounter with renascent religions”, to “minis-
ter to men who face new and unprecedented decisions in
their political, economic, intellectual, religious and cultural
life”. What do you think?
Let us conclude, with the following evaluatory com-
ments:
1) Of the five aspects of theological creativity we have
been considering (ecclesiastical, individual, consultational,
contextual and academic), each has some weaknesses also:
the ecclesiastical and conference theologies tend to be too
traditional and static; individual theologies tend to be
lopsided, truncated, or partial. Academic, institutional the-
ologies are guilty of irrelevance and impracticability. Thus
it is in the case of the theologies produced in raw struggle
with the context of the secular and religious world that the
hope is best and strongest for a really authentic and fruitful
Indian Christian theology, though right now such efforts
seem very radical.
2) Men (not principles) are still God’s methods, and
prophets (not councils) are still the conscience of the
Church. So in our land more than anything else the voice of
the one who could say, “Thus says the Lord” must be
encouraged and heard. Each of us are called upon to
theologize, in however small measure in contexts God has
placed us. May God make you a prophet — one who comes
from the holy presence of God and says like the prophet
Isaiah of old, “Thus saith the Lord!”
3) The theological seminaries and colleges must be
encouraged to relate their programmes more relevantly and
realistically to the Church’s life as well as society’s needs.
For, theology is after all a function of the Church as a whole.
30
Seminaries must serve the Churches, not vice versa. This
means that concrete approaches like appointing teachers in
our theological institutions on the basis of their fruitfulness
and commitment to the churches by way of pastoral expe-
rience, churches’ input in developing the theological train-
ing programmes and curricula are among some of the
implementations which are needed if seminary theological
creativity is to become relevant and fruitful.
PRAMANAS: SOURCES OF RELIGIOUS
AUTHORITY IN INDIA
What is Authority?
Suppose you had a dispute with one of your colleagues,
for example about the meaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
To prove you are right, you quote from this textbook. Would
your adversary be convinced? Not at all! Because, as far as
(s)he is concerned, this book will be a weak support. Not
because it is wrong (I hope not), but because its credibility
is not yet universally recognized. No doubt your quoting the
book will be far more convincing than quoting, say the Prime
Minister, for the simple reason that theology is our field of
specialization, and so rightly or wrongly we the authors are
supposed to be experts in the field — while the Prime
Minister, in spite of his high power, is just a layman in this
area. But what happens if you quote, say, Martin Luther?
that would be more convincing, since Luther is more or less
universally accepted — but only among the Protestants.
Thus in order to establish your point, you will have to take
support from some authority which is acceptable both to
you and to your colleagues — the nature of the authority you
take for support depends upon who your questioner/col-
league is — the more universally accepted ‘authority’ you
quote, the more convincing your position becomes.
As can easily be seen, this question of authority comes
up not just in the matter of disputes, but at the deepest level
of our beliefs: On what basis (authority) do I believe any-
thing?
31
 The question, which authority is the basis for your
theological truths thus becomes a crucial — and so the first
- question in any study of theology. The shape of the
superstructure in any building is to a decisive extent
dependent upon the foundation it has. Similarly, what you
believe is decisively dependent upon why you believe, the
authority for your belief. This is the reason why most of the
systematic treatises on theology start with the question of
authority, and the doctrine of the scripture as the supreme
authority in matters of faith and conduct.
Authority in the Christian Church
In the history of the Christian Church throughout the
ages, the question of authority for one’s beliefs came up at
several points. In the second century, Tertullian and Iraneus,
for example, discussed the question of authority of the
Bishops, Church and the Scriptures. But the importance of
the issue was not fully realized till the time of Protestant
Reformation in the sixteenth century.
One of the most crucial subjects of dispute between
Luther (for that matter, all Reformers of the time) and the
Roman Catholic church was precisely this question of
authority. In the dispute, unfortunately, the Roman Catho-
lics crystallized their doctrine of authority in unmistakable
terms in the Council of Trent (in session IV, on 8th April,
1546) in the following words:
The foundation of all saving truth and moral discipline . . .
is contained in the written books and in the unwritten
tradition, which later have come down to us at the dictation
of the Holy Spirit by unbroken secession from the mouth of
Christ himself or his apostles; hence we receive and venerate
both Scripture and Tradition with equal piety and reverence.3
The last phrase, ‘with equal piety and reverence’ was
their way of saying ‘with equal authority’. In Vatican II this
equality of tradition’s authority with that of the Scriptures
was crystallized into the infallibility of the Pope, leading to
the supremacy of the Tradition in the Roman Catholic
Church.
32
Against this, the Protestants developed what is known
as the ‘material principle’ of Reformation, namely, the Sola
Scriptura — that only Scriptures are the supreme authority
for faith and conduct (the complementary ‘formal’ principle
was faith). Both Protestants and Orthodox rejected the
papal claims, while the Orthodox gave a greater weight to
the authority of Tradition (Ecumenical Councils) than the
Protestants.
Authority in Indian Philosophy
It is fruitful to see that in India the question of authority
has occupied a central point in all the systems of Indian
Philosophy from their beginning. In fact, one of the crucial
differences between these systems is the nature of authority
of religious knowledge each uses. It must also be noted that
in earlier times in India, as elsewhere, there was no differ-
entiation made between philosophy, theology, religion, cul-
ture, etc., and so what was authoritative in one area was
valid also for the others.
Hence, in developing a relevant theology for India and
especially for the Hindus, it is imperative that Christian
views of why we believe must first be established and
communicated to them. In the following sections, we will
first deal briefly with the Hindu understanding of authority,
then describe summarily (details in the following units)
some Christian attempts to ‘Indianize’ the Christian
approach.
Pramanas in Hindu tradition
The term for authority in Hindu philosophy is Pramana,
way of valid knowledge (from Prama, right knowledge,
knowledge which cannot be falsified). Each school of Hindu
thought accepted a set of pramanas as the true foundation
for right knowledge. Knowledge gained in ways other than
these was not true knowledge — it was either inadequate,
transitory, and belonged to the category of falsehood, doubt,
illusion, dream, etc., but not true knowledge.
33
 The number of pramanas differs from school to school.
To start with, some accepted only two, namely, pratyaksha
(perception which comes through sense experience) and
anumana (inference, logic, also called yukti) Only the athe-
istic schools, namely Charavaka, Jaina and Bauddha
schools, limited the number of authorities to these two,
since they did not want to come under the authority of the
Vedas. The rest of the schools, namely Nyaya, Vaisheshika,
Samkhya, Yoga, Mimansa and Vedanta schools, accepted a
third pramana — Sabda (the word of testimony, either
human or divine). It was the chief contribution of these
schools to develop Sabda as the supreme authority, by
limiting it to mean the Vedas, which were assumed to be the
superhuman, eternal and creative Word of God. As such,
Vedas were accepted as the true and infallible pramana. So
of all the literature passed on from time immemorial, the
Vedas were carefully distinguished as sruti (that which is
heard — the voice of the rishis/gods) and smriti (that which
is remembered, by the scholars, community — that is, the
tradition). For the theistic schools, it became mandatory to
find some kind of support ultimately in the Vedas.
To these main three pramanas, others had been added
at various stages of development of different schools of
thought. The two most common additions are: upamana
(analogy/comparison) and arthapratti (implication other
than logical). The lesser known additions were: Tarka
(rationalization), Anupalabdhi (non-apprehension),
Sambhava (inclusion) and Aitihya (tradition).
As the English translations of these terms show, the
exact meaning and differentiation of these Hindu pramanas
is quite an involved affair. Sometimes some of the latter
pramanas are included in the major ones. But one can
certainly conclude that in general the main authorities for
entire Hindu thought were three, Sruti, Anumana, and
pratyaksha. Since the last one deals with primary experi-
ence, it became equivalent to anubhava (direct experience
or intutional experience), though often it meant intuitional
experience.
34
The Pramanas and Christian Faith
What can we say about the use of these pramanas in
indianising Christian faith?
First, it is important to note that these three correspond
well with Christian understanding of authority, and what is
more important, both Christian and Hindu systems ulti-
mately resort to ‘revelation’ as the final authority, thereby
implying the rottenness of human reason or experience. Is
it accidental? Or is this a preparatio evangelica?
Secondly, as Robin Boyd points out, the meaning of sruti
as revelation is much nearer to the Hebrew concept of the
word of God than Latin revelation (re-velare, to take away
the veil), derived from its Greek parent word, apokalypto
(the same meaning, to take away the veil). Both the Greek
and Latin concepts of revelation appeal to the eye, to vision.
But the Hebrew dabar (word, speak) and sruti are closer to
one another since both resort to the ear, the hearing. God
created the world with His word. When Yahweh gave the
decalogue at Mount Sinai, the Israelites only heard His
voice, but saw no form. And Jesus is called logos, the Word.
Thus it is in the concept of sruti that one can far more
effectively recover the Hebrew concept of God as the one who
speaks.
Thirdly, the meaning of the Hindu pramanas is not
exactly the same as their Christian equivalents. Reason or
logic in Hindu thought has more than one form, beyond the
deductive and inductive logics. Hindu thought also in-
cludes a new type of logic, which Boyd aptly calls the logic
of “reconciling the opposites”. This kind of logic comes very
handy when we consider some doctrines which seem to
have in-built ‘contradictions’, such as: the Bible as the Word
of God and word of man at the same time, Jesus as fully God
and fully man, etc. Experience also means more in Hindu
systems. It is not just sense-experience alone, but includes
also intuition and even mystical experience. Thus it is very
necessary that before using the Hindu pramanas as valid for
Christian theology, we adequately baptize or define them.
35
 Finally, there are some authorities in Christian thought
which have no essential place in the Hindu system of
authorities. Tradition, which plays a key role in the Roman
Catholic theology (as corporate reasoning), History (as
corporate experience) and conscience are not really consid-
ered in Hindu schools.
Christian pramanas
It was Bishop A.J. Appasamy (whose thought we will
study later) who first called attention to the primary task of
theology: to establish its pramanas, as Hindu thought does.
Hindu thought usually develops in three steps: 1) What do
the Vedas say on the point at issue? 2) Can it be logically
demonstrated? 3) Does it tally with human experience?
It is most heartening to see that the Indian Christian
theologians, all but three, give to the Bible the first place as
authority. One exception is Chenchiah. He gives first place
to anubhava (experience). Though Sadhu Sunder Singh
gives great importance of his mystical experiences — “a
revelation which I have received in ecstasy is worth more to
me than all the traditional Church teaching” — it is safe to
say that he still places all his experiences under the author-
ity of the Bible, though above the Church tradition. The only
other exceptions are Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya and
Raymondo Panikkar, both of whom give first place to the
teaching of the Church. But both of them are Roman
Catholics, so their approach is quite understandable!
One could now say that honouring the Bible as the
foremost authority is quite Indian! This is also the emphasis
of the Reformers and a host of theologians even before them.
So Boyd is very right in strongly underlining that “the
supreme pramana, must be the Scriptures, and that no
philosophical or ecclesiastical tradition must be allowed to
challenge this authority.” 4
If this is valid, then it is high time that Indian theologians
concentrated on producing substantial exegetical works.
Sad to say, lack of such a serious study of the Bible is
perhaps the most serious weakness of Indian Christian
36
theology today. Would you like to take up this as a challenge
and ministry, as the Lord guides you?
Experience comes second both for Hindus and most of
Christians. Vivekananda became a disciple of Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa after the latter answered affirmative to his
question, “Have you seen God?” If only we Christians could
concentrate on witnessing to our experience (for no one can
ever question one’s experience!) like the blind man in John
9, “One thing I know: once I was blind, but now I see”, I have
no doubt that the fruitfulness of the Gospel would be
multiplied. Here we are not talking so much about the
Hindu experience of mystical union with the All or Brah-
man, but rather the experience of the power of the Holy
Spirit in the character and conduct of the Christian disciple
or community. Needless to add, whatever experience we
may have they all must be evaluated in the light of our
supreme pramana, the Bible, for the simple reason, our
experiences can be subjective or illusory — one may not
argue about it, only accept or reject it; yet, their validity is
not self-evident.
Bishop A.J. Appasamy places — notice he is a bishop! —
the Church tradition (aitihya) as the second pramana along
with experience. The work of the Holy Spirit during the last
two thousand years of Church history cannot be easily put
aside (my own view is that the sanctifying work of the Spirit
in the believer’s life now, direct and personal, is perhaps a
more reliable guide than the general guidance in Church
history, being impersonal, past and divergent). One need
not be dogmatic here, once the Scriptures are given the first
position; and I would put tradition in the third place.
It is in the fourth pramana, namely, anumana or reason
that there is a rich variety of Indian Christian theologies. In
the west, different systems came into being following differ-
ent philosophical/logical systems, such as Platonism,
Aristotelianism, Positivism, Idealism, Existentialism, etc.
So also in India: following the six darsanas (philosophical
schools, mentioned above) a variety of Christian theologies
are possible, at least in principle.
37
 Thus far, among these schools Vedanta has been used
extensively. Brahmabandhab’s use of Sankara’s advaita
and Appasamy’s use of Ramanuja’s vishishtadvaita are the
outstanding examples. Besides Vedanta, other systems
also are used — e.g. Chenchiah’s use of Aurobindo’s Crea-
tive Evolution; Nehemiah Goreh uses, in the Thomistic
fashion, the Hindu logic to refute his adversaries.
The fifth pramana, (which Boyd considers as a type of
logic) is upamana or analogy. Just as Jesus used parables
and Thomas Aquinas used his ‘analogy’ most effectively, so
in India Sadhu Sunder Singh has used this method of
upamana fruitfully in all his writings and messages. Once
the Bible is accepted as the final authority, then the resort
to upamana can be perhaps more fruitful than other
pramanas.
What can be said in conclusion? At least this: The
primary task of theology is to establish the nature of
authority on which one’s faith/theology is based. As we
have seen, this is the first question both in Christian and
Hindu systems. Also there is a good deal of similarity
between the sets of authorities, so that adaptability be-
comes easier. Once the Scripture is accepted as the ultimate
authority (as in Hindu systems), then other Pramanas,
Experience, Reason, Church’s teaching, Analogy become
supportive authorities.

NOTES
1. P.D.Devanandan, Preparation for Dialogue, CISRS, Bangalore: 1964,
p. 191.
2. R.H.S Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, CLS,
Madras: 1969, p. 11.
3. Karl Rahner (ed.), Sacramentum Mundi, Vol. 6, Scripture and
Tradition, p. 54.
4. Boyd, op. cit., p. 228.

38
 SECTION 2

INDIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
2

In the following chapters we shall examine the way in

which Christ has been interpreted in approximately the last
two and half centuries by Indian thinkers who were in the
forefront in the cultural, social, political and religious
changes taking place in India. We focus on three or four
leading thinkers, both on their life and their interpretation
of Christ. For the sake of uniformity the method we follow in
each case is the same: we give an outline of the background
of their life and teaching and the main points of their
interpretation followed by an evaluation.
One word of caution here. It does not mean that those
whom we consider here are the only ones to have responded
to the Christian Gospel, nor that they have responded most.
It only means that for scientific analysis their writings are
preserved and are available. It is possible that later some
other writings/theologians be discovered for an objective
study.

RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY (1774 - 1833)

We have already seen that the new self-understanding of
Hinduism in the last two centuries was primarily on ac-
count of its encounter with Christian faith. There is no
doubt that such new self-understanding is really new,
because it differs considerably from that of classical Hindu-
ism. It is both a reaction to the Western (then basically
Christian) influences, as well as their product. This is
evidenced by the new sense of Hindu missions.
As religion, culture, politics, society and philosophy
were all one bundle, this face-lift of neo-Hinduism affected
all these areas. But it is legitimate to say that the primary
reinterpretations took place in the social-ethical sphere.
There was an increasing aversion to idolatry, polytheism,
casteism, joint-family, disregard of woman on the one hand.
41
At the same time there was an addition of new ethical and
philanthropic elements, on the other.
Rammohun Roy (1772-1833) is hailed as the ‘morning
star of Indian renaissance’, ‘the Prophet of Indian National-
ism’, ‘the father of modern India’. He is also the first Indian
leader to take Christian faith seriously, and also has re-
sponded to it extensively. He was born in a Brahmin family
of Bengal. As such, he was very sensitive in spiritual/
religious matters, and left home at the age of fifteen in
search of truth. In his search in other cultures he mastered
several languages — Bengali, Sanskrit, English as well as
Arabic and Persian. The latter particularly impressed upon
his growing mind the truth of monotheism as well as the
rejection of idolatry. The watershed in his life was his
witnessing to the agony of his brother’s wife, being burnt
alive in sati. He vowed at that moment to devout all his life
to the abolition of this evil practice. For this he took his
strength from the teachings of Jesus Christ and the
Upanishads. Boyd rightly comments: It was Christian eth-
ics rather than Christian dogma which attracted Ram
Mohun Roy, and he saw no reason why a compromise
should not be possible between his own Hindu monism
based on the Upanishads, and the morality of the Sermon
on the Mount.1
In fact he founded a new religious society based on such
a compromise, the Atmiya Sabha (the spiritual congrega-
tion) in 1815, which after a few years, and with the influence
of Dwaraknath Tagore and Prosonno Kumar became Brahma
Sabha (the Congregation of the Brahman). Later it was
called Brahmo Samaj (the society of Brahmos) in 1830. In
this society, worship was to the one God, with rituals and
theologies taken from both Hindu and Christian scriptures.
The Society was also concerned with social reform, and
published literature for the purpose.
Later in his life Roy visited England to fight before the
British Government the cause of a local maharajah (from
whom he received the title Raja), but died in Bristol due to
illness in 1833. Only recently he has been re-discovered as
42
the ‘Father of Indian Renaissance’, and his writings have
been published just in 1948.
Roy’s writings include: The Precepts of Jesus (the full
title runs: “The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and
Happiness, extracted from the books of the New Testament,
ascribed to the four evangelists” with translations into
Sanskrit and Bengalese), Appeals to the Christian Public in
Defense of the Precepts of Jesus by a Friend of Truth (18
pages), followed by a second (112 pages) and final (200
pages) appeal.
Roy’s Interpretation of Christ
It is clear from the titles of Roy’s writings that he was not
so much interested in the person of Jesus as in His
teachings, the precepts. This is a typical Hindu approach, in
two aspects: (1) they place the principles above the person,
and (2) they are interested more in Jesus than in Christian-
ity as a religion. Roy did so separate Jesus’ teachings as the
essence of Christianity:
These precepts separated from the mysterious dogmas and
historical records, appear . . . to contain not only the essence
of all that is necessary to instruct mankind . . . but also the
best and the only means of obtaining forgiveness of sins, the
favour of God and strength to overcome our passions and to
keep his commandments. 2
It seems that for the same reason he rejects the glorified
view of John’s portrayal of Christ but prefers the more
realistic picture of the synoptic gospels. And, if we remem-
ber his Unitarian position, it becomes apparent that here
Roy is rejecting the deity of Christ and accepting an Arian
Christology, that Jesus was no more than a created being,
and not the creator. For Roy, the primary argument was that
Jesus Christ betrays his “natural inferiority of the Son to the
Father”, 3 because
(1) The Son is dependent on the Father and is his subject;
(2) The Son has submitted his will to the Father, and
thus is in moral union with the Father and not in identity of
being;
43
 (3) He is the mediator and the messiah as the first-born
of all creatures.
So Roy writes,
I regret only that the followers of Jesus in general, should
have paid much greater attention to inquiries after his
nature than to the observance of his commandments, when
we are well aware that no human acquirements can ever
discover the nature even of the most common and visible
things and moreover that such inquiries are not enjoined by
the divine revelation.4
Thus the main contention between Roy and the
Serampore missionaries and particularly Marshman, con-
cerns the nature of Christ. Roy does not deal with the
monistic concept (the Father and the Son are one and the
same) nor with the Nicene formula of one essence in three
persons, but affirms the moral unity. But he does revere
Jesus as the unfallen Adam. Though he affirms the virgin
birth and the miracles and even bodily resurrection, yet his
emphasis is on none of these, but only on the teachings of
Jesus. For this reason, he does not also see the saving
significance of Christ’s life, namely, of the cross and resur-
rection. For, he affirms, there is no biblical evidence for such
a doctrine of the cross as the all-sufficient means for our
salvation, but repentance instead is the only means. He
finds divine injustice if God inflicts suffering on an innocent
person on behalf of others. It is obvious that this kind of
Christology negates also the doctrine of the Trinity. The
Holy Spirit is not so much a person as ‘it’ is an influence, or
power, of God — it is not self-existent, as it proceeds from
the Father as does also from the son. This means that only
God (Brahma) is to be worshipped, not the creatures, and for
Roy the Son and the Holy Spirit belong to this lesser realm.
To worship the Son and the Holy Spirit would be equal to
primitive Hindu worship!
Apparently Roy was not interested in other aspects of
Christian faith, such as the Church, which his follower
Keshub Chunder Sen took most seriously. So it is concern-
ing the truth contained in the sayings of Jesus that Roy
finds the uniqueness of Christ. Here he was so convinced of
44
Jesus’ example, that there is a story of one Mathura Nath
Bose coming to Christ and baptism through the reading of
Roy’s Precepts!
Evaluation
What can we say in evaluation of Roy’s theology? First,
he was a watershed in Indian interpretation of Jesus Christ
in several ways. He was the first to separate Christ and
Christianity, and to reject the latter in preference of the
former; the first to criticize the Hindu socio-religious sys-
tem, and that too on the basis of the truths found in the
Bible; the first to emphasize the ethical components of
Hinduism; and also the first to start a syncretistic move-
ment, the Brahmo Samaj.
Secondly, it is typical of Hindu interpretations of Jesus
Christ to minimize the significance of Jesus’ life — his
passion, death and resurrection — over against his teach-
ing. The reason is that in the historical understanding of
reality, where everything returns again and again to the
origin in a cycle, it is impossible to give permanent value to
a person, who is a historical reality, only for a brief space of
time. The understanding of this world as the realm of Maya,
as illusion, is the root cause behind this devaluation of the
concrete in preference to the abstract. Hence, Roy and many
thinkers after him do not see that Jesus’ calling to people
was to himself — and that in Jesus the Kingdom of God has
come to man in a decisive form. But Jesus clearly claimed
to be the object of human faith — “Believe in me”, “Follow
me”, are refrains in the New Testament.
Thirdly, it is plain that Roy’s hesitation to ascribe to
Jesus the divine nature stems from his allegiance to Uni-
tarianism. Like the Unitarians, he also overlooks Jesus’
claims to deity such as his acceptance of worship, power to
forgive sins, power over the material world as its creator-
Lord, pre-existence, etc. But in the New Testament there is
a clear teaching about the person of the Holy Spirit — not
only in grammar, but also in revealing his personality in the
capacity to have relationship with man, to be grieved,
45
and to lead, comfort and accompany believers in their all these scholars and theologians, leaders and evangelists
struggles. put together!
Finally, the rejection of the orthodox doctrine of atone- K.C. Sen and the Brahmo Samaj
ment — on the cross Jesus paid the penalty for the sins of
Keshub Chunder Sen was born (19th November 1838) in
mankind in their place — takes away the very essence of
Colutolah in Calcutta, as the second son in a Vaidya caste
Christian faith. This is possible when one holds that man is
family, to Piari Mohun Sen and Sarada Devi. Losing his
capable of doing what God demands of him, thus denying
father at the age of ten, Keshub came under the vaishnavaite
the fallenness of human nature. Only those who deny the
influence of his mother. It was during his teen-age that he
fallenness of man will dilute or throw away the biblical truth
became dissatisfied with Hinduism, a strong impulse to
that God is holy and righteous, while man sinful. Indeed
pray became the driving force of his life. At this time he
what Roy says is a mixture of ancient Arianism and
began to study the Bible, came into contact with missionar-
Pelagianism. We could also add here that Roy’s rationalism
ies and philosophies. His marriage to a nine year old village
is a stubborn stumbling block to the spiritual truths which
girl was traumatic for him and he decided for ascetic life. He
can be assimilated only by faith and consequent confirma-
joined Brahmo Samaj in 1857 signing the membership
tion in obedience (for a different evaluation of Roy’s think-
covenant. This seems to have given him a new identity he
ing, see M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the
was longing for. It was under the tutelage of the Brahmo
Indian Renaissance, pp. 29-36).
leader Debendranath Tagore that Keshub bloomed in his
KESHUB CHUNDER SEN (1838 - 1884) brahmo convictions. Debendranath says about Keshub,
“whatever he thought in his mind he had the power to
Raja Rammohan Roy did start off some of the typical express in his speech. Whatever he said, he had the power
approaches to Christian faith. But he was not a typical to do. Whatever he did he had the power of making other
Hindu seeker, for ethical and social questions cannot be men do.”
asked in Hinduism per se but rather primarily religious and
Such an eulogy by the leader of the Brahmo Samaj won
philosophical questions. Also, Roy’s thinking was more in
for Keshub the self confidence as well as respect from
the rationalistic line of the Western thinkers than genuinely
others. Sen brought a revolution in the Brahmo Samaj.
Indian. The next leader of the Brahmo Samaj, Debendranath
Originally only Brahmins were to have leadership, and so
Tagore (1870-1905), went consciously and deliberately
the ordaining of Sen as the first non-Brahmin Acharya
back into the Hindu tradition, and so had hardly anything
(Priest) of the Samaj was not accepted by all the Brahmos.
worthwhile to say concerning Jesus or Christianity. Thus,
Throughout his life he was a sincere seeker, highly re-
the next important Indian interpretation of Christ is his
search-minded, pious. At 17 years of age he joined the
successor, Keshub Chunder Sen. As Boyd observes, Sen is
Samaj and was soon recognized for his gift of oratory. In
the “pattern Hindu seeker”, yet, “one who has found the
1860 Sen formed a Sangha Sabha where spiritual devotions
pearl of great price but is reluctant to sell all that he has in
as well as intellectual debates on the contemporary issues
order to buy it”, namely, the pearl of Jesus Christ.5 This lack
in religion and society were the primary agenda. From 1861
of full commitment to Christ is rather the rule than the
Sen worked whole time for the Samaj. He advocated aban-
exception in Indian Christianity, is it not? Imagine the
doning the sacred thread. He introduced Christian philan-
disaster such a lack would bring about in a marriage! Would
thropy into the Samaj and founded the Calcutta College, in
to God that we had more committed disciples of Christ than
1861, the first college founded by an Indian. His young wife

46 47
participated in the ordination service of her husband which
became a catalyst for women’s liberation at the time.
But on the issues of widow remarriage and inter-caste
marriage Sen and Debendranath Tagore separated, and Sen
founded the Brahmo Samaj of India in 1886 (Debendranath’s
Brahmo Samaj died shortly after this). Sen made bhakti the
watchword of this new movement which shows the strong
influence of Vaishnavist roots all his life. Unlike Roy’s
Samaj, Sen’s Samaj included the Christian elements into its
sessions in a fuller way: the use of Scriptures, meeting on
Sundays, earnest prayers to Brahma, the starting of Brahmo
missions, to cite a few examples. He also developed Brahmo
liturgies and annual festivals were introduced. While the
former Brahmos accepted divine revelation only in nature
and intuition, Sen added that God can be known also in
history — a step nearer to incarnation than Roy’s rigid
position. Soon he became a Brahmo missionary, a very
successful one too. He undertook a watershed lecture tour
of England in 1870, which seems to have confirmed his
disillusionments about Christianity. On his return Keshub
began announcing his vision of a new dispensation, de-
manding all accept him as its initiator. At this time he got
acquainted also with Dayananda Saraswati and
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa; due to the fanatical tenden-
cies of the former Keshub could not develop a genuine
friendship with him, as he did with Ramakrishna, whom he
actually introduced to the world.
However, his autocratic control of the Samaj, his doc-
trine of Adesh (see below) and his attitude towards the
emancipation of women brought about opposition from the
Samajists. His weak health during the last years of his life
was a great handicap for his activities and leadership, and
he died, rather a disappointed soul in April 1884.
In his later life, Sen developed an extreme egocentric
attitude which stifled his otherwise great spiritual sensitiv-
ity. He began the doctrine of adesha (message, revelation),
that in his time God was exclusively speaking and revealed
Himself through Sen as the human instrument. He de-
48
manded Vairagya and expected total allegiance from his
followers as devotees. He met Ramakrishna and under his
influence started to emphasize the motherhood of God.
Later in 1861 he inaugurated the Church of Nababidhan
(the church of the New Dispensation) with great pomp and
show. For the purpose he presented himself with twelve
disciples and four scriptures (Christian, Hindu, Buddhist
and Muslim) to drive home the fact that like Jesus in his
time, he (Sen) was the latest revelation of God, superseding
all the earlier ones. He called this band the “apostolic
durbar”. He also introduced sacrifices, baptism and Eucha-
rist, mystic dances and even magic.
Paradoxically, it is also during this later period that his
attraction to Christ increased — even some of his closest
friends have written that Sen died a Christian — a debatable
opinion indeed. He died in 1884. He was a charismatic
personality with great gifts and sincerity, and has given many
seed thoughts for Indian Christian theology. Yet neither in
thought nor life nor in ministry was he systematic.
Most of Sen’s theological writings are to be found in his
annual lectures to the Brahmos, which he prepared with
meticulous research, especially those given between 1863
and 1866 are rich in content. These have been published in
two sets: Keshub Chunder Sen’s Lectures in India (2 vol-
umes); The New Dispensation (2 volumes). Besides these
several scores of authors have written about him and his
theology: C.F. Andrews, M.C. Parekh, V.S. Azariah, S.N.
Banerjea, H.C. Banerjee, G.C. Banerji, Meredith Borthwick,
Motilal Das, K.S. Ghose, B. Mozoomdar, P.C. Mozoomdar, F.
Max Muller, B.V, Ray, G.G. Roy, P.K. Sen, T.E. Slater,
Marquess Zetland and many others. The main writings of
Sen include (in English) The Book of Pilgrimages,
Brahmagitopanishat, The Brahmo Samaj, Divine Worship,
Jeevan Veda (autobiography); he has also written scores of
articles in English, and books in Bengali.
K.C. Sen’s Theology
The main elements of Sen’s theology could be summa-
rized under three heads: God, Christ and the Church.
49
DOCTRINE OF GOD
Being a Brahmo, Sen was naturally concerned with the
doctrines of the Trinity to start with. It is to Sen that Indian
Christians owe their use of the term, Saccidananda (Sat + cit
+ ananda = truth + intelligence + bliss) for the Trinity. Boyd
suggests that this term is more adequate than the Nicene
Formula of one substance and three persons, which is still
in Greek philosophical categories. It is to be noticed that
more than Roy, Sen accepted this doctrine. In one of his
annual lectures he writes,
In this plane figure of three lines you have the solution to a
vast problem; The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost; the
Creator, the Exemplar, the Sanctifier; I am, I love, I save; the
still God, the journeying God, the returning God; Force,
Wisdom, Holiness; the True, the Good, the Beautiful; Sat,
Cit, Ananda; Truth, Intelligence, Joy.
Obviously, here Sen is reconciling the Christian Trinity
with Hindu Saccidananda and Greek philosophical virtues.
In this attempt, there is a streak of modalism (of God
revealing himself in three modes or times) and thus diluting
the distinction of the three persons in the Godhead. In
another lecture, he describes the three persons as the
Above, the Below, and the Within. No doubt these descrip-
tions are helpful — perhaps more helpful than the ontologi-
cal language of the Greeks. The crux of the matter in
Christian dogma is the precise meaning of the terms “per-
son” and “substance” or “essence” — lacking this, any
adequate clarification of the Nicene formula of one sub-
stance in three persons is fruitless.
DOCTRINE OF CHRIST
Like most of the Indian thinkers Sen, too, is attracted
towards Christ and Christology more than anything else.
Sen was the first to discover that the Christ of the Bible is
an Asiatic Christ, and thus as being nearer to Indian
thought than is acknowledged.
For Sen, Christ and his religion are “altogether an
oriental affair”. He writes in a moving passage,
50
Behold, he cometh to us in his loose flowing garment, his
dress and features altogether oriental, a perfect Asiatic in
everything. Watch his movements and you will find genuine
orientalism in all his habits and manners, in his uprising and
downsitting, his going forth and his coming in, his preaching
and ministry, his very language, style and tone. Indeed while
reading the Gospel, we cannot but feel that we are quite at
home when we are with Jesus, and that he is altogether one
of us. Surely Jesus is our Jesus.
It is this understanding of Christ that helped Sen to
replace the Greek logos concept of the gospel of John with
the Hindu/Indian concept of Cit, the word of creation. The
eternally asleep logos or cit is not just at the beginning of
creation but also at the consummation of it at the end. Thus
cit is the culmination of humanity, of the process of history
— the whole creative evolution.
In all this Christology, Sen understands Christ’s unity
with the Father neither as metaphysical nor as ontological
but as mystical communion.
Unlike many Indians, Sen dwells more upon the human-
ity of Jesus than his deity! Sen was not tired of describing
Christ as the son of a humble carpenter, who grew like any
other normal man; yet he was more than a man, because he
was “a divine man”, a term which has been repeatedly used
in India and elsewhere for Christ since then. In fact this term
is Sen’s favourite description of Jesus Christ. This divine-
ness of Christ consists in the fact that he was so filled with
God that he destroyed self. Bonhoeffer’s phrase for Christ,
“the Man for Others” would have aptly suited Sen’s concept
of Christ’s divinity. In one of his lectures he clarifies his
kenosis theory as follows:
When I come to analyse this doctrine I find it nothing but the
philosophical principle underlying the popular doctrine of
self-abnegation . . . Christ ignored and denied his self
altogether . . . he destroyed self. And as self ebbed away,
heaven came pouring into his soul. For . . . nature abhors a
vacuum, and hence as soon as the soul is emptied of self,
Divinity fills the void.6
Sen finds this kenosis of Jesus in his utterances such as
“I and my Father are one”, “I can of my own self do nothing”,
51
and “I am in my Father and my Father is in me”. The first of
these quotations has become the most quoted saying of
Jesus in India concerning his own person. Jesus mani-
fested his divinity in his utter self-surrender and depend-
ence upon the Father. Thus for Sen “Jesus is identical with
self-sacrifice”. It is on this basis that Sen makes forgiveness
and self-sacrifice the two foundations of Christian living.
But what does Sen think of Christ’s atoning work? Of the
Cross and Resurrection? He regards the cross as nothing
more than an example of the self-sacrifice. He writes, “I have
always regarded the Cross as a beautiful symbol of self-
sacrifice unto the glory of God.”7 It is through the moral
influence of his death on the cross as the supreme example
of self-denial that Christ turns men from sin to God. Each
one can be saved by imitating this example of self-giving.
Thus, “Go thou, and do likewise” is the way of appropriating
Christ’s salvation and no other way is there for Sen. Through
Christ, “as through a brother’s example, fallen humanity
rises sanctified and regenerated.” 8 As journeying god, he
becomes human, in order that we may become divine. As
such Sen’s concept of salvation is more of divinisation than
humanization. But in all this, Sen is not thinking so much
of individual salvation but rather of the cosmic salvation of
all mankind. Hence there is little emphasis on repentance
and faith as means of appropriating the salvation. In fact, he
seems to have conceived of this salvation as an automatic
process or result of Christ’s coming, which process he calls
christification. There is a danger here, of the possibility that
this Christification could mean, in Sen’s thinking, the
Hindu realization of Aham Brahmasmi (I am Brahman).
It is possible, as Boyd gives credit to Sen, that during the
latter period of his life Sen came closer to the orthodox
concept of atonement, namely that of the efficacy of Christ’s
death for the remission of our sins. Even the language of
substitution is used:
Christ substituted himself for the world . . . Believe in this
substitution and we are all one in Christ . . . Behold, I am
reconciled to all through the blood of him crucified.9
52
Yet, in all this there is hardly any understanding of the
Cross being the penalty for the sins of mankind. As such,
the dominant ideas of Sen seems to be that Christ is a
mediator in what he is than what he does, more due to his
nature than due to his work.
Before leaving Sen’s Christology, one more element
should be noted. He sees Christ wherever he sees some-
thing good and noble — be it religion, philosophy or ideol-
ogy. As such, for him Christ is present in all systems — the
concept of hidden Christ which the later thinkers so glut-
tonously accepted! Sen writes, “Christ is already present in
you . . . He is in you, even when you are unconscious of his
presence.” 10
Like those who advocate a cosmic Christ, Sen also
resorts to passages like John, 1:9: “He is the light that
lighteth every man coming into the world”, Acts, 17:27,28:
“He is not far from any of us. In him we live and move and
have our being”, and 14:17: “God has not left any of us
without a testimony concerning himself.” This kind of
Christology led Sen to a syncretistic religion very near to
that of M.M. Thomas’ Christ-centred syncretism, but which
he called the Church of the New Dispensation.
DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Sen saw himself as divinely appointed and commis-
sioned to be “the leader of the New Dispensation” in which
all religions are harmonized and in which all men are
summoned to enter as their spiritual home. He claimed
special divine inspiration (Adesha), equal to that of Moses
and Jesus.
In fact, Sen claimed that Moses’ was the first dispensa-
tion, Jesus’ and Paul’s the second, and his the third and the
final one, which necessarily supersedes all previous dispen-
sations and revelations. This was definitely a deliberate
attempt on Sen’s part to integrate the Western and Eastern
religions into one heritage. He used the symbols of the
cross, the Hindu trishul (three-pronged spear) and the
Islamic half-moon and star as the emblem of his new
53
indigenous Church. As we saw earlier in the life sketch, he
also used the scriptures from these religions on par with the
Bible. The goal of this move was the unification of all
mankind in himself!
This new church was more intimately related to the Holy
Spirit than was previously the case. But in claiming his
inspiration as final and superseding all others, Sen is in fact
monopolizing the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and not the
Holy Spirit controlling Sen! You see, between heresy and
orthodoxy there is but a thin line of demarcation, which any
of us can cross! Look at what Sen could say under such a
misunderstanding of God’s revelation:
Keshub Chunder Sen, a servant of God, called to be an
apostle of the Church of the New Dispensation, which is in
the Holy city of Calcutta, the metropolis of Aryavarta, to all
the great nations in the world and to the followers of Moses,
of Jesus, of Buddha, of Confucius, of Zoroaster, of Mahmet,
of Nanak and to the various branches of the Hindu Church,
to the saints and sages, the bishops and the elders, the
ministers and the missionaries of all these religious bodies:
Grace be unto you and peace everlasting . . .
And later on the message claims an exclusive revelation
to Keshub Sen, and ends with the plea:
Let Asia, Europe, Africa and America with divine instru-
ments praise the New Dispensation, and sing the Fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man.
In spite of the opposition from the contemporary bishops
— Anglican and Roman Catholic — Sen continued to stand
by his claims, and towards the end of his life there was an
element even of irrationality in his thought. Needless to say,
this new dispensation church died shortly after its found-
er’s death — the usual story of all human enterprises! But
God’s work will continue, not only in spite of man’s obedi-
ence, but because of his disobedience!
Evaluation
In evaluating Sen’s seminal thoughts, we could say
many things both in favour and disfavour of him.
54
On the positive side: Undoubtedly the credit of using
indigenous thought forms, categories and terms for Chris-
tian message goes to Sen. Saccidananda, Christian
mahavakya, Asiatic Christ are the obvious examples. More
than this, he also gave seeds for posterity to Indianise the
Christian faith: the concept of divine-human, hidden Christ,
Christ-centred integration, kenosis as self-emptying, the
emphasis on the Holy Spirit, Christification, are some of the
seeds which have yielded harvest with the later Indian
interpreters of Christ.
Secondly, while Roy refused to go beyond looking at
Christ other than the principle he presents (namely, that of
self-giving love), Sen goes one step further and accepts the
significance of Christ’s person, not just his teaching. In fact
it was the power of Christ’s person and not his wisdom
which most fascinated Sen.
Thirdly, it was a great stroke of genius to see the place
of church in the Christian scheme of things, and Sen makes
it essential to his own theology. At the same time, he tried
to keep his New Dispensation Church away from the west-
ern institutionalism and dogmaticism, hence his loose
organisation. It was a mixture of both Jesus’ apostles and
the Indian gurukul (teacher and disciples living together)
system. Compared to the Brahmos, it was surely a step
nearer to the Christian church.
Fourthly, Sen was again the first to emphasize the role
of the Holy Spirit in Christian doctrines. No doubt there is
a tendency to lean heavily upon personal mystical aspects,
but as a creative thinker he was not free from faults.
And finally, he was also the first to lay emphasis upon
the experience of spiritual realities, unlike Raja Rammohan
Roy. Not just ethical life, but more than that spiritual
experiences made his teachings appealing. For the same
reason, against the brahmo philosophy Sen accepted his-
tory as a mode of God’s revelation.
On the negative side: the first thing to notice is of course
his doctrine of adesha, as a unique God’s revelation, higher
55
even than Jesus Christ. The disregard for tradition is a
major sign of heresy. Even we, every time we attempt to start
some Christian ministry from the scratch, without building
upon the insights of our forerunners, fall into a similar trap!
Before God, a recognition not of self-righteousness but of
self-unrighteousness counts.
Secondly, though Sen accepted the significance of Christ,
he did not commit himself to Christ — the basic trouble with
all self-confident prophets. For a long time he seemed to be
in double-mind as to this demand of Christ, but the later
developments of syncretistic Church and personal Adesha
betray the fact that finally Sen was no Christian disciple.
This also leads him to an handling of the Word of God
selectively to suit his convenience — another modern dan-
ger! Sen’s calling his approach “Christian eclecticism” does
not alter the judgment.
Thirdly, Sen could not penetrate beyond his idea of
Christ as the supreme example of self-giving love to the
biblical idea of Christ’s death as God’s provision for the sins
of all mankind. The dilution of the substitutionary under-
standing of the Cross is the beginning of all liberalism and
can be a disastrous by-product of attempts of a positive
approach to other religions.
Fourthly, the idea of a hidden Christ suggested by Sen
is vigorously taken up by many recent thinkers in India
such as M.M. Thomas, Raymondo Panikkar, and Stanley
Samartha (see later) and also by Westerners like Karl
Rahner and Paul Tillich. It must be admitted that to concen-
trate the whole human-divine enterprise on one man Jesus
is an offense to man as man, but the biblical fact cannot be
meddled with. “No one comes to the Father but by me” is the
only bedrock on which any relationship of the Christian
faith with other religions and philosophies and ideologies
can be built. We dare not speak more than, or less than, the
Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, confessed as Lord
and Saviour. Any vague principles of Christhood or self-
giving love will inevitably lead to anti-Christian messages.
56
For other evaluations one can find many books, but a
handy one is that by M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged
Christ of the Indian Renaissance, pp. 67-83.
PRATAP CHANDRA MOZOOMDAR (1840 - 1905)
There is not much too exiting about the life-background
of Mozoomdar (1840-1905): He was attracted to the Brahmo
Samaj because of the charismatic personality of its Guru,
K.C. Sen, and through his inspiration became the most
important Brahmo missionary. After the death of the founder
of the New Dispensation Church, the Apostolic Durbar
refused to have any leader other than Sen himself, or to elect
Mozoomdar in Sen’s place. But the bulk of the Brahmo
membership however, and Mozoomdar himself, felt other-
wise, and so Mozoomdar became the last leader of the
controversial Brahmo Samaj.
Mozoomdar was barely able to hold together the crum-
bling structure, only his loyalty to Sen enabled him to carry
on as the leader. He wrote several books: The Life and
Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen, The Oriental Christ,
Heart beats, The Spirit of God, and Lectures in America and
others Papers. The first two stand as the best known.
Mozoomdar’s Theology
The primary concern of Mozoomdar was to make the
Christian Gospel relevant to the “spiritual instincts and
national sympathies of Hindus”. Thus, addressing himself
primarily to Hindu spirituality, Mozoomdar frames his
whole theology in terms of the Spirit. And as the Brahmos
rejected pantheism, he explains his system as pan-en-
theism, Spirit in all things — in nature, human life, history.
He says,
The divine Spirit permeates every pore of matter and of
humanity, and yet is absolutely different from both . . . There
is no beauty, no wisdom, no faithfulness, no purity, no piety
and no self-sacrifice that is not inspired by him. The
goodness of all the good is a ray of reflection from him, the
greatness of all the great points to his throne on high.11
57
 Elsewhere Mozoomdar says: “the universal background
. . . the universal heart of things, . . . is surcharged with the
Spirit and presence of God.”12
Hindu pantheism is expressed in the two mahavakyas,
Aham Brahmasmi and Tat tvam Asi. These statements
identify everything with God and thus destroy the
personhood of both God and man. By contrast, Mozoomdar
asserts that his pan-en-theism safeguards personhood in
both.
He finds that even Christ can best be explained in terms
of the Spirit. Being omnipresent, the divine Spirit manifests
himself more in some and less in other human beings, but
in Christ the Spirit reveals himself to the greatest degree.
The graduation of the Spirit’s presence from the lowest to
the highest is as follows: nature-life-man-saints-Son of
God. Hence, the incarnation of Christ is the most important
revelation of the Spirit, as it reveals most of the Spirit.
DOCTRINE OF THE SPIRIT
What is Mozoomdar’s understanding of this divine Spirit?
For him it is the “evolving principle” in the creative process,
source and substance of all things — definitely a Hindu
concept! And so he finds a parallelism between Hindu and
Christian revelations. In the places of Vedas, Christianity
has the Old Testament; in the place of Upanishads, it has
the Pauline epistles; and in the place of puranas, it has the
Gospel. The doctrine of creation is characteristic of the first,
the doctrine of man is characteristic of the third. Of the three
divine forces, existence, intelligence and joy (love), he finds
that it is joy which is really characteristic of the Spirit. Only
in the Spirit is there any possibility of the unity of all
mankind. It is the binding factor in the cosmic unity, being
active in the creative and recreative processes of this world.
And naturally Mozoomdar equates this understand of
the Spirit with the biblical concept of the Holy Spirit. For
him, the questions of Trinity, Christ and salvation all could
be effectively resolved by this doctrine of the Spirit.
Mozoomdar clarifies that the Holy Spirit is a person who can
58
have relationships with man, namely relationships of obe-
dience, responsibility. While the Father is far above, and the
Son far away, it is the Spirit who is within us. He laments
that in Christian theology the Holy Spirit is given only a
third place and in the Apostle’s creed nothing more than a
mere mention! He is neither adored, loved nor worshipped
though occasionally some may address him in their prayers.
Yet He is the essence of the Christian Gospel; Christ’s life
and mission are the work of the Holy Spirit.
How is the Spirit related to Jesus Christ? Mozoomdar
conceives the incarnation of Jesus Christ as Spirit made
flesh. Jesus realised the Spirit of God in himself, and so the
uniqueness of Christ lies in his being:
(1) the most complete and universal incarnation of the
Spirit,
(2) the perfect example of God-man relationship, and
(3) the indispensable revelation of God.
And all the ‘works’ of Christ — birth, life, miracles,
teaching, death, resurrection, second coming — all these
are the spiritual missions of the divine man Jesus. The goal
of his mission is to establish a kingdom, a society of the
Spirit. Even the cross is understood by Mozoomdar differ-
ently: It is God’s overruling of the tragedies of life. As such
there seems to be little significance of the Cross of Christ as
the objective, saving, efficacious event.
What is the role of the Spirit in a disciple’s life? Mozoomdar
says while the moral laws demand from us the good we
cannot do, the morality of the Spirit is that he offers us the
ability to do that good. The Christian virtues like love, faith
and holiness can be achieved only in the Spirit. This is a
welcome reminder indeed.
How is the Spirit related to the Church? He sees that
there is such a great perversion in the Church, the least
claiming the highest revelation, while their life betrays a
lack of the Spirit. For this error we need to teach that the
Spirit exhorts. He speaks of several tests, “The impulse of
59
the heart and the conscience, the unanimity of the Church taking away all suffering is far short of the biblical concept.
and the voice of the dead recorded in the Scriptures”13 seem There he affirms that the reality of God is not exhausted by
to occupy in his mind as the supreme tests. To these he also Christ. This explicitly violates the doctrine of trinity and the
adds others: “the moral fruits of the Spirit, the power of centrality of Christ. Mozoomdar so develops his
transmitting the Spirit to others”, and “the unity of the pneumatology as if salvation is possible both through
community.” Christ as well as through the independent work of the Spirit.
Finally, how does Mozoomdar conceive of other religions
in his pneumatological framework? He holds that in reality,
it is Christ who is the basis for reconciling religions one to
another, but all religions are not equal. For no religion has NOTES
the monopoly of the Spirit, though each religion is the 1. Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, ISPCK, New
Delhi, 1989, pp. 19-20.
offspring of the Spirit. According to the nature of the people
and their spiritual needs, the Spirit developed various 2. M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance,
CLS, Madras, 1970, p. 10.
religions. Thus, there is a progression in the gradation of all
the religions; in the future, there will be one universal 3. Ibid., p. 18.
religion which will make all other religions obsolete, and 4. Ibid., p. 15.
this universal religion is Brahmo Samaj! Thus, in Brahmo 5. Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, p. 27.
Samaj, all religions have already been realized, because 6. Kesub Chunder Sen, “India Asks ‘Who is Christ’”, Lectures in India,
though Brahmos reject pantheism, they affirm pan-en- vol.1, 1879, p. 369.
theism of the Spirit. 7. K.C. Sen, Lectures in India, vol.1, London, 1909, p. 7.
8. K.C. Sen, Lectures in India, vol.2, p. 27.
Evaluation
9. Ibid., pp. 91-94.
We need not dwell long on Mozoomdar by way of evalu-
ation. His theology is clearly a theology of the Spirit. His 10. “India Asks Who is Christ”, p. 217.
emphasis on the third person of the Trinity, though most 11. P.C. Mozoomdar, The Oriental Christ, Boston, 1883, pp. 41f.
welcome, has certain disadvantages in the way Mozoomdar 12. Mozoomdar, The Spirit of God, Boston, 1894, p. 9.
presents his understanding. On the one hand, there seems 13. Ibid., p. 69f.
to be a quantitative understanding of the Spirit (some
religions manifesting more and others less of the Spirit). On
the other hand the ever-emphasis on the Spirit cannot but
end in “pneumomonism” — one God understood only in
terms of the Spirit, instead of in triune terms of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit. But other aspects, such as the power of the
Spirit in the disciples’ day-to-day life, the tests of the Spirit
in the Church, the demand for the moral fruits of the Spirit
— all these are valuable thoughts indeed.
Beyond this, a couple of comments should suffice. For
example, his understanding of the Cross as God’s way of

60 61
 3

BRAHMABANDHAV UPADHYAYA (1861 - 1907)

His background and approach
Many anthologies of Indian Christian Theology omit
Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya. The reasons for some consider-
ing him a Christian and others not, as we shall see later, can
be found in his own autobiography — though it is not for us
to judge whether one is a Christian or not. But for us
Brahmabandhav is one of the most important figures in
Indian Christian Theology. He has written profusely on al-
most every aspect of the Christian message. He lived in a time
when theological turmoil in Hinduism was perhaps at its
greatest. This was the time of the ABC movements in Hindu-
ism — Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj, and Christo Samaj. In
this section we shall study this atmosphere briefly.

THE THEOLOGICAL ATMOSPHERE

Awakened by the Christian message itself the Arya
Samaj of Dayanand Saraswati was an extreme form of
resurgence. Brahmo Samaj of K.C. Sen was a milder form of
the same, while the Christo Samaj of Kalicharan Banerjee
was even more positive in its attitude towards Christianity.
But all these were the products of the time. Following the
national patriotic spirit of the times, these were different
efforts of indigenisation of the Christian message and the
church. Yet, these Samajes had little or no impact on the
vast Hindu population but were confined in influence to a
selected few. It was rather the non-intellectual message of
Shri Ramakrishna (see the section on Vivekananda) which
really appealed to the multitude and thus was a greater
challenge to Christianity. In no small measure does the
success of Ramakrishna owe to his indigenous lifestyle,
language and method of teaching, devoid of all philosophi-
cal jargon. Perhaps a case can be made also for the super-

62 63
natural element in Ramakrishna’s life, such as his occultic
visions and trances. The crown of Ramakrishna’s success is
evident in an intellectual of no lesser caliber than
Vivekananda becoming his disciple, and that blindly, as we
have seen. Does it not say something about the limitations
of intellectual form of the Christian message?
Brahmabandhav was aware of all these movements. In
fact he was a classmate and even a bosom friend of
Vivekananda. He met of course K.C. Sen, whom he held to
be very Christ-centered and Christian and he had also
contacts with Kalicharan Banerjee, the nationalist who was
the founder of Christo Samaj. With Vivekananda
Brahmabandhav was also very much attracted towards
Ramakrishna, as both of them were attracted also towards
K.C. Sen’s Christ-centredness. But later, while Vivekananda
followed Ramakrishna, Brahmabandhav followed K.C. Sen.
There were also two other scents in the atmosphere at
the time. One was the intoxicating nationalism. Leaving his
family Bramabandhab came to live with his uncle in Cal-
cutta — where creativity was at its highest — he could not
but integrate the nationalistic spirit with his cultural reli-
gious enthusiasm. The other scent is that of Vivekananda’s
offensive in seeing the Christian message through Hindu
eyes. The Swami’s Advaita was such a high fashion of the
day that even the Bible was interpreted according to vedantic
principles. For example, Vivekananda’s disciple Sri
Parananda (see also Boyd) interpreted Mt. 6:12 “forgive us
our debts”, as follows:
And let that communion be so complete as to efface all
differentiating sense of ‘I’ and Thou’ or of obligations left
undone by me, Mayest thou, O Lord, graciously annul the
relation of debtor and creditor and make me one with thee.1
The effect of all this was to show that the Christian
message is only a part of Hinduism and so can be absorbed
by the latter. It was difficult of course for any Christian to
maintain the uniqueness of Christ in the light of these
movements. Unless we understand Brahmabandhav in the
light of these movements we do not understand him at all.
64
BRAHMABANDHAV’S LIFE
Brahmabandhav Upadhyaya was born Bhawani Charan
Banerjee (1861-1907). ‘Vandyaji’ was a family title which in
due time got anglicised into Banerjee. Brahmabandhav is a
translation of the Greek Theophilus meaning a friend of God
which he took upon himself at the time of his baptism.
Upadhyaya, his family name meaning teacher, was the
name he took at the time of becoming a sanyasi, as we shall
see later. Brahmabandhav was born in Khanyan near Cal-
cutta in a Brahmin family. His father was a Police inspector
and thus both religiously and socially influential. His mother
died when he was only a few months old and he was brought
by a very orthodox grandmother. His uncle, Kalicharan
Banerjee often visited his home and so Brahmabandhav
seems to have been introduced to Christianity already in his
childhood. (At the death bed of his father he read a Christian
book called Catholic Beliefs which also seems to have
influenced his attitude towards Christianity.) Later, when
his father moved to Calcutta Brahmabandhav continued
his schooling at the Scottish Mission School then in Hooghly
College and finally in the Metropolitan College. Already
when 16 years old in high school he was a burning patriot
and had radical idea of overthrowing the British government
through military revolution. In fact along with his friends he
planned to become a soldier and with the help of the free
kingdom of Gwalior to fight and drive away the British. But
the rather childish plan was thwarted when the family came
to know of it and sent them back to school. Brahmabandhav
became a frustrated man and became a teacher.
He seemed to have got acquainted with Vivekananda
around 1880 in his college days. Being sincere seekers, they
both became friends and joined the Brahmo Samaj. They
also used to attend Ramakrishna’s meetings regularly.
Attracted by K.C. Sen’s message Brahmabandhav became a
staunch Brahmo missionary and was sent in 1888 to
Hyderabad (Sind). There he met two missionaries of the
CMS, Rodman and Heaton, gradually led him to Christ.
Already at this early age Brahmabandhav was concerned
65
with the two basic elements of the Christian message — the
fact of the Resurrection and the truth of Jesus’ deity. Being
convinced of both, he was baptized in 1891 in the Church
of England. It is important to notice that already at this time
Brahmabandhav took Christ as the fulfillment of the Hindu
ideal of a sinless guru. This element seems to have remained
more or less throughout his life, though some contradiction
developed later.
Unfortunately at this time, owing both to the strong
family pressure as well as to the questioning by a Roman
Catholic friend against his baptism Brahmabandhav wa-
vered in his faith. Led by this friend he ultimately took a
second baptism, joining the Roman Catholic Church the
same year. That is the time when he took the name
Brahmabandhav as we have seen. This anti-Protestantism
remained in him throughout his writings. But to his credit
we must remember that when his family and the Arya Samaj
persecuted and even stoned him, he along with his friends
and disciples remained true to the new faith he had found,
though he was disinherited by the Hindu society.
During 1902-1903 he visited Europe and was surprised
to find idols in Christians Churches all over Europe. He
returned to India with the strong conviction that the pure
message of Christ had been westernized and diluted. His
emphasis henceforth was to bring back the pure message in
Indian terms. He discovered that Indian churches and their
worship, along with the dress and the lifestyle of Christians,
were also western. So in order to become indigenous he
discarded the western clothes and took to sanyasa. That is
the time he called himself Upadhyaya. But he went even one
step further. In order to detach himself from the western
“pollution” he took a ceremony of prayschitta, i.e. repent-
ance and purification, and joined back into the Hindu fold.
Though Hindus accepted him after this ceremony as fully
Hindu, apparently Brahmabandhav did not seem to think
that way, for as we see in his theology later on, he called
himself a Christian Hindu. His own Roman Catholic Church
priests did not allow him to join Christian worship in the
66
robe of sanyasi. But after appealing to higher authorities on
the basis that even Roberto de Nobili had done that, he was
given permission. But he was partly disenchanted by the
church structure. So he went on as Jesus did and toured all
over India, teaching and preaching. He also added a new
Indian element — begging like a mendicant. Along with his
disciples he worked hard among the poor and the sick. Even
in times of epidemics, when some of his friends died, he
bravely worked towards the healing of the disease.
Several events from the mature part of his life must be
mentioned. During these years we can see some drastic
changes taking place in his life and thinking. In a school for
Hindu boys where he was working he encouraged pupils to
venerate and worship both Saraswati, the goddess of learn-
ing, and Krishna. His defense was that these deities were
avatars but Christ was an incarnation, which is an entirely
different level. Later on, in a dialogue with J.N. Farquhar he
mentioned the same distinction. But it seems that he had
lost the sympathy of the Christian leaders for this view
point. They felt he was making Christ one among the several
gods as Hinduism does. Perhaps one major change during
the last few years of his life was that Brahmabandhav took
entirely to political action and writing. He started a Bengali
daily called Sandhya which was a very radical political
provocation, which the British held to be very dangerous.
He began to maintain he was fully a Hindu, at the same
time a Christian. He called himself culturally a Hindu,
whereas by faith a Christian. He was arrested in 1907 on
charge of sedition. He appealed in the court, not in his
sanyasi robes, but identifying himself as a Bengali brahmin.
He was released on bail but knew that he was going to be
arrested soon after. But before the arrest, he died in an
operation at the age of 46.
Theological Writing
Like all creative thinkers, he did not produce any summa
theologica though he was perhaps the nearest to that. His
main theological writings are to be found in the three
67
periodicals he started and edited. Sandhya we have already
mentioned. The other two were Sophia (published first as a
monthly and later as a weekly), meaning wisdom. Some of
his main articles include: “Conversion of India”, “Our Atti-
tude Towards Hinduism”, “Are we Hindus?”, “Theism in the
Vedas”, “The Origin of Man”, “Hindu Philosophy and Chris-
tianity”, “The Clothes of Catholic Faith”, “The Trinity”, “The
Incarnate Logos”, “The True Doctrine of Maya”, “The Hymn
‘Ka’” and the like. For a full bibliography of his writings
please see K. Baago’s Bibliography, and Gispert Sauch (ed.),
Theology of Bramabandab Upadhyay.
Theological Method
Before going on to study in detail Brahmabandhav’s
theology it is necessary here to analyze two aspects of his
methodology.
a) As it comes clearly in his biography, his whole
theological thinking was motivated by his very genuine
concern for indigenous expression of Christian faith and
life, as Russell Chandran properly evaluates. Chandran
says that there are four aspects in which this indigenisation
comes to the fore:
(1) Integration of the social structure of India into
Christian way of life;
(2) The establishment of an Indian Christian monastic
order;
(3) The employment of Vedanta for the expression of
Christian theology; and
(4) The recognition of the Vedas as the Indian Old
Testament.
Scholars are divided as to whether Brahmabandhav
took to the Vedas or the Vedantic philosophy but that need
not stop us at this juncture.
b) Brahmabandhav also had a very concrete method as
how this indigenisation of Christian message in India should
take place.
68
He says it is a three-fold task:
First to eradicate from the minds of the Indian people the
erroneous and mischievous doctrines (pantheism and trans-
migration); Secondly, to lay the basis of Theism by the help
of the Vedas; and Thirdly, to build Christianity on that
foundation.
Thus the discussion concerning ‘pre-understanding’ and
‘indigenisation’ which are now occupying the efforts of the
theologians seem to be anticipated by Brahmabandhav by
several decades. And obviously these two aspects of his
approach also show us what kind of content his theology has.
Theological Emphases
Perhaps somewhat simplistically, we can divide
Brahmabandhav’s theology under three main headings
1. his understanding of religion,
2. his understanding of God and Christ
3. his understanding of the Indian Church.
CHRISTIANITY AND OTHER RELIGIONS
Unquestionably, Brahmabandhav’s basis for all his think-
ing is the distinction made by the medieval theologian,
Thomas Aquinas, between nature and supernature (or
grace). Very paradoxically, though he builds all his theologi-
cal thought on this Roman Catholic basis, yet he rejects it
in order to replace it by the Vedantic type of thinking. By
now we should be able to say why this contradiction arises.
The credit of applying Thomism (the theology of Thomas
Aquinas) to Indian interpretation must go to Brahmabandhav
— not even did de Nobili do this.
Why does he do so? His understanding of Protestant
missionaries was that they approached Hinduism primarily
to find fault with the Hindu thinking, hoping that by this
demolition of Hinduism Hindus will be converted to Christ.
He felt this was too negative an attitude towards Hinduism.
On the other hand, Catholicism, with its distinction be-
tween nature and supernature, gave room for natural the-
ology built on human reason on which the supernatural
69
grace or the theology of revelation can be built. This was
definitely a more positive attitude towards to Hinduism, and
appealed to the nationalistic spirit of the time. Hence he
describes the basis of the relationship between Hinduism
and Christianity as follows:
It is on account of the close connection between the natural
and the supernatural that we have taken ourselves the task
of expounding the Hindu scripture systematically and of
fishing out the theistic truths from the deluge of pantheism,
idolatry and anthropomorphism and thus glorify him who
enlightens every man who cometh into the world.
He is also clear as to the implications of this principle:
The light which lighteth every man who cometh into the
world (Justin Martyr’s logos spermatikos) is brightest in the
thought of the Vedas perhaps with the possible exception of
ancient Greece. Thus it is the pure Hinduism of the Vedas
which is the nearest to the gospels, but the later Hinduism
has been polluted by two developments, the doctrine of
reincarnation and transmigration on the one hand, and the
Advaita philosophy on the other.
Further he says,
we consider these two doctrines the two greatest enemies of
mankind . . . we accept as our own the primitive Theistic
truth taught in her shastras.
It is for this reason that Brahmabandhav attacks the
Advaitic philosophies of Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj,
who accept these two dangerous doctrines in one form or
another. Thus his main aim was to lead Hinduism back to
its original form and thereby pave the way for the Christian
faith, as Baago affirms:
(i) Not only is Hinduism not perfect but even Christianity is
not perfect. Thanks to the Logos Spermatikos idea, he finds
that Christianity can come to its fullness only in contact with
the natural theologies around the world, and especially the
pure Vedantic Hinduism. “The development of the Christian
religion has not come to an end. It will grow, blossom and
fructify till the end of time”.2
(ii) He also finds it is rather the western form of Christianity
which is misleading and ought to be got rid of.
Thus following the Thomistic distinction
Brahmabandhav says that Christianity should not come as
70
the destroyer of Hinduism, but as it is fulfillment. “The
primitive (Hinduism) and the new (Christianity) are linked
together as root trunk base and structure, as outline and
filling.” Since root is a first and then is the trunk, foundation
is first and then the superstructure so also nature is first
and supernature is later. Brahmabandhav strives to make
Hinduism the foundation on which the superstructure of
Christianity can be built. This is what he calls Vedic
Christian theology.
It is also in this connection that Brahmabandhav dwelt
on the parallels between the Old Testament and the Vedas.
But since the Vedas contain the Old Testament under-
standing of God and nature only spasmodically here and
there, he was not really able to build successfully an
adequate Vedic Christian Theology. Perhaps this is the
reason why Brahmabandhav shifted his emphasis. This
does not mean that he rejected the Vedas but simply for the
sake of the clarity he resorted to Vedanta, which can be
linked to the Old Testament. Kaj Baago’s comment that in
1898 there was a decisive turning point in Brahmabandhav,
in his shift from the Vedas to Vedanta, must therefore be
qualified.
The main obstacle for Brahmabandhav in accepting
Shankara’s Vedanta was the latter’s interpretation of maya
to mean that it is unreal. But later he interpreted maya to
mean not illusion or unreal existence but a dependent
existence — that all things created are depending on God.
Then he was ready to accept the Vedanta as his foundation
for Christianity.
Before we leave his theology of religions one more aspect
must be noted. It was again Brahmabandhav who was the
first to differentiate between Hinduism as culture and
Christianity as religion. In his own words:
By birth we are Hindus and shall remain Hindus till death,
but as dwija (twice born), by virtue of our sacramental
rebirth, we are catholics, we are members of the indefectible
communion embracing all ages and climes.3
71
 That means: in customs, manners and social relation-
ships we are Hindus, in our faith we are not Hindus but
universal or catholic. To quote him once again:
Our dharma has two branches samaj dharma and sadhana
dharma. Our Hinduism is preserved by the strength of samaj
dharma while the sadhana dharma is of the individual. Its
object is sadhana and mukti (salvation). 4
Boyd penetratingly observes here that Brahmabandhav
is advocating that Christians accept cultural Hinduism
without accepting it as a religion. Or in other words, just as
earlier Christianity was married to Greek culture, the In-
dian Christianity must be married to Hindu culture. That is
what is meant by Christian Hindu. This is the reason why
Brahmabandhav is called the Indian Clement, since he
understands Hinduism as a tutor to Christ as Clement of
Alexandria understood Greek philosophy as a tutor to
Christ. This brings us to his Christology.
GOD AND CHRIST
Once Brahmabandhav understands Maya to mean de-
pendent existence or second reality, he is at pains to portray
the God whom Christians worship to be beyond this level of
Maya. Otherwise such a God would not appeal to Him and
specially the Vedantins. So for him God is not Ishwara but
the very highest — Brahman or Para Brahman — not
Saguna Brahman as some have tried to understand.
Brahmabandhav is keen to understand god as Nirguna
Brahman. Here Boyd’s apt phrase that Brahmabandhav
“gives nothing but the highest honour” summarizes his
Christology beautifully. In fact he calls himself not just a
‘theophilus’ but in his thinking, even higher than that —
‘Brahmabandhav’.
But if Christians should understand God as Nirguna
Brahman, i.e. attributeless, relationless and impersonal,
then should they also call God neti neti (not this not that,
i.e., agnostic)? Does not then God become, as in the case of
Shankara’s Vedanta, unknowable? We find that
Brahmabandhav reconciles this contradiction by resorting
to K.C. Sen’s concept of God as saccidananda. If Shankara,
72
in spite of belonging to natural theology, found it necessary
to understand Nirguna Brahman as saccidananda, then
Brahmabandhav contends, how much more can a Christian
understanding of saccidananda show the true nature of
God. Therefore Brahmabandhav’s concept of God is basi-
cally Trinitarian. He knows that this is a mystery, which can
be known only through the revelation in Christ.5
Two key concepts helped Brahmabandhav overcome
this contradiction. One is the understanding of Christ as cit,
or the revelation of God’s inner being. As cit Christ’s unique-
ness lies in “his unfolding the mystery of God’s inner life”.
This is also Christ’s claim to His divinity. Here
Brahmabandhav also gives his understanding of atonement
and sin. For him sin is the bondage which cannot be undone
by Karma, because it is alienation from God.
By choosing the finite (anatma) as our goal we incur spiritual
death and darken our understanding . . . sin leads to bondage
and darkness from which there can be no escape, not
withstanding the hardest struggle on our part. Thus the only
way we can find salvation is God compassionately accepting
upon himself sorrow and suffering for our transgressions.
Another concept is that of maya. For Brahmabandhav
maya is not a quality of being dependent, it is also a divine
overflow of energy which results in the existence of creatures.
Maya is a mysterious divine operation. It is neither real nor
unreal. We cannot explain how the phenomenal multiplicity
results from the immutable unity, how being is communi-
cated to the finite . . . maya is neither real nor necessary nor
unreal but contingent. By it non-being (asat) is made being
(sat) . . . by it that which is nothingness by itself filled with
the riches of being.6
Here Brahmabandhav resorts to Thomas Aquinas’ un-
derstanding of creatio passiva (passive creation) and equates
that with maya. Thus maya is defined as the habitude of
having being. Here Brahmabandhav is philosophical as
both Thomas and the Hindus. The point to note here is this:
In Vedanta ultimately there are no individuals. For
Brahmabandhav individuals do not exist, of course, by
necessity, but God has given each soul eternally existing
state. And it is through the power of maya that these soul
73
are kept from dwindling into nothingness. Thus
Brahmabandhav comes to the conclusion that therefore the
spirit of man will not merge with the divine in such a way
that his individuality is lost, but to know God and to like
him. It is a communion and not a union.
We have already seen that Brahmabandhav does not use
the term avatara for Christ. This is deliberate. For him
avatara of the Hindu deities is qualitatively different from
the incarnation of Christ. His details are interesting. He
holds that the human is, according to vedanta, composed of
five sheaths: animate, vital, mental, intellectual to spiritual.
While in human beings these five sheaths are controlled by
personality (aham), in the incarnate Son they are activated
by the Logos or the cit of the Trinity. Hence they are very
different from the avataras, of the Hindu puranas. For this
reason Upadhyaya calls Christ often as narahari (nara =
man, hari is the proper name for Vishnu) God-Man. Many
Christians took offense at his use of Krishna’s name for
Christ. His pen name is also Narahari Das (the slave of
narahari, the slave of Christ). Following Sen, Brahmabandhav
also rejects the lie of Christian avatarism, for incarnation is
far higher than the avatara of Hindus.
Why then did Brahmabandhav advocate the worship of
Hindu deities such as Saraswati and Krishna? Scholars give
a two-fold answer: one, being caught up in the nationalistic
spirit of the Indian freedom movement, it was necessary for
him to appeal to the Hindu heritage; secondly, having
assured Christ’s uniqueness by calling him Brahman, he
does not see any harm being done in calling other deities at
a lower level of avatara or ishwara. For him therefore these
deities are just historical figures or moral leaders but not to
the level of Christ. In any case, such a position of worship
of Gods by Brahmabandhav is a very dangerous one.
THE CHURCH AND INDIGENISATION
As we have seen, Brahmabandhav was disillusioned by
the church structures. [Boyd mentions that he even en-
couraged others on occasions to use the Church in the
74
court]. But he did recognize the need for a visible organized
institution for the regular ministry of the Word and the
sacraments. Yet towards his mature age, because of his
almost entire involvement in politics, he seems to have
abandoned the church. Also because he died suddenly he
was cremated by the Hindus and not by the church. To some
this means that he died a Hindu.
But he was quite strong in condemning the Europeanness
of the Indian Church. He was right in saying that the Hindu
brethren cannot see the subtlety and sanctity of Christian
religion because of the cloak of Europeanism, of trousers
and hat, spoon and fork, meat and wine. So he says an
Indian can be both Hindu and Christian at the same time.
This understanding led Brahmabandhav also to found what
he called a Hindu Catholic Sanyas Ashram. Of course such
attempt was preceded by De Nobili and followed by Sunder
Singh. In all this Brahmabandhav was far ahead of his time.
Perhaps more than any other Indian thinker he raised the
credibility of the Christian message before the Indian phi-
losophy to its highest level.
Evaluation
Strengths
1. He had a very high Christology. In calling Christ
Brahman he was very understandable before the Hindu
brethren.
2. His zeal for indigenisation of the Christian message
makes him an uncalled but sent missionary to the Hindus.
3. His understanding of the Bible as the revealed word
of God is definitely conservative.
Weakness
1. His almost uncritical use of the Thomistic system of
nature and supernature makes Brahmabandhav blind to
several aspects which come up in Protestantism, such as
justification by faith alone.
2. His resort to Vedanta to understand Christ as the
higher God in relation to the avataras makes the difference
75
between Christ and others only quantitative rather than
qualitative.
3. His finding of Logos Spermatikos in the Vedas, even to
the extent of finding the purer Christian message there,
dilutes the authority of the Bible.
4. His understanding of Christ as the atonement for the
sins of the world is anything but the penal substitution
which the Bible emphasizes.
NEHEMIAH GOREH (1825 - 1895)
Background
Like Narayan Vaman Tilak and Pandita Ramabai, Goreh
was of Chitpavan Konkanasth Brahman descent, a very
aggressive, fanatically orthodox Hindu background. He was
born in Kasipura (near Jhansi), but went in his early
childhood to Benares studying Sanskrit and Hindu philoso-
phy. As such, he naturally learnt to despise Christianity,
because for Chitpavans Christianity was the religion of the
Mlechchhas (pagans). He read extensively works written
against Christianity, and engaged in heated arguments
with missionaries. He got hold of the Bible and began to read
it. As he came to the Sermon on the Mount, he exclaimed,
Who is this teacher who speaks in this manner?. . . No mere
man, however holy, can preach this sort of sermon. Surely
the author must be divine!
This was his turning point. After a few discussions with
the missionary William Smith, and with his own relatives
(giving them a last chance to argue him out of his new found
faith), he finally took baptism in 1848 with the name
Nehemiah instead of Nilakanth. He was commonly known
as father Goreh, after his ordination into the Anglican
ministry.
His first wife of childhood marriage had already died, so
he married a second time. His daughter was the well-known
hymn writer, Lakshmi Goreh, the author of “In the secret of
his presence how my soul delights to hide”. Both his family
and he had to suffer persecution on account of Christian
76
faith — the wife being drugged and kidnapped. Eventually
she died after receiving baptism by her husband.
He visited England twice (1854 & 76), as the pundit for
Maharaja Dulip Singh, and met queen Victoria II. This
Indian apologist of the Christian faith was very welcome
there and on his return from the first trip he was ordained
as a priest and worked in Indore, Panchoudh, Mhow,
Chanda, Bombay and Pandarapur. Later he settled down in
Pune, a stronghold of aggressive Hindus, in order to witness
to them about Christ. In 1876 he was accepted as a novice
of the Society of St. John the evangelist, also called the
Gowley Fathers. He remained a novice till his death in 1895.
Father Goreh led many significant personalities to Christ
including the Rev. Ranthonji Navaroji of the CMS of
Aurangabad, Rev. Khasim Bhai of Satara, Mr. Shahu Daji
Kukade and others. But the most prominent was Pandita
Ramabai. At a time when she had decided to reject Christi-
anity, there came an unexpected letter from father Goreh,
which seems to have answered the queries of Ramabai at the
time and so accepted Christ on that basis. Later on she
writes that none else could have caused to change her mind
except father Goreh.
Goreh’s writings
Beside a very gifted and fruitful preaching ministry,
Goreh was also a gifted writer. He published more than 35
works in English, Hindi and Marathi. His magnum opus is
the Hindu apologetic, Shaddarshana Darpana published
also in English, A Rational Refutation of the (six) Hindu
Philosophical Systems. His other important works included
tracts in answer to objections against certain points in
Christianity, lectures and addresses, theism and Christian-
ity, god’s foreknowledge of man’s free will, and the existence
of Brahmoism. In these books, Goreh courageously inserted
a subtitle like “Hindu Philosophy examined by a Benares
Pundit”, “By a converted Hindu Brahmin” etc. Having
suffered for the faith, he never drew back from identifying
himself as a converted Brahmin from Benares.
77
Goreh’s Thought
In a nut-shell, Goreh’s thought can be summarized as a
Church-in-witness-and-defense theology. His primary mis-
sion was to give an apologetic against reformed Hinduism
such as Brahmo Samaj and Prarthana Samaj, though not
the militant Arya Samaj. His argumentation against the
Brahmo teaching runs: Hindu shastras, being pantheistic
and monistic are unlike the Bible, which is to do with the
ultimate destiny of mankind, and therefore true revelation;
Brahmos’ concepts are to a very large extent from the Bible
and not from the Hindu shastras. Therefore, they are
compelled on their basis to accept the rest of the Bible also
as their authority. Here Goreh came in direct confrontation
with Max Mueller, the liberal Oreintalist who was infatuated
with anything Hindu.
In his apologetic Goreh finds the doctrine of creatio ex
nihilo as the most important for theology. In all the Hindu
philosophies, the world has both existed from eternity as
well as it has an ultimate material cause. As such none of
them really understanding Brahman or God as omnipotent;
only the biblical account of creation out of nothing makes
God totally sovereign. If the world is an illusion, then God’s
power and authority are still less real! The final inference of
the Hindu system is a dilemma: If only Brahman is real, then
to make the world false and illusion and at the same time to
say the world is Brahman is a logical inconsistency. There-
fore it must be rejected by thinking persons. Goreh’s rigor-
ous logic is also applied to the concept of Brahman: the
Nirguna Brahman, as he/it is qualityless, it is in fact zero!
(Saguna Brahman, being a part of the world of maya, is in
any case no more than nothing, illusion). Brahman is
unknowable, because he is not! But as for the personal God
of the Bible, being the world’s creator, support and end,
nothing higher than him is imaginable.
Goreh’s logical method is best illustrated in his dealing
with the vedantic assertion that atman is Brahman:
It is a maxim of Vedanta, that “The soul is Brahman itself,
and nothing other”. How, I would ask the Vedantin, can this
78
be? For they assert that, on the one hand, soul errs by reason
of ignorance; and that on the other hand, Brahman is, in
essence, ever pure, intelligent, and free, and can never for a
movement be otherwise. Still, they maintain that the soul is
Brahman, and with interest to reconcile their contradiction,
they resort the most elaborate mystification.
Goreh’s own answer to Hindu anthropology is a biblical
one: Man is not only a part of God but also of maya. More than
any other thinker he emphasized the Fall and the fact of sin
with utmost seriousness. He approves that “the frightful
nature of sin deserves a punishment whose severity is beyond
the reach of conception.” But such punishments are not just
for good, but primarily to satisfy the justice of God — it is
God’s due. Sin is a positive evil force, not just privative good.
The Hindu concept of karma, making both virtue and vice lead
to bondage, lacks such a serious understating of sin. For
Goreh sin is serious because it is on account of this that he
turned to Christianity.
It was the doctrine of everlasting punishment which shook
my soul from very bottom, and forced me to come away, at
any cost, from the path of error, and I resolved in my mind
to strive with all my might to leave of sin and follow holiness
and virtue. 7
Boyd aptly calls Goreh ‘a fearful saint’ rather than a
joyful one!
His idea of salvation is also impeccably orthodox. For
him salvation from this terrible power of sin over man and
from the wrath to come is purely by God’s grace through
Christ’s atoning death, and appropriated by faith. Christ as
a lamb of God was sacrificed once for all for oursake, as a
penal substitution in our place. It is through the death of
Christ that we are made partakers of God’s nature as a
Church — and not like Vedantic identification of Atman
with Brahman. He dares to ask whether such an identifica-
tion was really a misunderstanding, though preparatio
evangelica.
This brings us to another vital theme Goreh dealt in his
writings — the relation of Hinduism with Christianity.
Though Goreh attacked Hindu philosophy mercilessly, like
79
all eminent Indian thinkers he too was wholly indigenous in
his approach and in content. He rejected western lifestyle in
all its varieties. “The Western trappings of the Church
repelled him”. He felt himself wholly Indian, and believed
that in a hidden manner God is preparing them through
Hinduism to respond positively to Christ.
Providence has certainly prepared us, the Hindus, to receive
Christianity, in a way which, it seems to me, no other nation
— excepting the Jews of course — has been prepared.
He finds this preparatio evangelica in the Gita’s teaching
of Ananyabhakti (undivided devotion), Vairagya (renuncia-
tion of the world ), Namratha (humility), Kshama (forgive-
ness), and the like. On a higher level, incarnation (as
avatara) miracles are also a foreshadowing of the Christian
gospel. Anticipating Farquhar, Goreh says that Christ is the
fulfillment of Hindu longings; this is the divine light which
was to light every man who cometh into the world, namely,
the light of reason and logic. To logic he turned heavily in his
defense of the gospel.
Evaluation
Since Goreh is unquestionably in the main line ortho-
doxy, it is difficult to find fault with his theology. But his
emphasis — unlike the modern de-emphasis — was un-
doubtedly on the Church and its sacraments. Since he
grapples with the issues of brahmoism and the Hindu
philosophies his theology is also most relevant and has a
cutting edge. Like any of his contemporaries, he also ac-
cepts without questions the genuineness and the ultimate
authority of the Scripture for the Church. And finally,
almost uniquely Goreh adheres to the heart of the Christian
gospel — the penal substitutionary understanding of Christ’s
death and parts company with most of the Indian Christian
theologians of repute.
There are also couple of loop-holes in his thinking. For
example, in spite of all his refutation of Hindu thinking,
Goreh never mentions the crucial Hindu doctrine of
karmasansara and reincarnation. And further there is an
80
element of in-built antipathy to Hinduism, and almost
nothing is positive in Hinduism for him. Being a church-
man, it is to be expected that his Christianity was Anglican
Christianity, closely adhering to its 39 articles and the book
of common prayer. Goreh seems to be the Indian Aquinas of
all the Indian Protestant theologians; it is he who has used
Aristotelian kind of logic rather extensively. Some times this
approach gives the reader the impression that his theology
is based on reason than on the Scripture. But if we remind
ourselves that Goreh’s audiences were Hindus and Brahmos
who required a particular kind of argumentation, then such
a “rational refutation” falls into its place without jeopardiz-
ing the authority of the Bible.
LAL BEHARI DEY (1824-1894)
Born in Talpur (Bengal), educated in the General Assem-
bly Institution founded by Alexander Duff, Dey mastered
the English language very early — perhaps it was appropri-
ate that his baptism later took place in an English library!
He was just nineteen at that time, and consented because
he was intellectually convinced of the truth of the Christian
message (some time you should study the relationship
between being intellectually convinced of the gospel truth,
and being convicted of one’s sin by the Holy Spirit!) against
the Vedanta philosophy. He was ordained in 1855 and
served as an Anglican minister. Later the British govern-
ment recognized his abilities and put him in charge of its
Educational Service. He also taught as a professor of Eng-
lish literature, history, philosophy. The moving part of his
life is the last five years, when he became totally blind and
invalid in other ways. His faith and full acceptance of God’s
will with cheerfulness amidst affliction is witness to Dey’s
staunch commitment to Christ. His family’s unswerving
love during this period seems to have brought him closer to
the Lord. He used to say, “I shall not be blind in heaven!” Few
Christians can witness to the Christian hope that is in them
like Dey. Lal Behari Dey’s main concern was to unite and
indigenise the Indian church. He dreamt and wrote about
the national Church in India which will be fully freed from
81
the Western yoke. His writings include: On Vedantism,
Papers for Thoughtful Hindus, The Desirability and Practica-
bility of Organizing a National Church of Bengal, Bengali
Peasant Life, etc. He also edited periodicals, including
Friday Review and Indian Reformer.
Dey’s Thought
We could pick up three emphases in his thought.
RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY
Living in the Brahmo atmosphere of the time, Dey
vehemently rejected the Brahmo concept of authority — be
it Vedas, nature or human reason. He disputed that though
man’s mind is great, there is that blight of sin upon it, and
a worm is eating at human reason so that he cannot think
anything properly! This necessitates revelation, and at the
most reason can only confirm this truth, not discover it. As
such, Brahmoism is baseless, having no proper authority,
while Christian message is authentic, based on the Word of
God, the divine revelation — a thoroughly orthodox posi-
tion!
SIN AND SALVATION
Here again, the attack is against the Brahmos. Empha-
sizing God’s love against the rest of the divine attributes, the
Brahmos have taken away the necessity of punishment for
sin, alleged Dey. According to them, God forgives all sins
lovingly, unconditionally. Human sin does not affect God.
Thus for the Brahmos, there is a serious lack in the
seriousness of sin. Hence the biblical concept of wrath of
God and the consequent need of sacrifices is alien to them
— the truths on which the message of the cross is essen-
tially based. The gospel, on the contrary, reveals God’s
hatred for sin, and the necessity of atonement. Dey’s theses
in this connection are remarkably biblical: i) God’s punish-
ment is his active holiness; ii) Punishment is neither chas-
tisement nor a consequence of sin, but a vindication of
God’s honour and justice; iii) Since sin brings infinite
punishment, only an infinite person, Jesus as the son of
82
God, can atone for it — thus incarnation is a necessity; iv)
Man needs not only freedom from the power of sin but also
remission of it; v) True repentance is a decision to reform,
not remorse. One could say Amen!
DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Dey affirmed, somewhat in old Anglican fashion, that
saving doctrines are the property of the Church (cf. the
Catholic principle: extra ecclesiam nulla salus - Outside the
Church there is no salvation). He maintained that since one
form of the Church is more biblical than the other, it is
important to know which one is most scriptural. Yet in
practice it is hard to play one denomination as being more
scriptural than another. The only other alternative is to
consider all denominations, including Roman Catholics
and the Orthodox, as preserving true essence of the Church.
Dey seems to have tended to take the Apostle’s Creed as a
sufficient basis for the unity of all churches. In any case his
zeal for ecumenism and national Church stems from this
positive attitude to all persuasions. As such Dey was
influenced more by the ecumenical spirit than missionary
spirit.
Evaluation
We have already said Amen to Dey’s soteriology and the
understanding of the cross, so there is little more left to
evaluate. Remember: Christology is central to all Christian
theology, and the Cross and resurrection are the essence of
all Christologies. The best way to evaluate one’s thought is
to ask at once, what does he say about Jesus’ cross and
resurrection? You can accept or reject his whole system on
that single test! In the light of this, Dey’s imprecise approach
to denominations, a premature zeal to Church unity and the
lack of missionary concern can be pardoned!
83
NOTES
1. Sri Parananda, The Gospel of Jesus According to St. Matthew, 1898,
p. 49
2. Animananda, The Blade, p. 68.
3. Ibid., pp. 71f.
4. Ibid., p. 200.
5. Bramabandhav has written a beautiful hymn in Sanskrit on the
Trinity. Many translations are available.
6. Animananda, op. cit., p. 84.
7. N. Goreh, A Letter to the Brahmos from a Converted Brahman from
Banares, 2nd Edition, 1868, p. 52.

84
4

DHANJIBHAI FAKIRBHAI (1895-1967)

This theologian is a saint from Gujarat. Born in a devout
Hindu Bhakti family of Baroda, he became a Christian as a
young man. He became a teacher of Physics and retired as
professor in a college. Only after retirement he devoted
himself to the writing of Christian literature, presenting the
Christian faith in a way relevant to the Hindu thinking. He
wrote several books which are very widely read in both
Gujarathi and English. These include Christopanishad, The
Philosophy of Love, Hriday Geeta, Prematatva Darshan,
Praktya Adhyatma Darshana, and Shree Krist Geeta.

Dhanjibhai's Focus: Love

As can be discerned from the list of his writings the
principal divine attribute on which Dhanjibhai concen-
trates is that of love. In his own thinking this description of
God as love is higher even that of God as Saccidananda.
Where intellect fails, love proceeds on; for love transcends
all other categories. In this way Dhanjibhai relates all the
doctrines of the Christian faith to love.
Creation is the work of God’s love. The relationship
between man and God is one of love. Sin is the rejection of
God’s love. And what is this love? He explains that it is the
self-sacrificing suffering of God on behalf of the good of his
creatures. As such, the proper response of man to God’s love
can only be repentance and humble acceptance in faith.
Jesus Christ is love incarnation and new birth is the change
of heart to love others and God.
He further maintains that more than the karma marga,
bhakti marga, and Jnana marga there is one more marga
which is the prema yoga, the way of love. This leads to
nothing less than salvation or moksha. In addition to this
Prema yoga, in another writing called Shree Krist Geetha,

85
Dhanjibhai expounds in poetical form several other yogas
— of faith, of devotion, of action, of divine sacrifice, of self-
surrender, of knowledge, of purification, of perfectness, of
universal lordship of the many in the One, and of the
supreme person.
Prof. Dhanjibhai has used the Indian forms extensively
in bringing out the Christian message. His use of Indian
forms such as darshana, upanishad, geeta and bhashya are
all very welcome to Indian ears.
However, there are also certain departures in his think-
ing from the traditional ones. For example, he does not use
the word cit for describing the second person of the Trinity,
the Logos, but rather prefers the words shabda Brahman
and prajnana. And what is this prajnana? He defines it as
follows:
Prajnana — primeval intelligence — is the power which
creates, maintains and inspires the world and human
beings. Prajnana is power and wisdom, is the word of God.
Shabda Brahman [Brahman in verbal form] is God himself —
Brahman. This word of God, prajnana, took a body in the man
of Jesus. As the heat of the sun’s light, according to the
Brahmasutra, is no different from the heat of disc of the sun
itself, so this incarnate prajnana, the avatara, is fully God.”1
This is as orthodox as he can get.
Another change he makes from the usual tradition is in
the use of the term Kristadvaita. Note that Kristadvaita is
not derived from khrista + dvaita but rather, if you know the
grammar of Indian languages (lopasandhi) it is a combina-
tion of khrista + advaita.
For Dhanjibhai the primary content of this kristadvaita
is faith-union with Christ in a Johannine or Pauline sense.
Though in this union Christ is the nucleus, Dhanjibhai
differentiates six kinds of unity: (1) The unity of Son with the
Father (2) Christ’s unity with the created world (3) the faith
union of the disciples with the Lord. (the main meaning of
the word) (4) the mutual unity of the disciples with one
another (5) the eschatological unity of all men and of all
nations in Christ and (6) man’s unity with nature, in the
86
sense that physically we are of the same stuff. The point to
notice here is that in all these unions Christ is the one who
sums up all things in himself.
This Kristadvaita is not just individual but corporate, as he
explains: When individuals have really became one with the
Lord Jesus their relation to one another is that of the
members of a body. They all form a body for the Spirit of the
Lord. 2
As you probably know, Boyd, who also worked in Gujarat
is very much excited about this use by Dhanjibhai of the
term Kristadvaita. In fact, after Dhanjibhai’s death Boyd
himself used the word for a kind of systematic, contextual
and commentary-like theology which he has written on the
Book of Romans.
Evaluation
This summary of Dhanjibhai’s work is very fragmentary
and brief. Perhaps in future some other elements can be
produced. But by way of evaluation we can definitely say at
least this: An over-emphasis on the attribute of love is of
course not new, but in church history it has always tended
to an under-emphasis of the other part, i.e. the holiness or
the justice of God. One can never be put higher than the
other. Neither is love higher than the holiness of God nor is
holiness higher than his love. The Cross is the connecting
link between the love and the holiness of God. In the Bible
God is love, but the way that love is given to man is holy. So
God is not just love but holy love. This is how justice and
mercy meet. On the Cross the wrath of God was appeased
by the love of God. Unless we keep this tension we are
definitely tending towards a lopsided understanding of the
doctrine of God and hence of Christology and hence also of
man and salvation.
Other than that, perhaps there is a slight hint of being
too sympathetic towards Hindu scriptures, for in following
some of the cosmic Christ ideas he seems to find revelation
about Christ, or at least some gleanings of them in the
Hindu scriptures. Other than these one can admit that
Dhanjibhai’s writings are very conservative.
87
 SURJIT SINGH
Surjit Singh has written his doctoral dissertation on the
question of Christology. Being driven to the study of Christ’s
divinity through his own personal experience of meaningless-
ness, he comes to the conclusion in the book through a direct
experience of the presence of Christ. Preface to Personality
(1952) is rather an expression of his existential situation.
He starts with an examination of the New Testament
evidence of the divinity of Christ and comes to two conclu-
sions, that it manifests a two-fold deity of Christ’s meta-
physical as well as historical aspects. As far as the meta-
physical aspect is concerned, it comes out clearly. The New
Testament Christ is the very creator of the universe as well
as its sustainer. He is also immanent and the source of
man’s light and knowledge. He has full communion with the
Father. As such Christ is of the same nature as God — a
clear New Testament doctrine.
The historical deity is manifested in the Hebrew view that
one who does the will of God is the Son of God. The Hebrew
concept of the son is different from the physical or even
metaphysical concept of the Greeks. The Hebrew concept is
based on a moral relationship of responsibility, care and
obedience. There is growth in this filial relationship.
He pursues a similar study also in the other books of the
New Testament where different authors also amply express
their understanding of Jesus Christ as fully man. Based on
these double findings, Surjit Singh attempts to combine
them into one New Testament christology.
His own christology starts with the Resurrection. From
this he deduces that the divine-human relationship (incar-
nation) is a fact from the very birth of Jesus. In this
relationship neither the divine nor the human is passive or
inert. Always they both are active. The resurrection is also
a point of perfect identification and unity between the divine
and the human in Christ. It is a point of perfect relation and
communion. But this unity is not one of essence, rather it
is one of relation.
88
He takes the analogy of the relation of God with the world
(that of God as sat and world as asat, or that of deism, or that
of dynamic relationship, by which he means one affects the
other). From this he brings out the inner meaning of the
relationship of Godhead and manhood in Jesus Christ.
Thus he defines that the relationship consists in a mutual
involution (one is involved in the other), mutual interaction
and mutual interpenetration. All this leads to a unitary
person. Such a relation is to be found nowhere else. It is sui
generis (unique), found only in Jesus Christ.
Following this line of thought, Surjit Singh criticizes
Radhakrishnan’s Vedantic ideas: that God is ultimately
impersonal Brahman; that man, though he may seem to
have individuality, in reality he has no personality; and that
personality is of no ultimate significance, since ultimately
atman and paramatman are identical. In fact, according to
Radhakrishnan, the personal is a limitation and distortion
and a bondage to the eternal self. He points out that besides
reinterpreting several of the basic Hindu doctrines, what is
lacking in Radhakrishnan’s understanding of man is that
there is no room for discussion of the freedom of man.
And so, in order to find the inner meaning of personality,
Surjit Singh turns again to the fact of Christ. He finds, as
already indicated, that personality manifests itself best in the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, because only in his resurrection
the body becomes an essential ingredient of the total person-
ality. It is not a cloak to be thrown away but it shows that man
is a psycho-somatic unity and so also Christ. To quote Surjit
Singh: “The idea behind the resurrection is that soul-body is
the complete or whole man. The body in general, representing
historical individuality, is not discarded.”3
This is an adequate antidote both to the idea that spirit
is good and matter is evil, as well as to the advaitic under-
standing of maya, that God alone is true and the world is
untrue. In the doctrine of resurrection there is a positive
relationship of God to the world and man. Surjit Singh’s
connection is that when we really grasp the content of
personality, especially as it is found in Christ, and of course
89
both in God as well as in man. Only then can we find a proper
understanding of God-world relationship, which is the
central problem of Hindu theology. Here Surjit Singh is
really saying that Christ is the ‘paradigm’ or model of
personality.
This book is Surjit Singh’s only work. But it can become
germinal for beyond the question of essence of spirit and
matter, of God and man, he comes to this conclusion: that
the real unifying factor in our understanding of God, world,
man, and Christ is relationship which is involved; which is
part of personality.
Evaluation
To me the whole presentation looks very exciting and I
do not find any major weaknesses. Perhaps, having little
acquaintance with the Hindu philosophies and
terminologies, he tends to resort more to the European-
American philosophers and theologians. This may not be
really relevant to the Indian mind. Boyd’s suggestion that
similar exposition of the Hindu concept of purusha can be
only partly rewarding, for the content of purusha is different
from the content of the person as Surjit Singh has attempted
to develop.
DAVID G. MOSES (1902-1978)
David Moses is a man of our time having lived till the last
decade. Born in Namakkal (Tamilnadu), he was like the
most of the brilliant Christian youth of the time educated in
the Madras Christian College (B.A.) and obtained his M.A.
and Ph.D. degree from Columbia University, U.S.A. (1933-
49). Being a good administrator, he soon took up such posts
as the president of the World Council of Churches (as the
first Indian), and the principal of Hislop College, Nagpur.
There is not much known about his commitment to Christ.
He seems to have accepted the message of the gospel
because of Christian background, but seems to have grap-
pled with the real issues only in his theological studies
concerning the philosophy of Radhakrishnan.
90
Moses has written numerous articles: “God and Person-
ality”; “The Nature of Religious Truth”; “The Need for Chris-
tian Thinking in India Today”; “Mission, Unity and Evange-
lism”; “Church Union”; “Religious Truth and the Relation
between Religions”, which is, a response to Radhakrishnan’s
philosophy of religion.
Moses and Radhakrishnan
Naturally Moses’ primary interest was also in the area of
religions. You remember our earlier comment that the last
generation of Indian Christian leaders were compelled into
administration and finance and so were least creative by
way of theological writing or clarity — Moses also belongs to
them.
Radhakrishnan’s understanding of religion is summa-
rized by Moses as follows: All religions are more or less
equal; but theological (conceptual) truths which are in
religion are relative, and therefore their validity as the basis
of religion is questionable. There is formless truth of which
all religions are different expressions; this also means that
there is no final religion. Moses replies: concepts (theology,
truth) have value for religions as their basis and instru-
ments. Though man can know the absolute truth only in its
relative forms, truth cannot divide but rather unite. Thus
truth elements are necessary to religion.
In other words, Moses is reacting to Radhakrishnan’s
ridicule that Christianity as a religion of dogmas and rules
fails to do full justice to religious experience as Hinduism,
and so is inferior to it. Moses counters that precisely
because of Christianity is based on (revealed) truth is more
effective in life and experience.
Radhakrishnan understands Hinduism as seed, the
ancient (hence the absolute) religion. He asserts that the
search for the universal religion, for example, by the Parlia-
ment of Religions, cannot but end in Hinduism. Since
Brahman is inexpressible all religions are expressions of the
same Brahman though Hinduism comes nearest to the
truth.
91
 In reply to this, Moses says that though the different almost inevitable temptation for all of us! In any case,
forms of religions are necessary, they are by no means all Moses’ writings lack the depth which warms one upto the
equal; otherwise such an approach will lead us into agnos- cross and senstitizes one to the working of the Holy Spirit.
ticism. We need to discern between essential and non-
essential elements of religion. Finally, in reply to
Radhakrishnan’s affirmation that faith is “herd infection”,
thus is sociological (by birth, like the Hindu), Moses counters
that faith is purely a personal affair, a doctrine, which
NOTES
means the conversion, from one faith to another faith and so
1. Boyd, p. 332f.
change of religion, is valid and inevitable.
2. Boyd, p. 334.
A brief explanation is needed here to understand the 3. Surjit Singh, Preface to Personality, CLS, Madras: 1952, p. 112.
relevance and even the content of the above. Moses lived in
a time when the debate of discovering one true religion in all
the religions was at its height. Religion with capital R refers
to a faith relationship with ‘God’, while religions with lower
case refer to the systems containing doctrines, myths,
ethics, rituals, experiences and social institutions. And
Moses’ time was rife also with the question of missionary
work and conversion as proselytisation, and Gandhi and
Radhakrishnan were involved in it fully.
Thus Moses is attempting here a Christian apologetics,
both against Christianity as a religion as well as defending
conversion as religious rather than sociological, political or
ecumenical phenomenon.
Towards the end Moses changed (like Karl Barth!) his
position several times, and his final stance seems to be quite
conservative, rejecting the teaching that all religions are
equally as dangerous. He ended up in saying that Christi-
anity has the final revelation, opposite to Radhakrishnan’s
claim that Hinduism is the final religion, because it is the
most ancient religion.

Evaluation
Our comments are brief here also. We should appreciate
that Moses wrote in response to the burning issues of the
day, and hence was most relevant. But he seems to be using
the methods and weapons of the enemy, by taking up
rational and philosophical argumentation, a common and

92 93
 5
Criteria for indigenisation

At this juncture it is unnecessary to repeat that we are

dealing with Indian thinkers whose primary aim was to
indigenise the Christian message. There are as many
indigenised theologies as there are thinkers. The question
is which of them is right? Are there any criteria by which we
can judge one more valid than the others?
Once I read an interesting anecdote in a book: during
World War I in South India, rice, which is the staple food,
became a scarce commodity. In order to meet the crisis the
British sent wheat to the South Indians but they dumped it
into the sea all along the coast: Not only did they not know
what to do with the wheat but they also took an offense at
the British, because knowing that they eat rice they had
sent some other grain. Apparently the British thinking went
something like this: there is a big food shortage with you and
wheat is better than rice, so we are sending that to you. I
think the big mistake the British made was they did not
adequately south-indianize the wheat and so it was re-
jected.
In indigenisation of theology also, more or less the same
conditions hold good. In indigenisation we are not so much
concerned with the sales technique or even the packaging
but rather with the usefulness (in the case of wheat whether
it gives protein to the body or not), digestibility and form
(whether it comes as bread or bun or chappati or nan or
whatever). As far as the Christian gospel is concerned, the
universal claim of ‘no other name’ takes care of usefulness.
But we must also be concerned with the form or the
expression whether they were familiar with hearers or not.
And we must consider the digestibility, that is whether the
thoughts and concepts used are understandable or not.

94 95
 There is one more criterion which perhaps becomes the
final seal whether an indigenisation is valid or not. Since a
tree is known by its fruit, I think the best way to judge
whether an indigenisation is valid or not is whether the
people who heard the indigenised gospel have meaningfully
accepted Christ or not, by showing the fruit of the spirit in
their daily living. That is the final test.
As far as the earlier are concerned I think Brahmabandhav
must be counted among the top. But when we come to the
last criterion — the tree-fruit test — it is not sure whether
many people who heard him really responded to Christ. But
there is one Indian thinker whose indigenised gospel has
brought greater response than anybody else’s: Sadhu Sun-
der Singh — ‘The most famous Indian Christian who has yet
lived’.
The contrast between Brahmabandhav and Sadhu Sun-
der Singh is a well known one in Indian Christian literature
and you should some time later dig into it a bit deeper.
SADHU SUNDER SINGH (1889-1929)
Sunder Singh was born at Rampur in Punjab. His
parents were rich Sikhs, religious yet broad minded. By the
age of seven Sunder Singh knew the Bhagvadgita by heart
(To make a comparison: we are told that entrance into Cairo
University is given only to those who know the Koran by
heart. Which of us know the whole New Testament by heart
even at mature age!). At 16 he had read through the Granth,
the Koran and several Upanishads. This religious inquiry
was inspired by his mother who wanted him to become a
holy Sadhu and not worldly like his brother. He had also
acquainted himself with Christianity at the mission school
in Ludhiana, but was strongly opposed to this foreign
religion — perhaps influenced by the public opinion of the
time. He threw stones at the missionaries and even burned
a copy of the Bible. He was also well trained in yoga by the
time of his adolescence.
96
All these different attempts show enough about the deep
thirst Sunder had. He was a seeker and had a restless heart.
None of these different religious exercises he underwent
could bring him the peace, the shanti for which he was
searching. In all his search Sunder sincerely believed that
his own religion could bring him peace. Since there are
several versions of his conversion I think the best way to
hear the story is from his own lips:
Three days after burning the Bible, finding that Hinduism
gave me no comfort, I decided to commit suicide because to
live in such misery was impossible. Very early in the morning
(at 3. a.m.) I arose and taking a cold bath I began to pray ‘If
there be any God let him show me the way of salvation; if not
then I will commit suicide by placing myself on the railway’.
Up to 4.30 no answer came. Presently there came a light in
my room. In that light the beloved and glorious face of Christ
appeared and showing his wounded hands, in which the
nailprints clearly showed, he said, “why do you persecute?
Behold I gave my life for you.” Hearing this his words sank like
lightening into my heart. I immediately became filled with joy
and I was changed for all eternity.
Later Sunder Singh himself gives testimony to the
authenticity of his conversion.
This was not imagination. If Buddha or Krishna has shown
himself it would have been imagination, for I worshipped
them. But for Christ to show Himself, he whom I hated, is a
miracle and clear proof that he is a living Christ. Neither was
it a dream, for no one can see a dream after taking a cold bath
and a dream cannot completely change life. This is a great
reality.
This conversion took place on 18th December 1904.
Sunder Singh immediately gave his allegiance to Jesus
Christ, to the dismay of his own people, who persecuted him
very much. But ultimately he had to leave home and was
baptized next year in September. Following the wishes of his
mother he donned the ochre robe and so became a true
Sadhu.
From an American, S.E. Stokes, Sunder Singh learned
about the monastic life. In 1909 he even joined a seminary,
the St. John’s Divinity College in Lahore but had to leave it
within months. He was given a preacher’s license by the
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Lahore Diocese but later surrendered it because he wanted
to be a preacher-at-large to the universal Church. So just
taking the Urdu New Testament with him he toured all over
India, especially into Tibet. The many mysterious happen-
ings as well as miraculous deliverances he experienced are
well known and need not be repeated here. He visited
Britain, America, Europe and Australia during 1902-22. In
Germany, they held him almost equal to Christ, judged by
the veneration they gave him. When he returned to India he
again toured all over the land as well as to his favourite Tibet
since no ordinary evangelist could go into this very difficult
place. Specially in Tibet and in his evangelistic journeys he
was persecuted, beaten, lashed and suffered heavily on
account of Christ. Once when Chenchiah provokingly com-
mented to the Sadhu that his hand were very soft and
delicate like a lady’s the Sadhu replied, “yes, but my body
bears the marks of Christ”. That was literally true.
The end of Sadhu’s life is shrouded in mystery. On his
last journey to Tibet he was seen off by his friends and
nothing more is known of him. The Government of India
sent search parties but nothing is known so far. It is rather
idealistic to say, as some authors suggest, that he was taken
without death into the presence of God, but that does not
need to detain us here. This was in 1929. His own version
was that he went to one great maharshi in the Himalayas,
with whom he wanted always to be engaged in the ministry
of prayer for the whole world.
Perhaps the great commitment the Sadhu had for Jesus
Christ can be summarized in an anecdote. Once when he
was visiting England, and knocked at a door the little girl
(very recently I met this, girl, who is now 85 year old woman)
who opened the door, ran back to the mother and said
“Mummy, Jesus is standing at our door.” His one passion
was Jesus Christ, so much so that others saw Jesus in him.
Theological Writings
It is singular that most if not all of the Sadhu’s theologi-
cal pronouncements come as part of trances or visions, or
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in contact with supernatural beings or spirits in heaven. He
speaks often of having visited heaven and having asked
questions to these angelic spirits concerning whatever
doubt he had of life or questions on earth. So mostly his
answer run like this “I was told . . .”, or “Once the spirits told
me . . . ” etc.
His writings include, At the Master’s Feet, Religion —
Meditations on God, Man and Nature, The Search After, With
and Without Christ, Visions of the Spiritual World, Medita-
tions on Various Aspects of the Spiritual Life, The Real Life,
The Real Pearl and many articles in several of the Indian and
non-Indian periodicals.
Sunder Singh’s Theology
It is very important to notice that besides the revelations
in the Scriptures Sadhu Sunder Singh gives equal weight to
the trances and ecstatic experiences of visions he has had.
He himself explains them very picturesquely this way:
There are pearls in the sea but to get them you have to dive
to the bottom. Ecstasy is a dive to the bottom of spiritual
things; it is not a trance but it is like a dive because as a diver
has to stop breathing so in ecstasy the outward senses must
be stopped.
But it must be equally noted that all his ecstatic expe-
riences were always in harmony with the Bible. In fact, the
Bible was his primary form or standard. As such, one cannot
carp on his resort to his ecstatic visions. At the same time
we must also notice the Sadhu uses mostly the New Testa-
ment. There are hardly any references to the Old Testament.
There is much written of what he thought about the relation
between the Old and the New. But definitely he seems to
have made no attempt to replace the Old Testament by the
Indian scriptures, as some have done.
Obviously Christ was the central theme of the Sadhu’s
utterances. He holds Christ to be fully God, that in him
alone God is fully revealed and that to know him is to know
that he is divine. Christ was the Sadhu’s living experiences.
He says: “I do not believe in Jesus Christ because I have read
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about him in the Bible. I saw him and experienced him and
know him in my daily experience.”
The Sadhu considers Christ as God become flesh. Unlike
others he does not differentiate between incarnation and
avatara. He uses these terms interchangeably.
The Sadhu did not give much details of his thought
concerning the Cross. How on the Cross Christ brings
redemption for the sins of man is never clearly told, but the
nearest is this: “Christ knew that neither silver nor the gold
nor diamonds nor any other jewels would suffice to procure
life. That is why he gave his life for the redemption of the
world.”1
There is a sense of legal transaction here equivalent to
penal substitution. But in the Sadhu’s teachings there is
more of a ‘moral influence’ understanding of the Cross. His
stories are full of how the sufferings of the parents for the
betterment of their wayward children changed the hearts of
the latter. That is why the Sadhu emphasized that Chris-
tians do not like to commit sin because they know that it
grieves God.
Obviously the Sadhu speaks more of life in Christ rather
than life given at the Cross, more of sanctification than of
justification. For him forgiveness of sins is only one part of
salvation. Full salvation includes freedom from sin. This is
what he means by new life or new creature. For him, just as
the salt which has been dissolved in water cannot be seen
but only discerned, so also this new life can be discerned in
our lives by others. Another important aspect of his under-
standing of sanctification is that of life as cross bearing.
True to his sanyasi state he takes the cross as an essential
part of Christian life. In fact he says, “The Cross is heaven”.
To quote him once more,
To follow him and bear his cross is so sweet and precious that
if I find no cross to bear in heaven I shall plead before him to
send me as his missionary to bear his cross. His presence will
change even hell into heaven.2
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Here as elsewhere the Sadhu speaks not so much of the
cross of Christ but rather the cross of the disciple which
each one of us must bear.
For the Sadhu seems to believe in rather a lack of
goodness than an active principle of evil. “Sin has no
independent existence. It is merely the absence or negation
of good.”3 This is of course less satisfactory than what Paul
calls the principle of sin as a positive force in man. Yet the
Sadhu holds to the fallenness of man: that man sins
because he is sinful, than sin has power over him and he has
no power over sin or to do what is good.
Karma is the result of sin, such as the hardening of one’s
character, or the degeneration of one’s whole personality, or
the very punishment of sin. Thus beautifully the Sadhu
relates sin and karma very relevantly to the Indian hearers.
Yet, as Boyd brings out clearly the Sadhu believes that
suffering for sin is not and cannot be penal. Suffering rather
drives us into the lap of God and is not a punishment for
sins. As such for him eternal punishment is untenable and
he seems to tend towards universalism i.e. the salvation
ultimately of all men.
Man has neither created his own soul nor can he destroy it.
The creator has brought into being every creature for some
special purpose . . . and even though many wonder and go
astray, in the end they will return to him in whose image they
have been created, for this is the final destination.
Thus emphasizing the love of God more than his holi-
ness the Sadhu thinks that it is impossible to conceive that
the God of the Bible will eternally punish his creatures.
So also his understanding of the last judgment differs.
He does not think that the last judgment is when all people
will stand together to be judged. No, rather the real judg-
ment is that which goes on every day.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in the Sadhu’s thinking
was his understanding of the church. When asked to which
church he belonged his answer was: “To none. I belong to
Christ. That is enough for me.”4 Once out of the church he
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was a free man, going like a Sadhu among people. Giving
greater importance to his ecstasies the Sadhu emphasized
more the individual relationship with God and Christ (the
Hindu ideal of alone with the Alone) and so the corporate
worship had little value for him. He even refused to set up
an ashram when he was offered all the means. Whenever
possible he did partake of the communion in a church
service and also preach. But otherwise he was neither under
the authority of any church nor had any relations with
them.
What does Sadhu Sunder Singh think of other religions?
According to him “The living Christ reveals himself to every
man according to his need.” So he is revealed in every way
because he is the only true light. Hence “Christianity is the
fulfillment of Hinduism. Hinduism has been digging chan-
nels. Christ is the water to flow through these channels.”
For him religions mean love and commitment and not
knowledge. So he rejects all kinds of margas, even Bhakti
marga, which is perhaps the closest to his own method. He
did use most of the terms from Hinduism (remembering that
he came from an Urdu background it is significant that he
uses the Sanskrit words).
Being a Sadhu i.e. living a life away from this world, he
speaks more often of life in that next world. So his themes
include heaven, hell, the last judgment, the resurrection of
the body and the coming salvation of all men and the like.
For him hell and heaven are not places but states.
Hell also is a training school, a place of preparation for home
. . . men were not created for hell and therefore do not enjoy
it and when they desire to escape to heaven they do so but
they find heaven even more uncongenial than hell so they
return. But this convinces them that there is something
wrong in their lives and thus they are gradually led to
repentance.
This of course smacks of universalism which we have
already seen. Many of the things which he says concerning
eschatological things are his own personal experiences, so
we need not dwell much upon these themes.
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Perhaps the most redeeming part of his theology was his
method of communication. More than any one else he has
used the method of parables as Jesus did, and with the
greatest effect. His parables are very apt and coming out of
his own experience they bring the message to the hearer in
crystal-clear terms. Since he was interested neither in
producing a logical consistency in his talks nor a systematic
presentation, we need not hold it against him. But his
illustrations are relevant not only to the hearers of his time
but also have a universal appeal. That is the greatness of
Sadhu Sunder Singh. The following is one of his good
illustrations:
Hindus are very fond of saying that god is in everything. I
once came to a river which I had to cross. There was no boat
to carry me over and I stood wondering how it could be
managed. Then a man called attention to a deflated water
skin and said that that was the only way. So we inflated it
with air and I crossed over in safety. Then the thought came
to me that there was plenty of air all around me but it was
incapable of helping me in any difficulty until it was confined
in the narrow space of the water skin. So it is as unreasonable
to deny the necessity of the incarnation of Christ as to declare
that the air-filled leather boat was no use in helping cross
that river. 5
Perhaps this method has to do with his lack of theologi-
cal training but judged from the ‘tree-fruit’ test his indigenised
theology was indeed very successful.
Evaluation
It may appear presumptuous to evaluate such a man but
we must do it as objectively as possible. But we are con-
cerned more with his thoughts.
a) His Christo-centricity is unquestionable.
b) His basing all his theology on the Scriptures is again
commendable, though we must take account of his giving
sometimes a greater importance to his ecstatic experience,
but as we have seen none of his experiences are contrary to
those given in the Scripture.
c) Filled with a burning passion to reach people for
Christ, his method was to get the message across and so he
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developed whatever method was relevant to the hearers. His
analogical method can be best explained this way: it would
be good if other Indian preachers taken up this method.
Some of his weaknesses are:
a) Of course his rejection of the church cannot be
reconciled with what the Bible teaches.
b) His lack of use of OT can be another weakness. This
may tend to mean that his understanding of the gospel, the
whole counsel of God was inadequate. But given his Christo-
centricity one need not carp on that.
c) His tendency toward universalism is again to be
regretted.
d) As we have seen Sadhu Sunder Singh looked at Christ
more as a living experience rather than the one who brings
justification or the one who consummates history. Hence he
speaks very little of both the comings of Christ, coming first
to die on the cross and coming at the end of history. These
two do not play any significant role in his thinking. Thus his
theology can be said to be more existential and experiential.
A.J. APPASAMY
As we have seen, Brahmabandhav’s interpretation of
Christianity in the vedantic line is not the only type. Sadhu
Sunder Singh’s approach closely related to bhakti is an-
other type. There are several Indians who have taken this
line as the best way to interpret the Christian gospel. Among
them A.J. Appasamy is undoubtedly the foremost. He wrote
his doctoral dissertation and made an extensive research
into the bhakti tradition from the Christian point of view.
The Bhakti tradition
The bhakti tradition has as its main tenet the existence
of a personal god as well as human beings as personal
beings. Salvation in the vedantic (i.e. advaitic) tradition
means the absorption of atman into Brahman. But bhakti,
or what has now come to be known as vishistadvaitic
tradition never blurs the difference between God and man.
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Keeping these distinctions it is the closest to the mysticism
of the Fourth Gospel. To Indians, perhaps because they are
interested more in mysticism than rational analysis, the
Fourth Gospel has always been a great attraction. The
advaitic vedantists always contended that the vishistadvaitic
tradition is inferior, having a personal god Ishwara, who is
part of maya, while advaita rises above that and believes in
the higher impersonal god Brahman.
Yet even in Hindu literature there exist several strands
of this personal god approach. The most important perhaps
is Bhagvadgita. Though it has been differently translated to
suit one’s own school of thinking, the devotion of Arjuna to
Krishna, the personal god, is definitely the dominant note.
During the 10th century there came an emotional type of
bhakti literature called Bhagavata Puranas. Here the per-
sonal devotion to god became so intensive that at times it
spilled over even into sensual, rather erotic direction. In
addition there is also a third form of literature by the best
known Tamil poets called Alvars, who composed very per-
sonal bhakti songs. All this was in line with what Bhagvadgita
itself said: “Those who worship me with Bhakti are in me and
I also in them.”
About the 11th century came Ramanuja of Kanchipuram,
who courageously opposed Shankara’s advaita and under
the influence of both Vaishnavism and the Bhagavata
Puranas, developed a theological basis which made the
personal communion with god possible without either get-
ting absorbed into an impersonal Brahman or ceasing to
exist. This is what is now called Ramanuja’s System or
vishishtadvaita — modified non-dualism.
There are many competent scholars who suggest that
the bhakti literature of authors such as Manikkavasagar,
Ramanuja and Kabir were influenced by Christian thought.
In any case all this goes to show that the kind of mysticism
found in the fourth gospel is to be found also in other
traditions, including the Indian Hindu tradition, albeit with
a mixture of truth and falsehood as is the case with every
revelation apart from Jesus Christ.
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 From this Hindu Bhakti tradition to the Christian bhakti
tradition bridging is not difficult. There are several well
known names such as H.A. Krishna Pillai (1827-1900) of
Tamilnadu, Kahanji Madhavji of Gujarat and Narayan Vaman
Tilak of Maharashtra (1862-1919). God’s yearning to com-
mune with man in spite of man’s sinfulness, with his
eventual death on the cross, the subsequent sanctification
and resultant abounding joy are the themes of these au-
thors. Tilak also added another element to this, emphasiz-
ing the love aspect of God. He called God mother, something
for the feminist to chew on. Even now in most of the Marathi
congregations Tilak’s lyrics are sung with gusto.
Appasamy’s life
Ayyadurai Jesudasan Appasamy (born 1891) was the
son of Dewan Bahadur A.S. Appasamy Pillai, who converted
from Shaivism to Christ at the age of 24, partly because of
Krishna Pillai. After his studies in Tirunelveli, Appasamy
left for America and later for Oxford, where he wrote his
doctoral thesis: “The mysticism of the Fourth Gospel in its
Relation to the Hindu Bhakti Literature”. Many well-known
celebrities, like Canon B.H. Streeter, J.N. Farquhar, Rudolf
Otto, and Baron Friedrich Von Huegel, helped him in his
research. When he was still at Oxford Sadhu Sunder Singh
visited there and they developed a deep friendship leading
to Appasamy’s writing a very authentic book on the Sadhu
called The Sadhu. Apparently the mysticism of the Sadhu
had a great influence upon him — birds of the same feather
flock together, do they not?
After returning to India, Appasamy continued his re-
search into Sanskrit and Tamil literature, primarily to find
a Hindu philosophical basis for the Bhakti tradition. Before
long he found what he was searching for, vishishtadvaita of
Ramanuja. After thoroughly mastering it he published
several works which have become definitive concerning the
bhakti tradition. Appasamy became a well known writer-
teacher and Bishop of the Church of South India.
106
His theological writings include Christianity as Bhakti
Marga (1928) which is a revised version of his doctoral
thesis. His other writings include An Indian Interpretation of
Christianity, The Use of Yoga in Prayer, Divine Incarnation as
Found in the Ramayana of Tulsidas, Temple Bells — Read-
ings from Hindu Religious Literature, The Johannine Doc-
trine of Life — A Study of Christian and Hindu Thought,
Christ in the Indian Church — A Primer of Christian Faith and
Doctrine, Christ Answers Youth’s Problems, The Gospel and
India’s Heritage, Christian Task in Independent India, Ser-
mons and Letters, My Theological Quest. Besides these he
has written several articles in well known theological
periodicals.
Appasamy’s Thought
It is necessary to start with Appasamy’s rejection of the
Chalcedonian formula — namely that Christ is fully God
and metaphysically one with the Father. Usually the two
great sayings or mahavakyas from John’s Gospel, “I and my
Father are one” and “Abide in me”, are used to prove that
God and Christ and believers are one in the same manner
and that it is a union rather than communion. Appasamy
rejects this, not primarily because it is western but because
it smacks of the Hindu advaitic tendency and he will have
nothing to do with that. Basing his arguments on another
passage in John which affirms the subordination of the Son
to Father, Appasamy argues that the Son’s unity with the
Father as well as the disciples’ unity Christ is a moral one,
one of commitment and communion. Only on such a simi-
larity between the Father-Son and the disciples can
Appasamy build his bhakti system.
Going on from there Appasamy develops the thought
that fellowship with God does not consist in the harmony of
the individual soul with the divine soul in thought and
imagination, in purpose and will, in humble deed and
adoring devotion. This quality of life which the Bible, par-
ticularly John’s Gospel, calls eternal life, is what Appasamy
calls moksha. Of the three Hindu margas — jnana marga,
bhakti marga and karma marga — it is bhakti marga which
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maintains this kind of personal communion. Appasamy
obviously chooses bhakti marga as the only way to attain
moksha. In an interesting definition Appasamy says:
(Moksha) is a real harmony with the holy and righteous
Father. It is a personal experience which, however, in its
higher reaches transcends the personal. It is a corporate
experience, man mingling with his fellow-men in order to
attain the heights of God’s love. It begins even in this life and
does not wait for an indefinite future.6
Such an interpretation of moksha not only preserves the
personalities of both God and man but also gives human
beings a social dimension which probably is an addition to
the original meaning of the term.
This call of Jesus, “abide in me”, demands a response
from the disciple which is “keep my commandments”. Thus
Bhakti marga necessarily involves a commitment to Christ
in this life in an ethical character and conduct. Analyzing
the concept of personality in Hindu Bhakti literature,
Appasamy concludes that even there the response of the
bhakta (worshipper) to God is a whole response involving
thoughts, emotions and decisions, though they are a bit
weaker on the will.
He further contends that in Hindu literature the ‘I’ is
pictured as the root of all our troubles and so if we respond
to God using our will, being and thought, the suspicion is
such a development of egoism. We are commanded to obey,
which takes care of that.
Building on this bhakti kind of communion between God
and man, Appasamy develops also the relevance of family in
this context, since family is the first social unit where such
moral relationships are developed. Jesus’ attachment to
several families such as Lazarus, Martha, and Mary and
others show that he himself had these family relationships.
This is to safeguard against the bhakti tradition’s rejection of
family in Hinduism. Many of the bhakti poets rejected their
wives and parents and children and other family members in
their ecstatic and even sensual relationship with their ishta
devata, their personal god. But Appasamy rightly suggests
108
that Jesus did nothing of the kind. In fact he encouraged
family relationships. This is to safeguard against agape (love)
to growing (or degenerating) into Eros (desire).
THE IMMANENT CHRIST
Another of his important thought is his exegesis of John
1:10, “he was in the world”. While normally this presence of
Christ in the world is understood to refer only to his
incarnation, i.e. as Jesus of Nazareth, Appasamy however
interprets it to mean the presence of the immanent Christ
both before and after that. This is something similar to the
Logos Spermatikos idea which we have already seen. So he
says “Incarnation is a more effective means of showing God
than mere immanence.” 7
This kind of presence makes Christ antaryami, the in-
dweller or the inner controller. Here it must be pointed out
that while many Indians use the term antaryami for the Holy
Spirit, Appasamy uses it for the ‘cosmic’ Christ. In his
thinking this antaryami is fully equivalent to the Logos of
John’s Prologue. He is quick to point out, of course, that this
Logos shone at its brightest in Jesus, and so without coming
to know Jesus one cannot know anything about this antaryami
or Logos. In other words, what Appasamy is affirming here is
that all religions have a revelation of Christ, though dim, but
only in Jesus (the Church) this light is the brightest. This also
means that the difference between Christianity and other
religions is one of quantity and not of quality.
It is easy to see from the above argument that for
Appasamy God is in the world, but is not identical with it,
but he is active in the world as Logos. Using Ramanuja’s
analogy he says that God is the soul and the world is the
body. Boyd rightly points out that this analogy of body and
soul is an important part of Appasamy’s theology, for he
uses it also in other contexts such as in dealing with the
presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in the church.
CHRIST’S AVATARA
Rejecting the advaitic teaching Appasamy also rejects
their interpretation of avatara. Yet he is very careful to make
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the distinction between the Hindu view and the Christian
view. He gives several distinctions.
(a) In Hinduism avatara is repeated while in Christ it is
only once.
(b) In Hinduism avataras are incomplete, since only the
Krishnavatara is called the full or purna avatara
avatara is a complete one.
(c) In Hinduism after the avatara is over the deity usually
returns to his original state while in Christ it is a permanent
one.
(d) In Hinduism, as Bhagvadgita says, the avataras are
for the destruction of the wicked and the reward of the
righteous, whereas the avatara of Christ is to seek and to
save the lost. In all this, Appasamy has adequately pre-
served the once-for-allness of Christ’s incarnation.
(e) He also calls the Hindu avataras mere theophany
rather than real incarnation.
(f) There is no more distinction which comes in Saiva
Siddhanta, where the avataras do not have a real physical
body but only an apparent one.
Appasamy contends that Christ’s is a real physical body,
that Christ’s avatara is not appearance or illusion but it was
real. He became flesh. Following the vishistadvaitic tradi-
tion Appasamy is careful to maintain the reality and the
distinction of the world from God.
PERSONALITY, SIN, KARMA
Even with all this Appasamy is not quite clear whether
God is truly personal or impersonal, truly absolute or
relative. He finds some traces of personal description of God
in John, such as in descriptions of personal aspects — a
warm person and empathetic human being, full of love and
grace. He concludes his exegesis of John by saying that
John wants “to emphasize those aspects of Christ which
transcend personality as against those aspects which are
personal”. 8 Thus Appasamy is really making a synthesis
between Ramanuja and Shankara.
110
As far as his understanding of sin is concerned Appasamy
gives a new insight: “The problem of getting rid of Karma is
far more pressing than the problem of getting rid of sin.”9 His
defense is that since a Hindu normally has a real passion for
God he should be first helped to understand God’s love and
only later he will be shown the seriousness of sin. He also
finds an adequate solution of karma in John 3:18: “He that
believeth in him is not judged. He that believeth not is
judged already . . . ” Following this line of thinking Appasamy
rejects also eternal punishment but rather advocates “a
perpetual retributive judgment going on even now, men are
judging themselves by their good or bad choices. In this
sense there is a continual karma working itself out in
human lives.”10 Here there is an unmistakable influence of
Sadhu Sunder Singh.
What does Appasamy think of the work of Christ on the
cross? As can be expected, that again is an original interpre-
tation. Starting with two passages “Except a grain of wheat
fall into the earth and die it abideth by itself alone, but if it
die it bears much fruit” (Jn. 12:24) and “I, if I be lifted up from
the earth will draw all men unto myself” (Jn. 12:32), he
infers that suffering is universally necessary and that
suffering influences all the spectators. Clearly this is a
moral influence theory of the atonement. He is reluctant to
think of the cross in a negative way, that is as penal
substitution, but in a positive way, as the illustration of the
love of God which draws men to him. However there are
indications that later Appasamy seems to have seen the
inadequacy of this interpretation of the cross and has
tended to accept the penal substitutionary theory, at least
in certain aspects.
SOURCES OF AUTHORITY
As we have seen in the first Chapter, Hinduism accepts
three authorities for their faith. The first is shruti (scripture),
second yukti or anumana (reason) and thirdly anubhava
(experience). Appasamy accepts these, but with great in-
sight he also adds a fourth one, which actually in his
thinking comes second, that of the Church, the sabha. He
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is quite right when he says: It is of the essence of the
Christian religion that God reveals himself not merely to
individuals but to his church. The Hindu religion fails
disastrously in this respect. 11
Perhaps as a result of the same syllogism Appasamy also
accepts, unlike many other Indian Christian thinkers (such
as Chenchiah), that the Old Testament is an essential part
of Bible, the Scriptures, and not to be replaced by Hindu or
other traditions. This positive attitude towards the church
(remember he is a Bishop) resulted in making his Church
the body and Christ the soul, as we have already seen. And
especially in the case of the Eucharist.
Christ himself comes into our soul through the elements,
and abiding in us endows us with his spiritual energy.
Through faith we abide in him. We turn our thoughts to him
in prayer, surrendering all we have into his sacred keeping,
and he comes into us and directs us from our inner self.12
Here, of course, there is no hint of the physical presence
of Christ as trans- or con-substantiation would have us
believe.
Similarly Appasamy affirms that when Jesus says “This
is my body” he is actually using the body-soul analogy.
Jesus takes the created elements of bread and wine for
fulfilling his purpose of revealing himself to men.
Evaluation
i) Appasamy’s choice of marga is perhaps the closest one
can think of in making the gospel meaningful to the Indian
mind, since other schools such as advaita or dvaita are
much further in thought content from the gospel message.
ii) His high view of the Church is very commendable. Since
there is no lonely Christian and since Christ gives all his gifts
and responsibilities to the Christians as the Church this is
perfectly biblical. One wonders if he had not been a bishop
whether he would have emphasized the Church that much!
iii) His acceptance of Old Testament as equally norma-
tive as the New Testament is another commendable aspect
of his theology.
112
iv) Perhaps the greatest weakness of Appasamy lies in
his Christology. The complete or near complete rejection of
the legal aspect of the cross is a sad lack. Remember, the
Cross is the pivot for whole Christology.
v) Perhaps for the same reason the seriousness of sin is
missing in his thinking. Though he properly emphasizes the
influence of karma on Indian mind. Yet a sub-scriptural
understanding of sin does not understand Christ in his
essence.
vi) Finally, his use of Ramanuja’s body-soul analogy is
another creative aspect of his theology. I hope in the near
future someone can develop another more relevant Indian
Christian theology taking that as a theological method.
NOTES
1. F. Heiler, The Gospel of Sunder Singh, LPH, Lucknow: 1970, p. 144.
2. A.J. Appasamy, The Cross is Heaven, London, 1956, pp. 39f.
3. F. Heiler, op. cit., p. 164.
4. Ibid., p. 210.
5. B.H. Streeter and A.J. Appasamy, The Sadhu: A Study in Mysticism
and Practical Religion, London, 1921, p. 57.
6. A.J. Appasamy, What is Moksha?: A Study in the Johannine Doctrine
of Life, CLS, Madras, 1931, p. 6.
7. A.J. Appasamy, Christianity as Bhakti Marga, p. 43.
8. Appasamy, What is Moksha, p. 103.
9. Appasamy, The Gospel and India’s Heritage, ISPCK, London, 1942,
p. 97.
10. Appasamy, What is Moksha?, pp. 218-220.
11. Appasamy, What Shall We believe? CLS, Madras: 1971 p. 16.
12. Appasamy, Christianity as Bhakti Marga, p. 147.
113
 6

VENGAL CHAKKARAI (1880-1958)

Vengal Chakkarai is considered by some as the only
systematic theologian from the Indian continent. He be-
longs to the well known trio of theologians — Appasamy,
Chenchiah and Chakkarai.
He was born in Madras in a rich Chettiar family. His
father was a Vedantin, while his mother was a devout
Vaishnava bhaktini. He received his early education in
Christian institutions: Scottish Mission school and Madras
Christian College, where he came under the influence of
William Miller. He studied the Bible himself and through the
friendship of Miller he was helped gradually to a personal
experience of Christ. What really mattered most to Chakkarai
in his conversion was the cry of dereliction on the cross by
Jesus, “My God, My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?” He
deduced from this that any man who should cry like that
must really be divine. As you have already noticed the
person of Jesus Christ touches different people in different
ways!
He made public profession of his faith and was baptized
in 1903. Though qualified as a lawyer, he worked in the
evangelistic department of the Danish Missionary Society
in Madras, among educated Hindus. Yet as early as 1906 he
became a patriot throwing himself passionately into the
national struggle against the British. In 1907 he joined the
Home Rule Movement and in 1920 he supported Gandhi’s
non-cooperation campaign. Later he also took active part in
the Labour movement. He became one of the best known
Christians and was elected Mayor of Madras in 1941. In
1951 he served as the Chairman of the All India Trade Union
Congress.
Along with Chenchiah, his brother-in-law, he was one of
the founders of the Madras group known as the Christo

114 115
Samaj. Later he started a paper, The Christian Patriot, and
became its editor. Most of his theological writings were
published in this periodical. He was also one of the chief
architects of the group called “The Rethinking Group”. This
was rather an informal group and is known by that name
because they all produced a most significant book under the
title, Rethinking Christianity in India. This you can find in
the rare-book shelf of a few seminary libraries.
His writings include Jesus the Avatara, his magnum
opus; The Cross and the Indian Thought, and numerous
articles over the years in The Christian Patriot.
Chakkarai’s Theology
GOD AS THE MANIFEST
For Chakkarai, theology cannot begin with some ab-
stract nirguna (qualityless) or avyakta (unmanifested) Brah-
man. We must begin with the manifest, i.e., Ishwara. This
means that we must begin with Christ himself and indeed
as Jesus Christ. This approach is the Indian way of doing
Christology from below. So he calls it the doctrine of the
Christhood of God. In Jesus, the Deus Absconditus (hidden
God) has become Deus revelatus (the revealed God). If there
is any aspect of God which is not to be found in Jesus, then,
Chakkarai asserts, it is simply non-existent for us. This is
another way of saying what Paul says in Colossians, that in
Christ the fullness of Godhead dwells bodily. And how do we
know this Christ? Chakkarai’s answer is: through a per-
sonal experience. Christ is now Emmanuel or God with us.
He thinks not of the divine immanence but of the human
immanence of Christ. As such Christ is alive today and it is
possible for men to know him and love him. It is the very
person of Christ, seated in the lotus of the human heart,
who is antaryami. In a picturesque language Chakkarai
describes it: “In the picture of Jesus the express image of the
invisible has found his own soul. The painter and the
picture are one.”1
In all this Chakkarai is attempting to answer the school
of Albert Schweitzer which was very influential at the time.
116
It was very negative and skeptical about the historical value
of the gospels and their picture of Jesus.
Though Chakkarai understands Christ as the mula
purusha (root man, first man) or even as the true man, yet
he does not understand Jesus Christ to be metaphysically
one with the Father in any monist sense, but as one who
lived in communion with the Father. Jesus is satpurusha,
the true man, in the sense that there is no influence of maya
on him, while all the rest of us are so influenced by it. That
is why Satan could not be successful in tempting Jesus. As
such, for Chakkarai, Christ’s sinlessness is not because of
his metaphysical divinity, but a dynamic sinlessness which
is the free choice of his own free will. In the self-giving of
himself on the cross, this sinlessness comes to its fullest
manifestation. And Chakkarai takes pains to stress that
even today the knowledge of God is through Jesus alone.
Jesus was not only avatara 2000 years ago. Even now he is
still the avatara. Incarnation did not end with crucifixion
but is a permanent avatara and it is still advancing today.
The Jesus of history is to us the avatara of God, but
incarnation whose real significance we are trying to grasp
from the standpoint of Indian thought, was not a static
product which admitted of no growth.2
Thus these are the two elements in Jesus’ incarnation:
it is both permanent and dynamic. Very interestingly, he
says that not only did the incarnation mean a new phase in
the life of man, but also in the life of God. To explain this we
have to turn to Chakkarai’s pneumatology.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
For Chakkarai the work of the Holy Spirit is the continu-
ing part of the incarnation or avatara of Christ. Actually he
identifies the Spirit with the risen living Christ, at work in
the world today. His biblical basis for this is John 14:18: “I
will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you”. At the
Pentecost this promise was fulfilled. He observes: “The
historical is the primary element in the western interpreta-
tion.” (that is, concentration on the Jesus of Nazareth), but
117
“the spiritual is or will be the primary element in Indian
conception” (that is concentration on the Holy Spirit). So he
says: “It is from the Holy Spirit, our antaryamin, the indweller,
that we start our inquiry concerning the nature and work of
the person of Jesus”. Elsewhere he very directly says: “The
Holy Spirit is Jesus Christ himself taking his abode within
us . . . The starting point in the consciousness of the
Christian disciple is that the Holy Spirit is Jesus himself.”3
Obviously this dilutes the doctrine of the orthodox
Trinitarianism.
While Vivekananda went about interpreting Christian-
ity in terms of Vedanta, Chakkarai goes the other way
round. He thinks Vedanta can be really understood only in
the light of the Christian gospel:
The Mahavakya: tat twam asi is a tremendous assertion of
the possibility. In Christian anubhava it is not a mere
metaphysical postulate to start with or to end in. It is not a
mere achievement, a sambhava. This advaita has been
wrought on the anvil of the life of Jesus.4
Thus except for the metaphysical union of atman and
paramatman he has re-interpreted advaita in order to suit
to the life of Jesus.
THE CROSS
What does Chakkarai understand about the cross of
Christ? He would not accept the theory of vicarious suffer-
ing, though he holds that the way to communion with God
is definitely through the Cross. Rather than penal substitu-
tion he tends to adopt the Christus-Victor theory, since he
understood Christ as being the Victor on a battlefield,
fighting against the evil forces, the powers and the princi-
palities of the air. Sometimes he even speaks of the death of
Christ as a sacrifice, but somewhat in a Hindu fashion.
How does man respond to the Cross? Here Chakkarai
follows the Gita, where karma marga and jnana marga are
found to be inadequate and bhakti marga is portrayed as the
solution. He thinks that bhakti, or an intense and loving
attachment to the risen Christ, is the proper human re-
118
sponse. The Jews followed the karma marga, the Greeks
followed the jnana marga but Christians must follow the
bhakti marga as far as Christ is concerned. Though this
comes nearest to the Pauline understanding of faith as
appropriation, yet there is no clear indication how the
justification is wrought by faith.
MAN’S PERSONALITY: SELF-EMPTYING
There is one section where he talks of anthropology,
specially in relation to man as personality. He thinks that
the whole concept of ‘person’ is not actually biblical, but
comes from the Latin persona and is very different from the
Greek hypostasis. He thinks the western scientific attitude
has limited personality to that of individuality, and has
raised it to “the supreme excellence of man” This “sickly
growth of the ego” must be stopped. When we see Jesus as
the one who has completely eliminated the aham, ego, and
has become one with God, then we can enter into commun-
ion with him. This is the type of kenosis (emptying) we have
already seen earlier, that on the cross Christ gave his self:
Christ ignored and denied his self altogether . . . he destroyed
self, and as self ebbed away heaven came pouring into the
soul, for nature abhors a vacuum . . . hence as soon as the
soul is emptied of self divinity fills the void.
Thus he understands Christ as “the most egoless person
known in history and therefore the most universal of all.”
Here he bases his argument on Hebrew 5:8 and Philippians
2:7 which speaks of the learning by obedience through
suffering, and the emptying of himself. To him the historical
Jesus was in the ego. But the risen Jesus ceased to be a
human being. He became the universal Spirit; hence we can
worship him as God since he is no more a human being.
Here he comes to the innermost of the cry of Christ on
the Cross. When Jesus was on the Cross, he was stripped
of everything. But still he was holding on to God as Father
and himself as the beloved Son. But when he cried even that
last straw of security was gone and he was where no god is.
“He plunged into the nirvana or suniyam where god is not”.
119
This was indeed the depth of kenosis and nobody can go
deeper than the absence of God, as Jesus.
HINDUISM AND CHRISTIANITY
What does he think of Hindu religion and its relation to
Christianity? Like many of his contemporaries, he also
thinks that Hinduism is a preparation for Christ. Since the
God who reveals himself to man is the same everywhere he
believes that He whom the rishis of old saw is also the God
of the Bible, and will not wipe away all of Hinduism. That is
why Indian Christianity must take the contribution of
Hinduism seriously. This is the reason why his writings are
full of Sanskrit terminology. However, one feels that just the
mere use of Sanskrit terms does not really give a Christian
content into them.
Evaluation
I think it is easier to evaluate Chakkarai than others for
the simple reason that he concentrates exclusively on Jesus
Christ. In one way this is a true approach. But as he does not
go into other essentials of the Christian gospel, such as the
Church, for example, his theology is rather a beginning than
a whole system of doctrines. This is to be regretted all the
more, since from such a fertile mind more could be ex-
pected. His view of Scripture is no doubt very orthodox, and
he takes it as verbally true.
But his view of equating the Holy Spirit with Jesus is
indeed disturbing. Of course in the history of the Church
the Trinity arose by way of accepting Jesus’ deity and only
later Nicene Creed was the deity of the Holy Spirit recog-
nised. In any case the real question about the Trinity is not
so much Holy Spirit or Jesus, but actually it is a question
of terms: What do we mean by person, substance and
essence?
As we evaluate any theologian, let us keep the criterion
always in mind: How far does one’s theology lead one to a
saving faith in Christ?
120
P. CHENCHIAH (1886-1959)
Chenchiah is considered the most creative and original
among the Indian Christian theologians. For this reason,
perhaps, the summary given in Boyd is a little difficult to
grasp at the first reading. We will therefore study him with
the help of extracts from The Theology of Chenchiah (CLS,
1966) by D.A. Thangasamy. We will not repeat here the
background of Chenchiah’s life and especially the influence
on him of Sri Aurobindo and the guru ‘master CVV’. You can
read this in Boyd. These influences are important. The
following summary evaluation of Chenchiah is taken from
Revolution as Revelation, p.51:
Pandipeddi Chenchiah (1886-1959), is the most creative
Indian Christian thinker of our time. Following the biblical
and evolutionary language of the time, Chenchiah takes
Jesus Christ to be the starter of a new era of a new stage in
the process of evolution. For him, Jesus Christ is thus the
adipurusha (original man) of a new creation. For, “in Jesus,
creation mounts a step higher”. He is more interested in the
fact of Jesus rather than the act of Jesus; hence he repeats
that we are saved not by the acts but by the fact of Jesus.
Having been committed to a philosophy of evolution, it is
difficult for Chenchiah to accept the doctrine of the Fall: he
could not accept that human history should start so nega-
tively. As such, salvation is not redemption nor reconcilia-
tion, but simply “reproducing Jesus”, by means of our
essential (sayyujya) union with him. In this existential and
individualistic approach, clearly there is no place for either
the tradition (including Old Testament:) or for the corporate
Church. He could hence say that Christianity took the wrong
turn when it accepted the institution of the Church. He
sincerely strove to prove the continuity between Christianity
and Hinduism, as that of old with the new.
Chenchiah’s basic theological convictions are helpfully
summarized by Thangasamy under 6 headings:
1. The Raw Fact of Christ the only Absolute
2. The Person and work of Jesus Christ
3. New Creation
4. Christ in Relation to Christianity, Church and Scripture
5. Christianity and Hinduism
6. The secular Mission of the Church.
121
The Raw fact of Christ: The only Absolute
Chenchiah distinguished clearly between ‘two views of
the task of theology in India — one broad and the other
narrow’. He says
The broad view holds that the only fixed immovable absolute
centre in Christianity is the fact of Christ and place Christian
experience and faith in the relative sphere and sets theology
the task of renewing direct experience of Jesus. Believing
that God’s training to different nations in different ways
enables them to see new features and appropriate new
powers in Jesus, not hitherto appropriated by others, this
view assigns to theology the function of building with new
experiences and powers, new structures of faith. The other
view working with three absolutes of unchangeable core,
unalterable faith and essential deposit, allots to theology the
limited function of translating the fixed faith into a variety of
languages, seeking proper ideas and words to express the
three absolutes. The province of theology shrinks and ex-
pands according as you believe there are three absolutes or
one in Christianity. 5
Chenchiah accepted only one absolute in Christianity,
namely, ‘the raw fact of Christ’. He fought a relentless battle
against the absolutisation of ‘doctrine and dogmas, worship
and ritual, mysteries and ceremonies’; for they ‘gather round
till at last the bright nucleus gets enveloped by a huge globe
of tradition and testimony’. He said, ‘Jesus is beyond creeds,
churches and they cease to point to Him and at best only point
to Him.’ But they cease to point to Him, when ‘the Church
judges the words of Jesus by the words of the creed’. Chenchiah
sounded the trumpet of freedom to accept, reject, reinterpret
or modify every doctrine of the Christian churches, no matter
how long and how universally it may have been held.
Let it be clearly understood that we accept nothing as
obligatory save Christ. Church, doctrine and dogma, whether
from the West or from the past, whether from Apostles or
from modern critics, are to be tested before they are
accepted. 6
We must underline that in the above quotation,
Chenchiah considers even the apostolic interpretations of
Jesus Christ on the same level as church doctrines and
dogmas. Or again:
122
We can call the New Testament a revelation only in the
secondary sense inasmuch as it contains the results of the
earliest study of the Revelation of the fact of Jesus. Revela-
tion is not, as Christians and Hindus believe, the speech or
word of God. It is the creation. God reveals in the stream of
Creation. No explanation exhausts the fact, no exposition
can be final. Jesus may be found but no interpretation of him
could be final. There can be no unalterable dogma or doctrine
of Christianity. 7
Chenchiah was not unaware of the historical and intel-
lectual difficulties involved in trying to extricate the simple
and authentic facts of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ
from the theological convictions that had become bound up
with them even through the manner in which incidents and
utterance had been selected and clothed in language. He
knew quite well the argument that it was the early Church
that processed the Gospels for half a century before they
were released to the world. Chenchiah maintained that for
the discerning eye and the devoted heart the core of the
Gospel, devoid of doctrinal accretions, was not difficult to
find.
In fact, for Chenchiah, rethinking Christianity in India
was not primarily an intellectual or even a ‘theological’ task.
Nor was it even to be thought of as a task, but rather as the
thrust of the two great urges of the Indian Christians —
A desire for direct contact with Jesus (prathyaksha) an
aspiration for rebirth, to be born a Son of God in the image
of Jesus (Punarjanma). It is not so much a desire to be a
Christian i.e. a follower of Christ, as to be identified with
Christ — for sayyujya [with the highest certainty] with
Jesus, a longing that made Paul to say, “I no longer live, but
Christ in me.”8
It is as a corollary to these twin urges that Chenchiah
calls upon Indian Christians that their theological enter-
prises should be one of rethinking Christ himself and not
only ‘the substance or content of faith’. Chenchiah was
deeply conscious of the revolutionary implications of such
direct experience of Christ and reflection on it. He wrote, “A
man who comes in contact with the raw fact of Christ, if we
may say so, upsets law and order.”9
123
 So Chenchiah strove to explore behind ‘creeds, churches
and scriptures’, seeking to discover new dimensions of
meaning in the Person and Work of Jesus Christ. He did so
against the background of India. He was conscious of two
realities in this background — the long and unbroken
Hindu religious tradition of the people and their contempo-
rary struggles to build a new state and society. He spoke of
the need to reconstruct Christianity in the light of Hindu-
ism, to approach the Hindu mind and to recover some
aspects of Jesus not seen in the Western traditional history
of Christianity.
He was conscious also of the need of exploring the
meaning of Christ in the light of the political and social
struggles of contemporary India.
We have explored the implications of the two ideas
relating to Jesus, namely the value of Christhood as propi-
tiation and reconciliation as well as the meaning of Christ
to the individual. But we have to discover the purpose and
achievement of our Lord in the redemption of the social
order or in his relation to the cosmic revolution. The enquiry
bears intimately on the new powers imperatively needed by
us in our conflicts in society and state.
The Person and Work of Jesus Christ
For Chenchiah Christianity begins with Jesus Christ
and not with Genesis or even with God. Writing about a
conference on Christology held at Jabalpur during the visit
of Dr. Brunner to India in 1949, he said that one of the points
of agreement reached at that Conference had been ‘that
Christology should govern theology and not vice versa as
hitherto’.
THE PERSON OF JESUS
According to the outlined suggestion, the new lines of
thought that Indian Christian should pursue were listed in
an Editorial in the Pilgrim in June 1950 as follows:
1. The discovery and recovery of Pauline theology of
incarnation as new Adam.
124
2. The working out of theology of the Son of Man in
contrast with the traditional theology of Son God, and
3. Linking Incarnation firmly with Resurrection rather
than with the Cross.
The Church has not understood the real significance of
incarnation. In Jesus God has come down to us to abide with
us for ever as a new cosmic energy. But the church has made
of Jesus an object of worship, made him ‘absolute’, and
placed him on the right hand of God in heaven. But Jesus as
portrayed in the records is less than God. He says so explicitly
(John 14:28). We wish to make him the very God — Tran-
scendent and Absolute. The Jesus of the Gospels transcends
the measure of man: we try to make Him the very man. He
presents us a harmonized picture of God-Man — not merely
hyphenated God-man. 10
God’s assumption of humanity, including the body, was
a permanent one, and from now on, Jesus is the power of
God and the first fruit of a new creation, a divine humanity,
transcending mankind. In this connection Chenchiah makes
a clear distinction between the Hindu and Christian views
of the Incarnation; and in fact his criticism of Barthian
theology is precisely that it is more akin to the Hindu than
the Christian view. He says,
Incarnation is perfected human body receiving the full
divinity of God into permanent integration. (It is essential for
our doctrine of incarnation to hold that Jesus assumed body
permanently as the consummation of creative human proc-
ess). In Indian Christian theology Jesus belongs to man and
even though he may sojourn in heaven. He will return to
earth for here lies his home. A type of Christian theology
approximates his function to that of Hindu avatar. The Son
became Jesus to offer his life on the Cross as propitiation and
went to his home in Heaven after His mission was fulfilled.
In that case incarnation will be an adventure, an interlude
in the Eternal Son’s life, leaving no permanent deposit on
earth or in heaven. He assumed the body for a purpose and
when it was over, he assumed his former status. Our
conception of the Son of Man radically differs from this.
Jesus, on the view controverted, does not remain un-
changed. He reverts to his place as Second person in Trinity
. . . Indian Christian theology probes deeply into the meaning
of the fact that Jesus ascended into heaven as Jesus and
never resumed his place as the second person in Trinity.
After ascension the Trinity was no longer the Father, Son and
125
 Holy Ghost, but Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit . . . Humanity
did not borrow Jesus to stay a while on earth. We have lent
him to heaven to stay there for a while.11
In this long quotation, Chenchiah affirms that Jesus
represents not merely the meeting but the fusion into unity
of God and man so that man may partake of it.
Jesus is not God and is not Man, but is the Son of God
and the Son of Man. The word ‘Son’ indicates the measure
of unity — something less than complete identity with God
but something more than difference in category — between
God, Jesus and the Christian. God is God. Man is Man. The
twain have met in Jesus; not merely met, but fused and
mingled into one . . . This is the message of Christianity —
that the Word has become flesh and God has become man.
It is thus that Jesus becomes ‘God permanently residing
in Creation bringing to birth “a new order in creation”’.12
Here incarnation and resurrection are linked. The fact of
Christ is the birth of a new order in creation. It is the
emergence of life — not bound by karma of man, not stained
by sin, not humbled by death, of man triumphant, glorious,
partaking the immortal nature of God, of the birth of a new
race in the creation of the Sons of God. If Jesus is not the
incarnation of this, what else could he be? A mere visitor
from heaven who moved by his love, made a supreme
sacrifice and then went away to his place on the right hand
of God? Is not Emmanuel, God permanently residing in the
creation — the answer to the prayer of man to transcend his
destiny? These are penetrating and crucial queries indeed.
THE WORK OF CHRIST
Chenchiah asks:
What can we say to the Gospel which limits the totality of
Christ’s achievement to a restoration of man to the original
condition? This reconciliation and restoration can only be a
new start for life and not its positive content. Is there any new
advance for man in Jesus beyond regaining the ground
lost? 13
There are two approaches to the Work of Christ. One
sees Christ as saving man from original sin through his
126
sacrifice on the Cross and restoring him to his original
righteousness and the other as bringing mankind and
cosmos to a new creative destiny. Chenchiah’s approach
was the latter. Therefore he wanted Indian Christian theol-
ogy to start not with myths of Adam and his fall, but with the
fact of the new Adam, Jesus; not with the Cross, but with the
Incarnation and the Resurrection.
So long as the orthodoxy adopts an interventionist
theory of Incarnation — of God intervening to save mankind
and going back to heaven after achieving the purpose — all
efforts to distinguish Krishna and Jesus on grounds of
historicity fail.
The uniqueness of Christianity lies beyond the promise
of salvation, here or hereafter. Other aspects of the life of
Christ than that of the role of a sacrificial lamb were far more
fascinating to Chenchiah. To him Jesus is no less a Re-
deemer to non-Christians. But for him the redemption in
Christ is the opening up of the infinite possibilities of new
creation. He holds that the
construction of Christianity making law, disobedience, sin,
cross, propitiation, judgment . . . [the essence] misses the
beauty and the newness of the Gospels, while a poetry that
stresses love, resurrection, service, communion, sonship,
gets us nearer to the Master.14
And the salvation of Jesus is “by virtue of his existence
and being and not by an act of His”.15 Christ does not save
us by suffering on the cross. Just as an animal is saved in
man by the animal nature being sublimated by the entry of
mind and reason, men are saved by attaining Christhood.
CHRIST IN TRINITY
Chenchiah believes in Trinity — of God the Absolute
who ‘lies beyond our thought, comprehension and capac-
ity’; of Jesus who is ‘God standing in relation to man’ and
has assumed humanity permanently to bring to creation a
new order of existence (“The finite God is still God, yea, even
so our Lord Jesus Christ”) 16 and the Holy Spirit who is
universalized Jesus. He differentiates Jesus from God from
127
the time of the Incarnation, but only to identify Him more or
less with the third Person of the Trinity after the Ascension.
He says, “The Holy Spirit is the Universal Jesus” 17 and
again, “The Holy Spirit presides over the new creation and
lives in the sons of God as their atman”. But elsewhere the
Holy Spirit is spoken of as cosmic energy which can hardly
be the regarded as a Person. For example, “The Holy Spirit
is the energy beyond Creation which . . . flowed into the
world.” 18 This identification of the Holy Spirit with the
person of Jesus virtually amounts to non-recognition of any
activity, or even existence, of the Holy Spirit, in the world
before the incarnation. The Holy Spirit is the power that
descended vertically in the human stream in Jesus.
Chenchiah sums up his doctrine of Trinity thus:
God the Father represents what has not passed into creation.
God the Son represents what of Him has passed into
creation. He is adi Purusha of a new creation while the Holy
Spirit is Viswakarma of a new world. Jesus is he that
descends and having descended abides with us. He is
avathari (he that descends) and Tathagatha, he that is to
come to save the world process.19
New Creation
Since Chenchiah regards New Creation as being not
only the basis for his christology but as the only rationale for
the continued existence of Christianity, we should give
priority over all his other theological views which were all
like corollaries from that primary vision of his. He claims
that “the real uniqueness of Christianity consists in the
doctrine, or rather, the fact, of new creation and new birth.”
Chenchiah announced the changes of his favourite
doctrine in numerous papers that he wrote. The following is
a typical statement of its essence:
Viewed as an outburst or inrush into history, Jesus is the
manifestation of a new creative effort of God, in which the
cosmic energy or Shakti is the Holy Spirit, the new creation
is Christ, and the new life order, the Kingdom of God.20
For Chenchiah, the Gospel of Jesus is essentially the
good news of New Creation. It is not just news of what has
already been done, but extends to the hope of ‘things to
128
come’ because of what has been done. It opens up vistas of
growth and fulfillment for both man and society. ‘The
Children of God are the next step in evolution and the
Kingdom of God the next stage in cosmos’.
Critics of Chenchiah have pointed out that, at best,
Chenchiah’s concept of a new creation in Jesus is only a
reiteration of a sadly neglected doctrine of the Apostolic age,
that the Church has never completely lost sight of the truth
that if any man is in Christ Jesus he is a new creature.
However, what is distinctive in Chenchiah’s view of new
creation, and what usually meets with incredulity on the
part of his critics, is the ‘change of gradient’ that he
envisages in the progress of humanity as a gift of God
through the power of the Holy Spirit that has come to reside
with men in Jesus’ incarnation. New Creation is not just a
matter of individual men and women being ‘born again’ in
the evangelical sense of the term, but it is a further stage in
the planetary life of mankind brought about by the release
of fresh energy through a new tremendous creative act of
God.
The horizontal flow of creation receives new force and
elements that descend on it vertically from above and break
into it. Life, reason or soul (to use Pauline language) mark
such descents of new creative energies into creation from
beyond itself. Without the recognition of such ingestions
into creative current, we cannot satisfactorily account for
the vital turns in creation. The temptation of science has
always been to interpret the higher in terms of the lower. The
correct way of stating the fact that would be the creative
process has received accessions from itself from time to time
and these accessions mark the place where creation changes
as it were the gradient and raises itself to new heights.
The change in the nature of being man is to be reflected
in his environment or order of existence also. It has already
been said that in Chenchiah’s view ‘today we have to realize
Jesus as the head of new world order’. Hence Chenchiah’s
hopes for a changed world as well as for changed men.
129
 Chenchiah’s exposition of the doctrine of the new creation
loses clarity even plausibility when he insists that it is to be
achieved through a biological process. This biological view of
the new creation, as something that supervenes at birth and
in our physical constitution, made Chenchiah emphasize the
doctrine of the virgin birth, as for example when he argued,
“The birth of Jesus is of greater importance (that his death)
from a biological point of view, for every vital change in the
creative order is accompanied by a new process of birth”.
Applying the law to the people of today he says, “it is suggested
that mutations occur not in the fully developed body, but in
the larvae stage. So also the new life may come to man while
being formed in the womb of woman.” But, as the Gurukul
Group points out, the iteration that Christianity is a problem
in genetics does tend to obscure the spiritual character of the
new creation.
Parallel Indian and Western Thought
There have been several Western theologians in our time,
who have sought to interpret Jesus as both heralding and
ushering in a new turn upward in the creative process of
history and cosmos, bringing to birth a new order of existence.
These Western thinkers had not come to Chenchiah’s notice,
at that time in the forties and early fifties when he was
thinking hard on the possibilities of new creation. On the
contrary, he found support for his view in the philosophical
excursions of two of his contemporaries in India. One of these
was Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, perhaps the greatest philosopher
and spiritual adviser of his time in India. He preached that
‘supernatural life is at hand, seeking embodiment in us and
working towards creation of new race of super men, the
Christian sons of God’. The other Indian sage who, Chenchiah
admitted, had seen the vision of a new creation after men had
lost it for nineteen centuries, was ‘Master C.V.V’ —
Venkatasami Rao of Kumbakonam. The ‘Master’ had a very
small following and made but a feeble impact on Hindu
thought or spirituality. Nevertheless, Chenchiah admired
him as one who “devoted himself to the technical problems
involved in engineering the new power and inducing it in our
new personality”.21
130
Though Chenchiah argues for New Creation on the basis
of biblical text and Christian faith it is possible to trace the
particular biological slant of his exposition of the doctrine
to the influence of Master C.V.V. However, he saw the New
Creation as a supernatural act of God and not as the result
of the pressure of the biological urge characteristic of man.
This is the chief difference in approach between him and
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose concept of neogenesis
runs otherwise closely parallel to Chenchiah’s account of
the new creation. Starting from scientific data de Chardin
argues that the ‘upward thrust’ of consciousness, passing
through the stages of matter, life and thought, must culmi-
nate at an Omega point. Hence, in his view man is not the
centre of the universe as we thought in our simplicity but
something much more wonderful — the arrow pointing the
way to the final unification of the world in terms of life.
For Chenchiah, the only ground of certainty that the new
creation must take place is that it has already happened in
Christ. To de Chardin, too, confirmation of his biological
postulate of Omega-point is to be found in what has already
been accomplished in the ‘Great Presence’ of the Christ.
Christ in relation to Christianity, Church and
Scriptures
Chenchiah’s approach to the Christian religion, to Church
and the Scripture is based on his conviction that Jesus and
the New Creation in Him form the only essence of Christian-
ity, and that all the rest, Christianity as religion, the Church
as Institution and the Scripture, are relative and have to be
evaluated in terms of their power to point to, express and
convey that essence. On the whole Chenchiah’s view was
that they have largely become ends in themselves, hinder-
ing rather than conveying the truth in Christ, and he was
highly critical of them, and frequently advocated doing away
with them. He saw religion smothering life, Church displac-
ing the Kingdom of God, and letter killing the spirit.
There is one type of Christianity which is biological,
pivoted on new birth, acquisition of a new body and faculties
131
for the creative operations of the Holy Spirit — a Christianity
that reproduces Christ in the Christian, and another type of
Christianity where life forces are translated into a lower
notation of Church, ideology, organization, state power.
The dangerous fact is that doctrines, institution, sacra-
ments, priests and pastors, all join together under the name
of the Church and take the place of Jesus whom they in
doctrine exalt as God. The Christian does not go to Jesus
direct, but clings to Church as the author of his salvation.
Chenchiah accuses the Church also of having betrayed the
Kingdom of God. The result is that there has been an
exchange of the Kingdom of God for the Church. The Church
is an institution which came into existence under extraor-
dinary circumstances. It may be seriously doubted whether
it was in the mind of our Lord. It was born out of the
exigencies of early Christianity when it was confronted with
the highly organized imperial society that was in Rome. As
Christianity developed, we find the Church slowly raising
its structure on tradition or on the Bible, and its social and
religious organization on the principles of Roman society.
Why did we allow the conception of the Kingdom of God to
atrophy and the idea of the Church to take shape and
strength?
Yet Chenchiah did not wish to escape the Church
altogether, but he wished it could be reformed and make a
new beginning here in India. Hence his stress on the need
for repentance and renewal. If the so-called Church has any
discernment yet left, it may leave its offerings at the altar
and go in search of God in heaven and implore Him in the
name of His creation to come and live with us, chastening,
inspiring, ruling and overruling our petty plans and schemes.
Unfortunately, however, losing all hope of the Church’s
rethinking of its own mission, he began to write of the
possibility of a Churchless Christianity. For his ideas
Chenchiah claimed the support of a successful experiment
in Japan.
132
Verbal Inspiration versus the Spiritual
Chenchiah did not regard the Bible as a verbally or
divinely inspired book, but rather as collection of records of
and treatises on God’s revelations of Himself to man and
man’s expression of Him. This was not because he made a
rational approach and could not accept the miraculous
elements in the narrative. On the contrary he did not
question the miracles; but on account of the romantic vein
in him, he had a pre-disposition to look for them even among
the incidents of everyday life. It was clear to him that not
everything in the Scriptures was helpful to the understand-
ing of God’s nature and his dealings with man. He saw that
the quality of spiritual discernment varied considerably
from book to book. Hence Chenchiah could not place equal
value on every part of the Bible or give to the whole of it the
attention, trust and reverence he spontaneously offered to
some particular parts.
Chenchiah made a distinction between the Old Testa-
ment and the New testament as books and ways of life. As
books, he said they stood closely related and the under-
standing of some of the doctrines or the Pauline theology of
the New Testament it would be necessary to know the Old
Testament just as ‘to understand Ahimsa as a doctrine it is
necessary to know the teachings of the Upanishads, Bud-
dhism and Jainism’. But neither for the understanding of
the ethical or spiritual teaching of the New Testament nor
for ‘accepting Jesus’ was the Old Testament necessary. He
argued that Judaism could give no help at all in under-
standing some of the New Testament doctrine such as the
Incarnation, which would be readily ‘intelligible in the
Greek and Hindu religious traditions’. Another example he
resorts to is the idea of the Holy Spirit is not intelligible
without Hindu experience.
As an intelligent and thoughtful reader of the Bible
Chenchiah realized that it is a book that often perplexes the
reader as much by many of its utterances as by the uncer-
tainties of its text. He said,
133
 I have not the fortune to be one of that group of Christians
which mostly represents by pastors, zealous evangelists and
strong sections to whom the word of God speaks with a clear
and crystal voice supporting whatever views they happen to
hold for the nonce . . . My lot is cast with those to whom the
scriptures are more confounding than clarifying and who see
through the glass of the world darkly rather than clearly,
here nothing more than a thunder, [which] others interpret
the voice of God . . . If I am never left in doubt after reading
the scriptures, I am never in complete assurance either. To
me scriptures are part of a Chinese puzzle, not of much use
unless we get all the pieces together.22
Quite courageous, though unorthodox stuff! He asks,
Did Jesus ever say that scriptures are our unfailing guides
and illuminators? Was there a New Testament at all for
Jesus to speak of its guidance?
Christianity and Hinduism
Chenchiah’s definition of the relation between Christi-
anity and Hinduism arose out of five of his deep convictions.
First, that the New Creation in Jesus is the essence of the
Gospel; second, that it is so entirely new, that it is other than
all the religions which represent only the old creation, and
is little apprehended even by the Christian religion and the
Church; third, that God has been at work in all religions so
that it is possible to build bridges from Christ to them;
fourth, that the spiritual treasures of other religions will
bring to light new facts of the Person of Christ and of
Christian life and experience; and fifth, that the New Crea-
tion in Jesus can be realized by all religions if they are
prepared for radical transformation in their spirit and life
through the Holy Spirit.
Christ Destroyer or Fulfiller?
Chenchiah’s understanding of Christ’s relation to other
religions was dialectical. The newness of the New Creation
in Christ led him to emphasize the truth that Christ ‘abro-
gates’ all religions. There is no continuity in the reverse. He
says:
Neither Judaism nor Hinduism leads to Christ. Christ
abrogates Judaism and Hinduism more than he fulfills them.
134
Christian theology builds bridges from Jesus to Judaism and
Hinduism, and not bridges from Judaism and Hinduism to
J e s u s . 23
The radical newness of Christ places both Judaism and
Hinduism on the same level as belonging to the old. There-
fore he fought against making a radical theological distinc-
tion between Judaism and Hinduism, though he recognized
fundamental sociological and historical differences. This
attitude determined also his theological attitude to the
scriptures of the Old Testament. For Chenchiah, the Jew
does not walk forward from the Old Testament to the New.
The Christian walked backwards from New Testament to the
Old. The Jewish Messianic proof texts did not point to
Jesus. Matthew unearthed texts in Old Testament to suit
Jesus. Jesus did not point to Old Testament fulfill proph-
ecy. Prophecies are picked up after Jesus to form a sort of
background for Jesus. This sort of trick-effect can be
produced if you turn Jesus towards Hinduism. Those who
advance fulfillment theory of the relation between Jesus
and Hinduism, seek to build the same sort of bridge as the
disciples built. It was a bridge not built by Jews from the Old
Testament side but by the Christians from the side of Jesus.
He could pick up material for an Old Testament in Hinduism
making selections in the light, of what Jesus said and did.
That was exactly what early Christians did and later con-
verts sought to do.
Chenchiah was convinced, however, that bridges can and
ought to be built from Jesus to other religions. They can be
built because God has been at work in the old creation, work
which can be discerned in the light of Jesus. He himself was
very sensitive to the working of God in Hinduism.
Now and then without preparation or warning, the religious
forces of Hinduism throw into light men of Christian heart,
features and love who had no contact with the historical
Jesus or the visible Church. They are silent reminders of the
fact that God is working in his own way in religions.24
Chenchiah’s respect for Hinduism was neither a matter
of native prejudice, nor one of uncritical acquiescence. But
it came out of full knowledge of the philosophy and religious
135
literature of the Hindus. He was critical of several doctrines
of Hinduism and interpretations modern scholars tried to
give them. For example he suggested that ‘the postulate of
ultimate unity of truth so readily believed by the Hindu
develops a spiritual shortsightedness which incapacitates
him from seeing differences in religion’. Of the karma theory
he said that the view that the ‘soul is sent into the world in
several births or that it may acquire different experiences
which will be summed up and brought into consciousness
at the time of fruition’ is a view that ‘rests on pure specula-
tion that finds no support in the facts of life’, He also argued
that ‘the absence of all consciousness of previous births
militates against its ethical value’.
Prominent among the features of the spiritual heritage
of Hinduism that Chenchiah wanted Christianity to assimi-
late were ashramas and yoga. He wrote several chapters in
the book, Ashramas Past and Present, which was published
by the Indian Christian Book Club. He wrote a series of
articles on Yoga in The Guardian. But, while giving a
historical and philosophical account of these institutions
themselves to be adopted by Christianity he saw a great deal
of experimentation need to be carried out in ‘spiritual
laboratories’ for the purpose.
While Chenchiah believed that Hinduism could offer
spiritual discernment and experience to the Indian Chris-
tian, and particularly to the convert, he was aware of wide
difference between its understanding of truth and that of
Christianity. “To the Semitic”, he said, “Truth is ethical,
dividing the right from the wrong, good from the bad. To the
Hindu, truth is the support uniting the divisions on the
surface”.25 He was also aware of differences in the goals or
attitudes to ultimate Reality when he stated, “Hinduism
celebrates the end of the life, Christianity its birth”.26
CONVERSION TO CHRIST NOT A NEW RELIGION OR COMMUNITY
Chenchiah had a great longing that all his countrymen
should come to know Christ. But the process of
Christianisation that he advocated was “the spread of the
136
gospel . . . as life, opinion and inner change rather than as
social groups or spiritual groups outside Hinduism”.27 He
was for changing the life impulses of Hinduism itself.
According to him the process of Christianising Hinduism
will take the shape of men who are influenced by the spirit
of Christ partially at first and in increasing degree later. And
he asked, “When we have Christians in name with little of
the spirit of Christ, why should we not allow Hindus in name
but possessing the spirit of Christ in reality?”28
Further he explained that making a Christian should
mean implanting the light of Christ in a human heart,
creating loyalty to his ideas, promoting devotion to the
leadership of Jesus — in short to fill the mind with enthu-
siasm for Christ’s way of life. Evangelism is a change of heart
and mind, not an annexation to the Church. The outflowing
of the Christian spirit into the soul and mind of the nation,
a movement into Hindu and Islamic society rather than a
landslide from those masses to quality, change to character.
Chenchiah saw Christ’s influence on Hinduism already
at work. According to him, Christ’s influence on Hinduism
manifests itself in the re-construction of Hinduism, as in
the case of the Brahmo Samaj, Arya Samaj, and the
Ramakrishna Mission; in the transvaluation of religious
and ethical and social ideals; in the creation of a purified
spiritual vision which feels the presence of a new spiritual
energy in life; in personal devotion, as in the case of eclectic
movements such as theosophy and Visvabharathi.
The Secular Mission of the Church
As early as 1928 Chenchiah wrote, ‘Any attempt to
separate the Church from its mission is fraught with disas-
ter’. He conceived of the mission of the Church in terms of
the new creation, the Kingdom of God and the renewal of the
social order. We have already spoken of the new creation.
Chenchiah believed that it was the mission of the Church to
‘harness the Holy Spirit to the creation of new life’. And that
new life was to be the sign of the Kingdom of God come
among men. The period between the Wars was a time of the
137
rediscovery of the message of the Kingdom and an alto-
gether too optimistic gospel was fashioned out of it. But
Chenchiah insisted on the need for a firm spiritual basis for
the Kingdom. It is only by bringing a new divine power and
the energy of the Holy Spirit that we can hope to become the
Sons of God and establish the Kingdom of God.
Chenchiah was sure that the strong motivating power
for the reordering of society, ‘the spirit of nishkamya karma
and self-forgetting love so much needed for nation-building,
could come only from the ministrations of faiths at the
highest level’. The Christian, more than any other, had to
enter all areas of life with this spirit and redeem them for the
Kingdom. He deplored the compartmentalisation of life into
religious and non-religious spheres.
Chenchiah outlined a programme of social service and
social action by Christians in India. Among these were
suggestions for the organization of mobile service groups to
undertake relief work on occasions of famine, fire, pesti-
lence and storms; co-operatives; experiments in common
farming (advocated as a national policy by Nehru fifteen
years later), housing schemes and co-operative banks.
He encouraged that Christians should first equip them-
selves with knowledge, both of their faith and of the possible
ways in which social problems could be tackled, before they
could play a significant redemptive role in the affairs of the
nation. The absence of such thinking was a great lack in the
armour of the Indian Christian. Therefore he called upon his
educated fellow-Christians to ‘discuss and formulate after
study a Christian scheme or policy in politics and econom-
ics which they shall try to implement whatever party they
may join’. And to stimulate their thinking, he along with
close friends like A.N. Sudarsanam, V. Chakkarai and G.V.
Job, started the Indian Christian Book Club.
Evaluation
Thangasamy agrees with Chenchiah’s assessment in
one of the numerous articles in The Guardian, that the
courage to think through the challenges to Christianity
138
without doctrines and dogmas may be the new gift of the
Spirit of the times to the Indian Christians.
Chenchiah’s own greatest contribution to the cause of
Christianity may be precisely this courage and the lead
given by him. Chenchiah declared that the Indian Christian
has come of age and therefore, is able to think on his own
and add to the spiritual treasuries of mankind.
Indian Christians have not been eager to face the chal-
lenges of the times but content to face those of a remote past
in the manner in which they had been met in the past. Like
certain spirits which did not wish to be troubled by Jesus,
they would only wish to be left alone to carry on their
exercises of piety in their own way. Facing the world of today
would demand too great an exertion on their part and would
seem to be so dangerous as to upset even the foundations
of their faith and life. It was to such a group that Chenchiah
addressed his call to courage that is demanded by the effort
to meet the new challenges by abandoning the security and
the moorings of traditional Christianity.
Chenchiah was often at issue with those who sought to
prescribe limits within which Indian Christian theological
inquiry should be contained. The stand of the typical
missionary of the time and his Indian satellites was that
what they regarded as basic doctrines could not be ques-
tioned, but only explained or interpreted in images and
speech-forms that were indigenous. But if theology is not
regarded primarily as a set of doctrines which may not be
questioned, but as the growing understanding of God’s
dealings with man, especially through the life and work of
Jesus Christ, it would then rank as a discipline in which any
one interpretation of observed or historical fact cannot be
accepted as being final. In every science there is periodical
re-examination of presuppositions and the theories based
on them — from the theory of a geocentric universe in
astronomy to the constitution of the atom in physics. In this
view, which was certainly Chenchiah’s doctrines such as
those of the ‘Trinity and Atonement’ would be regarded as
doctrinal theories rather than as absolutes, as they have
139
been in theology so far. They would, in other words, be revivalists often talk about. The experience that Chenchiah
treated as the first; profound, perhaps, but by no means was talking about was that of being admitted by grace into
final or complete interpretations put upon the facts of the the state of striving for oneness with God. Dynamic experi-
birth, life and resurrection of Jesus as these may be gleaned ence is possible only where there is a willingness to experi-
from the Gospels. ment not only in the narrow fields of faith-healing and the
like, but also in the larger arena of life. Chenchiah was for
It must be admitted that in rejecting, modifying and
making bold experiment that would extend, as Mahatma
originating doctrines, Chenchiah tended to rely too much
Gandhi’s did, to the fields of political and social life.
on his own judgment and experience and too little on that
of the large body of believers who had faced no intellectual What is the experiment and experience that Chenchiah
of spiritual difficulty in thinking and living within the neat was advocating?
but narrow framework of the traditional understandings of
It is power of the Holy Spirit as a cosmic energy that is
Christian doctrines. And when he asserts, “Christian indi-
seeking to transform the race of man. Even the critics who
vidual experience is the centre and circumference, founda-
were otherwise repelled by Chenchiah’s theology have
tion and superstructure, of Christianity. There is no expe-
commended him for rediscovering or re-emphasizing the
rience which is not individual.” 29 He seems to steer too
forgotten doctrine of the creation. There has been such a
dangerously towards the existentialist obsession with ex-
lack of faith in the power of the intention of God to ‘make all
perience as the basic reality. But, as against this, one has
things new’ on the earth or to transform the kingdom of the
to bear in mind what Bonhoeffer says about a world that has
world into His own Kingdom that for centuries the Church
‘come of age’ — Kairos, as well as God, seem clearly to be
had settled to the job of saving a few brands from the fire that
calling upon Christians to travail for a new understanding
must inevitably consume the world and its structures. Only
of His nature and His relations with the world. However, the
now, thanks to the struggles of the minds and the souls of
present “is a time for ploughing, not reaping . . . it is a time
men like Chenchiah, we are beginning to affirm that new life
for making soundings, not charts or maps”.30 Hence, except
must permeate and change its environment. If it is really the
for the development of the thesis of the New Creation, there
supernatural power, if its energy is that of the Holy Spirit,
is hardly any systematic formulation of doctrine or system
it must transform the social order. Chenchiah was one of the
of ideas in the writings of Chenchiah.
few Christian thinkers in India who, even before the Second
Chenchiah’s Christianity was rooted in the experience World War and the Independence of India, tried to show how
of life of the saints down the centuries. He had no regard for Christians in India should participate in the task of nation-
conventional religion which “builds on a foundation of building. Participation implies living and working with
nature, colouring and sometime controlling, but really others, taking them seriously as persons respecting their
conquering our instincts and impulses”.31 For him religion convictions and belief and entering into real partnership
is the supernatural permeating, transforming and activising with them.
the natural, not getting dissipated in it or standing apart
Chenchiah was one of the very few Christians who may
from it. The vital experience of such supernatural activity
be said to have not only got inside the world, but to have felt
constituted real advance in religion and it alone could
quite at home in it. This was not because he had been born
provide the means of theological illumination. The experi-
a Hindu, but because quite deliberately he set out to gain a
ence that Chenchiah was talking about is something far
knowledge of Hindus and Hinduism after he was converted.
nobler than an individualistic ‘experience of salvation’ that

140 141
Dialogue with men of other faiths was a spontaneous,
almost natural, Christian self-expression for Chenchiah, at
bar association premises, verandah clubs and many other
places of meeting. At a time when Christians in India are
taking their ‘participation’ in nation-building seriously and
are concerned with ‘partnership’ with men of other faiths
and ‘dialogue’ with them at depth, it is right and proper that
we go back to Chenchiah and draw upon the resources of his
thought. Chenchiah is significant as one who cleared the
ground for a mature ‘Indian Christianity’.
P.D. DEVANANDAN (1901-1962)
Paul David Devanandan was born in Madras in a pas-
tors’ family. After his studies at Madras, Tiruchirapalli and
Hyderabad he went to University in Madras. Coming under
the influence of K.T. Paul, he went as his secretary to the
United States of America in 1924. He stayed on for seven
years and eventually finished his doctorate in the Pacific
School of Religion and later at Yale, with the subject “The
Concept of Maya”. Later on he ended up as K.T. Paul’s son-
in-law!
On his return to India he taught Philosophy and History
of religions at United Theological College, Bangalore, at a
time when these subjects were scorned. He taught them for
17 years. When he was serving as the Literature Secretary
of Y.M.C.A., the National Council of Churches called him to
lead the newly formed CISS — Christian Institute for the
Study of Society. This institute later merged with the
Christian Institute for the Study of Hinduism and became
the present CISRS — the Christian Institute for the Study of
Religion and Society. Till his untimely death by heart attack
in 1962, he remained in the position of Director. During this
time he went often as a teacher and lecturer all over the
world. One of his great contributions was his message
under the tittle “Called to Witness” in the third Assembly of
the W.C.C. at New Delhi in 1961.
In his autobiographical writings, Devanandan confesses
that one of his great spiritual experiences was in his reading
142
of Hendrick Kraemer postulated the discontinuity thesis
that there is no point of contact between Christianity and
other religions. Thus he rejected the validity of all natural
revelations. This stance disturbed Devanandan very greatly.
He could not bring himself to condemn Hinduism, under
whose influence he had grown all his life, as demonic or
containing no element of truth. But later, after a long and
strenuous research, he hit upon the idea what can be now
called the ‘Devanandan discovery’ on which many later
theologians have built their theology of religions. We will
look at it later.
His theological writings include, beside several articles
the following books: Our Task Today, The Gospel and
Renascent Hinduism, Christian Concern in Hinduism, I will
lift up mine Eyes, (Sermon and Bible studies with a bio-
graphical Sketch) and the posthumously published Prepa-
ration For Dialogue.
Devanandan’s Theology of Religions
As indicated above, the very decision of Devanandan to
study Hinduism (the concept of maya) shows that his entry
into theology was through the study of religions. Devanandan
understands religion, or more accurately faith, as a series of
concentric circles — creed, cultus and culture (a system of
doctrinal beliefs, the religious rites and ceremonies, and the
world view and life style respectively). The innermost circle
is the creed. Invariably, when a religion interacts with its
environment, the impact is first felt in the outer circle, area
of culture, only later upon the cultus and still later if at all
on the credal core itself. This means that the theology of
religion changes with great inertia. That is why when a
renewal takes place in a religion it effects all the spheres,
and it is right to deal with a faith in all these spheres, and
not with an isolated one.
Devanandan affirms that these resurgent or renewal
movements, in a religion are of four types — reform move-
ments, revival movements, renascent movements and re-
volt movements.
143
 In reform movements there is change brought about from
causes outside. The change brings an emphasis upon the new
as against the old, and many old ideas and practices and
values are given up for the new ones. By contrast, a revival
movement takes place within a particular religion. Here the
response of the religion to an environment is dynamic and
hence the emphasis is not so much on the new as on the old
elements. Therefore, all revival movements are both defensive
and apologetic, seeking to justify the validity the old claims.
Renascent movements are the changes brought about by the
forces acting both from without and from within. There is a
revolutionary shakeup of the fundamentals of the religion.
Finally, in revolt movements the ancestral faith is shaken up
so much that it leads to a repudiation of it. Here the older
values are outmoded and the modern elements are lifted up.
Devanandan further affirms that in modern Hinduism
there is a new renascent movement taking place. The new
values of person, society, and history are definitely foreign
to the age-old Hinduism with its caste system and karma
sansara. Then the question arises: from where does Hindu-
ism absorb these new elements?
Here we come to what we call the ‘Devanandan discovery’.
His thesis as in The Gospel and Renascent Hinduism, is that
the new Hinduism is the result of the Christian message. It is
in interaction with the gospel of Jesus Christ that neo-
Hinduism has imbibed these new human values. Thus as
Christians we must rejoice in this creative activity of the Holy
Spirit. As we enter into dialogue we will often find that the
hidden Christ is there at work in Hinduism previous to us.
This is the point of contact for Christians with Hindus. This
is Devanandan’s post-Kraemer position. His discovery he
calls a second spiritual crisis, a second conversion, equivalent
to his own experience of conversion to Jesus Christ.
In such a dialogue there are three steps according to
Devanandan. First, there is a study needed of the varied
types of Hinduism. Secondly, there must be clarification of
terminology so that the concepts used are properly under-
stood by Christians and Hindus. Thirdly, there must be an
144
Indian theological expression of Christian faith. So he says:
Effective communication of the gospel to the non-Christian
man of faith depends on the effective use of the religious
vocabulary with which he is familiar, and of the cultural
pattern of life in which he finds self-expression and commu-
nity being. 32
Christian influence of Hinduism
In his approach Devanandan has gone much beyond the
earlier approaches either of rejecting Hinduism totally or
taking Hinduism as the foundation for Christian faith or
Christianity as the fulfillment of Hinduism. What are these
new elements in Hinduism which it has borrowed from
Christianity? Obviously Devanandan takes pains in devel-
oping these and we will do well to look at them one by one.
PERSONALITY
As far as the question of person is concerned Devanandan
takes a daring step. He regards Brahman as neither per-
sonal nor impersonal; he says that he is both at the same
time, i.e. he equates Iswara with Brahman. But God makes
himself known to human beings in personal relationships
and never as a series of oppositions.
As Boyd says, this concept of God as personal, speaking
to and dealing historically with man as a responsible
person, is fundamental to Devanandan’s thinking. In this
connection he develops the imago dei doctrine of man and
primarily in opposition to prakriti or nature. It involves at
least three attributes: a mutual encounter of I-thou; a
capability of being in dialogue and of penetrating another I;
and a purposive striving to realize a common end.
At the same time we must also point out that Devanandan
holds to the orthodox view of human depravity and his view
of sin is quite orthodox.
SIN AND SALVATION
But how does man come out of sinfulness? Not by
evolution or by education or by self-realization, but by a
deliberate commitment to the offer of Christ.
145
 It is the power and personality of the resurrected Christ
which transforms men and makes them into a new and living
creation. Hence we can properly say “Therefore if anyone is
in Christ he is a new creation”.
Thus Devanandan stoutly defends the idea of conver-
sion and carefully distinguishes it from proselytism.
HISTORY AND MAYA
Another elements which he dwells on is the concept of
history. Thanks to the Hindu concept of maya neither the
world nor history have any abiding value. Giving adequate
examples, Devanandan shows how modern Hinduism is
gradually awakening to a sense of purpose in history -
another influence of the Christian message. Thus the age-old
concept of cyclic understanding is replaced by a linear under-
standing. He sees that the transformation of all religions (as
he has shown to be the case in Hinduism) is steadily moving,
towards the eschaton, “the hope of glory”, the final end. But
the question is, if all the religions are moving to this glorious
end, will they remain as they are, or will they be abolished, or
will they merge into a world religion? Devanandan is not quite
clear on that and he leaves the question open, very wisely. He
thinks that the truth belongs to the eschaton and we need not
speculate on it.
If he takes history so seriously, then how does
Devanandan interpret maya? This was after all his doctoral
dissertation. The earlier thinkers understood maya either
as illusion or as a second rate reality. Devanandan attempts
a new Christian interpretation: “Time is as it were shot
through with eternity”. Thus the Christian talks about man
as a citizen of two worlds. This is really a way of stating that
this is a world of maya, a world which is both real and
unreal, conditioned by time and shot through with eternity,
the scene of human endeavour and the plane of activity. But
here the sat-asat nature of world life is not understood in
terms of ultimate reality, but final purpose.”
In other words Devanandan shifts the realm of maya
from being to that of purpose. That is, where God’s will is
followed that is reality (perhaps he meant mainly the salva-
146
tion history); and where God’s will is opposed that is maya
(the secular history). Thus his understanding of maya is
more or less similar to the understanding of vanity in the
book of Ecclesiastes.
COMMUNITY
Another new element which he finds in Hinduism is
community. Since Hinduism regards religion as a private
enterprise, Devanandan stresses the need of community
life. In Devanandan’s words, “Man is truly man only in so far
as he is found in the network of human relations which
makes what the Bible calls ‘people’ and which in modern
language is called ‘society’.
He makes his point by basing it upon the very creation
of man in the image of God, which involves the personality
and community of man in relation to God and man in
relation to others. Thus man is more than both manava and
purusha for he must be a bhakta in satsanga or koinonia
(fellowship) with God and his people. Following this line of
argument obviously Devanandan rejects also the Hindu
doctrine of karma sansara, that one is responsible for only
his own deeds, because it is not only against social justice
but also is not realistic.
For Devanandan the Church is this community. It is not
only a transformed community. He is not so much inter-
ested in the narrow ecclesiastical issues but in the signifi-
cant contribution of the church that it should be a living,
witnessing, worshipping and serving fellowship, as a model
to the world, of what a community ought to be.
True community is created by the conscious sense which
each one in the group has of being vitally connected with a
living centre and because of this living relationship to the
centre they are all bound to one another. That is the real
difference between a communion of saints and an associa-
tion of people.
Thus he defines the church as “the fellowship of those
who endeavour in community, as well as in their own
personal lives, to do the will of the Father.” This doing the
will of the Father involves not only kerygma or proclamation
147
or evangelism but also diakonia i.e., service of the commu-
nity around, and koinonia fellowship with another. The
omission of leiturgia (worship) is significant, but since
Devanandan was thinking of the Church as a community
vis-a-vis Hinduism, it might not be relevant here. And
Devanandan defends evangelism in no uncertain terms. He
affirms that the primary mission of every Christian believer
is to spread abroad good news that God has started a
movement in the history of mankind by himself for the
salvation of man.
Following from this Devanandan advocates praxis as
well as orthodoxy as a must for the church’s witness. And
he earnestly calls upon Christians to participate actively in
the nation building activities and gives a firm basis for this.
This means taking part with other groups or non-Christian
organizations for a combined effort towards social upliftment
— even if need be secular or other ideological groups.
Association with non-Christian ideologies and structures
does not deter him from the Christian duty of nation
building. Other elements in Devanandan’s theology are
quite conservative and thus we need not repeat them here.
Evaluation
We can only say this here, that most of his ideas are
conservative and often give a new insight which is most
relevant to the Indian situation. The only element which is
disturbing is that he goes too far in developing the logos
spermatikos idea in other religions. However we must be fair
in admitting that he does this only subsequent to the
Christian mission. One wonders, to what extent his idea of
dialogue will be practical, because sooner or later it is a
battle at the level of the spirit and one religion’s interpreta-
tion and evaluation of the other will necessarily come up
with some contradictions and hence confrontation. Dia-
logue may be short lived, as Devanandan envisages.
148
NOTES
1. V. Chakkarai, Christ the Avatar, CLS, Madaras, 1932, p. 208.
2. Ibid., p. 112.
3. Ibid., p. 117.
4. Ibid., p. 220.
5. “Indian Christian Theological Task”, The Guardian, 1947, pp. 20f.
6. Rethinking Christianity in India (2nd Edition), 1939, p. 150.
7. The Guardian, 1943, p. 352.
8. The Guardian, 1947, vol. XXV, no. 6, p. 67.
9. Rethinking Christianity in India, p. 53.
10. Rethinking Christianity, p. 53.
11. The Guardian, 1947.
12. D.A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah, CISRS & YMCA,
1966, p. 8.
13. Rethinking Christianity, Appendix, p. 22.
14. The Guardian, 1950, vol. XXVIII, no. 9, p. 143.
15. “Dr. Brunner and the Indian Christian Reaction”, The Guardian, 17-
24 August, 1950.
16. Rethinking Christianity, pp. 10-19.
17. Christianity and Hinduism, p. 18.
18. “Christians and Yoga”, The Guardian, 20 vol. XXII, no. 16, p. 6-7.
19. “Who is Jesus?”, The Guardian, 1943, vol. XXI, no. 32, p. 6.
20. Rethinking Christianity, p. 56.
21. Miller Endowment Lectures, pp. 54f.
22. “My Search for the Kingdom”, The Guardian, 1951, pp. 65f.
23. “Indian Christian Theological Task”, The Guardian, 1947, vol. XXV,
no. 10, p. 8.
24. Christianity and Hinduism, p. 3.
25. Christianity and Hinduism, pamphlet of Thangasamy’s Theology of
Chenchiah, p. 38.
26. As quoted by Thangasamy, op. cit., p. 38.
27. Rethinking Christianity, Appendix, p. 52.
28. Ibid., Appendix, p. 48.
29. “Our Theological Task”, The Guardian, 1947, p. 270.
30. Quoted in J.A.T. Robinson, The New Reformation, p. 19.
31. D.A. Thangasamy, op. cit., p. 51.
32. P.D. Devanandan, Preparation for Dialogue, CISRS, Bangalore,
p. 191.
149
 7

K.M. BANERJEA (1813-1881)

K.M. Banerjea (also spelt Banerjee or Banerji) was a
recognized leader of the Indian Christian community in
Bengal, and was made the first president of the Bengal
Christian Association in 1870. The main purpose of this
association was to establish a national church of India,
ministered by Indians and supported by Indian money.
He was one of Alexander Duff’s early converts and also
a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Right after his
baptism in the Anglican Church he became a priest, in
1852, and taught for 15 years in Bishop’s College, Calcutta,
as a Professor. Till 1870 his approach to Hinduism was
negative, but after his retirement from Bishop’s college he
became sympathetic to Hinduism. His books include Dia-
logues and The Arian Witness.
In this book he starts off by saying that there are striking
similarities between the Old Testament and the Vedas.
Thereby his desire was to show that Christianity, if not
identical with, is in any case the logical conclusion of
original Hinduism: He also finds parallels between Vedic
and Assyrian texts and even the Hebrew and Sanskrit
languages. For Banerjea the Hebrews and the Aryans have
a common background. Even etymologically Banerjea finds
Manu and Noah to have the same root. All this implies that
Christianity is not foreign religion but the fulfillment of
Vedic religion. Though the Christian message would frighten
many Indians, he exhorts that this is also what happened to
Apostle Peter. He did not want to mix with the uncircumcised
and had to be mildly rebuked by the Lord in order to be led
to the full truth.
The corner stone of the commonness is in the institution
of sacrifice and priesthood. He is specially quick to find

150 151
parallels for the biblical Lamb that was slain from the
foundation of the world in Vedic literature. Even the parallel
between the Creation, Fall and Deluge cannot be accidental.
But what happened was that in the course of time the
Hindus have forgotten the implications of sacrifice, through
which men became gods and attained moksha. But to throw
away the whole Vedic sacrifice system is to throw away the
baby with the bath water. The Vedas still remind us of the
high value in which sacrifices were held in earlier times.
Coming to Christ, he finds an excellent parallel between
the self-sacrifice of Prajapati, the lord of the universe, for the
sake of the creatures, and the self-sacrifice of Christ for the
remission of the sins of the world. These two truths he puts
in his own words as follows:
Firstly, the fundamental principles of Christian doctrine in
relation to the salvation of the world, find a remarkable
counterpart in the vedic principles of primitive Hinduism in
relation to the destruction of sin and redemption of the
sinner, by the efficacy of sacrifice itself a figure of Prajapati,
the lord and saviour of the creation, who had given himself
up as an offering for that purpose.
Secondly, the meaning of Prajapati, an appellative variously
described as a purusha, begotten in the beginning as
Vishwakarma, the creator all, singularly coincides with the
meaning as Vishwakarma, the maker of all, singularly
coincides with the meaning of the name and offices of the
historical reality Jesus Christ, and that no other person than
Jesus of Nazareth has ever appeared in the world claiming
the character and position of the self-sacrificing Prajapati, at
the same time both mortal and immortal.
This means that Christian speakers, when they speak of
those things mentioned above, do not “utter which things be
called strange to Indian ears”. The idea of salvation from sin
by the death of a saviour who was a god and man himself was
a conception which had administered consolation to our
ancient rishis, says Banerjea. And to a greater degree it does
so now to us Indians.
Beyond this, Banerjea asserts also that, “not a single
charter in Hindu pantheon or in the pantheon of any other
nation has claimed the position of the one who offered
152
himself as a sacrifice for the benefit of humanity”. Only one
historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, has claimed this Vedic
idea. Thus we may conclude, says Banerjea, that Jesus is
the true prajapati, the true saviour of the world, the only
name given among men whereby we must be saved. He calls
the prayer to Varuna, which is mentioned in Rig Veda, a
truly Christian prayer :
O illustrious Varuna, do thou quicken our understanding,
we that are celebrating this sacrifice, that we may embark on
the good navigating vessel [Banerjea thinks this means
sacrifice] by which we may escape all sins.
So Banerjea shows that these doctrines, namely, Christ
as the true prajapati, the true purusha begotten in the
beginning before all the worlds, the doctrine of saving
sacrifice, the primary religious rites, the double character of
priest and victim, the ark by which we escape the waves of
the sinful world, all these doctrines are found, amid rub-
bish, in our Vedas and are the fragments of real truth of
Christ. Boyd calls the theology of Banerjea ‘Vedic theology’.
What he means by this is that since the beginning of time
there was a universal cosmic religion in existence, whose
basic principle was that there is no salvation without the
shedding of blood. Already sacrifice is practised by Abel.
Some corrupted forms of this sacrifice have been forwarded
to different religious traditions, whereas among the Jews,
by God’s special care, it was kept intact, and so he finds a
commonalty between the Jewish and the Hindu systems.
Evaluation
I think we must hold fast to the principle that only
through the eye of faith in Christ we can discern all other
thoughts and systems and religions. It is when tested
against the touchstone of Christ that we know whether a
particular aspect is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong.
He is the norm. By the same token, only in comparison with
Christ can we discover whether a particular element is a
foreshadowing of him or not. No doubt there is truth in every
religion, but for us who are disciples of Christ, Christ is the
final touchstone.
153
 It is one thing to say that there is truth revealed in the
Vedas and another to say that it can be discerned. Banerjea,
by discerning the truth, I think raises the vedas to the level
of revelation. This is unacceptable.
SWAMI ABHISHIKTANANDA (1910-1973)
Swami Abhishiktananda was a French Catholic Priest
whose real name is Dom Henri Le Saux. He came to India
expressly with the purpose of finding a meeting point
between Christianity and the great Eastern religions and
thus have the way for the dialogue of all religions. He came
also as a colleague to Jules Monchanin who is the founder
of the Saccidananda Ashram on the banks of the river
Kaveri. After the death of Monchanin he became the main
guru and lived there until his death in 1973.
You would have by now noticed that India is really the
place where dialogue is at its best. In fact not just the term
dialogue, but the very theology of dialogue, is created as well
as maintained by Indian thinkers. And so Swami
Abhishiktananda set out boldly to explore the heart of
Hindu spirituality, first as a lonely pioneer and later with a
growing number of friends whose Christian commitment
led to them to Gangotri with other Hindus, and some of his
experiences on the way are quite revealing.
He wrote several books in French and English. The
English books are A Benedictine Ashram, The Mount of the
Lord, Pilgrimage to Gangotri, Prayer, The Church in India, An
Essay in Christian Self Criticism, Towards the Renewal of
the Indian Church, Saccidananda: A Christian Approach to
Advaitic Experience, and The Further Shore. Many of them
were published posthumously.
As we have already seen, it is precisely because of their
belief in the validity of natural theology that there are more
Roman Catholic theologians who affirm the validity of other
religions than the Protestant theologians. This also is the
reason why the dialogue is a constant theme among them,
including Swami Abhishiktananda. Following the tradition of
Robert De Nobili ( whom we shall study shortly) there is a line
154
of courageous spirits who have taken the step of entering into
the heart of Hinduism to know it better. Happily Swami
Abhishiktananda is more readable than Panikkar!
Hindu Christian Meeting point
The book Hindu-Christian Meeting Point, with the sub-
title “Within the Cave of the Heart”, is a translation from the
French by Sarah Grant. As she writes in her introduction,
the book was written a few months before his death, but
after his experience of “the reality of Upanishads and
gospels”. He wrote and edited the book meticulously so that
it also might be awakened to its purpose, “the awakening of
others to awareness of the truth of their own being”.
The book starts with an analysis of momentous changes
in the Roman Catholic Church in 1964. The appointment of
Conciliar Commission by the Pope to relate the church with
other Christians around the world, and of the Roman
Secretariat to relate with the world religions, are seen by
Swami Abhishiktananda as the Church’s admission that
Christ is already at work outside the Church’s boundaries.
These appointments also show the Church’s admission of
such a truth. He writes in his own words:
The church thus realizes that her mission is not to lead to
Christ the Saviour isolated and poverty stricken individuals,
sunk in deepest error and sin. With reverent wonder she
finds that, in the hearts of those to whom the name of the
Lord is still unknown, his Spirit is already at work bringing
them to fulfillment and resurrection. She sees that it is not
in spite of but precisely through, the instrumentality of their
various religious traditions, their rituals and scriptures and
the spiritual vigour and thirst for renunciation which these
have transmitted from generation to generation.
This idea of fulfillment, the pleroma of Christ, is then the
main theme of Swami Abhishiktananda’s theology. This
means that the Church is no more satisfied with the
contacts which individual members have made with the
individual members of other religions, but she must now
start “official contact” with the accredited representatives of
other religions. All this is of course in line with Swami
Abhishiktananda’s advaitic experience before his death.
155
Entering into the heart of Hinduism
Further, if the church is really serious to enter into
dialogue with Hinduism, it is, according to Swami
Abhishiktananda, absolutely essential that it prepares it-
self adequately. But this preparation is not at the level of
concepts and thoughts, which is theological, but at the
deeper level: “the ‘knowledge’ of those ultimate depths of the
self, the ‘cave of the heart’ where the mystery revealed itself
to the awareness of rishis.” It is only here, in the secret place
of the heart, that real dialogue can take place.
This means two things. One, it means that Christians
must be ready to exercise epoche which he defines as “a
temporary suspension of one’s faith”. Not only that, the
Christians must also be ready to enter into the deep mysti-
cal experience of the Hindus.
Such an experiment was conducted in Almora in ‘61, in
which Swami Abhishiktananda was playing a major role.
Here several of the participants shared their experience.
One striking example was from a person who lived in
Bengal. Swami Abhishiktananda says,
He helped us to understand the truth that is hidden in the
worship of idols, which in India at least does not merit the
denunciation launched by Israel’s prophets at the cults of
Canaan and Babylon. He explained to us the religious and
even contemplative meaning of the worship of ‘signs’, and
told us how idol worship had helped him to enter more deeply
into the mystery of the signs used by the church as means
of grace in order to ‘concretize’ the worship of God’s people
especially that essential sign which constitutes the church,
the Eucharist. 1
Two conclusions followed this: “first that Christ was
already in India”,2 and second “that India has received from
her Creator a very special gift of interiority and a unique
inward orientation of the spirit”.3
In these experiments, of course only by Christians, even
the Upanishads were read “in the presence of Christ”. The
conclusion that Swami Abhishiktananda and his followers
came to is this: there is a great similarity between St. John’s
156
and the Upanishad’s messages. The use of light and life by
John, the use of the word Dabar or Logos can be paralleled
also in Upanishad by Vac or the word Om. So they call St.
John’s gospel the supreme Christian Upanishad. They also
find a parallel between Yahweh’s revelation ‘I Am’ and the
vedantic ‘aham Brahmasmi’ (I am Brahman). Thus Swami
Abhishiktananda advocates that advaita is no danger to
Christian faith, because to the pure all things are pure.
Fulfillment in Christ
The study of these details of the advaitic experience with
epoche makes Swami Abhishiktananda come to his concept
of fulfillment. He believes that God has planted the seeds of
true faith in Hindu hearts. So it is the task of the Christian
Mission to help the holy seed germinate, since “in the
designs of God Hinduism tends of its very nature towards
Christianity as its eschatological fulfillment”.4 This means
that even the Hindu Upanishads will find their fulfillment in
the Bible. That is, for Swami Abhishiktananda fulfillment is
a matter of a deep spiritual experience rather than a
theological exercise. Following Upadhyaya he also accepts
that the meaning of Brahman is really understood only as
Saccidananda and only when Saccidananda is experienced
as the Christian Trinity. When, in the cave of the heart,
Christians and Hindus meet, first they experience the
ultimate non-duality of the Christians and secondly “the
experience of divine sonship in the unity of the Spirit”.5 The
first will inevitably pass on into the second. And that is how
the first is fulfilled in the second.
He dwells on what he calls “the cosmic covenant and the
pleroma”.6 He calls attention to Melchizedek whom he calls
“a priest of the cosmic covenant”. His sacrifices foreshad-
owed the sacrificial death of Christ and are seen therefore as
an example of a cosmic liturgy, to be found also in the non-
Christian faiths, including Hinduism. Yet he is careful
enough to say, that to enter this pleroma the passage must
necessarily go through the Cross of Christ. Nothing can
come to God unless through the Cross of Christ.
157
Presuppositions
Boyd analyses the presuppositions behind Swami
Abhishiktananda’s thought. First, he sees that behind
Swami Abhishiktananda’s thinking there is an assumption
that the intellectual formulations of western Christianity
are inadequate to express the spiritual reality of the Chris-
tian faith and that the Upanishads are more capable of
doing it. So “aided by Indian spirituality, Christian theology
must now recover the experiential wholeness which now it
has lost”, says Boyd.7 A second presupposition he finds in
Swami Abhishiktananda’s thought is that “spiritual life is
the most important issue for Christians, at least in India”.8
Of course, many Indians like M.M. Thomas have vigorously
rejected such a spiritual approach. Boyd’s own criticism is
that whether such a religion of Swami Abhishiktananda can
ever be, in Bishop Newbigin’s words, “an honest religion for
secular man”?
Evaluation
Since we have already been alerted to the Roman Catho-
lic approach to theology in general we need not repeat here
our criticisms of the Swami which are due to his Catholic
faith (there is more of this later in Panikkar’s theology).
However, we must point out that all do not follow the same
approach, there are exceptions to every rule. We can men-
tion at least three things which are rather predominant.
One is the question of epoche. Having once been filled by
the Spirit and adopted as the child of God, it is hard for me
to imagine that I can suspend my faith for the time being and
say that I do not belong to Christ and act as if I am neutral.
I personally am opposed to the whole philosophy of epoche.
It does not take the existential situation of faith seriously.
The other is the question of justifying idolatry. No doubt
Boyd, in summarizing Swami Abhishiktananda’s theology,
avoids such extremes, but I have purposely mentioned it to
show where dialogue patterned after Swami
Abhishiktananda’s guidelines can lead to. So the Swami’s
approach to idols stands rather weakly supported.
158
Then finally, again following the Roman Catholic two-
tier scheme of discipleship — the higher clergy and the lower
laity — Swami Abhishiktananda’s approach seems to cater
to the monks and nuns rather than to the mass of lay people.
As such it is more a method for the elite and not for the
common disciple of Christ. This also explains why it is
exclusively spiritual, in a monastic way.
KLAUS KLOSTERMAIER
Klaus Klostermaier is a young German theologian who,
as a member of the Order of Divine Word, lived for two years
near Mathura in Vrindaban, the famous pilgrimage centre
of the Hindus, the birth place of Krishna. In these two years
he emphathetically entered into the very spiritual experi-
ence of his Hindu friends. Out of this experience he wrote
two books: Kristvidya: A Sketch of an Indian Christology,
and Hindu and Christian Vrindaban. The first one was a
paper in one of the Catholic ashrams for discussion, while
the later is an account of his experiences and their analysis.
As the title Kristvidya (knowledge of Christ) adequately
shows, his main attempt is to develop a Christology for
India. So his one burning concern is to give a meaningful
answer to the question which Christ himself asked, “what
do men say about the Son of Man? Whom do they think he
is?” (Mt. 16:13). Like the disciples of old, many Hindus even
now understand him as one of the avataras, like Rama or
Krishna or Chaitanya, etc. Some others may take him as a
great moral teacher, a saint, a miracle worker like the old
yogis or even like the modern Sai Baba. This is the reason
why many Hindu homes also have a picture of Christ.
But the question Christ asks his disciples is more
revealing, “Whom do you say that I am?” (Mt. 16:15). Peter’s
answer “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Mt.
16:16), according to Klaus Klostermaier, is totally inad-
equate, because in many Indian translations ‘the Son of
God’ does not make any impression upon the Hindu mind,
since to them all are sons of God. The concept of ‘the living
God’ makes still less sense for them, since for them God
159
cannot but be a living God. And to say that he is ‘Christ’
makes absolutely no sense since the word Christ is such a
strange name that they cannot make head or tail of it.
So Klostermaier affirms that since it is useless to intro-
duce any new foreign terms or idioms, we Indian Christians
must “find the ‘theological place’ of Christ within the Hindu
system as the Greek Fathers of the church did.” Only so
“does Christ become meaningful for a Hindu”. So he is sure
that for the Hindus we have to express Christ as the living
relationship of everybody with the Ultimate. Hence he calls
his study Kristvidya, according to him a literal translation
of the Greek Christ-logia, Christology.
This Kristvidya is presented in a most systematic man-
ner in three parts.
The Prerequisites: Attitudes
(i) First, since the New Testament authors inevitably go
back to the Old Testament in order to explain Christ, so also
“to make clear to a Hindu what it means to ‘search for the
kingdom of God’ we have to make use of his Hindu scrip-
tures”. 9
(ii) The second attitude is a recognition of the necessary
Hindu pluralism: many schools and sects in Hinduism
“differ not only in inessentials but in the very basic idea of
the absolute and the way to it”.10 Klostermaier then master-
fully describes the basic attitude of this variety of schools.
The basic attitude of Sankara’s school is pure and
exclusive desire for the absolute. That of Ramanuja is
prapatti, “complete surrender to the Lord” as the only
condition for receiving his grace. Bhakti schools have sev-
eral attitudes, all of which Klostermaier calls the basic
attitude required for Hindu ‘seekers’. Madhava emphasizes
resignation to the Lord Vishnu, Nimbarka emphasizes
sakshatkara, a bodily vision of God, and absolute faith in
the guru, others emphasize passionate love and devotion.
The basic attitude of karma yoga is that of absolute obedi-
ence or faith even when one does not understand it. This is
why yajna is a basic element in karma yoga.
160
(iii) Thirdly, since according to Klostermaier, the aim of
all these several schools are “to enable man to be ‘in’ or ‘with’
God or the Absolute”,11 Kristvidya must also approach not
intellectually but existentially experience of being with
Christ as in Brahman.
Basic Categories
(i) It does not do any good to call Christ holy or great or
good and so on. Klostermaier observes that in the Bible
wherever Christ is mentioned there is “a movement towards
God”. 12 That is, Christ always makes the distinction be-
tween ‘my Father’ and all other things, and he definitely
includes himself on the side of the Father. There is always
a basic distinction between two radically different and
mutually exclusive realms of realities in Christ’s mind. Our
categories of Hinduism must maintain this thought.
(ii) The logical categories of Hinduism are very different
from those of Christians. They use the term viveka for the
higher level of discernment. While the lower level of discern-
ment gives pairs of opposites like hot and cold, dark and
light, sweet and sour, good and bad, the higher level of
discernment or viveka gives higher pairs of opposites be-
tween the relative and the absolute, between the eternal and
the temporal, between prakriti and purusha, between
Jeevatman and paramatman and the like. We Christians
must always be careful not to mix these two levels and use
those higher categories.
(iii) Following from the above, since the Christian Father-
world relationship is not the same as Brahman-world, to
translate one with the other is a gross mistake. The logic of the
higher level, as is the case with Brahman-world, is not that of
pratyaksha or upamana but of shabda alone, that of logos.
Constructive Elements
Here he starts off by accepting paradox as the method of
explaining Kristvidya, exactly as was the method also for
Brahmavidya. Only this way can we enter into certain
transcendent levels of understanding, which otherwise we
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may never reach. Then he examines the three margas of
Hinduism in detail. Since Christ also calls himself the Way,
Klostermaier is sure that he is a marga — though he does
not teach it, he lived it.
(i) Karma marga: Here Klostermaier believes that to use
the word deva to describe Christ can only lead into misun-
derstanding, at least one reason being that devas are only
those who are called as such in the Vedas. Even otherwise,
the function of the Hindu deva is essentially different from
that of Christ. As such the term does not apply to Christ. But
he finds another term shabda in karma marga, which he
understands as mantra. This word is “the connection of the
world with akriti, the uncreated idea which as such is
incomprehensible and is never exhausted by the individual
word.”13 Coming back to John’s prologue, Klostermaier says
that according to John Christ also is in the sphere of
shabda-Brahman and akriti. “It should be possible to com-
municate something of the mystery of the divine sonship of
Christ in the terms of the shabda philosophy”.14 This rather
than other translation like ishwar ka putra, Son of the living
God, is far more fruitful. Another term, yajna, is also used
for sacrifice but only with limited earthly promises. It cannot
be directly used for the sacrifice of Christ, but he believes
that shabda yajna can be better used than other terms in
karma marga.
(ii) Bhakti marga: Since bhakti is interpreted severally by
different Hindu commentators, it is best to accept the
general characteristics. He mentions, some of these. First,
since bhakti marga concentrates on avataras, the manifes-
tations of God is visible form, it insists rather on the
historicity of salvation. If you want to say Kristbhakti it is
definitely much more than the historical part of salvation.
Also, since bhakti is not speculative but rather an analysis
of human emotions and techniques,eros plays a significant
role in bhakti. So to translate the gospel as the gospel of love
is again a misnomer. We must be careful, if at all we use the
word bhakti, to bring the content of agape, in it.
162
Klostermaier says that the real theological problem of
bhakti is in its concept of avataras. For the bhakti system
the lord, Ishwara, is Brahman. He is the controller and the
principle of all, the one worshipped in every religious act,
the bestower of every fruit, the sustainer of all, the cause of
all effects. As such, though it is appropriate to be used for
a high view of Christ, says Klostermaier, we must remember
the five-fold existential modes of Hindu divinity, namely, as
para, vyuha, vibhava, antaryamin and arkavatara. As para
he is Narayana, as vyuha he is the highest brahman himself,
as vibhava he is the ten avataras, as antaryamin he is the
dweller in the hearts of the individual selves, and arkavatara
is the form where he accepts those from which the devotee
chooses. Now, which of these five form can we attribute to
Christ properly? Since Christ cannot be identified
ontologically with any one of them it is best to use all the
forms. As para is the procession from the Father, as vyuha
he is the procession as the Spirit, as vibhava the divine
mission of the world, as arkavatara in the eucharistic
presence.
Another element of bhakti marga he would like to
include in Christian practice is that of japa. Both the Old
Testament as well as the Hindu bhakti groups make God
and his name equal. The repetition of the name of God, that
is nama japa, is an essential part of their worship. There is
also a parallel for this, Klostermaier says, in the Jesus
prayer of philokalia in the ancient church. As such nama
japa and kirtan can be accepted.
(iii) Jnana marga: In this school, of course, the essential
content is the basic distinction between brahman and non-
brahman. One of the expression used to distinguish these
two spheres — and unfortunately not enough attention is
given to it — is the pair of karma and adhyatma. Karma is
the sphere of constant stage and repetition, nothing eternal
and lasting can take place in it; whereas adhyatma is the
realm of the self, the spirit, the reality proper. When Valmiki
describes Rama as a great king and hero, bound by the laws
of this world, it is a karmic description. But when the
163
adhyatmic Ramana interprets the same adventures, then
Rama becomes the absolute being, ultimate reality, and all
the episodes are mere allegories for spiritual realities. In the
same way the parts of the gospels which only tell the birth,
death and events of Christian life belong to the karmic type
of scriptures. They cannot possibly satisfy the Hindu mind
who looks for the adhyatmic Christianity or esoteric Chris-
tianity. For example, Christ understood the miracles and
parables as signs and even before his death he only spoke
in parables. This is the adhyatma Kristvidya, says
Klostermaier. He strongly believes that all the gospels have
both poles, the karmic as well as adhyatmic aspects of
Christ. St. John’s Gospel appeals to Hindus most, perhaps
exactly because it gives more of the adhyatmic Christ, the
Logos of Christ.
This means that Kristvidya does not belong to the
sphere of karma but it is equivalent to brahmavidya.
In the conclusion of the book, Klostermaier says that the
principle upon which kristvidya is based
Demands a full and real ‘incarnation’ of Christ in the culture
and categories of India. We have to find the place of Christ
within the Hindu religious systems. That it is not possible to
carry him into them from without should be proved by now
from history. Christianity is not an additional theological
system — perhaps ‘the only true logical’ infallible one — but
communication of the Word of God: it should be possible to
express the meaning of Christ in any language and philoso-
phy, to point him out as the soul and depth of all philosophies
and theologies that deserve the name.15
Just as the Greek Christologia does not exhaust the
mystery of Christ, kristvidya also cannot exhaust the mys-
tery of Christ. An Indian Kristvidya differs from the Greek
Christologia in its method. It will not
culminate in a summa of doctrines and definitions but will be
largely marga — a systematic liberating of man from all
wrong attitudes and concepts to ‘free’ him for the one, the
ultimate experience. What is unique is not the way but the
goal. 16
Thus, Klostermaier says, in Kristvidya we preserve all
the elements of karma marga, bhakti marga and jnana
164
marga. His other book, Hindu and Christian in Vrindaban,
is an exposition of his experience of this Kristvidya.
Evaluation
Klaus Klostermaier is not the only one to accept a
combination of all the margas, though, as Boyd points out,
he seems to have a preference for jnana marga.
It is highly unlikely therefore that a theology which mixes up
terminology from the various ‘strands’ will carry conviction
to a Hindu; and the Christian theologian is left with a great
difficulty: how is he to substantiate his claim that Christ is
God at the same time demonstrate the reality and the
goodness of the created world, including the human person-
ality, the human body and human history?17
Beside this, I would also apply the tree-fruit test.
S.K. GEORGE (1900-1960)
Srampikkal Kuruvilla George was born in 1900 in a
Syrian Christian family in Kottayam, to a rich cloth mer-
chant. He grew up in the pious and closed atmosphere of the
Anglican communion under the C.M.S. Church. After his
college education he went to study in Bishop’s college,
Calcutta, earned a B.D.degree. But since he developed
serious doubts about the orthodox theological position of
his church he could not go back to minister there, but
worked in the College as tutor for some years. During these
years he plunged into the Independence movement and was
converted to nationalism. He wrote his manifesto called
“India in travail”. Because of this he had to resign from the
College, and several years he wandered in the wilderness
without finding any group to attach with or support his
family. In fact. his small daughter died due to starvation. He
came to Gandhi’s ashram and developed a very close loyalty
to him and wrote his first book Gandhi’s Challenge to
Christianity. Later his wife Mary George, stayed back in
Kerala, on Gandhi’s insistence that she take up the work of
Kasturba Trust there while her husband went to
Shantiniketan to work there with Tagore. Later he came to
Wardha and taught there as a lecturer for about six years
165
and edited the quarterly The Fellowship of Friends Truth
Quarterly. That he was against conversion seems to be
evident as the Niyogi Commission accepted him as a good
Christian against the rest who proselytized. After retiring
from the Wardha College they returned home and George
died in 1960.
Besides the writings mentioned above he also contrib-
uted articles in journals and magazines like The Guardian,
and Young Men of India, and several other books: The Life
and Teachings of Jesus Christ, The World Teachers, The
Story of the Bible and The Life of Jesus.
One can summarize his thinking about Christ as follows:
though Christianity has unwarrantedly raised Jesus to the
level of deity, what is important is Jesus after the flesh, the
man of Nazareth. He is the central figure. His charge was that
when he was seeking to deify Jesus the churches have failed
to follow him. Thus his purpose to reveal the reality and
relevance of Jesus the Christ. As such, he selectively takes up
those parts of the gospel narrative where the humanity comes
through. Thus his conclusion is:
What is indispensable in accounting for the rise of the
Christian movement and what really matters for modern
living in the power of Christ is the belief that the spirit of
Jesus has triumphed over physical death, and that though
dead he still speaketh. That faith is independent of the legend
of the empty tomb.
This means that the old form of Christianity presented
as a creed, a system of beliefs and rituals, is no more
relevant. Rather we must preach it as a way of life in the
world and the struggles of today.
As far as the scriptures are concerned he gives credit
that his spiritual life has been nurtured on them, though he
thinks that God has also spoken in literature other than the
Bible. He had the dream of contributing to the “larger Bible
of mankind”. As such, the Bible is not the unique, the only
authentic word of God to man. He further says:
Every sacred book, every religion, is in a sense unique. It is
the result of a double process, of human search and divine
166
self-giving. The later is rightly regarded by every religious
soul as the more primal activity. The initiative is God’s
though the human response there to indispensable.
But what is unique about the Bible is the vision of the
good it shows. This vision of the good is gradually developed
and is consummated in “Jesus of Nazareth, Son of Man and
Son of God” who is “the unique treasure the Bible mediates
to man”. This means that though the Bible gives narrations
about Christ, it does not necessarily give scientific answers
to the questions of how and when of creation. Neither does
the book of Revelation give an authentic record of what
happens but rather a figurative way of God’s challenge to
Christianity.
George postulates that (1) “a true Christian in India
must necessarily be a Gandhiite”, and (2) “a true Gandhiite
is essentially a Christian”. Such a conviction of George is
based on the truth that the Cross of Jesus Christ is the way
for every man, and his belief that Gandhi has demonstrated
its applicability and proved its efficacy more than everyone
else.
As we have seen, George does accept Jesus Christ as a
historical person, but he accepts him only as that and no
more. According to him the deification of Christ is some-
thing parallel to the deification of other gods in India and
hence does not belong to the essence of Christianity.
Therefore he also does not deal with the crucial issues such
as atonement and the Cross and Resurrection. His ap-
proach to the Bible is liberal in the sense that he does not
see that God’s full and final revelation is to be found in
Christ and that he finds that God speaks in other religious
scriptures also.
167
NOTES
1. Swami Abhishiktananda, Hindu Christian Meeting Point, The Institute
of Indian Culture, Bombay, 1969, p. 27.
2. Ibid., p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 28.
4. Ibid., pp. 23-24.
5. Ibid., p. 19.
6. Boyd, ICT, 1989, p. 294.
7. Ibid., p. 296.
8. Ibid., p. 297.
9. Klaus Klostermaier, Kristvidya, CISRS, Bangalore, 1967, p. 13.
10. Ibid., p. 13.
11. Ibid., p. 15.
12. Ibid., p. 39.
13. Ibid., p. 21.
14. Ibid., p. 22.
15. Ibid., p. 40.
16. Ibid., p. 41.
17. Boyd, ICT, 1989, p. 308.

168
8

M.M. THOMAS (b. 1916)

In this chapter and the following we will be studying living
theologians, so their theology is still in the making and
changing. Looking at it one way, of all the contemporary
theologians we have studied, M.M. Thomas is a crucial
theologian in his own right. He is not only the most experi-
enced among the contemporary Indian thinkers but also the
one who has read most and written most. In the years to come
he may also have the greatest influence for Indian Christian
Theology. Along with Raymondo Panikkar and Stanley
Samartha, M.M. Thomas makes up the modern trio of Indian
theologians, comparable to the classical trio — Chakkarai,
Chenchiah and Devanandan. As we studied the first trio
together it will be beneficial to study the second one also
together, as they influence and cross fertilize one another.

Early Days
Madathilaparampil Mammen Thomas was born in 1916
in Panavila, Kerala. His father was a member of the Ortho-
dox Syrian Church. He was pious and quite well to do, a
well-known evangelist, also an enthusiastic patriot who
wore khaddar. After early schooling at his native place,
Thomas went to Trivandrum to study Chemistry. It was
during the first year at college that he came into contact with
Christ in a meaningful way which he describes in his own
unpublished autobiography:
It was through an evangelical experience as a first year
college student in Trivandrum in 1931-32 that Jesus Christ
became real to me as the bearer of divine forgiveness and gave
my life, awakened to adolescent rages, a principle of integra-
tion and a sense of direction.1

During his turbulent adolescence he was drawn in grate-

fulness to God and began reading the Bible and meditating on
it. At the time his moldable mind was deeply impressed by

169
books like The Imitation of Christ, The Transforming Friend-
ship, The Practice of the Presence of God and The Life of Prayer.
He also began to witness for Christ among his friends and took
active part in his own Mar Thoma Youth Union and also the
Student Christian Movement. To begin with he was depend-
ent upon the church. He writes, “I became devoted to the
church and beside availing myself of its liturgical and sacra-
mental resources I made regular visits to centres in the
neighborhood of the city for evangelistic work.”2
Finishing his college study, he went to Perumpavoor
Ashram, teaching in a school belonging to the Ashram. He
organized his friends into an “interceding fellowship” and
regularly circulated among them some letters apparently of
personal nature. At the same time he was actively involved
in the creating of an international fellowship among stu-
dents as well as an inter-religious fellowship of students.
Here he rejected both evangelism and the exclusive claims
of Christianity, arguing that “love is at the heart of universe”
and in love we need not pressurize one another to change
one’s convictions. He also met Pennamma, his future wife,
during these student activities and after ten long years of
engagement married her. As he himself mentions in some of
his books, it was his wife who was the primary cause for
Thomas’ Christ-centredness.
CHRISTIAN ACTION
1938 was a significant event in Thomas’ life when he was
co-founder of the Youth Christian Council of Action, whose
primary objectives were to bring out the social implications
of the gospel, to expose the evils within and without the
church and to act to remedy them. He was the secretary of
the Council, but soon there were splits in the organization
on the question of violence and so disassociated from those
who rejected violence and formed another new organization
called National Christian Youth Council in 1942. But this
latter organization was short lived. At this juncture, he says
in his autobiography:
I was with this last group and desired to make my double
orientation real by getting ordained to the ministry of the Mar
170
Thoma Church and by becoming a member of the Commu-
nist Party of India. Both of them refused, the Church’s
ordination committee on the grounds that I was not Christ-
centred enough, because I did not adhere to the ethic of truth
and non-violence; and the Party on the basis that my
religious conviction would bring disruption of the party
ranks and pave the way for reaction.3
This impossible attempt of Thomas to reconcile the
spirit of Christ to the Marxist-Leninist ideology has re-
mained the most dominant characteristic of his life and
thought throughout. Later for a little while he worked in a
hostel for street boys. This was the time when he came into
close contact with Sadhu Mathai, who remained a life long
friend of Thomas. This was also the time when his views on
the church were crystallized. In his own words:
There was a time when I thought of joining the ordained
ministry of the church and if I now think that way it is
because I have come finally to that strong conviction that as
things are now I can better serve the church by being outside
the official ministry.4
This anti-clerical attitude of Thomas has remained
throughout and also explaining why henceforth he worked
only with para-church organizations. In 1941 he was in-
strumental in defining the social creed for the Mar Thoma
Students’ Organization, which also became the social mani-
festo of the church. He based the manifesto of the divine
purpose of human brotherhood, the worth of human per-
sonality, and the equality of men in the sight of God —
elements which have remained with him for good.
After leaving the work in the boy’s hostel, along with one
Thamby he went to Bangalore to study with the well-known
Gandhian brother Ralph Keithahn. In Bangalore well known
writers like Reinhold Niebuhr, Hendrick Kraemer,
Christopher Dawson, C.H. Dodd, and Nicolas Berdyaev,
seem to have made a lasting impression on his youthful
mind. He also read Marxism.
STUDENT LEADER
During 1943-45 he joined the Student Christian Move-
ment, partly through the urging of M. Adiseshaiah, who also
171
encouraged him to write in the official organ The Student
World. This was the time when he read Luther, Augustine,
Aquinas, Aristotle and also met personally John Bennett of
Union Theological Seminary, New York, who became a close
friend.
This association with SCM brought him to Geneva as a
political secretary of the World Students’ Christian Federa-
tion. In that capacity he toured and organized conferences,
specially the famous Asian Leaders’ Conference at Kandy in
1948, and the World Youth Conference in Kottayam (1947).
He attended the Oslo Youth Conference in 1947. He also
attended the EACC meeting at Bangalore and was made the
secretary for the Church and Society wing. Being in Geneva
during 47-48, he also got involved in the preparations for
the first Assembly of the World Council of Church at
Amsterdam and came into contact with leaders like Oldham,
Brunner, Ellul, Niebuhr and others. He seems to have
contributed substantially to the Church and Society de-
partment. Perhaps because of his involvement with WCC,
which was seeking an alternative both to communist and
capitalistic societies, he eschewed communism, at least in
his thinking. He writes:
1948 saw a definite change in my orientation to communist
policies . . . I thought in Christian obligation to follow Marxian
technique of class struggle for social revolution, within a
liberal democratic framework, where it is viable.5
Turning point
Later on he toured quite a bit and this was the time when
he wrote The Christian in the World’s Struggle along with
Paul Abrecht of WCC. But actually a new stage began only
in 1953, as he himself confesses in his autobiography. He
came at this time to Union Theological Seminary, New York,
to study theology for a year (the only theological study he
ever had). Meeting people like Bates, and Paul Tillich, was
very exciting for him. After the study and a subsequent
touring of the United States, he returned to India to work
with the newly formed Christian Institute for the Study of
Society (later changed to Christian Institute for the Study of
172
Religion and Society), as Associate Director with P.D.
Devanandan, the Director. When Devanandan died in 1962
he became the Director, until his retirement.
Thomas is perhaps one of the very few Christian leaders
who have attended all the Assemblies of the World Council
of Churches and also has made significant contributions to
each. In India he worked also with the Committee for
Literature for Social Concerns and several allied efforts. His
conviction was “That the insights of the theologians and
social scientists should coalesce in these studies . . . it has
been an explicitly ‘Christian’ interpretation but in the
human and not in the communal sense.”6
As already mentioned, his ecumenical activities took
him all over the globe. He was made the chairman of the
World Conference on Church and Society, Geneva, in 1966.
His understanding of society, revolution and ideology was
stabilized mainly in connection with his preparation for and
contribution in this conference. His book Christian Partici-
pation in Nation Building is another key book in this area. In
1966-67 he went for a second time to UTS, New York, but
this time to teach as a visiting professor. The notes of his
teaching were later published as a book, The Acknowledged
Christ of the Indian Renaissance, a thoroughly selective
anthology. In 1968 he was elected the moderator of the
Central Committee of the WCC, perhaps the highest honour
given to any Indian Christian. Many of his ecumenical
utterances have been published by him in the form of a book
Some Theological Dialogues.
In 1969 a further decisive event took place in Thomas’
life. His wife Pennamma died after a long period of suffering
with cancer. This loss was irreparable. Since her pastoral
care was missing, he himself acknowledges that his theol-
ogy went wild afterwards. On his 60th birthday some of his
friends at CISRS produced a Festschrift in honour of him
entitled Society and Religion. At present he is engaged
primarily in writing a mammoth commentary on the whole
Bible and also in touring and lecturing a couple of times
every year in Europe, the United States and other places. He
173
lives in his home in Panavila and is also actively engaged in
indoctrinating the Kerala youth in his thinking.
Perhaps one more event in his life must be mentioned.
During the Emergency under Indira Gandhi’s prime minis-
tership, when there was an effective silence over all legal
measures, it is significant that Thomas boldly wrote against
the lapses of the government and circulated his notes
privately among friends. Later, when Indira was defeated
and another party came to power, his writings were col-
lected and published as a book entitled Response to Tyr-
anny. This paved the way for him to become the governor of
Nagaland for two years.
Theological Writings
His theological output, as already mentioned, is unbe-
lievably great. Besides, nearly 1000 articles, he has written
several books, and contributed or edited many more. His
primary books include, The Acknowledged Christ of the
Indian Renaissance, Man and the Universe of Faiths, Salva-
tion and Humanization, The Christian Response to the Asian
Revolution, Christian Participation in Nation Building, Secu-
larism in India and the Secular Meaning of Christ, Towards
a Theology of Contemporary Ecumenism, Risking Christ for
Christ’s Sake. One hopes that his autobiography, “Faith
Seeking Understanding and Responsibility”, will be pub-
lished in the near future. It is an excellent reading, portray-
ing the sincere searches, successes and failures of an
honest soul.
Theological Method
Before coming to a description of his theology it is
necessary to have a look at his theological method.
With an astounding consistency Thomas starts with the
world. He looks at the world, analyses what is happening
there and tries to understand what the Christian solution
can be. Thus the first step in his theology is what can be
called a contextual or situational approach. This is well
expressed as an appendix in his book The Acknowledged
174
Christ of the Indian Renaissance. This concentration on the
human situation has some implications.
1. Since it speaks only to those issues which are rel-
evant, that becomes a selective theology, and since the
human situation is the starting point his theology asks for
pluralistic answers. Apparently this sounds as if his theol-
ogy lacks the power of conviction. One also gets that feeling
that his theology is not only empirical, but also quite
fragmentary, which he himself admits.
2. His theology is action-oriented. Like the liberation
theologians of Latin America he places praxis before ortho-
doxy. Responsibility is the key word here. This is what the
WCC calls the action-reflection method. He finds the basis
for this in the New Testament: as “faith working through
love”. It is for this reason that Boyd labels Thomas’ theology
as “The Way of Action”.
Since Thomas is not an ‘academic’ theologian, it is
difficult to summarize his thought into some accessible
titles. For the sake of convenience we can study it under four
heads: Man’s quest, Christ’s Offer, the Mission of the
Church and the Goal of History.
Theological Emphases
MAN’S QUEST
Thomas starts with what is happening in the world, that
is history, and as he looks at history he discovers that above
all phenomena revolutions are predominant. Following the
approach of Vatican II and of the World Conference on
Church and Society, Geneva (1966), he also finds basically
three revolutions in the world: the scientific and technologi-
cal; the revolt of the oppressed groups, nations, classes and
races, demanding social and international justice; and
finally the break up of the traditional integration between
religion, society and the state or the secularization of
human life.
Of these, undoubtedly secularization is the basic revolt,
for while earlier man was afraid of nature, which swarmed
175
with spirits and Gods, now he is no more so afraid; instead
man has moulded nature to suit his own desires and
comforts and has created a hominised world. This is also the
cause for the scientific revolution. Earlier the Christian
Church either rejected all revolutions as satanic or followed
the revolutions blindly. He says that both these attitudes
are false. The proper approach to revolutions consists in two
steps.
First, to recognize that within the revolutions Christ is
at work awakening desires for more human (that also means
Christians) values. Secondly, to identify these values. He
enumerates them: freedom, selfhood, humanness of the
community and a sense of personal destiny, being involved
in mankind’s historical destiny.
Such an approach tends to mean that a revolution is a
partial fulfillment of the kingdom of God. No doubt he sees
the evil in revolutions, that revolution devours its own
children, but he says this is where revolutions need the
prophetic voice of the church. Hence,
Herein lies the mission of the church. It is to participate in
the movements of human liberation of our time in such a way
as to witness to Jesus Christ as the source, the judge and the
redeemer of human spirituality.
GOD’S IMAGE IN MAN
Behind these revolutions Thomas sees a revolution in
the human spirit. He says that the traditional understand-
ing of man as being created in the image of God needs to be
re-cast, so he defines the image of God in man as “the
obligation to respond to the call in freedom is the core of his
personality, the basis of his eternal status as a person.” 7
This means that freedom and responsibility are the key
elements of God’s image in man. Thus the social aspect as
well as the spiritual aspect are found here. Here Thomas is
consciously following the process theology since he says
that not only man, but God also, is in process of evolution.
So he finds the evolution of man an inevitable necessity,
following to some extent Chenchiah here.
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NEW SPIRITUALITY
Continuing on the revolutions, Thomas says there must
be a fundamental change in our understanding of human
spirituality. He is not so much concerned about human
nature or person or spirit but spirituality which he defines
as “the way in which man, in the freedom of his self-
transcendence, seeks a structure of ultimate meaning and
sacredness” 8 , the goal being self-realization through in-
volvement in history. His contention is that for our age of
revolutions an adequacy must be sought in open secular-
ism. The goal of such ideology, as of revolutions, is a
responsible world society — in other words, either the
kingdom of God or the Marxian classless society. Since
religion is a most potent source for strife in the world it does
not help towards a classless society. Hence there must be a
need for inter-religious dialogue. And so he comes up with
his famous “Christ-centred syncretism”, which means con-
version not of individuals but of the whole religious systems
to Christ. And so ultimately all religions and ideologies will
be found in Christ.
GOD AND SIN
He scarcely deals with the doctrines of God or sin. While
dealing with sin he emphasizes corporate sin, corporate
remedies rather than personal sins: “Oppressive structures
of corporate life are the result of the accumulated sins of
generations and they develop an anonymity and momen-
tum almost independent of persons now living.”9
Rejecting the doctrine of creation, Thomas rejects also
the doctrine of human depravity. Man ‘falls’ in his destruc-
tive and selfish ambitions and is created in his nobler works.
This figurative interpretation of the biblical passages also
shows that he does not take the inspiration of the Bible
seriously. As far as the doctrine of God is concerned, there
is hardly anything worthwhile he has written except a
couple of gleanings among all his writings. When he does
speak about God he speaks of God’s action in political
history rather than the attributes of God. That the theology
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of hope has tremendous influence on Thomas’ thinking is
clear from the following quotation:
Creation is the world in motion towards its fulfillment in the
coming eschaton. The eschaton is the creative power, the
inner dynamic of the world in process, of the history of
mankind towards integration in the lordship of Christ.
Following Chenchiah he sees “the absolute as a con-
struct of the human mind involved in the process”, and thus
he does not think of God as unchangeable and absolute but
as being a part of the evolving process.
CHRIST’S OFFER
All the foregoing is discussed as part of what man is
seeking after and hence he comes to the understanding of
what Christ has to offer. Since man is seeking freedom and
historical involvement etc., Christ, Thomas discovers, offers
exactly these things. So his christology is a tailored one. In
talking of Christ’s incarnation Thomas is concerned not so
much about God becoming man but rather about two
aspects: since Jesus is a man born in particular time in
history, for him the incarnation means the validation of man
as the method of God and history as the arena of God’s
action.
As far as the Cross is concerned, it is “the eternal and
ultimate symbol of . . . condemnation and forgiveness”. He
resolutely rejects the penal substitution on the Cross. To
quote him once again, “the crucifixion of Jesus Christ
reveals that self-love has its source not in any accident of
circumstance but in the spirit of man.” Like some earlier
theologians he understands that on the Cross kenosis took
place, i.e. the emptying not of Christ’s deity or any other
aspect, but of his self. And so the Cross becomes a symbol
and an example for men to imitate. What does he think of the
resurrection as a physical event? Thomas, like Bultmanians,
believes that Jesus was raised from the dead but in the
minds of the disciples and so it was a spiritual resurrection.
In any case, Thomas thinks of Jesus Christ as the new man,
as the proto-type of self-sacrificial love.
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How does man respond to Christ’s offer of being an
example, of being the new man? There are several re-
sponses. First, those who accept the pattern of self-giving
love and forgiveness have already responded to Christ to
some extent. At a deeper level are those who accept the
divine mediation or the atonement of the suffering Messiah.
At another level there are those who accept the very person
of Jesus as the ultimate model of the Messiah to come. He
sees all these as valid responses to the Christ. This quanti-
fying of the Pauline faith is rather radically new. But finally
he also sees man’s response to Christ involving his alle-
giance to him as the Lord and saviour and joining his church
in baptism.
Thomas has more to say on the universal lordship of
Christ: “the certainty that Christ reigns as the sovereign
Lord of the cosmos and will sum up all things in Christ is an
essential part of the biblical faith”. He sees the whole world
as being under the hidden kingship of the risen Christ and
moving towards the day of his open reign, at his second
coming — all these categories are understood figuratively.
In this Lordship of all he sees all religions, all nations, all
revolutions being imbibed with Christian values and the
spirit of Christ. And also on this basis Thomas differentiates
between secular and salvation history, as many have done.
Thus for Thomas Christ is not only the agent of creation, the
divine power, but primarily he is the fulfillment of history.
Here very openly Thomas accepts the logical conclusion —
universalism.
THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH
Then what is the mission of the Church? As we have seen
earlier, according to Thomas it is to participate in the
revolutions of our time. The Church’s mission is primarily
one of humanization and not of salvation. Salvation or
redemption is only one aspect of humanization, catering to
the inward or to the spiritual aspects of mankind. The
recipients of Christian mission are not individuals anymore
but structures such as cultures, religions and ideologies.
The method is no more proclamation, but now it is partici-
179
pation or as he calls it the confession of participation. The
bearers are no more the called and sent missionaries, but
rather organizations or the churches who do the work. He
has enough to say why the verbal communication of the
gospel is utterly inadequate for our time. So he comes to the
conclusion that evangelism in our time equals service.
Unless the church exercises its prophetic ministry of con-
structive criticism, the priestly ministry of the suffering
servant, it has lost its salt. Following from here he goes on
to give details of the task the church has in several areas of
national and international life — the political, the economic,
the cultural, the social, the religious etc.
True to his anti-clericalism, Thomas emphasizes more
on the ministry of the laity in the world when he talks about
the church. For him the church must have koinonia, or open
fellowship, without any barrier. For this reason he dis-
cusses baptism whether it should be an entrance ticket into
the church or privilege of the member of the church (like the
Eucharist). These insights lead him also to the formation of
the church in Hindu and other religious systems:
Once we acknowledge that the Christ-centred fellowship of
faith and ethics transcends the Christian religious commu-
nity, are we not virtually saying that the church can take
from as Christ-centred fellowship of faith and ethics in the
Hindu religious community?
And so he comes up with what he calls “the Christ-
centred Hindu church”. All this is in line with his under-
standing of the pluralistic response of man to Christ dealt
with earlier.
THE GOAL OF HISTORY
If that is the mission of the church, what is finally the
goal of history? Here Thomas admittedly takes the Marxian
analysis of history as class struggle, and so the goal is, in his
own words, the unity of all things (his equivalent of classless
society) (see my book, Revolution as revelation - there I
have tried to show that he takes this goal essentially
from Hinduism as well as from Marxism and from process
theology).
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Evaluation
Evidently, the theology we have outlined thus far is very
much unlike theology, in the sense it looks more like a
political or sociological history of man. This is to the credit
of Thomas, for he does not see the spiritual aspect of man
isolated but in its integral relations with all other aspects.
My own evaluations are as follows:
1. Thomas has tried to reconcile the biblical revelation
with three systems: Marxist ideology, Hindu spirituality
and process philosophy, but he has failed in bringing this
reconciliation. He has so failed because the character of the
biblical revelation is entirely different from the other three
systems. Since he has attempted this impossible amalga-
mation, his theology ultimately ends up in one or all of the
following results: Either God’s holiness as given in the Bible
will be rejected, or the personal lordship of Christ will be
rejected, or faith as the connection between God and man
will be rejected.
2. Following from such an understanding of God, Christ,
man and the world Thomas’ theology inevitably leads to
political action.
3. There is a basic lack in his approach to the scriptural
revelation — he has tried to find revelation in the revolu-
tions. Thomas has done very little exegesis in all his
theological writings. His writings are more philosophical,
sociological, ideological or political, but almost never have
biblical support. Raising history and scientific expertise to
the level of the scriptures in authority he has diluted the
scriptures radically. It is not just a question of how to
interpret the Bible, but of the very place of the Bible in our
Faith.
RAYMONDO PANIKKAR (b. 1918)
In ecumenical meetings where Protestants, Catholics
and Orthodox are involved, invariably it is the Catholics
who dominate the scene by their philosophical input. This
is to be expected, because in Protestant seminaries the
181
whole theological education is finished within three or at
the most four years. But in Roman Catholic seminaries they
start by learning philosophy for about five years and only
then they go on to the study of theology for another six or
seven years.
Here I am definitely thinking of theological reasons. For
me it is obviously based on Thomas Aquinas’ structure of
nature and supernature. To nature belongs the natural or
universal ability of man given in creation. To the super-
nature or grace belongs the additional capabilities given
through Christ. As far as theology is concerned, reason
belongs to nature and faith belongs to supernature. In other
words, there is a natural theology as well as a revealed
theology. Natural theology is that which man can know
about God by human reason without the aid of revelation.
Revealed theology necessarily bases itself on the Scrip-
tures. Aquinas accepted natural theology as valid and
therefore philosophy has been part of the Roman Catholic
theology since his time. Reformation theology has generally
rejected the competence of the fallen human reason to
engage in natural theology. Only by the enlightenment of
the Spirit in regenerate man can a true knowledge of God be
found.
But behind this framework of thought there is the basic
exegetical approach to the image of God in man. In Genesis
1:26 we read “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness’.” Here the use of the two terms ‘image’ and
‘likeness’ have different meanings in Protestant and Roman
Catholic Circles. The Protestant theologians rightly equate
one with the other, since elsewhere in the Bible they are
interchangeably used. But the Roman Catholics make a
strict distinction. According to Aquinas and the Catholics
the ‘likeness’ or similitudo consists in the original right-
eousness given to man, whereas the image or imago con-
sists in, among other things, reason. They contend that
while similitudo (likeness) was lost in the fall of Adam and
hence for the rest of mankind, the imago is not lost, that is,
the human reason is still intact to know true elements about
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God. For this reason the Roman Catholics have majored in
natural theology and hence in philosophy.
There is one more final reason and that has to do with
sanctification and the sacraments. The Protestants generally
accept that sanctification is something imputed to man. That
is, Christ’s righteousness, imputed to use by faith. It is based
on our relationship and standing before God. But Catholics
believe that it is a complete, almost substantial transforma-
tion of the inner being, effected by the sacraments. For them,
God’s righteousness is imparted to us. Thus sacraments have
an effect ex opere operato. That means, the sacraments are
effective in the operation itself apart from the faith of the
believer. This means that the Church, by the use of the
sacraments, has direct access into, the realm of supernature
or grace or revelation. Hence, it has a greater command over
its ‘subjects’ than the Protestant churches. Ultimately it is
linked to the magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church
and Papal infallibility.
Thus far we have spoken about natural theology be-
cause in Raymondo Panikkar we see it at its highest. You
will not be surprised by the use of Latin and Sanskrit terms
which have to be expected and in which he is an expert.
Raymondo Panikkar was born in Spain to a Hindu father
and a Spanish Roman Catholic mother. He was also brought
up in both places, India and Spain. He learned both Vedanta
and the Bible equally. And then he studied in Spain,
Germany, and Italy and later also in Benares. Even now he
lives in two worlds: he teaches part-time in the West and
part-time in Benares. He has written many books both in
Spanish and German. Most of them are unknown in India.
But what are known are his English books: Cult Mysterium
in Hinduism and Christendom, Religion and Religions,
Kerygma and India, Indian Letters, The Trinity and World
Religions and above all the publication of his doctoral
thesis, The Unknown Christ of Hinduism. This last men-
tioned book was published in 1964 in the midst of the
proceedings of Vatican II, and was virtually taken up as the
theology of the Vatican II concerning religions, as the final
183
pronouncements of that Council show. We can begin to
study the major emphases of his theology from this book.
He starts with the question, what is the meeting place for
a fruitful dialogue between Hinduism and Christianity? To
answer in his own words:
Where can a real encounter take place, so that both having
met there could no longer be room any more for ignoring each
other, but only for a catholic embrace and exclusive substi-
tution or a mutual interpenetration?
Here both segregation and substitution are definitely
neither desirable nor possible, according to Panikkar. He
analyses and finds that neither mere cultural synthesis nor
doctrinal parallelism are adequate as meeting point. But he
affirms that Christ is the meeting place for the two religions.
Both meet in Christ: Christ is there in Hinduism but
Hinduism is not yet his spouse. Hinduism is the desired
bride whose betrothal was celebrated long ago in the Vedic
times and whose marriage still remains the mystery of
history. According to him Hinduism seems to say: “Because
we all are really the same, what harm is there if we keep
separate?” while Christianity seems to answer: “if we are all
really the same what harm is there in coming together?”
Basing his logic on the classical passages in the Book of
Acts about the Logos spermatikos idea Raymondo Panikkar
asks,
If God has a universal providence over the whole of mankind,
and Christianity is the fullness of his revelation ‘in those last
times’, there, must also be a link between the cosmic
religions and the religion of his Son.
In fact he finds that Hinduism is a kind of Christianity
in potential, a kind of Christianity in seed. Apparently his
own life situation is reflected here, the relationship of his
Hindu father and Catholic mother.
Panikkar states as his basis the exposition of Brahma
Sutra (1:1, 2 ). The text reads, Janmadi asya yatah. Literally
it means “whence the origin of this?” According to the rules
of the Hindu exposition the text could be expounded to
mean “Brahman is the whence, the origination, sustenance,
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and transformation of this world” or in simpler words
“Brahman is the total ultimate cause of this world”. The text
has been of course a crucial one in Hindu theology as
Shankara, Ramanuja, Madhava, Yaksha and several others
have very variedly expounded it. The question is an old one.
If Brahman is the unconditional Absolute how can he be the
cause of the world? And this is precisely where Panikkar
suggests: a Christian solution to this logical dilemma. In his
own words, “that from in which this world comes forth and
to which it returns and by which it is sustained — that ‘that’
is Christ”. Thus already in the very core of the Brahmasutra
Christ is there, for without Christ the dilemma cannot be
solved. This is the agnostos Christos, the unknown Christ
in Hinduism. Of course in accepting Christ as Brahman he
adopts the personalist strands in Hinduism to the exclu-
sion of the advaitic strands. Based on this presence of Christ
in Hinduism Panikkar, like M.M. Thomas advocates the
conversion or transformation of Hinduism to Christ. In this
transformation he maintains that there is no real loss for
Hinduism but it only gains its own soul. It will be a
transformation into a higher sphere, yet keeping its full
identity. The concept and the logic is a bit difficult to
understand but that has been main trust of his thinking.
In a latter book called The Trinity and the World Religions
he arrives at a similar conclusion from a different angle. His
main concern is to work towards “the universalisation of
Christianity, towards the actualization . . . of its catholicity”
contributing “to the development of all religions’ unity”. He
then proceeds to show how in the doctrine of the Trinity the
three kinds of spiritualities, karma marga, bhakti marga and
jnana marga, are not mutually exclusive but can be recon-
ciled. Here he admits, of course, the key problem is the real
meaning and content of the terms ‘nature’ and ‘person’ — this
we have seen already earlier. His final solution is ‘theandrism’.
Theandrism is the classical and traditional term for that
intimate and complete unity which is realized . . . in Christ,
between the divine and the human and which is the goal
towards which everything here below tends in Christ and the
Spirit.
185
 And he finds theandrism best suited to characterize the
synthesis of the three spiritual attitudes described earlier. Of
course, the term ‘theandric’ is an alternative term for Trinity.
In philosophical terms he puts it thus: “Theandrism stresses
in a paradoxical fashion (for one can speak in no other way)
the infinitude of man, for he is tending towards God the
infinite; and the finitude of god for he is the end (finis) of man.”
This theandric vision of reality of Panikkar is an alterna-
tive both to dvaitic and advaitic visions. Thus according to
Panikkar theandrism is more than both thought and action,
it is a spirituality; for Panikkar man is more than a mere
human being: he is a theandric mystery.
Evaluation
Of course, as we have already hinted, the whole of
Panikkar’s theology is philosophical in approach and the logic
of it eludes the reader. Yet we can attempt some evaluation.
(a) Basing himself firmly on Thomism, that is on Aristo-
telian logic, and on the magisterium (teaching authority) of
the Church, Panikkar does not budge from the orthodox
doctrines of the Church. As is the case of most of the Roman
Catholic theologians, he tends to centre all authority in the
Pope. I say this because as long as Catholicism was closed
to outside religion so were its theologians, and once it
opened so also did the theologians.
(b) Secondly, he has followed the usual Logos spermatikos
idea (by now you will be familiar with the term) which
though has some truth and biblical support, yet in my
opinion definitely dilutes the uniqueness and the finality of
Jesus Christ as the culmination of God’s revelation. If one
can find Christ in Hinduism, or elsewhere in revolutions, as
M.M. Thomas has asserted, why then do Christians preach,
why does the Church exist? What at all is conversion and
why at all incarnation?
(c) For Panikkar, the fact of his being born to a mixture
of religions — a Hindu father and a Catholic mother — has
had a strong effect on him. A parallel is the life of Paul Tillich,
who was born and brought up in Germany in the border
186
situations of the World War. Then later on he worked and
lived in America. So all his writings deal with the two worlds,
and with border situations, as he himself admits. We find a
similar influence of Panikkar’s life context on his theologiz-
ing. After all, each of us is a child of our times, are we not.
STANLEY JOSEPH SAMARTHA
Background
Like M.M. Thomas, Russell Chandran and Panikkar,
Stanley Samartha is one of our contemporary, senior theo-
logians in India. He hails from the South Kanara district of
Karnataka, as his name reveals. His influence outside India
is more than inside. After having studied at United Theologi-
cal College, Bangalore, he finished his doctoral dissertation
in the United States, on the philosophy of Dr. S.
Radhakrishnan. On his return he taught for several years in
UTC and then at Serampore where he became the Principal
of the Serampore College.
In 1968, when the World Council of Churches was re-
organizing its Study Unit on the Word of God and the Living
Faiths of Men they called Samartha to the Unit as its director.
Soon his excellent leadership converted the Unit into a full-
fledged organization within WCC, named DFI — Dialogue
with Men of Other Faiths and Ideologies. Till 1975 he worked
as Director at Geneva and after his retirement he came to
teach at Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore. Now he is
a lecturer and theologian at large, particularly at UTC.
He has written and edited several books. One of the most
readable and clear presentation of his thoughts is his book
The Hindu Response to the Unbound Christ. Beside that he
has either written partly or edited several other books in the
capacity of Director of DFI, all on the subject on dialogue.
Samartha’s Christology
Samartha’s main contribution is naturally in the realm
of christology, and here he has gone beyond his predeces-
sors. Raymondo Panikkar’s The Unknown Christ of Hindu-
187
ism postulated that Christ is already present there in pure
Hinduism but not yet known to Hindus. M.M. Thomas went
a step further in The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian
Renaissance affirmed that though Christ is still unknown in
the pure Hinduism, he is already acknowledged in the
modern Indian renaissance. Samartha goes beyond both
these steps. In The Hindu Response to the Unbound Christ
he postulates that Hindus have recognized Christ in their
own traditions and even have responded to him at several
levels. His book is a study of the several levels of Hindu
responses. As a conclusion he gives a summary of what an
authentic Indian Christology should be and here he defi-
nitely takes an advaitic interpretation of Christ.
In his books he gives excellent guidelines as to what
kind of Christology the Indian Church must evolve:
Its (i.e. the Indian Christology’s) central effort should be to
acknowledge the mystery and explain the meaning of the
person and work of Jesus Christ. Its starting point is the total
commitment to Christ as crucified and risen Lord. Its context
is one of sharing and involvement . . . it is my conviction that
unless Indian Christian theological thinking takes advaita
seriously in both its classical and modern forms it is not likely
to make any effective contribution to the quest for resources
to undergird our national life.
Thus he makes clear that his primary purpose in study-
ing Christ is to make his claims and offers relevant to the
national needs struggles of India, and not a spiritualized
version of these needs and struggles.
His theology starts with a very valid question: “What does
it mean to affirm that Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour today
in India?” 10 In answering this the basic situation of India
ought to be in competition with the whole range of Hinduism
but can rather be in “co-operation with it.” The reason for this
is that “if the message of the gospel has to become challeng-
ingly relevant to human needs today both the credibility of the
Saviour and the meaning of the salvation he offers have to be
stated afresh”11, that is, only by involvement and meeting the
present struggles and meeting the present needs. But sadly,
he says, the Christian presence is symbolized by “the church
188
building on the same river bank, with a cross on the top but
with its doors shuttered and its gates locked, to be opened
only on the following sunday”12 while on the other side there
are slums and huts and workers and strikes going on. Yet, in
the midst of all this, Christ is standing incognito because “The
Hindu response to Christ is sufficient evidence of his pres-
ence, even though the manner of the response and its
characteristics may be unfamiliar to those inside the hedges
of the traditional church.”13
In this connection, Samartha emphasizes that only the
universal accessibility of Christ, but also his universal
initiatives, are to be taken account of. But then he is quite
aware that such an acknowledgment of Hindu response to
Christ outside the church has several implications:
a) Now that Christ is found to be present in most
important areas of Hindu life and thought, the church must
be grateful for such a revelation rather than offer suspicious
criticism.
b) It paves the way in which direction indigenous Chris-
tianity must proceed.
c) The Church must start afresh the meaning of “the
historic particularity of Christ even when he is ‘unbound’”.14
d) Christianity need not be in competition with Hindu-
ism but learn to co-operate with it.
Our Hindu brethren should not be regarded as recruits to the
kingdom of God but as fellow citizens in the commonwealth
of Christ, seeking together the fullness of Christ in his
continuing work of reconciliation and renewal.15
e) It also means that this common quest could help
Hindus themselves “by way of deepening and enriching its
own heritage as it seeks to relate itself to modern needs.”16
Of course, Samartha is not speaking of one response but
of several Hindu responses to Christ, because “Response is a
complex attitude involving cultural, psychological and theo-
logical factors, and in trying to describe it one should be
careful to avoid generalization and over-simplification of the
issues.” 17
189
HINDU RESPONSES
With that principle he differentiates three types of Hindu
responses to Christ.
a) “Response to Christ without commitment to him”.18
As examples he cites the following Indian thinkers: Sree
Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Akhilananda,
Raja Ram Mohan Roy, S. Radhakrishnan. For these people
there is absolutely no value in the Christian Church nor
commitment to Christ.
b) “Response and commitment to Christ, and Christ
alone, but reject the context of Hinduism itself, but with
either indifference to or a total rejection of the Church.”19
Here belong the people who accept Jesus Christ but reject
the institution of the Church, like Subba Rao, Parekh and
others.
c) “Response and commitment to Christ and an open
entry into the Church through baptism, but with strong
criticism of the church from within its fellowship.”20 People
belonging to this kind of response are part of the church, on
the membership roll of the church, but raise a prophetic
voice against the church practices. The ‘Re-thinking Chris-
tianity’ group is an example he mentions, that is people like
Chenchiah, Chakkarai and the like.
As a postscript he adds a fourth category of response
which he describe as “The effort to discover the hidden
Christ within Hinduism itself and to unveil him even though
there is no conscious visible response to him.”21
Raymondo Panikkar and Klaus Klostermaier are exam-
ples of this type of response. Naturally this is not a Hindu
response, as Samartha is aware of. The attempt here is to
make explicit what is already implicit in this very citadel of
Hinduism.
Then Samartha goes on to analyze in detail the different
responses. Some of the common elements of those who have
given the first type of response to Christ are:
190
1) To all of them experience is the supreme authority in
religion.
2) All of them make a selective use of the scripture,
whether Hindu or Christian, in interpreting Christ. They
also show little interest in the Old Testament. The Gospels
are their primary interest and specially the fourth Gospel.
3) The church is an unnecessary appendix for them. The
notion of election or the people of God is arrogance in their
sight.
4) There is no special significance they attach to the
historicity of Jesus Christ.
5) They rather give importance to the ethical teachings
of Christ and especially to his sermon on the mount. Yet all
of them regard the death of Christ with the greatest respect,
since it is a symbol of self-sacrifice and renunciation. But
the resurrection has no special significance for them.
6) All of them make conscious effort to separate Christ
from Christianity. Thus their response is not to the Christ
of the Church but to the unbound Christ.
7) To all of them service is a crucial category, and they
regard service to man as equivalent to service of God. As
such, worship of God and philanthropic activity are brought
together.
8) Most of them use the advaitic framework to fit Christ
and his work, so Samartha asserts: “Therefore it is clear that
any attempt at Christology in the context of Hinduism, if it
should command their intellectual respect, must in some
way come to terms with Advaita, not just in its classical form
but also in its modern interpretation.”
9) There is a strong tendency in all of them to universalize
Christ, to lift him out of his Jewish particularity and western
cultural bondage and emphasize the Christ principle against
the Jesus of Nazareth.
10) None of them really commit themselves to Christ. “At
best Christ is an additional item in their spiritual menu.”
191
They do not consider Christ as an alternative to present
possibilities but only as additional source for their spiritual
growth.
INTERPRETING CHRIST THROUGH ADVAITA
With these responses in mind, Samartha comes to
define what he calls “the core of the Christian dogma”, “the
essence of the faith once delivered to the Saints”. Since
anubhava is the chief source of knowledge among the
advaitins, that is, since Brahman can be known only through
anubhava, Samartha believes that it should be our starting
point. But Christian anubhava has a certain distinctive-
ness,
First in that, unlike advaita, here the Christian anubhava is
controlled by the historical fact of Christ, and second, in that
it has a social dimension in the church, in the fellowship in
which it is sustained, strengthened and transmitted to
others. 22
Here Samartha of course criticizes both the bhakti
understanding of avatara as unsuitable for Christ, as well
as Ramanuja’s understanding of matter and consciousness
raised to the level of Godhead. He thinks advaita is the more
suited strand for the interpretation of the Christian gospel.
And particularly the Advaita of Shankara. But since there is
a tendency of dvaitic inquiry to reduce the significance both
of person and history, Samartha suggests that the Christian
view of advaita would “help in recovering the sense of the
personal, the historical and the social in the structure of
Hindu spirituality”. This means that in Samartha’s thinking
the interpretation of Brahman is not impersonal but it is
reconcilable with personal values. Thus he is free to relate
Christ to Brahman. Samartha realizes that the real point of
contention here is: What do we mean by the term person? He
suggests that there should be at least the following as its
content: subsistence, distinctiveness, completeness and
intelligence.
How do we then in advaitic system understand the
world? Is it an illusion or a reality? Samartha says, “It is not
necessary to understand maya as advocating the unreality
192
of the world. Maya should be regarded not so much as the
doctrine of the ontological status of the world as description
of its relation to God.” He approves Devanandan’s approach
that maya need not mean even a first-rate reality but a
dependent reality which has worth in the sight of God. In
any case, Samartha is clear that the maya of advaita is not
identical with the world of the Bible. Therefore,
The historical nature of Jesus Christ, with all its implications
for man and society, can be justifiably considered in this
context. It can be noted that the ontological status and the
historical fact of Jesus Christ are held together in his life and
framework.
So what is more important is to affirm the fact that in
Jesus Christ this world of nature and history is created,
redeemed and sustained, and of course God’s grace is being
directed to its final consummation.
THE PERSON AND WORK OF CHRIST
Then how do we view the two natures of Christ and
specially the deity of Christ? Along with Cullmann, Samartha
says that there is no need to say that God’s nature is
completely exhausted in Jesus. That is to say, while accept-
ing God’s truth and love in Jesus Christ, the sense of the
mystery and depth in God should not be eliminated in any
christology in India.
Then Samartha considers the work of Christ’s salvation.
In the advaitic monism some things are not given enough
significance. These include: Freedom and responsibility of
the individual personality; the social and historical dimen-
sions of human life; the possibilities for the emergence of the
new both in nature and in history; the fact of tragedy and evil
within human spirituality sometimes masquerading as
goodness; the persistence of sin, guilt and death in human
existence, particularly at a time when new weapons of total
destruction create the disposal of man, which may willfully
be used or accidentally released.
So Christian christology must give them significance.
Only through an interpretation of Cross and the Resurrec-
193
tion of Christ can this be possible. Yet we must avoid the
‘emergency measure’ or ‘rescue operation’ kind of interpre-
tation of the Cross, because the scope of Christ’s work is
larger than the redemption of individuals:
As the agent of creation and as the Saviour of mankind, his
work is continuing until all things are summed up in him.
Here therefore the advaita emphasis on the unity of life,
where history and nature are seen together in the totality of
the life of God, is not irrelevant.
This does not mean, as Christians have often done, that
we should explain away the mystery of the Cross. Yet the
offense of the Cross need not be stated in an offensive way.
He would like us to avoid the following mistakes: the
tendency to describe the Resurrection as a kind of happy
ending to an otherwise tragic story; theories of atonement
based on the idea of sacrifice; the tendency to remain
weeping at the foot of the Cross and join the emotional
catharsis; and over-emphasis on original sin; the stress on
feelings of sin and guilt as prerequisites before the saving
power of the Cross; obsessions with the symptoms of sin
rather than its root and the like.
Samartha says Christ’s death and suffering were, first,
voluntary, secondly, vicarious “in the sense that there is a
deliberate recognition that it was for the sake of the others”,
thirdly, it is the resurrection which is the culmination of the
cross. Hence the cross cannot be interpreted without the
resurrection.
In the conclusion of the book Samartha comes back to
the original question with which he started: What does it
mean to confess Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour in India
today? He answers:
To accept the lordship of Jesus Christ means that one must
be prepared to obey God’s demand in Christ to crucify the
self, in its desire for isolation and in its feeling of self-
sufficiency, in order that the promise of renewal in the
resurrection might become operative in human life. Wher-
ever the Christ event is recognized and whatever people are
prepared consciously to die with him and to be raised again
with him, there God’s work of reconciliation takes place.
194
The Goal of Salvation
Samartha knows that this salvation in Christ is beyond
human or social or cosmic history. It includes the consum-
mation of all life, the disclosure of the ultimate meaning of
creation. It is definitely not a return to the beginning but an
enrichment and fulfillment, a move through the struggles
and conflicts, overcoming evil in love and finding final
fulfillment in the fullness of God himself. Thus there is no
exclusiveness in Christology in India. On the contrary, “it is
the declaration of the universality of the unbound Christ .
. . Christ transcends all cultures.”
So Samartha concludes his book Hindu Response to the
Unbound Christ by saying Christ is always involved in
human situations, wherever the struggle for justice, free-
dom and truth is going on, and demands that his followers
also participate in his crucifixion and resurrection. And he
cannot be bound or identified with any particular cultural
situation nor to a particular system of thought.
INTER-RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
Since Samartha is also the primary spokesman for the
theology of dialogue of WCC we must say something on that
topic also. We will speak of one aspect of dialogue from his
writings. He thinks of two principal attitudes for any dia-
logue: openness and commitment. First commitment. Un-
less one is committed to a particular set of beliefs he cannot
dialogue. Thus he exhorts that only committed Christians,
those who are fully committed to Christ, can have the
courage to have the dialogue. But commitment is not
sufficient unless it is coupled with openness. One should be
open not only to understand what the other has to say in
dialogue, but be open enough to change one’s own position
in the light of the dialogue; only then it is true openness.
And dialogue does not take place between structures,
i.e., religions or theologies, nor at the intellectual level, but
it takes place at the human level. That is why WCC sub-unit
is called dialogue with men (later, people) of other faiths and
ideologies. This is certainly healthy.
195
 Since dialogue takes place in community there are two NOTES
aspects to it. First the Dialogue within the community: “the 1. M.M. Thomas, “Faith Seeking Understanding and Responsibility”,
building up of relationships expressing mutual care and p. 1.
mutual understanding”. Among the Christians this must 2. Ibid.
lead to communication. Secondly dialogue between com- 3. Ibid., p. 24.
munities: “For the sake of a wider community of peace and
4. Ibid., p. 9.
justice”. Common purpose in society are important here.
5. Ibid., pp. 56-57.
This may lead to international consensus or inter-religious
dialogue. Without the first the second becomes shallow 6. Ibid., p. 89.
sentimentalism, but without the second the first becomes 7. J.R. Chandran and M.M. Thomas (eds.), Political Outlook in India
narrow exclusivism. Today, pp. 168-169. 8. MM Thomas, Christian Action in Asian Struggle,
speech at EACC Assembly at Bangkok, 1975, p. 3.
What does dialogue do? a) it clarifies the meaning of 8. Ibid.
terms used in dialogue; b) it makes possible “a more
9. M.M. Thomas, speech at 5th Assembly of WCC at Nairobi, in
coordinated theological reflection on the relationships be- Revolution as Revelation, p. 118.
tween religions”; c) it provides a theological framework 10. S.J. Samartha, The Hindu Response to the Unbound Christ, CLS,
within which questions can be asked from all sides. Thus, Madras, 1974, p. 5.
a theological dialogue is necessary, says Samartha. 11. Ibid., p. 3.

Evaluation 12. Ibid., p. 3.

Samartha’s resort to the advaitic system as the proper 13. Ibid., p. 4.

vehicle for interpreting Christ is based primarily on empiri- 14. Ibid., p. 14.
cal enquiry and not necessarily on theological grounds. 15. Ibid., p. 14.

He seems to be carried away by the vision of unity of 16. Ibid., p. 15.

Advaita and thus he seems to dilute the uniqueness (one 17. Ibid., p. 117.
can say even exclusiveness) of Christ as portrayed in the 18. Ibid., p. 117.
Bible. Since his goal seems to be more of a society of peace 19. Ibid., p. 117.
and justice and harmony he is more concerned with avoid-
20. Ibid., p. 117.
ing religious conflicts than in preserving the truth of the
21. Ibid., p. 117.
Gospel. As a result, his reinterpretation of the Cross and
Resurrection existentially and his dilution of the penal 22. Ibid., p. 118.
substitutional theory of atonement of the Cross and even
the deity of Christ are to be regretted. Though his starting
question, what does it mean to confess Jesus Christ as Lord
and Saviour in India today, is most significant, his answer
seems to be tailored more to meeting the need of the hour in
India.

196 197
 9

In the recent decade or two, there have appeared scores

of theologies from new Indian thinkers which are a thorough
mixture of all strands we have discussed so far. Many of
them are theologically very creative and bold, even radical.
Some are good thinkers but not writers. In this chapter we
briefly note their contribution, without attempting to do a
systematic analysis of their thought. Time, it appears, is not
yet ripe for such an effort.

RUSSELL CHANDRAN (b. 1918)

Russell Chandran belongs to that generation of Indian
Christians who stand between the colonial period and the
emergence of indigenised Christianity. As such he and his
contemporaries were compelled to take up the leadership
from the outgoing foreigners in all the Christian institu-
tions, and so were unfortunately bogged down in adminis-
trative and financial aspects of their organizations. This
means that their creativity in those lines, and so their
writings are neither definitive nor plenty. But they are
important land marks on the way.

Background
Joshua Russell Chandran was born in Tamil Nadu in
Kanyakumari district in a Christian family. After his early
education he took to ministry at the young age of 20, as a
probationer in the Kodankarai pastorate. This led him to
theological studies at United Theological College, Bangalore,
(BD). He then served as pastor in the Irenipuram Church for
three years. He pursued higher studies at Mansfield Col-
lege, Oxford (1947-49), Union Theological Seminary, New
York (1949-50) and Chicago University Divinity School
(1957-58). In between he was appointed as a lecturer at
United Theological College, Bangalore in 1950, and became
its principal in 1954. He was the principal of this prestigious

198 199
institution till his retirement in 1981. He was, needless to
say, the first Indian principal of UTC. He also taught at other
well-known international institutions: Union Theological
College, New York (1964-65), Louisville Theological Semi-
nary, Kentucky and the Episcopal Theological Seminary,
Cambridge, Manchester (1972). He became the president of
the Senate of Serampore College (1968-71) and contributed
in this way a great deal to Indian theological education. He
was the president also of the Ecumenical Association of
Third World Theologians (EATWOT) and its prime mover.
Chandran has represented the Church of South India at
various international ecclesial conferences, including being
the delegate to the WCC from that church. He worked also
as the vice-chairman of the CSIU’s Executive Committee
(1966-68). He was the convenor of union negotiations of the
CSI before it was founded, and has decisively shaped the
CSI constitution. He was also on the negotiations commit-
tee of the joint council of CSI, CNI and the Mar Thoma
Church. He is also the founder-president of the Christian
Union of India (see later). Chandran was honoured in 1978
on the occasion of his shashtabdhi-poorthi (60th anniver-
sary) with a festschrift entitled A Vision for Man, a book
containing several articles by his colleagues in India and
abroad. In this work, he is described variously as “the
theological teacher”, “the theologian of the Church”, “the
fighter for peace with justice”, “the ecumenical man” and as
“the Asian Christian”. In recent years he has played a
decisive role in the politics of Fiji islands concerning the
liberation of Indians there.
Chandran’s Writings
As hinted already, Chandran has not done much of
serious writing, commensurate with his ability. Most of his
writings are in the form of articles (above 120 in English,
Tamil and German). These are in theological periodicals
such as the Guardian, National Christian Council Review,
International Review of Missions, Ecumenical Review, South
India Churchman and North India Churchman. In Tamil he
has written one book on Christian ethics, and in English,
200
Following Jesus. His unpublished thesis “A Comparison of
the Pagan Apologetics of Celsus against Christianity as
Contained in Origen’s Contra Celsum and the neo-Hindu
Attitude to Christianity as Represented in the Work of
Vivekananda” is considered a scholarly work.
A personal word here: Now that Indian Christian theol-
ogy has come of age, what is desperately needed is a swarm
of creative Indian theologians! Administration and financial
expertise can be picked on the way, while theological
specialization cannot, and so your and my generation must
take up the challenge of writing. If you are called to do so,
take it up by all means!
Chandran’s Vision
Samuel Amirtham, a colleague of Chandran and the
editor of the festschrift in honour of Chandran, has beauti-
fully summarized the theology of Chandran in his article
entitled “A Vision for Man”. The title excellently summarizes
Chandran’s thought. Even the eulogisations cited earlier
show that Chandran is primarily concerned about man as
man — not man as sinner. This sweeping statement will
become clearer in the following but one preliminary com-
ment on that title “A Vision for Man” is necessary here. It
speaks of man in his individuality, as well as in his collectivity
— a thoroughly anthropocentric approach. But it speaks
also of man not as he is now but rather of man’s utopian
goals, of a further futuristic vision of man, what he would be
finally. Again, this vision is only one among the many — “a
vision” — and thus is very tolerant of other religious and
ideological streams — no wonder that Chandran is called
the “ecumenical man”. The emphatic element in this vision
is apparent in that it is a vision ‘for man’, and not ‘of man’.
It is not the self-determined goals of man and society but
something which is given for man to grow beyond himself —
namely from the perspective of the New Man, Jesus Christ.
This vision, the central thought of Chandran, has four
elements.
201
A Vision of Human Community that is Inclusive
For Chandran, the Cross of Jesus Christ broke down all
the barriers between man and man, and resurrection means
that Jesus’ “ministry continues through the people whom
Christ indwells through the Holy Spirit”. 1 The Church
continues this ministry, and is thus “a foretaste of new
humanity and therefore, an inclusive community”. 2
Chandran repeatedly bewails that Baptism is sadly misun-
derstood as bringing man and woman from out of the world
into the exclusive community of the church. For Chandran
baptism represents “not separation from the world but
commitment for the Lord”.3 The ‘corrupt communal inter-
pretation’ of baptism must be replaced by “an interpretation
emphasizing commitment for the renewal of the world.”4 The
theological basis for this inclusive interpretation which
Chandran suggests is from Christ’s baptism. It was not a
baptism of sinners, but Jesus’ identification with sinners.
This inclusiveness of all mankind is based on the common
humanity of man as man. This is the meaning of baptism:
incorporation into the New Humanity of Jesus Christ, com-
mitment to mission in the world, and identification with the
world. And so Christian mission is interpreted by Chandran
to mean the task of making man genuinely human, in other
words, humanization. He exhorts Christians to discard the
false understanding of the church as the realm of grace, while
the world is the realm of law and judgment. He recommends
that we should rather speak of the hidden and open operation
of God in the world and the Church respectively. Thus Jesus
Christ is the firstfruits of the final inclusive destiny.
A Vision of Renewed Community with a New Style of Living
Renewal of life is the second emphasis in Chandran’s
thinking, which he takes from the New Humanity of Christ.
Everytime people have responded to the gospel there has
been great transformation. This conversion, “from the old
complex of law, commandment, reward, punishment, sin,
guilt, judgment and death, to the new complex of grace, love,
forgiveness and life”,5 has no fixed conventional pattern of
operation. Further, this renewal is not just personal; “the
202
renewal of the Church would imply taking societal con-
cern”.6 This means that “solidarity with the people of God,
separation from evil, and being a community of love are
some marks of this style”.7 But it should be noted that for
Chandran, people of God are not just Christians, but “all
people”. Externally, this life style means that we identify
with our neighbours in even their religious activities like
onam, pongal, deepavali, and other pujas. Initially it means
living with a double focus, with the Word and the world, “the
sacramental-real” and the “love-law” foci. Such an ap-
proach approves of secularization of life as well as ‘man-for-
others’ ethics. So a selfless life is the key of this renewed life
style, and love is the key of such renewal. Chandran’s
theology has as its goal “the new inclusive humanity where
Christ gathers everybody into one family.”
A Vision of a Community where there is Peace with Justice
and Freedom with Dignity
These four concepts of peace, justice, freedom and
dignity are referred to by Chandran in almost all his ser-
mons, articles and talks, for him, since love means concrete
action — “love has to be expressed in terms of justice, mercy
and peace”. And there is no justice without political change,
and the people of God are always on the move changing.
This means clearly that political involvement is a must for
every Christian, for the Church. To restore every man to
dignity and freedom — this is the meaning of biblical
righteousness. It means that development is synonymous
with freedom from karma, the consequences of my back-
ground. Since justice and peace inevitably go together, the
biblical concept o peace (shalom) means “wholeness of life,
harmony of humanity living together”. And freedom in-
volves an openness for all, respect for dissent and respon-
sible criticism. So freedom cannot be separated from human
rights and human dignity. It is in this connection that
Chandran founded the unique organization called the Chris-
tian Union of India. The motto of this union was “to serve
India in the name of Christ”. And the following were its
objectives:
203
 1. to strengthen and promote secular democracy;
2. to educate the Christian community in nation-build-
ing;
3. to cooperate with other agencies towards a classless
society; and
4. to strive for international peace, justice and goodwill.
As is obvious, humanization is the goal of this effort.
A Vision of Humanity in Dialogue with Commitment
Since coexistence and survival of mankind are at stake
and since religion is a most potent source of human strife in
this world, a religious dialogue is a must. Religious pluralism
thus has only one answer: dialogue in depth with all religions.
Such a dialogue must include a positive respect for all
religions, and Christians must be humble enough to admit
their limitations. It is only dialogue which preserves the good
in all religions. He asserts that it is a way of communicating
Christ to others, but not a relativisation of the Christian
gospel. In dialogue, there must be a give-and-take attitude in
all participating religions. Chandran makes the following four
assumptions concerning inter-religious dialogue:
1. Only those who are committed to Jesus Christ as Lord
and Saviour can enter any meaningful dialogue between
religions.
2. There must be willingness to reformulate our faith in
the light of other faiths, listening is thus an essential
element in dialogue.
3. Each religion must be understood from its own point
of view.
4. Every participant must be open to the result of the
dialogue.
With such an approach to religions it is natural that
Chandran affirms that the polarization is between light and
darkness, since these two are found in all religions. But it
is not between religions. It is clear that even here, Chandran
accepts only that religion as true which supports and aims
204
at humanization of man and society. This is truly a vision for
man indeed.
Evaluation
Here, we have met a line of thinking which is bold and
radically different from the conservative thinking, though
typical of many contemporary Indian theologians. So we
have already dealt with such theologians earlier, such as
M.M. Thomas, so, here only comments on some dominant
aspects should suffice.
First, it must be appreciated that Chandran is passion-
ately concerned about the welfare (shalom) of man — this is
no arm-chair theology, but has concrete implications all
through. This is good. But what is sadly lacking is a biblical
understanding of man as sinner and there is no proportion-
ate emphasis on man’s predicament, as the Bible gives. As
such, this anthropocentricity is in danger of turning into
anti-theological humanity.
For the same reason, Chandran’s approach to the au-
thority of the Bible as the inspired word of God is far from
satisfactory, though his resort to human expertise, philoso-
phies and religions is admirably expressed.
Secondly, his compassion for all mankind is praisewor-
thy, but to sacrifice biblical distinctives of the disciples of
Christ (repentance and faith in Christ) against the rest of the
world as ‘unbelievers’ is equally blameworthy. This bifurca-
tion of humanity into believers and non-believers is hurt-
ing, no doubt, but that is a biblical bifurcation, and the New
Testament authors have confirmed it. We cannot do less. In
Chandran’s understanding of dialogue, the Christian
distinctives can be easily lost, in spite of his plea to the
contrary. There is also, furthermore, an unwarranted inclu-
sion of political involvement as an essential part of the
church’s mission, that is, there is really no biblically devel-
oped support for this aspect in Chandran’s writings. No
doubt a Christian as a citizen should be a patriot by all
means and also partake of the political, cultural and eco-
nomic life of the nation; but it is another thing to say that the
205
Church of Christ must participate in political actions — will
not the Church lose her salt? She must be a worshipping
fellowship, and a proclaiming servant — that is her nature
and calling according to the New Testament. Let the Church
be the Church was the cry of Christian leaders for the last
half century.
Finally Chandran is fascinated with the great visions of
the contemporary ideologies of futuristic outlook, and un-
consciously, at least, Marxism seems to have molded his
programme of action. Perhaps in this summary of his
thinking by his friend it may not be clear, but in the
statement of EATWOT, which Chandran drafted, it is un-
mistakably clear. This statement affirms the task of Indian
Christian theology as follows:
We want Indian Christian theology to be a service to the
Indian people in our common search for full humanity in an
open fraternal fellowship. Indian theology seeks to discern,
eliminate and support people’s struggle for human whole-
ness in freedom and dignity. Its endeavour is to make a
meaningful contribution to the march of our people toward
human completion in a just society.
So it is only fair to judge that Chandran’s theology has
turned into ideology — and that too consciously!
VINAY KUMAR SAMUEL
Vinay Kumar Samuel, an ordained clergyman of the
Church of South India in Bangalore, is a energetic thinker
and activist, whose primary interest is something like
Samartha’s question: what does it mean to confess Jesus
Christ as Lord and Saviour in India today? That means that
he emphasizes more on Christian ethics rather than Chris-
tian theology.
His definitive thinking on ethics seems to have materi-
alized in his Bishop Joshi Memorial Lectures (1980) with
the theme “The Meaning and Cost of Christian Disciple-
ship”. He starts with the assumption that Jesus called his
disciples not into a vacuum but into a political-social-
economic community with definite justice concerns. And
206
Jesus showed an example in this in himself by taking the
initiative and announcing that the kingdom of God had
arrived in him. He was the embodiment of the kingdom. This
kingdom was expressed in the community of disciples
which he called to express the life and power of the kingdom.
Forgiveness to enemies, welcoming the marginal, renounc-
ing violence and giving an example of servanthood, those
were the marks of this nucleus community. Samuel studies
this question of Christian discipleship in five aspects,
namely, its understanding and its implications in the politi-
cal, economic, social and religious context.
THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
The political context of the time of Jesus was one of foreign
rule under Rome. There was resentment against taxation,
and military imperialism. Economic exploitation, and oppres-
sive religious and cultural traditions were enforced by the
political domination over the Jewish nation. But Jesus re-
fused to accept the way of achieving and maintaining power
adopted by the Romans and collaborators. Roman power was
based on the maxim,’strong are the rulers’ but he rode a
donkey into Jerusalem in direct contrast to the Roman
commanders who entered with horses and chariots. Instead
he identified himself with the victims of such power and he
himself died as a result of it. Thus, instead of a separate
existence of Caesar’s and God’s cities, Jesus really brought
the city of God and its structure to man.
THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT
Since land ownership was the main source of wealth
then agriculture was the mainstay of the economy. Jesus
strictly warned against the evils of possessing great material
wealth. This news was good news to the poor but woe to the
rich. In any case, it is amply clear, says Samuel, that in
Jesus’ attitude towards the economic sphere was a funda-
mental bias for the poor and the basis was.
God is the God of Justice and poverty is an expression of
injustice; it is the world that is biased against the poor, God
is biased towards justice. So the invitation to repentance and
the kingdom means a putting down of the mighty and an
207
 exaltation of the poor. His bias is to bring us all back to
wholeness.
In order to demonstrate his bias for the poor Jesus sent
his community of disciples to serve the poor, to heal the
sick, bring the dead back to life and to treat all kinds of
diseases and exorcise demons.
The reverse side of this coin of bias for the poor was the
bias against the rich. Jesus vigorously attacked the rich and
said the rich could not enter the kingdom of God. He cried
woes to the rich. According to him riches were definitely not
a sign of God’s blessing. That is why when many rich young
men wanted to join him he asked them to sell all what they
had, distribute among the poor and follow him.
THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
Vinay Samuel says that there is no fundamental distinc-
tion between the social and the economic, but yet we can
make a case for the social outcast. In Palestine woman and
children were socially disadvantaged but Jesus honoured
them both and gave them special attention. He fellowshipped
with Samaritans, with sinners and tax collectors and also
with lepers, the sick and the demon possessed.
THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT
Jesus did not follow the religion of the Pharisees and the
Scribes, but in fact was in conflict with them since, in order
to keep the traditions of men, they disobeyed the command-
ments of God. He attacked the Sabbath on the grounds that
it prevented men from doing good to the sick and the needy.
In opposition to the traditions of washing, he affirms that
not what goes inside a man but what comes out of him is
what makes him unclean. He said for the sake of religious
korban it was not right to take away the natural support for
the parents. Thus Jesus was against all the de-humaniza-
tion of the law. Against all this he affirmed that he himself
was the fulfillment of the law. He fulfilled the law in two
ways, in giving it true meaning in his own life and in
providing the power to obey it.
208
In the light of this Vinay Samuel says that the whole
understanding of Christian mission also must be trans-
formed. It was not just the winning of souls but meeting the
needs in these contexts. Just as Jesus was incarnated in his
context, the missionaries must incarnate themselves in
these context and alleviate suffering. Mission is a struggle
against power and principalities. Therefore in the coming
decade the emphasis will be not so much on dogmatics but
on the study of sociology and social change. He predicts that
the major areas of study will be salvation, church and
Christ.
Vinay Kumar Samuel has also edited several books and
booklets along with Christopher Sugden. These include
Christian Mission in the 80’s, Current Trends in Theology
and Sharing Jesus in the Two-Thirds World.
VISHAL MANGALWADI (b.1952)
Vishal Mangalwadi, from Chhatarpur, M.P. is another of
those young theologians who would like the shift from
reflection to accelerate. He and his family have suffered,
both for the sake of the gospel as well as under the
exploitation of the rich zamindars, and so along with the
others founded ACRA, an institution to bring justice to the
poor farmers against the rich shopkeepers, the zamindars,
the police and the political forces. He has written several
articles and books, including The World of Gurus and The
Truth and Social Reform. The following is taken from the
latter book.
As he himself confesses, being an untrained theologian
he does not resort to exegesis, but his theology is the
outcome of confrontation in courts and prisons and with the
powers and principalities. He begins by saying that compas-
sion for suffering was a prime element in Jesus’ ministry.
This was a prophetic compassion. In meeting with human
misery Jesus went to the root of it. In our context this means
that our service takes the form of radically stirring the
stagnant pool of a selfish society and a judgment of its
blindness. But Christians must not stop at that, they also
209
must go on to social create an alternate power for social
change. Then from compassion to social reform is but a
stop.
He analyzes social reform to mean (a) a critical aware-
ness in a society that their values and institutions are
fundamentally wrong, (b) a hope that change is possible, (c)
a hope that better alternative is in fact available, (d) a
leadership that is able to organize and mobilize the masses
against the status quo. He observes that as a rule the
privileged, the rich class in society, is not interested in
reform since it attacks their own security and luxury. This
also means that the reformers cannot play the game by the
rules of the establishment since the establishment is cor-
rupted by the elite in the society. This is exactly what Christ
does, affirms Mangalwadi. Even John the Baptist called,
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”. Unless our
message comes not only as a good news to the poor but also
a threat to the rich we are neither relevant nor the salt of this
earth. With strained exegesis Mangalwadi attempts to show
that Paul was a social reformer but had rather spiritualised
the issues.
Starting from this necessity to reform the society,
Mangalwadi comes to the church as the necessary agent for
such a social reform. Mangalwadi does see the church as an
essential element in the message of Christ and even as an
antidote to social evils such as poverty. Though he does not
deal with the role of the church essentially, from here on
Mangalwadi goes to the role of the Holy Spirit in social
reform. The promise that “ye for shall receive power” has the
implication that this power is the power for cross-bearing
and to judge and to protest against evil structures. Another
form of power, says Mangalwadi, is prayer.
After the above theological basis, Mangalwadi goes on to
outline a practical proposal as to how farmers’ economic
reform movements can be established and gives the details
of this proposal. His main contention is that poverty is
created and so must be rooted out. Exploitation is the true
cause of poverty in India, he says, specially in that part of
210
India where he lives. The cause of the political economic
problem really boils down to religious tensions.
My own comments on Mangalwadi’s theology is that all
his interpretation of the church’s inability and inaction
against injustice, as well as the exploitative situation in the
society, are fully valid. But by the same token, it will be
necessary not to reform the society (social church renewal).
As we have seen, more of the younger generations are
really concerned as to how the church can actually partici-
pate in the present time in the processes of nation building
and in developing a just and equitable society for all. The
next theologian study is, unlike them, more interested in
the philosophical explication of the gospel content.
PAULOS MAR GREGORIOS (b. 1921)
Paulos Mar Gregorios is a veteran of Indian ecumenism.
He has also participated in several of the WCC meetings at
the highest levels and has written and lectured profusely.
Formerly Paul Varghese, he is known as Mar Gregorios as
the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Syrian Church. He is also
at present the Principal of the Orthodox Seminary at
Kottayam. His books include: The Gospel of the Kingdom, Be
Still and Know, Freedom and Authority. The following are
excerpts from the last mentioned book.
In the present discussion of the whole question of
liberation in Jesus and the liberation theologies, Paul Mar
Gregorios asks the fundamental questions of what do
authority and freedom mean in Christian perspective. The
relevance of the question is clearly seen as authority is
breaking down everywhere. This crisis of authority is touch-
ing not only the Christian church but the whole of human
society at its very foundation.
The question is, if man is created to do good, and he is
created free in the image of God, to love God and his fellow
men, how is it that both freedom and authority are now
crumbling? He begins by establishing the cause for this
crumbling of authority in the present cultures, both eastern
211
and western, that this is partly because of the Church’s
image; it has been too authoritative and has often failed to
foster freedom. Then, analyzing the philosophical aspects of
freedom and authority, Gregorios bases his convictions on
St. Gregory of Nyassa, whom he thinks is a corrective to
many of Augustine’s deviations. From there on he gives the
Christian conclusion which he summarizes as follows:
All historical human existence is under some pressure to
interiorize what is good in certain patterns of authorities, to
discard the authority structure with all its freedom-hamper-
ing element and to move on to a greater degree of freedom by
developing new structures of authority which foster human
freedom.
Coming to his christology, more can be said specifically
about his conviction. Taking the ultimate unity of mankind
as his basis, Gregorios affirms that man cannot be truly
man if he does not identify with the whole of mankind. Jesus
is the one who showed this can be done. This is the new
humanity which God created in Christ. So Gregorios be-
lieves “Jesus Christ effects salvation for all men whether
they believe in him or not.” Because the power of Christ and
the Holy Spirit are at work in the church, the church
becomes essential in his confession. Yet he is sure that
“God’s saving power is at work also outside the church” ( it
is revolutionary for an orthodox to say such a statement).
This emphasis on cosmic christology, on the universal-
ity as well as the historicity of Jesus, the essential unity of
mankind with Jesus, all these elements are to be seen also
in other ecumenical theologians, such as M.M. Thomas.
SAPHIR ATHYAL
Saphir Athyal was the erstwhile principal of Union
Biblical Seminary, Pune. He is involved in the Lausanne
Committee on World Evangelisation as its director for
Misson and Evangelism. He is also one of the founders of
what was earlier known as the Theological Assistance
Programme which later developed into the Asia Theological
Association.
212
Unfortunately, he has not written much though he is a
thinker in his own right. The main thrust of his articles and
papers seems to be his concern for indigenisation of theology.
In answering the question, what should characterize an
Asian Christian theology, he gives several answers.
a) The Christian faith has a historical basis and charac-
ter and so the Bible is the only written witness to this
specific history of God’s salvation deeds. This means that in
some way the basis for indigenised theology must be the
Bible.
(b) Since the context and the background in which God’s
word came to man in the Bible are similar to the life
situations in Asia today, our theologies cannot be much
different from the biblical categories.
(c) In the Bible itself there are examples of indigenising
the message to particular forms of thought.
If that is what contextualisation is, Saphir Athyal con-
tends that in Asia there also must be a systematization but
not as in the west. While in the west systematization was
more rational, Asian systematization must be around the
particular issues in Asia. This means, Asian Christians
need to study in depth and sympathetically the cultures
and religions of Asia — after all Asia is the birthplace of
religions and cultures. This means: “Inter-religious dia-
logues can be quite valuable in several aspects”. It can
create openness and friendship between peoples and help
the participants understand the basic essentials of one
another’s faith. It also highlights the dissimilarities. Since
in Asia culture and religion are closely linked together, all
our lifestyle and thoughts have religious overtones. Athyal
contrasts this with the western theologies which are prima-
rily based on Aristotle and ancient Greek philosophies.
In contrast to the western theologies Asian theologies
cannot afford to be purely academic and philosophical.
Asian Christians have suffered for their faith and this
means that one of the distinctive characteristics of Asian
213
theology must be its mission-orientedness, and willingness
to suffer. Thus in developing an Asian confession of faith in
the total life of the church, Asian theology needs to be more
issue-oriented rather than academic.
These extracts are taken from his article “Towards an
Asian Theology” published in 1975.

NOTES
1. A Vision for Man, 1978, p. 31.
2. Ibid., p. 31.
3. Ibid.
4. “CSI Synod Theological Commission” in South India Churchman, April
1969, p. 13.
5. A Vision for Man, p. 34.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

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10
Hindu Interpretation of Christ

MAHATMA GANDHI (1869 - 1948)

Many historians call Mahatma Gandhi as the man of the
century, “the most effective potency in the awakening of the
Orient”. In India, without doubt he is the watershed in the
modern history of the century, and the most influential
voice in every sphere of thought among the Hindus. As
such, Gandhi’s understanding of Jesus Christ and the
Christian message carries greater weight among Hindus
than perhaps all the Hindu philosophical and religious
interpretations of Jesus.

Life and Work

Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi (Mahatma is a title,
meaning ‘great soul’) is the subject of literally hundreds of
books if not thousands, and so his life sketch is too well
known to be repeated here. His autobiography, My Experi-
ments with Truth is an authentic and absorbing self-exami-
nation of a sincere soul, and makes profitable reading. We
need only to mention some major elements of his life which
have been influential on his thinking. The powerful position
his father and grandfather had as ministers in the local
princedom, and his mother’s Vaishnavite bhakti devotion
must be the earliest and strongest to make impression on
Gandhi’s character. His early youthful experiences and
failures led Gandhi to be “devoted to none but truth”. Right
from an early age, there is an intense and unyielding pursuit
of truth as the chief characteristic of his personality. Later,
when he went to South Africa as a lawyer, there he encoun-
tered his first life-mission: the two decade long struggle
against the racist discrimination against the Indian settlers

215
there. Gandhi’s patriotism was awakened here. The second
work which absorbed his time and his attention was his life-
ambition and attempt to bring Hindu-Muslim unity in the
land, but which unfortunately ended in the division of India
into Hindustan and Pakistan. His third life-mission was
simultaneous with the last mentioned one, viz., to lead
successfully the Indian Independence struggle against Brit-
ish colonialism. Gandhi described the communal violence
that erupted after the Partition as “the greatest tragedy of
my life”, because the masses had completely forgotten
Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence. His final mission
which he set before himself was the emancipation of the
untouchables and the socially outcast. It was in opposing
this orthodox caste system as well as in his attempt to
reconcile Hindus to the Muslims that Gandhi angered the
Hindu orthodox elite, fell prey to their plots and so died a
martyr. He realised rather too late to what an impossible
extent he had to appease the Hindu orthodox for the sake of
Indian unity and freedom. Thousands of years old struc-
tures cannot be rooted out in a short span of decades — can
they?
Beside the collected works of Gandhi and perhaps more
readable are the smaller booklets published by non-
Gandhian organizations in his honour. Gandhi — the Man
and His Mission, Mahatma Gandhi — an Interpretation are
among the books which described Gandhi’s understanding
of Jesus Christ and Christianity. Christian Mission in India,
The Christian Significance of Mahatma Gandhi (by John W.
Sadiq), What Jesus Means to Me (compiled by Prabhu),
Gandhi’s Challenge to Christianity (by S.K. George) are some
of the good ones. I personally like the two small booklets by
Anand T. Hingorani, a personal friend and associate of
Gandhi: My Philosophy of Life, and The Message of Jesus
Christ, here Hingorani lets Gandhi to speak for himself
(quotes all relevant writings/words of Gandhi) without
much of his interpretation, and so they are valuable.
216
Philosophy of Life
Being primarily a man of political and social action,
Gandhi was no systematic thinker. Nonetheless, he had a
broad philosophical framework which governed all his think-
ing and acting. So before looking at his approach to Jesus
Christ, it will be necessary for us to briefly look at his
underlying philosophy of his — “my philosophy of life”, as he
called it.
In the ashram Gandhi founded at Wardha, every inmate
must take eleven vows, and Hingorani rightly points out
that these eleven vows are the epitome of Gandhi’s philoso-
phy. Gandhi always said that life without vows was “Iike a
ship without anchor or like an edifice that is built on
slippery sand instead of a solid rock”.
These eleven vows are: 1) Truth, 2) Non-violence, 3)
Brahmacharya (chastity), 4) Control of the palate (fasting) 5)
Non-stealing 6) Non- possession (renunciation or sanyasa),
7) Fearlessness, 8) Removal of untouchability, 9) Equality of
religions, 10) “Bread-labour” and 11) Swadeshi (indigeniety).
Of these except truth, non-violence and swadeshi, the
rest of the vows deal with the practical aspects of developing
personal and social virtues, while equality of religions will
be discussed later. So we will concentrate here mainly on
these three, which form the core of his framework as many
point out. Here it must be noted that Gandhi arrived at this
basis empirically, he said that they are “not final — I may
change them tomorrow!”
Of the three cardinals of Gandhi, Satya, Ahimsa and
swadeshi, (truth, non- violence and indigeniety), truth is by
far the most important. He always put truth first — “I was
capable of sacrificing non-violence for the sake of truth”,
said he. Truth is the supreme goal or dharma of man (cf. the
motto on the Seal of the Indian Government: Satyameva
jayate - truth alone conquers). In an honest confession
Gandhi says, “I am but a seeker after truth. I claim to have
found the way to it . . . But I admit that I have not yet found
the Truth.”
217
 Gandhi knows that this way is “straight and narrow . .
. like the edge of a sword”, and he strives and rejoices to walk
on it — for God’s word is that “he who strives never
perishes”. And what is the nature of this truth? “Truth is
God — nothing else, nothing less . . . I worship God as truth
only . . . My uniform experience has convinced me that there
is no other god than Truth.”
Gandhi could say that love is God and God is Love; with
Christians he always preferred to speak of God as Truth and
Truth as God. This means, for Gandhi there is no atheist, for
even an atheist is a seeker after truth! And the vision of God
means the realization that God dwells in one’s heart — truth
“is what the voice within tells you”. But it is also relative (and
only God knows the absolute truth, it is not given to man).
This means that people who worship idols also are pursuing
truth, albeit in a lower level. This condemned and supported
at the same time the idolatry of the Hindus.
Is then Gandhi’s concept of God impersonal? He himself
says, “I do not regard God as a person. Truth for me is God
. . . Because God is an idea . . . not a blade of grass grows or
moves without his will.”
Ahimsa, non-violence, is always coupled with Satya,
truth, in Gandhi’s thinking. His ashram’s ideal was, “seek-
ing Truth through the exclusive means of Ahimsa”. Thus if
Truth is the supreme dharma (the goal or righteousness),
ahimsa is the supreme — “exclusive” — means to attain it.
“Ahimsa means ‘love’ in the Pauline sense”, said Gandhi.
Negatively, it means “not injuring any being, whether by
body or in mind”. Positively, “ahimsa means the largest
love”. That is why if I follow ahimsa, I must love my enemy.
The difference between man and beast is that while man can
practice ahimsa, a beast can practice only himsa. For
ahimsa requires the highest form of courage — the spiritual
courage. Hence no coward can be a practitioner of ahimsa,
and the greater the ahimsa, the greater the civilization of the
people who practise it. Gandhi therefore equated cannibal-
ism with himsa and vegetarianism with ahimsa. When
pressed, he admitted that himsa is the utter selfishness of
218
man, while ahimsa is the self-giving love. But Gandhi was
careful enough to see the limits of his concept. So he
admitted also that all taking of life is not himsa. “Even man-
slaughter may be necessary in certain cases”. A man who
runs amuck and goes about killing people, needs to be
killed. A physician’s operation causes only pain and not
himsa. So to commit as little as possible himsa to others
means to practice ahimsa.
Gandhi, ascribing good to the spirit and evil to the body,
like the Greek Gnostics, affirmed that as long as we are in
the body it is difficult to live a fully non-violent life. Ahimsa
is essentially a soul-force, while himsa is a body-force.
Perhaps the great strength of Gandhi’s teaching on ahimsa
is that he practiced it:
I have been practicing with scientific precision Non-violence
and its possibilities for an unbroken period of over fifty years.
I have applied it in every walk of life, domestic, institutional,
economic and political. I know of no single case in which it
has failed.
Thirdly, Swadeshi. “Swadeshi is that spirit in us which
restricts us to the use and service of our immediate sur-
roundings to the exclusion of the world remote. By this he
meant, “I must not serve my distant neighbour at the
expense of the nearest.” It does not imply hatred of the
foreigner or of foreign things, but it means positively that a
man’s first duty is to his neighbour. It is for this purpose, to
help our own neigbours, the village producers, that Gandhi
supported the wearing of Khaddar (home spun yarn and
cloth), and the use of the spinning wheel.
This swadeshi spirit for Gandhi is all pervasive. Con-
cretely it takes the following forms: In economics, it means
a rejection of Industrialization and modernization and the
encouragement of cottage industries to create self-suffi-
cient villages; in sociology, swadeshi means the submis-
sion to the age old varnashrama dharma (the duty of a
Hindu to his caste and stage in life), and the rejection of the
foreign Christian, liberal or other social systems. In politics,
it means the support of the ancient village panchayat or
gram panchayat. In religion, one’s continued support of
219
one’s own religion in opposition to conversion. “I must
restrict myself to my ancestral religion — that is, the use of
my immediate, surroundings in religion. If I find it defective
I should serve it by purging it of its defects”, instead of
forsaking it. As such, Gandhi does not envision one world
religion in the future, but rather that each religion grows
strong and participates in a parliament of religions.
Gandhi’s Understanding of Christ
With the above philosophical basis of Gandhi, let us now
turn to his understanding of Christ and Christianity.
It is rather unfortunate that Gandhi’s contact with the
gospel was not good to start with. The condemnation by the
missionaries of the Hindu gods and religion, the conversion
of a Hindu who was ‘forced’ to eat beef, drink alcohol and
wear western dress, his reading of unpalatable books in the
Bible like Leviticus or Numbers — all this seems to have
driven him away from the content of the biblical message.
Happily, his reading of the New Testament, and especially of
the Sermon on the Mount, caught hold of his heart and
imagination at once. “Resist not evil” seems to have been the
most influential message he got from Jesus’ teaching. In
spite of his rejection of the gospel message in its essence,
Gandhi was honest enough to say that it is Christianity to
which he is indebted “for the religious quest which (it)
awakened in me”.
“It is that Sermon [on the Mount] which has endeared
Jesus to me.” And the message of Jesus is contained in this
sermon. Bhagvadgita’s message of renunciation was con-
firmed for Gandhi in the Sermon, and so became one of his
most cherished sources of life. But Jesus himself failed to
impress upon Gandhi’s mind. Like Vivekananda, Gandhi
also rejects the significance of Jesus’ historicality, for Jesus
is only an illustration of the principle of Christhood.
I may say that I have never been interested in a historical
Jesus. I should not care if it was proved by someone that the
man called Jesus never lived, and that what was narrated in
the gospels was a figment of the writer’s imagination. For the
Sermon on the Mount would be still be true to me.
220
Therefore, for Gandhi, like a great number of Hindu
thinkers, even the cross of Jesus is only a symbol of the
principle of Christhood, and at best a concrete example of
Christ’s selfless love for others. So Jesus was a martyr. But
in the ultimate analysis what is significant is the eternal
principle of Christhood (for that matter, also the principle of
Buddhahood) and the person becomes irrelevant. Hence
there is no uniqueness in Jesus not found in other souls.
The birth, life and death of such Christs are recurring events
in the history of mankind. It is by following what Jesus
taught that we can attain to his height. Following from this,
Gandhi said that God did not bear the Cross nineteen
hundred years ago, but he bears it today. He is also dying
and is being resurrected day by day. It is clear that in all of
this Gandhi is strictly following the primacy of principle over
person. Here one is moved by the frank challenge given by
Stanley Jones — a friend of Gandhi — to “penetrate through
the Principle to the Person” of Jesus Christ, in order to find
the truth. As Jones says in his book Mahatma Gandhi —
Christian?, Gandhi failed to penetrate the principle and
meet the person Jesus.
Once this uniqueness is rejected, the equality of all
religions is just a matter of deduction. As M.M. Thomas
analyses, the basis for this equality is to be found in
Gandhi’s beliefs: a) that there is one God, unknowable; b)
his revelations and human responses to them are to be
found everywhere and in all ages; c) the central teaching of
all religions boils down to the principle of Ahimsa, though
it is called by a multitude of names; d) there is error and
imperfection in all religions as human enterprises; e) all
religions are continuously evolving towards the fuller reali-
zation of Truth. So Truth or revelation cannot be the
monopoly of any single religion. This calls for mutual
respect and tolerance of one religion to another.
For Gandhi religion is a matter of the heart, not of the
mind. If one reaches in his own heart in his quest, then he
has reached all hearts too. So, preaching of one’s faith to
another, and proselytisation of any kind are unwarranted.
221
The value of each religion must be judged by its ethical
teaching and practice, rather than its mystical or philo-
sophical achievements. In another context Gandhi even
talks like a nationalist: he says that from his youth upward,
he “learned the art of estimating the value of scriptures on
the basis of their ethical reality.” He exercises “his own
judgment about every scripture, including Gita” on the
basis of his own conscience and reason. “I cannot surrender
my reason while I subscribe to divine revelation!”
Having experienced the Western Christianity adulter-
ated with imperialism and materialism, Gandhi has a lot to
say to remake Indian Christianity. He insisted that Indian
Christianity must disassociate itself from its Western coun-
terpart, because of the latter’s alliance with himsa and
mammon. Christians have misunderstood Christ’s com-
mand to “go ye into all the world” by taking it to mean only
proselytisation. But what Christ actually sent his disciples
into the world for was philanthropic work. We have already
seen how Gandhi’s opposition to conversion and evange-
lism stems from his concept of Swadeshi in religions, and so
we need not go into that here.
Evaluation
By way of evaluation, we can see the following:
a) the greatest strength of Gandhi lay in his life rather
than in his teaching. With utmost diligence and sincerity he
practiced what he taught, — almost perfectly. This is
perhaps the greatest challenge he has for you and me as the
disciples of Christ. I am reminded again of the maxim of
Stanley Jones: “If I will not obey the light to the extent I can,
the time will soon come when that light turns into darkness,
and I cannot obey even if I will!” Gandhi did obey the light
given to him, there is no doubt about that. Have I so obeyed?
b) As almost every Christian critique of Gandhi has
rightly pointed out, Gandhi’s concept of God is far from the
biblical concept, but soon turns into an impersonal idea,
and not a living person. This is at the root of most of his
misunderstandings of the Christian message.
222
c) In spite of all the geniality and tolerance, Gandhi was,
or became in his maturer years, a staunch Hindu. His
supreme allegiance to Bhagvadgita, the name of Rama and,
to the Hindu caste system show that he died a Hindu.
d) It is this loyalty to Hindu teaching that blinded
Gandhi from seeing the uniqueness of the historical person,
Jesus Christ. In one sweep the Cross, the person and work
of Jesus are brushed aside as irrelevant and the principles
he represents are preferred instead. Once a hot debate, the
question whether Gandhi was a Christian thus need not
detain us a bit here. He was born, lived, worked and died a
martyr for the Hindu cause.
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (1862-1902)
Ramakrishna and Vivekananda
During the waning years of Brahmoism there arose in
Bengal another entirely different movement in the person of
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, who was the guru of Swami
Vivekananda. We cannot study Vivekananda’s thought
without getting acquainted with his guru. So here we do a
brief summary of the life and teaching of Ramakrishna.
Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (1834-86) originally
Gadhadhar Chhatopadhyaya, is the name he chose for
himself when he became a sanyasi. He was through and
through a mystic, little educated in Sanskrit or English or
in his mother tongue Bengali. Coming from a very poor
Brahmin family of Karparkar (West Bengal), at an early age
he was made a pujari (ministrant, priest) in Calcutta, and
later of the famous Dakshineshwar temple. He gave it up
later to devote his life fully to contemplative meditation and
the practice of Yoga. At the age of 59 he married a five year
old girl, Sharada, who later became his disciple and lived
with him as a virgin all through his life.
His thought was influenced by several people. As a
young man he came into a contact with a Hindu nun
Bhairavi, through whom he was introduced to ecstatic
visions as possible and essential religious experiences.
223
Through the ascetic Totapuri he learnt Shankara’s Advaita.
Only later in his life he learned about Christianity, through
Jadhu Malik, who was one could say, an uncommitted
Christian. Except in the first case of Bhairavi’s ecstatic
visions and trances, Ramakrishna was not committed to
others. He also went through experiences of other religions
in turn, and so through these trances he came to his basic
philosophy of religions: all religions are the same. So much
so that he could experience the opposing strands, like
Shaktism and Vaishnavism. He was even in a trance for six
months with Christ — after which till his death, Ramakrishna
was convinced that Jesus Christ was an incarnation of God.
This experience is described by the publications of
Ramakrishna Mission in Belur Math thus: “Christ merged
in Ramakrishna, who forthwith lost his outward conscious-
ness and became completely absorbed and savikalpa
samadhi in which he realized his union with Brahman with
attributes.”
Swami Vivekananda, his archdisciple, was never tired of
telling his disciples that Ramakrishna was not only a perfect
man, but the incarnation of god himself, and relates how on
several occasion Ramakrishna claimed this, and in some
cases also manifested his superhuman power.
Ramakrishna was a unifying factor not only for Bhakti
and Shakti sects of Hinduism, but the whole of Hinduism in
himself — the goal of course to unite all religions. Thus, as
Thomas points out, personal, ecstatic experience was to
Ramakrishna of supreme importance in his religion. That is
why he repeatedly said:
I have practiced all religions, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity
. . . and I have also followed the paths of different Hindu sects
. . . I have found that it is the same god toward whom all are
directing their steps, though along different paths . . . The
tank has several ghats. At one Hindus draw water in pitches
and call it jal; at another Musalmanns draw water in leather
bottles and call it pani; at a third Christians do the same and
call it water.
This equality of all religions and the realization of this
fact through the medium of Sadhana (practice, experience)
224
have remained as Ramakrishna’s main tenets. Only he
vehemently rejected the Christian concept of sin, and re-
fused to settle down to one concept of god as well.
Once a man gave me a Bible. A part of it was read to me, and
it was full of that one thing — sin and sin! One must have
such a faith in oneself that one can say, ‘I have uttered the
name of god . . . how can I be a sinner?’ This is the one trouble
with Christian and Brahmos.
There is thus a lack of a realistic concept of human
nature as well as against the biblical understanding of fallen
human nature. All these three elements — the equality of all
religions, personal, mystical, experience as necessary, the
rejection of sinful human nature — have been passed on to
Swami Vivekananda.
Swami Vivekananda’s Life
If we pause to note that Vivekananda lived only forty
years, his influence and creativity cannot be explained
except we accept him as an intellectual giant and spiritual
genius. Originally named Narendranath he was a sensitive
soul, who came into contact with Ramakrishna
Paramahamsa in his search for an authentic guru. To his
question, Have you seen god? the simple answer ‘yes’ of
Ramakrishna ended his search there. Unlike Ramakrishna
Vivekananda was a highly educated and intellectual per-
son. He graduated from Calcutta university in 1884. In
1886, when his guru Ramakrishna died, he was the obvious
choice and successor and took on sanyasa with the name
Vivekananda. His faith in Ramakrishna as the incarnation
of God seems to have given him an unquestioned leadership
and following among the educated Hindus. In 1893 he was
sent by the maharaja of Mysore to represent Hinduism at
the world parliament of religions. He gave there several
addresses and was hailed as the greatest influence and
thinker at the meeting. Later on he also founded the
Vedanta Society of America which became a part of the
Ramakrishna Mission, with Belur Math as the headquar-
ters. This Ramakrishna Mission, the first missionary or-
ganisation proper of Hinduism, was also his creation. The
225
main objective of this Math was to propagate the teaching of
Ramakrishna (as described above) and also to revive Hindu-
ism. He toured all over India and established Maths whose
objective was to produce dedicated workers for the good of
Hinduism and India. He died very young at the age forty.
His speeches and writings have been selected and
published as Collected Works, in seven volumes. There are
numerous Christian interpretations of Vivekananda also, of
which the dissertation by J.R. Chandran on a comparative
study of Vivekananda and Origin, is worth special mention.
An easier reading would be Selections from Swami
Vivekananda, published by the Advaita Ashrama, Calcutta,
in 1944.
Vivekananda and advaita
Advaita was in the air as the hottest subject of philosophi-
cal debates in India, and being a fully patriotic Hindu,
Vivekananda identified himself at once with the movement of
Advaitism. Thus it is true to say that Vivekananda added
Advaita to Ramakrishna’s other teachings. For Vivekananda,
Vedanta is the true and universal religion, and mother of all
religions. The reason for this universality, as against Chris-
tianity for example, is that while Christianity rests upon a
person as its basis, Vedanta’s foundation is purely principle:
It is in vain we try to gather all peoples of the world around
a single personality. It is difficult to make them gather
together even round external and universal principles. If it
ever becomes possible to bring the largest portion of human-
ity to one way of thinking in regard to religion, mark you, it
must be always through principles and never through
persons.
But this does not mean that every human being must
follow the same religion. He advocated Ramakrishna’s con-
cept of Ishta Devata, one’s personal God according to one’s
liking. A person can at best provide one of the paths but
never be universal, for there are ever so many persons to
follow — and Christ is only one among them. Vivekananda
defined the concept of Ishta Devata thus:
226
Your way is good for you, but not for me. My way is good for
me, but not for you. My way is called in Sanskrit my Ishta.
Mind you, we have no quarrel with any religion in the world.
We have each our Ishta.
This idea of Ishta stubbornly rejects any corporate
religion! For here religion is purely a private affair — an echo
of what Ramakrishna taught.
Advaita and Christianity
With this basis of Vedanta as the universal religion, he
interprets Christ and Christianity in Hindu terms. Christ is
a Vedantin for Vivekananda. Buddha is the greatest charac-
ter the world has ever seen, and Christ is next only to him
— but both are representations of the principle of Christhood
and Buddhahood. Each of us too can attain this state of
Buddha- or Christ-hood:
Jesus had our nature; he became Christ; so can we and so
must we. Christ and Buddha were the names of a state to be
attained. Jesus and Gautama were the persons to manifest
it.
Thus Jesus is unimportant, except as an instrument for
the manifestation of the Christhood. But the significance of
Jesus as an incarnation of God is to be seen in three aspects:
1) he was a yogi who has realised jivanmukta. This Jesus
achieved by complete self-renunciation. In renunciation,
the man within dies and only God remains — thus the
Vedantic goal is realised.
2) Christ was God “If I as an Oriental have to worship
Jesus of Nazareth there is only one way left for me, that is
to worship him as God and nothing else.” Here the advaitic
idea of “I am God” is clear. For, in the same breath when he
acknowledged Jesus as God in the above quotation
Vivekananda continues, that he also worships all criminals
and murderers and everyone else as God!
3) Jesus realised his identity with Brahman and taught
this at three different levels. To the common people, Jesus
taught, “Our Father...” To a higher circle he gave a more
elevated teaching, “I am in my Father and he in me, and I in
227
you...” But his final and most advanced teaching was
advaitic — ”I and my father are one”.
These are the three Christian mahavakyas. It is of
course easy to see all the dvaitic, vishishtadvaitic and
advaitic teachings.
From this it is clear that there can be no real significance
of the Cross and hence of atonement. “Christ was God
incarnate; they could not kill him. That which was crucified
was only a semblance, a mirage.” We are “saved” by imitat-
ing Jesus and hosts of others like him; as noted earlier,
Vivekananda does not use Christian categories.
Again, as an Advaitin, it is impossible for Vivekananda
to have any sympathy towards the Christian concept of sin:
He says,
The greatest error is to call a man a weak and miserable
sinner. Every time a person thinks in this mistaken manner,
he reverts one more link in the chain of avidya that binds
him, adds one more layer of ‘self-hypnotism’ that lies heavy
over his mind.
The fact that Jesus cannot be separated from Christ is
the problem of Christianity. Having a circular view of his-
tory, Vivekananda affirms that nothing happens in history
only once, and therefore all historical personalities and
events are accidents for him — only the principles are
eternal and universal.
Close to the foregoing is another essential advaitic
element in Vivekananda’s teaching: God cannot create
anything, be it even ex nihilo, but only evolves himself. As
such man is not created and so cannot be identified with the
essential conditions of this history.
There is not much of Vivekananda’s understanding
concerning other aspects Christian faith to be learned. But
the above sample suffices to show that he stoutly interprets
— for the first time — Christ in terms of Hindu goals. This
was a line which Radhakrishnan developed more fully in his
Polemics Against Christianity.
228
Evaluation
By way of evaluation, one can say several things in
appreciation of Swami Vivekananda. For example, he was
an innovative thinker in Hinduism itself. His idea of ‘prac-
tical vedanta’, that is, absorption into Brahman through
selfless service gave this material world and man’s actions
essential place in Hindu theology for the first time. Notice
here the departure from the classical understanding of such
absorption — absorption into Brahman through self reali-
zation. Further, his commitment to advaita philosophy is
consistent. When we look at his approach to Jesus Christ as
being God, it is this advaitic interpretation rather than any
Christian one. In any case it is to Vivekananda’s credit that
he gave the highest possible status to Christ in his system.
In all his thinking he most deliberately and consciously
using Hindu terms — as such fully relevant to the Hindus.
This is perhaps one of his greatest appeals with his country-
men.
On the other hand, being a dedicated disciple of
Ramakrishna, Vivekananda could not come out of
Ramakrishna’s teaching of the equality of all the religions,
the plurality of the approaches (the concept of Ishtam) and
the divinity of the human nature. This is also Vivekananda’s
greatest misunderstanding concerning the Christian gos-
pel. Lacking a biblical concept of holy and gracious God, he
could not see the human depravity, the qualitative differ-
ence between God and man (what Karl Barth calls the ‘gulf’).
For this same reason Vivekananda could not see through
the seeming equality of all religions to their essential differ-
ences, or the significance of a human person over against a
principle. As such he tends to reject sin as moral evil.
Further, thanks to his loyalty to advaita, Vivekananda
doesn’t seriously consider God as being a personal being,
and all historical personalities are given even lesser signifi-
cance. We need not find fault with his handling of the
biblical passages inadequately and eclectically, but it is
enough to say that it is this mishandling of the Christian
229
Scriptures that leads him to wrong interpretations of bibli-
cal doctrines.
As noted earlier, Swami Vivekananda, as the pioneer of
one of the two types of modern neo-Hinduism schools, is of
crucial importance in relating the Gospel of Christ to the
modern Hindu mind.
SARVAPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN (1888-1975)
Background
By sheer force of personality Gandhi’s understanding of
Christ became more or less the most common Hindu under-
standing. But because Radhakrishnan was an original
thinker and philosopher of the highest calibre, his interpre-
tation of Jesus Christ is better known and discussed in the
West and in Christian circles. He is regarded as “the
spokesman par excellence for Hindu spirituality”. Moreo-
ver, we could also say that he is the most formidable Hindu
opponent of Christianity! Being the “the best, most elo-
quent, learned and erudite ambassador of India all over the
world,” he lacks the utter honesty and courage of Gandhi.
Instead, even in his appreciations of Christian elements,
one invariably finds a mine hidden! There is a reason for his
approach. While he was studying in Madras Christian
College, he was intensely disturbed by the condemnation of
Hinduism by the missionary professors and principals of
the college. Their attack on Hinduism, that it was not
coherent intellectually, aroused in him the fighting spirit to
defend Hinduism at all costs. In one of his letters to a friend
at that time, he reveals how he vowed to reverse the trend
and determined to create a Hindu apologetic and polemic
against Christianity.
This warns us to be careful in our dealing with our
neighbours, does it not? Often what we speak may be
forgotten, but how we speak remains! More than the content
of our words, the attitudes behind them evoke a response —
either positively or negatively.
230
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan was born in Tiruttani, Andhra
Pradesh, in a rich Brahmin family. He received his educa-
tion in almost exclusively Christian institutions, such as
Madras Christian College, Tambaram. Later he worked as
professor of philosophy in the universities of Madras, Mysore
and Calcutta. During 1936-52 he was at Oxford as a
professor of Eastern religions and ethics. After this he
entered politics, and was the leader of various Indian
delegations to UNO commissions. From 1949-1962 he was
the Indian ambassador to Moscow. Afterwards he became
the vice-president of the Indian Republic, and finally the
President.
He wrote many books. Some of the well known are: Indian
Philosophy, Vol. I & II; The Hindu View of Life, The Religion We
Need, East and West, Eastern Religion and Western Thought,
Religion and Society, Recovery of Faith, etc. His philosophy
has been included in the best series all over the world which
are dedicated to the study of philosophy or religion. (e.g. in the
Library of Living Philosophers, History of Philosophy, Eastern
and Western and many others).
In his autobiography, Radhakrishnan says that it is
Vivekananda who aroused the patriotism in him, not Gan-
dhi! Thus we have here the second line of neo-Hinduism,
that of Vivekananda and Radhakrishnan.
Radhakrishnan’s Philosophy
Radhakrishnan’s method is quite scholarly, yet simple.
For him, water is purer at its source, though it gets muddied
in its flow later. Similarly Radhakrishnan compares in order
to evaluate a religion, be it Hinduism or Christianity (inci-
dentally, these are the two religions in whose context
Radhakrishnan’s thought developed exclusively), we must
not go to the church history in Christianity, nor to the later
accretions in Hinduism. Each religion must be judged
according to its Scriptures — we must go to Vedas and the
Bible. Yet, he is ‘progressive’ enough to reinterpret these
conservative thoughts in a way that is relevant to the
modern time.
231
 Like all Hindus, Radhakrishnan also starts with a con-
cept of reality. What is reality? Following Shankara, he also
affirms that the absolute or the Brahman is the only reality.
However, there are five different stages in realizing this
reality — anna (matter), prana (life), manas (conscious-
ness), vijnana (intelligence) and ananda (bliss). In this
ladder of reality, different religions belong to different stages.
Semitic religions (Judaism, Islam and Christianity), being
object oriented religions, belong to the lower type. Hindu-
ism or Buddhism, emphasizing experience, are of the higher
type. While the former insist upon belief and conduct, rites
and ceremonies, authorities and dogma, the later go beyond
these and insist upon self-discovery and the contact with
the divine. As such, the latter are the spiritual religions!
“The fundamental truths of the spiritual religions are that
our real self is the supreme being, which it is our business
to discover and consciously become what this being is.”
This is pure Advaita, to be sure. From this as a corollary
it follows that this world is not a creation, as the Bible
teaches, but a movement of God. Further this world is not
an illusion or unreal: “the perfection of God overflows into
the world. The world is the outflow of the surplus energies
of God, the supreme artist.” This is a far cry from Shankara
or orthodox Hinduism! Following this process of argument,
Radhakrishnan redefines the concept of Hindu karma as
well. For him, it is an expression of the functioning or moral
law in human life. Since the past has inescapable influence
on the present, and since God is the supervisor of this
process of automatic justice, the doctrine of karma is fully
consistent both with facts and with Hindu thinking. It is
most significant that in spite of all his elaboration of maya
and karma doctrines, he never says a word about another
related and important Hindu concept — that of sansara
(world).
Radhakrishnan’s Interpretation of Christ
Now we are ready to analyze Radhakrishnan’s under-
standing of Christ and Christianity. For him, Christ is
nearer to the Indian thought than the Western or Greek.
232
Hence Christ must be interpreted and best understood in
the Hindu framework. In Jesus, the Jewish nationalistic
spirit as well as the Indo-Aryan religious elements were
mixed — nay, they were in tension. Thus Jesus was a
mixture of conflicting elements, hence not perfect. The
legalistic and the mystic, material and the spiritual,
messianic and the universalistic, militarism and passivism
— were constantly fighting to dominate Jesus’ actions. It
must be stressed that the latter concept in each of the above
pair belongs, according to Radhakrishnan, to the Indo-
Aryan element in Jesus. Thus Radhakrishnan’s Christ is an
integrated Christ. In this scheme, the Cross is understood
as “the abandonment of the ego” and “identification with a
fuller life and consciousness”. Similarly, resurrection and
eternal life are merely goals of men in Christian garb. But
understood in their true spirituality (that is, in Hindu
terms), resurrection is “the passage from the death of self-
absorption to the life of unselfish love . . . from falsehood to
truth, from slavery to the world to the liberty of the eternal.”
This allegorical interpretation is again typical of Hindu as
well as liberal thinkers.
But further, Radhakrishnan sees in Jesus a failure.
Jesus was hoping for the establishment of the kingdom of
God in the Jewish manner. As he failed to fulfill this claim,
eschatological interpretations became predominant, and
the risen Lord takes the place of God, and the Church the
place of the Kingdom of God! So just as Jesus is the mixture
of Hindu (Aryan), Jewish, Platonic, Gnostic influences,
Christianity also is a syncretistic religion, incorporating in
itself the Upanishadic, Buddhist, Gnostic concepts. But the
worth of Jesus is to be seen in his historical context, just like
Rama’s or Krishna’s avatara in their contexts. As such,
Jesus is not unique, but only an avatara. His incarnation is
neither final, too — there could be better incarnations in the
future.
His attitude to religions is again exclusively a Hindu
one. In a nut-shell, he says that all religions are equally true,
but Hinduism, being the sanathana Dharma, (the ancient
233
religion) is the essence of them all. This attitude we can truly mission of defending Hinduism at any cost. This lacks a
call Hindu philosophia gloria. The reasons for this glorifica- scholar’s integrity and honesty.
tion of Hinduism are precise in his thinking.
Secondly, being a militant Hindu, his understanding of
First, the most basic tension between the plurality of the Jesus is a Hindu interpretation — he is of course free to
expressions of truth about the ultimate reality and the one interpret Jesus as he likes, but the point here is that like
truth, is best dealt with in Hinduism. Secondly, religion, Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan also sees Christ as an imper-
being above all a matter of experience, and mystical experi- fect traveler on the road to the advaitic goal. This does not
ence at that, is best fulfilled in Hinduism. Vedas are “the do full justice to the claims either of Jesus, or of the
record of spiritual experiences of souls strongly endowed prophets and apostles. In making Jesus a mixture and
with the sense of reality. Thirdly, a central principle of Christianity a syncretism, Radhakrishnan advocates a uni-
Hinduism is religious tolerance, since Hinduism is totally versal religion which borrows faithful obedience from
undogmatic, and is therefore best suited to become the Judaism, a life of beauty from Greek paganism, noble
universal religion. Fourthly and finally, the Hindu dharma compassion from Buddhism, divine love from Christianity
alone “acknowledges all spheres of life and accords to them and a spirit of resignation from Islam.
their appropriate place and mutual relations within the
Thirdly, he himself does not stand in the line of orthodox
system.” Here Radhakrishnan means no doubt the caste
Hinduism, but rather his is a radical modern interpretation
system, the four stages of life and the three margas or yogas.
of Hinduism.
Christianity because of its idea of exclusiveness of
Fourthly, his goal was so to interpret the Hindu funda-
Christ, Judaism because of its concept of ‘jealous God’,
mentals that they give an undergirding to the problems
Islam because of its Jihad — they all lack inclusiveness
facing modern India — as such his relevant expressions are
which Hinduism has. In fact, it is wrong to speak of different
praise worthy but to claim the stamp of orthodoxy for them
religions — there is really only one religion. All religions are
is to defeat orthodoxy.
different expressions of the true religion. And what is this
religion? Radhakrishnan says, “The eternal religion behind
all religions, this sanathana Dharma . . . it is our duty to get
back to this central core of religions”.
Hinduism is the modern, anglicized name for this
sanathana Dharma, as all Hindu writers throughout the
ages have emphasized.

Evaluation
It is difficult to evaluate Radhakrishnan’s thought,
because he appears to be more tolerant and sympathetic,
while in reality he is a strong Hindu defending Hinduism to
the last straw. But a few things can be said about him.
First, Radhakrishnan’s attitude to religion in general,
and Christianity in particular, seems from his self-assigned

234 235
 SECTION 3

WHAT IS INDIAN CHRISTIAN

THEOLOGY

236 237
 11

You will notice in this final chapter we are coming back

to the questions we raised in the earlier chapters of this
course — the question of doing theology in context. It is a
truism to say that Indian Christian theology has of course
relevance for the Indian people, but the question here is:
Does it have any significance for churches outside India?
We want to draw out from what we have learned in the
thinking of many Indians.
Again we may look at Boyd’s summary of the development
of Christianity in the world. It had to struggle to survive and
every time it overcame a particular culture or philosophy or
religion its growing power increased correspondingly.

THE THREE CONFRONTATIONS

Boyd says that the first great confrontation Christianity
had was with the Jewish culture. With a strong sense of
being the elect the Jews thought they were the centre of all
nations — they called all the other nations heathen. It must
have been well-nigh impossible for the early Jewish Chris-
tians and apostles to come out of the Jewish environment.
It was very easy for them to understand that Christianity
was just a continuation of the Jewish religion and that
Jesus was the promised messiah to consummate the Jew-
ish kingdom. In fact, some understood that way. But it is the
miracle of history that Paul and Peter and James tore away
radically from Judaism and that at its very birth. Perhaps
here some of the Jerusalem Christians can be the cause.
But whatever the cause, the Christianity of the early church
was definitely no mere sect of Judaism.
That is one reason why it could immediately take root in
heathen and Greek cultures and that is why Antioch and
not Jerusalem became the centre of mission, and later the
centre of orthodox Christianity (here I am referring to the

238 239
tension between Antioch and Alexandria in the 2nd and 3rd Christ, cannot be complete without the Indian contribu-
centuries). It is for this reason that even the very high tion. Thus Indian Christian theology adds not only to the
cultured and highly intellectual Hellenism (Greek philoso- fullness of the Christian gospel but also a depth so far
phies) could not contain the gospel. The Christian gospel unknown to it. You and I as Indian disciples are called upon
broke through the walls of Hellenism also and went beyond to do our bit in this great task. God forbid that we fail.
the then world of Greece. This, Boyd calls the second great
Since in this chapter we are more or less summarizing
confrontation.
what has been said in the earlier chapters, we need not go
Then when Christianity spread beyond the known world into the details as to what an Indian Christian theology
of the time into Africa, India and other lands, it confronted should contain. We can briefly describe the issues in the
also barbarism, animism, and above all Islam. Boyd prefers current debate as follows.
to call all these confrontations insignificant, but they seem
Starting at Radhakrishnan’s comment that Christianity
formidable enough to be termed the third and the fourth
is a dogmatic religion which requires the assent of its
great confrontations. But all these confrontations were
adherents to prepositional statements, and not a religion of
mild. Some of these tribal or barbaric cultures had no
experience, many Christians have tended to reject dogmat-
system of theology or doctrines or culture or ethics. Islam,
ics. As we have seen most of the Indian Christian theolo-
of course, was itself a child of Judeo-Christian teachings,
gians have been rather apologetes and not systematicians.
claiming itself to belong to the children of Ishmael. The
Thus dogmatics, the sum of the teachings of the church,
confrontation with the Chinese culture, “where along with
and systematics, the presentation of dogmatics according
the dominant Confucianism and Taoism there was also the
to one coherent principle of relationships, have been delib-
Indian derived Buddhist tradition”, has now been virtually
erately avoided. So far I have not seen any systematic
broken off. Boyd seems to suggest that even this confronta-
theology or dogmatic theology from Indian writers, though
tion was not a big match for the two thousand year old
there are several books containing some chosen doctrines.
Christianity. Though there is another kind of confrontation,
So in Radhakrishnan’s criticism there is an element of
that with communism, Boyd seems to think that along with
truth, namely, we Christians have preached but not
the Chinese traditions communism also has been van-
practiced. We accept a set of beliefs but that has no life
quished. Hence he says: “The task of presenting the gospel
implications. Now the questions is, what kind of theology
in India is then of quite exceptional importance.”
must now be produced in order that the church can be
Therefore, according to Boyd, the third great and final renewed and be vital again? The following are a minimum:
confrontation of Christianity is with Hinduism. Christianity
(a) I think we have already seen that the exegetical work
stands or falls as it fares with Hinduism. For one thing, as
from Indian writers is almost negligible. So it is of utmost
no other religious or philosophical tradition Hinduism has
importance that we start producing biblical theology. Not
both a very developed intellectual and closed system of
that our biblical theology will be much different from others,
thinking added to that, it also had its own sociological
but it shows that we Indians go to the Bible ourselves and
system and world-view. In another context we have already
find the truths in it originally and so apply it to our situation.
seen that Sanskrit contains more philosophical and theo-
That will have weight.
logical words than all the terms in Greek, Latin and German
put together. That means that any theology, anywhere in (b) We have said already that Indians are weak on history
the world, which interprets the message of the gospel of and I think to a great extent it is true. That is why we do not

240 241
have very many biographies of Christian saints or events in
India. So the second great need is to produce an account of
what the Lord Jesus Christ has done to particular persons
in concrete situations in India, rather than to think vaguely
on an Indian national scale.
(c) Perhaps the one area where we have all been strong,
as the host of above Indian thinkers show, is in the area of
apologetics. It is necessary in order to defend the gospel
against the current questions and attacks from outside the
church. And every generation must write its own apologetics,
since it cannot borrow it from the past generations.
(d) Since in India we have more than 550 million Hindus,
when we think of Indian Christian theology the tendency is
to think rather of theology relevant to Hindu hearers. Such
a tendency has been disastrous in evangelism among Mus-
lims, since to the Muslims Indian Christian theology is more
or less Hindu theology. Thus, I think we Indians must
develop Christian theology or the message of Christ in forms
relevant to religions other than Hinduism — Islam, Bud-
dhism, Jainism, Parseeism and Sikhism. It is a sad fact that
the Sikh community, though they have a population only a
few lakhs, have had the influence to have a Sikh President,
whereas with 20 million we have not yet had one Christian
President in the last half century since Independence.
Unless the Christian gospel makes an impact on religions
other than Hinduism we cannot be the salt of the earth.
(e) There is one new problem which is now coming on the
horizon of Indian Christians — that of liberation theology.
I believe in the coming years liberation theology will occupy
most of our energy, be it evangelical or otherwise. So our
theology must develop some kind of expression relevant to
the socio-political context. I mean a balanced emphasis on
Chrisitan ethics or even Christian social ethics is an urgent
need right now. Dalit theologies are now in the air, albeit
with shaky bases.
242
INDIAN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGICAL
EXPRESSIONS
In this section we will simply analyze the various terms
and strands of thought in Hinduism used in Indian Chris-
tian theology, eventually attempt to evaluate, and make
some recommendations also. In the next section we try to
integrate all that we have learned and we want to evolve
something for the future. In fact we ask the basic question:
Is there such a thing as Indian Christian theology, and if yes,
what is it? We hope to describe it a bit. In the final section
we supplement our analysis to even a broader level and
discuss what contextualisation or indigenisation is, and we
hope to arrive at a presentation as to what elements an
Indian Christian theology should have.
THE TERMS
We have used various terms — literally hundreds of
them — from Hindu, Sanskrit and other linguistic back-
grounds of India. Apparently they are not all equally impor-
tant. Are there certain crucial terms which in any case we
must either use or baptize?
Terms for God
Of course the question, what kind of word we use for God
is essentially related also to the words we use for the world
as well as Christ. Following are the terms which we have
seen as attempts: deva (which is cognate with theos of Greek
and deus of Latin), ishwara, parameshwara, Brahman and
saccidananda. Sometimes even the word bhagwan is used
exclusively for Krishnavatara). One redeeming feature of
this is that several names like Hari or Rama or Purusha are
conspicuous by their absence. Sometimes we have used the
word paramatman but as we have seen the word atman,
meaning spirit, in almost all its allied forms is used for the
Holy Spirit.
Of these perhaps the most important are the following
three: Iswara, Brahman and Saccidananda. As far as the
word saccidananda was concerned, we saw that it was
243
confused neither with the terms for Christ nor for the world,
so perhaps that is the one with least difficulties. But we had
difficulties about both Brahman and Ishwara. The problem
with Iswara is that it belongs to the world, the maya, so can
it bring out the transcendence of God as the Bible portrays?
As far as the word Brahman is concerned we had two sets
of difficulties (i) which Brahman do we mean, nirguna
Brahman or saguna Brahman? Nirguna Brahman, being
more impersonal and having no relations or attributes, is
actually not suitable as consummator of all things. But
since nirguna Brahman is the highest understanding of God
in Hinduism, we dare not leave it alone. For the same reason
to use saguna Brahman for God, which is rather a lower
category of God for the Hindus, is not really suitable to use
for the one almighty God. The other difficulty was: If we use
the word brahman for God what other word can we use for
Christ? Several people who have taken the advaitic strands
as the only means of interpretation, like Brahmabandhav or
Surjit Singh and Samartha would give nothing less than the
term Brahman for Christ. So using the word Brahman for
Lord Jesus Christ deprives him of his significance, that was
the feeling we had. One solution was to call nirguna Brah-
man the Reformer’s Deus absconditus or the God hidden;
and saguna Brahman the Deus revelatus or the revealed
God. In another theologian’s words a God of grace and a God
of wrath though the opposition is not exactly similar. I do
not think our studies have proved that Brahman is higher
than ishwara because there is at least one case (in bhakti
interpretation) where ishwara is manifested as Brahman.
Terms for God and the World
We saw that various authors use various words for the
world: maya, sthiti, prakriti, asat and shrishti, prapancha,
sansara, loka. The three problems which confront us in this
were: (i) whether the world is real or unreal? (ii) whether it is
created by God out of something or is it fully under his
control? (iii) what is the means of the creation of the world?
From these points of view the last term shrishti has no
problem since shrishti means creation as well as the sum of
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all created beings. It is of course difficult to choose a term
which answers all the questions adequately — unless of
course we invent one, which may also not be any more useful.
Perhaps more than anywhere else it is here that, if any of these
terms is chosen for the world or creation, as the Bible means,
it must be baptized carefully with the biblical content.
Terms for Christ
We encountered the following: maya, shakti, chit of
saccidananda, avatara, purusha, sat purusha, mula purusha,
purna avatara, antaryamin, saguna brahman, nirguna
brahman and ishwara. The problems here were (i) that any
term we use for Christ we must say that he is fully God and
hence not part of this world, maya, and at the same time he
is fully man and so must be part of this world; (ii) he must
be co-equal, co-eternal in all respects with God the Father;
(iii) and he also must be presented as the prototype man, the
full man, the true man, the real man. Particularly these
christological terms show us as to what dangers we run into
if we use one term without explaining the missing elements.
We also encountered in this respect the two mahavakyas,
so called, of the Johannine Gospel: “I and my Father are
one” and “Abide in me” as being crucial in interpreting
Christ to the Indian minds and hearts.
Terms for the Holy Spirit
Several thinkers have used the following: atman,
paramatman, antaratman, antaryamin, shakti, para shakti,
maha shakti, ananda and jeevatman. And what were the
difficulties here? (i) In any case the term should not give the
connotation of just a mere influence or power or principle
but rather the Holy Spirit as a person must be preserved. (ii)
It also must not be made lower than the second person of the
Trinity. (iii) It must somehow be more accessible to man as
the paracletos and wisdom, as the indweller. (iv) The term for
Spirit must not make it pneumomonism — an exclusive but
non-biblical emphasis on the third person of the Trinity.
That means that it should not exclude the first and or the
second person of the Trinity.
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 It is most interesting to see that of all the languages in
the world it is Sanskrit which has the greatest abundance
of words for the Spirit. So it is quite possible, the Indian
philosophical and religious genius can provide a more
adequate elucidation for the slippery category of the spirit.
Professor Hengel of Germany once voiced that the greatest
weakness of the German language is that it has no word for
the ‘spirit . So the Germans somehow manipulate the word
they use for the spirit also for reason, rational intellect, and
yet understand it to mean spiritual things.
Terms for Man
We saw the following: atman, purusha, bhakta, manava,
aham, ahamkara. One problem we faced in the terms used
for man is to preserve the finiteness of humanhood, in
comparison with the Hindu advaitic infiniteness. The sec-
ond problem was that the question of ‘I’ the person, should
be preserved in its positive connection, while generally in
Hinduism freedom is rather considered as a fall! And
thirdly, the Gnostic idea that only spirit is good and matter
is evil has tended to understand man only in his spiritual
elements, so that the body does not play a real part. Another
problem was the differentiation between self and soul —
since as the popular understanding goes among Hindus, it
is the self which is contaminated by sin while the soul
remains pure. Recently I learned that the very concept of
person, like of history, is a Christian contribution to the
world. In fact, it is in dealing with the problems of christology
(one person and two natures)and of trinity (one substance
and three persons) that we find how crucial is our definition
of the term ‘person’ for our theology.
Terms for Sin
We saw one term which came to be used overwhelmingly
is karma. Actually the only other term is of advaitic origin,
avidya, ignorance. We also used words like ahamkara
(selfishness), agnana (ignorance) for sin. But actually these
represent certain particular sins rather than the principle of
sin. The word mala meaning dirt was also used. But it is
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surprising that the one word which most of the Indian
languages use for sin was conspicuous by its omission —
the term papa. The difficulties here were, of course, to see
man as not only a sinner but sinful in nature. In addition,
sin as belonging only to the realm of matter was discussed.
We also saw that Hinduism does not have a sense of guilt for
sin but rather for the shame of wrong. What was most
conspicuous is the discovery that in Hinduism sin is not
necessarily godward, as in the Bible.
Terms for Church and Sacraments
Sabha, samudayam, quam, ashram, math, were some of
the expressions. Some Indian languages have found great
difficulty in finding an Indian equivalent and so they have
retained the very Greek word ecclesia in their translation of
the Bible. The problem here was whether the Church as an
institution has any serious theological value. Thanks to the
Hindu vedantic approach to God, man and the world, the
corporate worship or life of the community of the church is
definitely lacking. Surprisingly, there was not much diffi-
culty in accepting the Christian ministry. There seems to be
an unconscious transfer of the sanyas to the ministry of
priests or clergy in Christian church. As far as the terms for
the sacraments are concerned there are as many terms as
there are Indian languages. Some of the languages have
retained either baptism or eucharist, but more often than
not they have used some rather very common expression
indicating the Lord s Supper or initiation in baptism.
Terms for History
I am sure we did not come across any particular Indian
term, other than charitra or itihasa being used for history.
Though we use the word itihas or charitra or story in some
other way, I do not think any of these terms have yet
acquired a theological significance. That in itself is the
problem, is it not?
HOW DO WE USE THEM?
Actually the problem is that the terms one uses are
entirely dependent on what line of thought one accepts. By
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that we mean, since most of these terms are more or less part
of a particularly Hindu philosophical or religious system,
we cannot use them without these contexts. This requires
us to study briefly also what different strands of Hindu
thinking the Indian Christian thinkers have attempted to
use as their vehicle.
Strands of Hindu Thought
(i) Of course, the most obvious is the advaita strand. The
reason behind Brahmabandhav or Surjit Singh accepting
this line of thinking is that the advaitic categories are more
comprehensive. But the problems encountered here were
numerous. The impersonality of God, the unreality of the
world, the status of Christ’s deity the finiteness of man, the
nature of salvation, and even the very concept of sin, just to
mention a few.
(ii) The second strand was that of Ramanuja, the
vishishtadvaita. As we have seen, it has certain marked
advantages over advaita. But it has the tendency to make
God or Christ too mundane and historical and empirical
rather than eternal. Perhaps that is the reason why the
vishistadvaitins are accused by the advaitins as idolaters.
In addition, what Rudolf Otto calls the gap — the mysterium
tremendum et numinosum — between God and man is
lacking in this type of strand. But many like Appasamy,
have seen the bhakti tradition, coming in this strand, as the
best suited to the Christian message. The reasons were, of
course, that it speaks of grace, of a personal relationship, of
obedience and faith and love and commitment, as well as it
necessitates incarnation. As we saw, Klaus Klostermaier
suggests that even the bhakti practices of nama japa and
kirtan are good worship modes for the Christians.
You will notice that another vedantic interpretation,
that of dvaita (dualism) is not used for communicating the
Christian message. Perhaps you know that the whole ques-
tion of duality between good and evil, light and darkness,
really goes back to the Zarathushtrian duality between
Ahriman and Ahura Mazda. Scholars are divided as to
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whether Israel took their quality of good and evil and the
eschatological implications of the final victory of God over
the forces of evil from the Persians.
(iii) Of course there are many like Klostermaier, who did
not advocate any one strand because they believed none of
them are really adequate. We should rather use the richness
of all the strands to express the message. Some have
interpreted that this is what the Bible means when it says
that all the riches of the nations will be brought to Zion. But
we also saw the weakness of that. As Boyd pointed out, it will
be difficult to avoid misunderstanding of the terms other
than as used in their own strands.
Some Guidelines
Many strands and the terms have been used by our
Indian thinkers during the last 200 years. I suggest the
following guidelines for using such indigenous categories
and expressions:
(a) It is necessary that the Christian Church in India
strives to use Indian modes of thought to express the
Christian message. One must definitely analyze to what
extent the western or the in-between missionary has brought
into Indian Christian theology their cultural elements, and
then to eliminate them. This is a long process.
(b) Having said that, we must also say we cannot do the
same with the Jewish culture, because if we accept at all Old
Testament as part of the word of God, then we must also
accept it as normative for us. So what we need to do is to
study the biblical culture and find counterparts in our own
culture.
(c) Just because a term is found in all the languages
(such as karma or deva or bhagwan etc.), it does not mean
that it has the same connection or sense. Those who use the
word bhagwan for God may be surprised to see others use
the word andavar or still others to use the word deva or
ishwar or allah or even devi or mother, as Narayan Vaman
Tilak used. That is, it is not really so necessary to develop an
249
Indian Christian terminology as it is to develop Christian
theology in particular languages or cultures — since here
we are thinking mostly of terms and thoughts.
(d) I have noticed that in most of our Indian prayers we
never use the word Brahman or such high sounding words.
We use mostly words like swami, prabhu, pita, and so on.
That is to say there are many words in our Christian usage,
borrowed from the Indian cultures, which have been natu-
ralized for such a long time that the new content of this is
obvious even to the Hindus. All this goes to show that just
as the early Christians let the Holy Spirit decide as to what
the canon should be and only later endorsed it, I think we
will be safer if we also let the Spirit guide us as to what terms
and strands we must use for communicating the gospel to
our Indian brothers and not to make such deliberate and
conscientious efforts to create or apply the existing terms.
Do we not believe that the Holy Spirit is able enough to guide
even a weak church or a congregation, to guide into all the
truth?
(e) Most of these contextualisations must take place in
an evangelistic context. It is in speaking to real persons that
issues arise and the Spirit will guide us as to what we should
use. We will see later the example of Philip and the Ethio-
pian eunuch.
SOME GUIDELINES FOR CONTEXTUALISING IN
HINDU CULTURES
As long as particular cultures, religions and ideologies
exist contextualisation is a necessity. As long as there are
more than five hundred millions from the Hindu back-
ground, this is the peculiar situation to which the gospel
must address itself in India.
Notice that we are dealing in the plural — “in Hindu
cultures”. As far as India is concerned, it is thoroughly
pluralistic context. Hence one can speak only in the plural.
Hinduism is an ocean, of many religions and cultures,
morals and philosophies. One can of course distinguish
250
certain features common to all shades. At a popular level,
the caste-system, the belief in karma and punarjanma, the
worship of various gods and goddesses and festivals and
pilgrimages in honour of them, observance of religious days
and duties — these can be taken as the essence of Hindu-
ism. Perhaps the greater influence of popular religious
literature, such as puranas and epics and folklore can be
added.
But the power and resilience of Hinduism through the
millennia is to be found at another level — we could call it
the spiritual level. Some key elements of this level are:
(a) A synthetic way of thinking. Reconciliation of oppo-
sites has always dominated the Indian mind. It is because
of this that a Hindu is perfectly at home with atheism,
pantheism, polytheism and monotheism, henotheism and
demonism. Hindu thought can simultaneously accept the
concept of nirguna and saguna Brahman (the brahman who
is without qualities and cannot be known by man, and the
one with qualities and hence can be known). Or, that atman
can be one in substance with the brahman and yet is subject
to maya (illusion) is no inconsistency to Hindus. They
believe that this kind of truth can be grasped only by
“intuition”, while contradictions belong to the rational level.
That reality is one essentially, but only apparently many, is
the philosophy (advaita) which is at the root of it all. Thus
the well-known Hindu religious tolerance is a theological
necessity for Hindus! In addition, such a logic has given
Hinduism numerous philosophical systems, which are very
rigorous and precisely worked out in all details, and co-exist
to this day. The advantages of the Hindu way of thinking,
however, include: paradoxical concepts like incarnation
(fully God and fully man), inspiration (God’s and man’s word
simultaneously and fully), the Union with Christ (not essen-
tial, neither moral, ethical . . .), can be easily comprehended
by the Indians. The disadvantages are: mixing up good and
evil, right and wrong, etc., one is left without a point of
reference. This robs man of any sense of direction and
action. The recent theological method developed by Asians,
251
called the Yin-Yang approach, is very closely related to this
type of thinking, though it has many advantages over the
Aristotelian (the law of contradiction) way of thinking.1 Yet
one must accept, as Boyd rightly observes, 2 the synthetic
way of thinking is not the only way in India; in fact, the
analogical and the analytical logics also are used for the
Indian philosophical systems.
(b) An exclusive emphasis on spirituality. The renuncia-
tion of this world of society and material and physical things
in preference for spiritual realization is a coveted high ideal
in Hinduism. In fact, it is a religious requirement for every
Hindu, that once he has satisfactorily completed the first
three stages of his life namely balashrama (childhood),
brahmacharyashrama (youth), grihastashrama (adulthood
and marriage), he must go on to the final stage, that of
sanyasashrama (renunciation). Such an ideal has caused
the sprouting of many ashrams, gurus, sadhus, and
sanyasis. It has led to the devaluation of this world and
history and has encouraged a life of detachment. It has also
led to the preference of individualism and spontaneity
rather than organization and planning.
c) The all-compassing Hindu world-view, can be best
summarized in the doctrines of maya and karma-sansara.
Maya is the mysterious creative power which brahman
possesses through which all changes, pluralities and quali-
ties come into being; since brahman is without quality or
potentiality maya is the illusion, karma sansara is the cycle
of rebirths from which the individual soul (atman) wants to
be liberated (moksha). Neo-Hindus, like Radhakrishnan
and Gandhi have attempted to interpret maya so as to give
reality and responsibility to earthly life. In particular, in the
face of the struggle for freedom from the colonial British
power and the task of nation-building following independ-
ence, it was necessary for these Hindu leaders to give
meaning and reality to world, society and history by reinter-
preting the classical meaning of maya; but thousands of
years of indoctrination cannot be so easily counteracted.
252
(d) The ways of God. Another very widespread belief
among the Hindus is that there are essentially three margas
to God (ways): karmamarga (the way of action or duties),
bhaktimarga (the way of personal devotion, submission)
and gnanamarga (the way of wisdom, enlightenment). It
depends on the type of personality as to which way one
should choose gnanamarga is the highest while karmamarga
is the lowest, conceptually speaking, but all ways lead to
God.
These factors mentioned above reveal the magnitude of
our task in contextualising the biblical message for India.
That contextualisation is particularly necessary in India is
best illustrated by Sunder Singh, the greatest Indian Chris-
tian of the century. 3 We in India do not just need to use
Indian words for some foreign concepts. We need to make
the biblical message so relevant to the Hindu’s
pre-understanding that he hears what the Spirit has to say
to him through the Word. What are some of the special
emphasis needed in India?
i) Religious authority. Both among the Indian Christians
as well as Hindus the discussion concerning authority is
very much alive. We discussed this in the first chapter. As
we have seen, the three main pramanas sruti, yukti, and
anubhava have been extensively used by Indians.
Sadhu Sunder Singh was careful to check that his
experiences were no contradiction to the Bible.
Brahmabandhav and Panikkar, as well as Appasamy to
some extent, give the first place to the Church. The doc-
trines and authority of the Church have precedence.
Chakkarai, Goreh and several others have given the Scrip-
tures the first place as the supreme authority. Hinduism
itself places sruti first, anubhava second and yukti third. In
the face of excesses of Indian legalism (brahmanism) and
occultism (shakti and bhakti), the one-sided emphasis
either on the Scriptures or on the Holy Spirit in the Indian
Christian theology will not meet. We need to stress the
‘objective word and the ‘subjective Spirit as equally,
supreme authorities and necessarily together. Actually,
253
both comprise one single authority, as the two sides of the
coin. It must be stressed in the Indian scene that inference,
analogy and experience must all be judged by this two-edged
divine authority. This is perhaps the only way to keep Indian
Christian from ‘bibliolatry’, on the one hand, and
schwaermerei (that is, an irrational movement, as of bees
swarming) on the other.
(b) There is no other system which has influenced the
Hindu mind more than the advaita system, that truth is
ultimately one, monistic. (We are speaking here of course,
of the cream of philosophical Hinduism). In this system,
good and evil, right and wrong, life and death, etc. are
necessary pairs (as in the Yin-Yang method), and so Hindu-
ism leads one to a kind of universalism unimaginable in
Christianity. In real sense it is a justification of evil, wrong
and falsehood along with good and right and truth, like in
the Hegelian system. Such a thinking leads not only to
antinomianism but also to apathy, meaninglessness. In the
face of this, it is imperative that the Christian Church in
India lifts up the biblical picture of God as a holy God, who
is of holier eyes than to behold evil. Most of the Hindu
writers and thinkers accept without reservation the biblical
idea of God as love, but what all of them miss is His holiness.
The Bible portrays God as a jealous God, who does not give
His glory to others! Without such an uncompromising
emphasis on the holiness of God, the biblical message loses
its cutting edge. The atoning death of Christ, the missionary
enterprise, the ethical responsibilities and even the exist-
ence of the Church become unpalatable to Hindus. Thus the
Church stands in constant danger of being absorbed by the
vortex of Hinduism. That God is not love alone but holy love
is the one strong foundation of which the Indian Church can
be built up and be a strong witness to her Lord.
(c) The world and reality. Renunciation of this world has
a great appeal in India because of the belief in maya, that
this world of matter is an illusion or, at best a second-rate
reality. Unless maya is drastically reinterpreted, Hindus do
not have any basis for historical or ethical action. As we have
254
seen, this is what both types of neo-Hinduism of
Radhakrishnan and Gandhi attempted to do.
Men, world, society, history will have meaning provided
they are real. Hundred of thousands of sadhus and sanyasins
have completely renounced this world of relationships
precisely because of the reality of this world is negated. In
such a scheme of things the Bible’s message comes with a
challenging relevance, when it discloses that this world is a
creation of God and is the realm of His loving action on
behalf of man. You remember Surjit Singh’s theology, that
it is precisely because of the resurrection of Christ that the
body, the world and history have infinite significance in
God’s scheme of salvation. Man also is not only a creature,
but one who is in the image of God. The doctrine of creation
and providence have tremendous relevance to India.
(d) That man reaps what he sows, either in this birth or
in the following ones, is the most universal belief of Hindu-
ism. The religious zeal of Hindus can be explained only by
this root motivation. The world for a Hindu is a prison, of his
deeds and their consequences, and to get out of this prison
is thus his only salvation, or goal — mukti. Justification by
grace through faith is more relevant to Hinduism than
perhaps to any other religions or ideological system! The
one word the Hindus use most often is the word shanti,
peace, which they strive to achieve by their own works.
Peace with God which grace brings to the believers will be
a most welcome message for them provided it is clearly
shown to them with a challenging relevance. Perhaps the
understanding of conversion, regeneration, sanctification,
union with Christ do not make much sense with Hindus as
compared with justification. Bruce Nicholls comments,
In the context of the Hindu notion karma and the total lack
of assurance of salvation, I believe the recovery of justifica-
tion by faith is one of the greatest needs in the formulation
of an Indian Christian theology.4
(e) Fellowship. C.F. Andrews wrote, after interviewing
many leading Indian Christians of his day, that in many
cases the reason for their conversion was not a desire for
255
personal salvation, but rather the appeal of Christian broth-
erhood. He adds;
I do not imply that the sense of individual need for salvation
is absent or that this experience is necessarily typical. But in
such cases as these, the purely personal aspects develop
later. The community is the primary concern.
It is the deep-rooted caste-system, where one’s social
and religious and even human status is determined by
birth, which is the cause for driving thousands of Hindus
out of the Hindu fold. During the last few years several
hundred thousand harijans or the untouchable, casteless
Hindus embraced Buddhism openly, declaring that it gives
dignity and meaning. Many of the people movements in
India were primarily among the harijans. It is obvious that
the one thing they were looking for was this element of
fellowship.
Hindu people are now fed up with the ritualistic and
legalistic pictures of the Church. Nothing will attract them
more than the koinonia, which is expressed in leiturgia and
diakonia. We Indian Christians have failed most in showing
this koinonia not with outsiders but with one another.
Have we Indian Christians fully realized the great truth
in the Lord’s saying, “If you have love for one another . . . the
world will know that you are my disciple”? Koinonia is
perhaps one of the most effective forms of witness for Christ.
Would to God that he sends such a revival of the spirit from
above and so unites the grain together, even throwing away
the husk, that there be a sense of koinonia as never before,
and so the whole continent of India comes to know that we
belong to Christ.
(f) Power Encounter. We in India are deeply grateful that
the gospel can be understood in terms of power.5 Nothing
seals the fruits of evangelism more than a power encounter
with the force of darkness and the victory of the Holy Spirit
over them. When one constantly sees among the neigh-
bours the fear and bondage to evil spirits, and how the fear
governs their total religious and social life, one is convinced
that the message of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of power
256
brings liberation. We do not need so many organizers and
organizations, not so much theologians and scholars as
simple people filled and led by the Spirit. Among the Hindus
nothing gives surer acceptance than the evidence of a Spirit
far stronger than their own.
GUIDELINES FOR INDIAN EVANGELICAL
THEOLOGY
A BIBLICAL MODEL
One of the most thrilling stories in the Bible about the
leading of the Holy Spirit is the story of Philip — the first
missionary to the Gentiles and the Ethiopian eunuch, the
first Gentile convert. Philip, as you know, did not belong to
the top twelve but rather to the serving seven. Yet he was so
zealous in preaching Christ that he was called “the evange-
list”. The eunuch was neither a Jew nor a Samaritan but a
Gentile worshipper of God. He belonged to a ‘third world
nation’ of the time. He was so honest that he was made the
minister in charge of the queen’s treasury (it is of course true
that the greatest need in the Indian Church is for well
trained evangelical Christian leaders. Money is the other
God, as Jesus said, and unless we have learned to overcome
this idol worship we are still worshiping mammon.)
Actually, eunuchs were forbidden to worship in the
temple, according to Deuteronomy 23:1. We do not know
whether he was forbidden or was allowed to worship on
account of status or even the long journey — probably he
was allowed to worship. In any case he was having a portion
of the scriptures in his mind and was reading it on his way
back home.
Philip was directed to meet the eunuch on the way. The
eunuch was reading, providentially, that part of the scrip-
ture which was well suited to speak about Christ. And the
Spirit prompted Philip to join the chariot. He joined and
asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How
can I”, answered the Ethiopian, “unless someone guides
me?” (Ac.8:31)
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 Now the Bible does not tell us exactly what Philip told the
Ethiopian except that “beginning with this scripture he told
him the good new about Jesus”. Neither do I want to
re-create the whole of Philip’s message; but what I am
driving at here is that what Philip did then is exactly the
contextualization of the message of the gospel to the Ethio-
pian’s needs. In any case I am convinced that in our
attempts to contextualise the gospel and concentrate on
interpreting the scriptures, in telling others the good news
of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will guide us, as we depend
upon him. That is exactly what Philip did.
WHAT IS CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY?
Christian theology can be described as the articulation
by a disciple of Christ of his understanding of the contents
of the biblical revelation. Such an articulation is historically
conditioned by several factors such as language, culture,
socio-politico-economic conditions, the past inheritance
and so on. So Christian theology must be contextual in the
sense that it is shown to be relevant to these contexts.
Perhaps a better word to express the connections of
indigenisation and contextualisation is relevance . Unfortu-
nately it has no verb. The word comes from the Latin re
levare, to raise up, relieve — from the notion of helping.
Thus it is free of either geographical or situational connec-
tions. Perhaps one of the best usage of the term is by A.G.
Hogg, his famous phrase “challenging relevance”. Herbert
Jaisingh uses the term somewhat naively to mean “speak-
ing to a situation”.6 Explicitly or implicitly such a relevance
is a must in any theologizing. Otherwise no theology would
have any cutting edge!
All systematic theologies, all confessions and dogmatics
and all summae theologies are contextual too. This is why
we have not one but many systematics, dogmatics and
confessions: by Origen, Aquinas, Melanchthon, Calvin,
Berkhof, Tillich, Chakkarai, and a host of others, as well as
confessions of different churches. The origin, the method of
treatment, the issues dealt with and their emphasis or
258
de-emphasis, the principle of the system, are all so drawn as
to be relevant to the context of the theologian — hence the
plurality of these results.
You may be surprised to find that even biblical theology
(or exegetical theology as some call it) is not all absolute; for
in speaking to describe and classify the facts of the biblical
revelation within the limits of biblical categories and times,
it must use contemporary human language. Moreover, the
criteria of classification are extra-biblical and are deter-
mined by the theologian himself. There may be greater
agreement in biblical theology than, let us say, in dogmat-
ics, but both have varied. Thus all theologies, as human
expressions, are inevitably conditioned by, and therefore
relevant to the theologian’s particular context.
There are three aspects involved in any valid contextual
theology.
Contextual theology is the contextualisation of the biblical
revelation.
This is based on the conviction that the Bible is “the only
written word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and
the only infallible rule of faith and practice” (Lausanne
Covenant). So a contextual theology must primarily attempt
to determine and interpret what the biblical authors wanted
to say.7
A proper contextualisation does not philosophize the
‘gospel message’, into some abstract ideas like ‘self-giving
love’, ‘man for others’, ‘liberation’, ‘shalom’, etc. Rather it
concretizes such ideas in images and pictures portrayed in
the Bible, and builds its tenets upon them. For example,
instead of discerning an abstract Christ who is hidden in all
religions, cultures, liberation movements and ideologies, a
valid theology attempts to discover the Christ who is re-
vealed in a concrete person, Jesus of Nazareth.
To take another example, instead of deducing the nature
of the Church from its functions, which may be particularly
useful to a human situation, a valid theology must start
259
with the biblical understanding of what the Church is and
then deduce the function, and the form of the Church which
express her nature — and so discover what the Church can
do at a particular time.
The primary issue here, therefore, is not an understand-
ing of an idea of Christ or the gospel in particular context.
Theology is primarily an interpreting of the Bible or scrip-
ture in context. The Bible is thus the primary source,
ultimate authority and foundation for it.
Such an affirmation has at least two implications.
(a) This high view of the Bible is a confession of faith. The
Bible is given primarily as an object of faith and obedience.
If God has spoken, how else can man accept his word if not
by faith? No miracle can really replace the hand of faith —
that is why Abraham told the rich man who was suffering in
hell-fire, “if they do not hear Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from
the dead” (Luke 16:31). Further the Bible exhorts, “be doers
of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves”
(James 1:22). He who believes God’s word honours God. So
faith is the only proper attitude towards the Bible. The result
of all biblical research — exegetical, historical, critical,
hermeneutical — entirely depends upon this attitude for its
validity.
(b) Our faith attitude towards the Bible is also a confes-
sion of our human predicament, for it admits that both the
human reason and experience, individual or collective, are
impotent to grasp any true knowledge of God. All our logic,
wisdom, memory, history, must be judged by the Bible. In
matters pertaining to God all our faculties are bankrupt. As
Paul says in Romans, “None is righteous, no not one. No one
understands, no one seeks for God. All have turned aside,
together they have gone wrong. No one does good, not even
one” (Ro. 3:10-12).
(c) Thus, in starting with the Bible, a valid contextualised
theology recognizes human fallenness and looks away from
260
all human strivings and recognizes God as trustworthy and
looks up to him.
Contextual theology depends on the power and presence
of the Holy Spirit
How can man understand if by nature he is fallen and
incapable? Hence the sola scriptura principle is powerless
without the presence and power of the Spirit (1 Co. 2:11).
The Holy Spirit who has separated the sixty six books of the
Bible by inspiration and fixed the canon, is also the one who
interprets the recorded word relevantly in every situation.
He is also the Spirit of truth and so leads them into all the
truth. He is the power and criterion of all valid theology.
This second affirmation also has its implications.
(a) “For as yet as Spirit had not been given because Jesus
was not yet given glorified” (John 7:39). The scriptures
abundantly clarify that the Spirit shall come in Jesus’ name
(John 14:26). He shall bear witness to and glorify Jesus
(John 15:26; 16:24) and remind the disciples of Jesus’
teaching (14:26). Even the conviction of sin, righteousness
and judgment which the Holy Spirit brings to the world is
concerning Jesus (16:7-11). Thus the content of theology is
Jesus Christ and nothing else. “You search the scriptures
because you think in them you find eternal life and it is they
that bear witness to me”, said Jesus (John 5:39). The Bible
is given in order that we may know him, and believing in him
we may have life (Phil. 3:10; John 20:30, 31). Thus we
proclaim Jesus, not any truth or wisdom. He is our truth,
our life, our way, wisdom, redemption and goal. “In him all
things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and
invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or
authorities — all things were created through him and for
him . . . for in him all the fullness of God was pleased to
dwell” (Col. 1:16ff). And so we look forward for the day when
“at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow in heaven and
on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10-11).
261
 (b) It is precisely because of the presence and activity of the
Holy Spirit that a valid Christian theology is also the theology
by the whole Church. For to each of us is given a variety of gifts
“by the Spirit for the common good”. So none of us knows the
truth, i.e. Christ, fully — but only partly, for at best we can see
only through a glass, as it were. The variety of the gifts is for
the purpose of “building up the body of Christ” and therefore,
“we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into
Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together,
. . . makes bodily growth and upholds itself in love” (Eph. 4:12,
15, 16). Across all the barriers of time and space, race and
nation, language and culture, we as the body of Christ
encourage and correct one another. We need one another. All
church traditions and persuasions which are built upon the
above two affirmations though seemingly sectarian, are at a
deeper level ”eager to maintain the unity of spirit“ (Eph. 4:3).
Both at universal and local levels therefore all Christian
theology is the articulation by the church of her knowledge of
and devotion to the Lord Jesus.
Evangelical contextual theology needs to build upon
firm foundation of the Bible and the divine power behind it.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the
churches” (Rev. 2:7 etc.).
The ultimate goal of evangelical theology is worship and
the glorification of God
In whatever way our doctrines are formulated, be it the
Bible or the Holy Spirit, faith or sin, Christ or the Church —
all must lead to the glory of God the Father Almighty, Maker
of heaven and earth. Of course, our theologies have objec-
tives such as leading people to Christ, planting churches
and edification of the believers to grow into the maturity of
the fullness of the stature of Christ. But all this must be
done with the ultimate goal of glorifying God the Father. Any
other goal is atheological and hence anti-theological. Our
first wish in prayer is always, “Our Father, who art in
heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will
be done . . . !” (Matt. 6:9,10). And our final item is even the
same: “Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanks-
262
giving and honour and power and might be to our God for
ever and ever!” (Rev.7:12).
The implications of this are :
(a) The above seven-fold doxology is based on the
three-fold revelation of God as the creator, sustainer and
consummator of all things. Hence, he is the source, support
and end of man too. Though everything that is, is by him and
for him since he is holy he cannot be made the author of evil,
for he is of holier of eyes than to behold evil! But not only is
he holy but also holy love. Thus he sustains all things,
including man, through all situations, including the situa-
tion of the evil one. In this way we should speak of provi-
dence as redemptive providence, instead of as creative
providence (as some have affirmed). He is also almighty and
so can consummate what he has begun hence our assur-
ance is God and God alone! “Holy, holy holy is the Lord God
Almighty who was, and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8).
(b) It is surprising that in spite of all the difference in
their understanding of man, anthropologists agree on one
thing — that man is what he is only when he is before God.
Thus, instead of making our theology anthropocentric, as
many have already attempted, evangelical theology tries to
understand man from God’s point of view. Hence anthropol-
ogy must necessarily follow theology. It is not our self-
understanding which is crucial, but rather God’s under-
standing of us. Only when we know that God is holy love can
we speak of the redeemed man, new creation. For “what is
man that thou art mindful of him and the son of man that
thou dost care for him?” (Ps. 8:4)
To summarize, evangelical theology has at least three
essential characteristics. Based upon the Word, accompa-
nied by the Holy Spirit, it serves and glorifies God, All three
elements are equally essential and fundamental.
Without the Word, the natural desire we have to worship
leads to mysticism, and the sensitivity to the Spirit we have
brings conviction of sin, righteousness and judgment. This
was the case with Cornelius. It may lead to seekers, but it
263
leads also to judgment, hopelessness and fatalism. Unless
the word, that is the word of grace, is spoken, there is no
redemption.
But without the Holy Spirit, our natural desire to wor-
ship can become dry and dogmatic, like the Pharisees who
had a form of godliness but lacked the power thereof. And we
may even have the Word without the Spirit, but then we get
mixed with words and philosophies (like Hegel,
Schleiermacher) and this may lead to dogmatism and schism.
Only the Bible, without the Spirit and the supreme goal
to worship God may lead to worship of the creature rather
than the creator. In fact to self-worship and even to ideolo-
gies (Utopia or Christo-marxism). Only the presence of the
Holy Spirit, without the Word and the supreme desire to
glorify God may lead to false worship which is not worship
in truth — to occultism, animism, and spiritism. And only
the goal of worshipping God without both the Spirit and the
Word, will of course lead to error — lacking both the power
and the Word of God — to heresies, ritualism and religions.
Thus it is of crucial importance that evangelical theology
must always keep all three basic elements intact and in
balance.
Whatever the terms, the genuine concern behind the
contextualisation debate is a step forward in the sense that
it has made us realize the inadequacy of the both the terms
in their traditional connection. Indigenisation as a process
of relating the gospel to a culture, and contextualisation as
relating the gospel to a secular situation — both are out-
dated. Because, as Bruce Nicholls shows, a person s
pre-understanding is not based on either of these alone, or
even both taken together. There are other factors which also
decisively influence the interpreter’s/receiver’s
pre-understanding. The expansion of one term to include
the other has not really clarified the issues. Perhaps new
terminologies and new approaches are needed. In any case,
though it may seem arbitrary, I have chosen the term
contextualisation to express our concern here, partly be-
cause it frees one from geographical and political overtones.
264
Thus contextualisation is meant here as the process of
showing the Bible to be meaningful/relevant to the receiver
in whatever culture/context he may be, in order that he may
truly discover what the Bible has to say to him. The main
concern here is to take the total pre-understanding of the
hearer into consideration and not just one aspect such as
culture, ideology etc.
BEYOND CONTEXTUALISATION
Our above definition has several implications
(a) In order to present the good news of Jesus Christ to
those of the Hindu fold, Indian Christians are compelled to
go beyond both cultural and theological contextualisation
in modern India. There are some who consider only the
religious aspects as the relevant sphere, while others deal
only with the ideological aspect. Thus far a wholistic
contextualisation, taking into consideration the total
pre-understanding of the receptor, has not been attempted
in India — at least no concerted effort is seen.
(b) Perhaps of even greater weight is the fact of the
“coming world culture”. Whether we like it or not we are
being caught up in “the current of the single world history”
which is huddling us together as neighbours to one another
in “one global village”. This is a new fact, particular to our
time. Perhaps as in other parts of the world, also in India it
is becoming increasingly difficult to identify what a Hindu
culture is. As the cross-fertilization of ancient cultures is
steadily preparing for the one world culture it is also
de-culturizing many aspects of them. Like many others, the
modern Indian is in a cultural vacuum, or at least in a
multi-cultural situation. Will it not be more meaningful and
more fruitful if instead of only a cultural approach, we also
add a person-to person approach in proclaiming the gospel
of Jesus Christ?
(c) Empirically, it is this exciting realisation of the
imminent unity of mankind, the “one world” ideology which
is sweeping everywhere, which makes us Christians depend
265
upon one another as never before in past church history.
The number of inter-denominational activities and confer-
ences in our time so outweighs the denominational ones
that it is a truism to speak of the ecumenical character of our
contextual theologies. The historical distinctions may con-
tinue, yet we have all amply realised that we need one
another across denominations and persuasions, across
political, economic, racial and ideological barriers. After all
we are one body and have one spirit, one faith, one Lord and
one hope. Not only does the west need the east and the north
need the south, but we of the Two-Thirds World need the
First World brethren. Any evangelical theology in any cul-
ture needs henceforth to re-state itself in the light of these
above inter-contextual factors. Otherwise it will not be a
relevant theology. Though the scriptures belong to a par-
ticular historical context and culture the biblical message is
universal. Christian, secular and other religious ecumenisms
of our time are clarifying this truth to us very effectively.
TOWARDS APOLOGETICS OR DOGMATICS?
(d) The consolidation of theology into confessions or
dogmatic or systematics or summae is necessitated on
account of heresies and controversies. Looking at the In-
dian scene at a time when the production of theologies is
increasing rapidly, one reluctantly agrees that a time for
such a consideration has come. One is overwhelmed by the
scholarly (doctoral) monographs written, or being written,
by Indian Christians let alone by the literature churned out
at the popular level. But it is another question how much of
this bulk is evangelical or how long any system will last in
our fluid situation.
This means at least one thing: One great need in the
Indian Church, even for the sake of her mission, is what St.
Paul calls diakrisis — the dividing of the spirits or the
discerning of the spirits. Partly due to historical reasons
(colonialism, denominational rivalry, the intoxication of the
nationalistic spirit in the pre-independence era, the Church
Union movements etc.) and partly due to our cultural
266
background (the synthetic way of thinking, the pluralistic
situation, the need for a united front against communal
opposition, Hindu/Muslim/Buddhist counter-missions etc.)
Indian Christians have set aside theological differences in
the name of unity and service, survival and growth. But now
at long last we must realize the seriousness of these differ-
ences. They are as great as the gulf between the unknown
Christ of Hinduism and Jesus Christ of the New Testament;
between action groups to break down inhuman structures
and the fellowship of believers for worship and witness;
between vedic Sruti and biblical revelation. It is time that the
evangelicals discern the spirits and take a stand.
We also recognize gratefully that such efforts are on the
increase. What is needed in the Indian Church now is not so
much loyalty to various organisations such as EFI, NCCI,
etc. or to denominations and institutions like CISRS, UTC,
UBS, etc., but cutting across all these, a loyalty to the Lord
of the Bible. Such cases are to be found, we are thankful,
more and more.
Though the need for developing theologies relevant to
various Hindu contexts is no less now than before, the
simultaneous need for an evangelical confession/consoli-
dation is also increasing. Systematics or dogmatic are not so
irrelevant as many seem to think.
In a nutshell, our theology must also edify the Indian
Church beyond the legitimate task of equipping her for
evangelistic efforts. Only when the Church is so built up can
she be the base for missionary outreach. Evangelical theol-
ogy is therefore more than evangelistic theology or a theol-
ogy of mission, or even a theology of the church. It must aim
at the contextualisation of the comprehensive biblical mes-
sage — as we have already seen in other lessons, the whole
counsel of God.
THE MESSAGE OR THE MESSENGER?
(e) In our effort to develop a relevant theology there are also
factors which are more significant than the theology itself.
267
 The biggest hindrance to the Church of Jesus Christ in
India is not outside her but inside — the very lives of those
of us who are called the disciples of Christ, what Stanley
Jones calls “the Great Hindrance”. Gandhi once said, “if you
call one of us a Christian man he is complimented, but if you
call him a Christian, he is insulted.” Hindus have time and
again told us very frankly that if we Christians lived a little
more like Jesus Christ or practiced a little of what we
preach, the process of conversion would have gone on far
more rapidly. The following conversation between Stanley
Jones and Gandhi, the greatest representative of and the
most influential among the Hindus, is revealing:
In conversation with him one day I said, “Mahatma Gandhi
I am very anxious to see Christianity naturalised in India, .
. . what would you suggest that we do to make that possible?”
He very gravely and thoughtfully replied: “I would suggest,
first, that all of you Christians, missionaries and all, must
begin to live more like Jesus Christ . . . Second, I would
suggest that you practice your religion without adulterating
or toning it down . . .”
This brings us directly to the next point: we should
concentrate more on preparing the messengers than the
message itself. If we look back to the story of Philip, we
realise how contrasting were the missionary and the native,
the preacher and the hearer. But the preacher was so
thoroughly prepared by the Holy Spirit in Samaria, in
serving the tables, that he finds it no problem to contextualise
the message to the Eunuch — it was a complete success.
Also the messenger is already on his way to the next
assignment after the Eunuch’s baptism. It is a story of the
messenger. Every time we stand up for the sake of the Lord,
may He grant us his grace, and prepare us and the hearers,
rather than the message.
Finally, we need Philip’s sensitivity to the leading of the
Holy Spirit — and more we need the presence of the Holy
Spirit. Nothing less than a visitation by the Spirit of God is
the solution or India, for the Indian Church.
268
NOTES
1. Jung Young Lee, “The Yin-Yang way of Thinking: A Possible Method
for Ecumenical Theology”, in Mission Trends No. 3, pp. 29-38.
2. ICT, pp. 231-233.
3. Once when he was traveling in Rajputan he saw a brahman hurrying
to the railway station. Exhausted by great heat, he fell down on the platform.
The Anglo-Indian station master, anxious to help him, offered him water.
Although the brahmin was thirsty he refused it. “I cannot drink that water.
I would prepare to die”, he said. “I am not asking you to eat the cup”, the
station master chided him. “I will not break my caste”, replied the brahmin,
“I am willing to die.” When, however, the water was brought to him in his
own brass vessel, he drank it eagerly. It is the same with the Water of Life.
Indians do need the water of Life but not the European cup. This is well
expressed.
4. Contextualization, p. 54.
5. Once with a German friend I had long discussions about the authority
of the Bible. He could not see how the BIble can be the supreme authority.
In desperation, I told him, “If you want to see how the Bible is powerful, you
just come to India and see how the gospel works as a power against the evil
powers everywhere.” A tree is known by its fruits, Jesus said.
6. Herbert Jaisingh, “Toward a Relevant Gospel in India”, in Indian
Voices in Todays Theological Debate, Lucknow Publishing House, Lucknow,
1972, pp. 125-142.
7. Bruce Nicholls says, “The purpose of this method is to discover what
the biblical writer said, and it must be distinguished from the more
speculative historical-critical method which aims to discover the author’s
intention”. See Contextualisation: A Theology of Gospel and Culture, p. 49. I
am indebted to this booklet for many of the insights here.
269
 APPENDIX

The importance of writing Biographies

We are indeed very much indebted to Dr. Kaj Baago for
producing under the research plan of the United Theological
College, Bangalore, an anthology of Indian Christian writing.
This is a good, though by no means exhaustive collection. As
you read through the collection, one dominant feature is that
the biographies of Indian Christian saints are lacking. This is
not to say that there are none of them; there are of course. But
I am convinced that there is a greater majority of saints whose
biographies are not written.
There are varied reasons for this: (a) Following the oriental
logic one is not supposed to say anything bad about those who
are dead and gone (perhaps that has to do with ancestral
worship?) except in eulogies. (b) Lacking a sense of history
perhaps our Indian mind is less inclined to put down the facts
or even to interpret them with a definite purpose. (c) Since
Christianity came to India through the western colonialism
and was already an established religion in western countries
for several centuries, there seems to be an unconscious idea in
the Indian mind that only Saint Francis or Saint Teresa are
saints in India. (d) Finally, what Jesus said also is true. Since
a prophet is without respect in his own country, those who
know him best tend to remember rather the working side of the
person. The right side is often forgotten, hence its usefulness
to the wider world is gone.
If you read some of the Puranas or Hindu literature, and
then turn to the Bible, one of the most striking features is that
even about the great patriarchs like Abraham or David or Jacob
the Bible is very realistic in picturing their character. It does
not hide their mistakes. In fact, I remember as a young
Christian this aspect greatly impressed me concerning the
truthfulness of the Bible.
But what I am driving at is this. The Bible itself has several
biographies written. If the gospels were not written you would
not have known about Jesus now. The famous list of the faith
giants in Hebrew 11 is a grand cloud of witnesses which can
edify us even today. Just think how much poorer our under-

270 271
standing of God’s relationship with man would be if we did not
have the records of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, or Moses
running away to Libya, Hannah’s dedication of Samuel, Queen
Esther’s devotion to her people, Job’s suffering and his fighting
with God, Daniel in the den of Lions, Paul’s conversion and
missionary journeys, and dozens of other biographies.
It is wrong to think that biographies are written only for
self-glory. On the contrary they are written with the express
purpose of glorifying God; that what God’s grace has wrought
in others can also work in me and encourage and edify and
strengthen me in my Lord’s service. Thus one of the main
reasons why throughout history several saints’ lives and
ministries have been recorded is that they edify the church
universal. Is not God really glorified through the faith and
commitment and life of his servants?
But this education is two fold. It not only helps us to follow
where the saints have trod, but it also helps us to avoid the
mistakes they have done. For example, David’s adultery,
Jacob’s deception, Peter’s denial are still strong warnings to us
today. Actually speaking, church history is the story of God’s
people.
Right now I am involved in corresponding with senior
Christians all over the land to collect some of the unknown
Christians’ biographies. Some of the things I have discovered
are most illuminating. I hope some day to publish them. But
it is most encouraging to see that in the recent decade several
anthologies of Indian Christian saints have appeared. If you
come across any of these biographies I will be grateful if you
can kindly write to me or even send a copy of that to me or let
me know the address where they are available. If you know of
any unwritten stories, you could tell me also. Perhaps we can
share it for the benefit of other Christian Indian brothers and
sisters. Thank you.

ADDRESS:
Dr. Sunand Sumithra
Theological Book Trust
54, MIG. Colony
Koramangala, Bangalore- 560095.

272
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Kuriakose, History of Christianity in India — Source Materials,
CLS, Madras,1982.
275
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Pillai, K.V. Paul, India’s Search For The Unknown Christ, Indian
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278 279
 SUBJECT INDEX
action-reflection 175
adesha 48, 53, 55, 56
advaita, advaitic 15, 17, 38, 64, 70, 105,
107, 109, 112, 157, 186, 188, 191-
194, 196, 227-229, 232, 235, 246,
248, 254
ahimsa 9, 133, 218, 219, 221 (also see
Capitalist 172
non-violence)
caste, caste system, casteism 11, 12, 15,
analogy 38, 89, 109, 112, 113, 252, 254
antaryami - Christ 109, 116, 163; Holy
Spirit 118, 245
Chalcedonian formula 23, 107
anthropocentric 201, 205, 263
Christ 58, 86, 89, 96-100, 102, 103, 116,
apologetics 18, 23, 28, 77, 78, 92, 144,
201, 242, 266
Apostolic Durbar 57
Aristotelian logic 37, 81, 252
ashram 75, 102, 136, 154, 159, 165, 170,
218, 226, 247, 252
atonement 46, 52, 73, 76, 82, 139, 167,
179, 194, 228, 254
authority 14, 15, 22, 27, 31-36, 38, 76,
78, 82, 111, 181, 186, 191, 205, 211,
212, 253, 254, 260
avatara(s) 74, 75, 109, 110, 117, 125,
159, 162, 163, 192, 233, 245
baptize, baptism 45, 49, 66, 76, 77, 81,
179, 180, 202, 247, 268
Bhagwadgita, Gita 17, 96, 105, 110,
220, 222, 223
bhakti 48, 104, 118, 160, 162, 163, 192,
224, 244, 248; bhakti schools 160;
bhakti groups 163; bhakti system 107,
163; bhakti marga 85, 102, 107, 108,
118, 119, 163, 185, 253; bhakti tradi-
tions 104, 106, 108, 248
biblical theology 241
Brahman 4, 37, 72, 75, 78, 91, 104, 145,
157, 161, 163, 185, 192, 224, 227,
280
229, 232, 243, 244, 245, 250, 251;
Para Brahman 72; Saguna (and
Nirguna) Brahman 72, 78, 244, 245,
251; Shabda Brahman 86; impersonal
Brahman 89, 105; avyukta
(unmanifested) Brahman 116; Brah-
man-world 161
23, 41, 144, 216, 219, 223, 234, 251,
256
117, 119, 131, 132, 145, 146, 152,
153, 158, 159, 161-163, 165-167,
169, 174-176, 179, 181, 182, 189,
192, 194, 203, 210, 212, 221, 222,
226, 227, 232, 243, 248, 258, 289,
260, 262, 268; adhyatmic 164; as
avatar 67, 109, 110; as the basis of
tradition 32; as cit 73; as sacrifice
118, 157; Asiatic Christ 50; atoning
death of 154 commitment to 90, 108,
190, 195; conversion to 136; cosmic
87, 109; cross of 59, 118, 157; deity
of 193, 196, 228; divine and human
in 88; divinity 88; doctrine of 4, 49,
50, 51, 53, 58, 107, 112, 209; experi-
ence 115; Gandhi’s understanding of
220-221; hidden Christ 55, 56, 144;
Hindu response to 189, 190, 195;
imitation of 170; immanent 109, 116;
incarnation of 58, 67, 103, 117; Indian
interpreters of 55; lordship of 178,
179; message of 66, 210, 241; mystery
of 164; nature of 44; person of 116;
pleroma of 155; presence of 109, 112,
156; present in all systems 53, 164,
184, 185, 188; revelation in 73; risen
Christ 118, 255; salvation in 195;
significance of 44, 56; sinlessness of
117; spirit of 137; terms for 243-245;
281
 unbound Christ 187, 188, 191, 195,
197; union with 251; uniqueness of
44, 64, 196; unknown Christ 183,
185, 187; working outside the church
155; works of 59, 111, 126, 127;
Christification 52, 55
christianising 136, 137
Christian action 170
christology 23, 43, 44, 50, 51, 53, 72, 75,
83, 87, 88, 113, 116, 124, 128, 159,
160, 178, 187, 188, 191, 195, 212,
245, 246
church 3, 19, 23, 25, 44, 49, 60, 75, 80,
83, 98, 101, 102, 104, 109, 111, 112,
120-123, 125, 131, 132, 141, 147,
151, 154-156, 166, 170, 171, 176,
179, 180, 183, 188, 190, 200, 202,
203, 206, 209, 210, 211, 212, 241,
242, 247, 254, 256, 260, 262
class struggle 172, 180
classless society 204
communal 9, 10, 12, 267
commune, communion 51, 64, 71, 74,
88, 102, 105-108, 117-119, 127, 147,
165
communication 4, 5, 10, 33, 103, 145,
162, 164, 180, 196, 204, 248
Communist 172, 240
community 5, 9, 21, 25, 26, 34, 60, 136,
145, 147, 148, 151, 176, 180, 196,
202, 203, 206-208, 242, 256
compassion 239, 240
conservative, conservatism 28, 92
consummation 51, 125
context, contextual 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13,
14, 22, 27, 28, 87, 108, 174, 187,
207-209, 213, 233, 239, 242, 248,
265, 267
contextualization 7, 213, 243, 250, 253,
259, 264, 265
contextualizing 4, 5, 7, 258
282
contextual theology 28, 259-261
conversion 14, 21, 68, 92, 97, 115, 136,
144, 146, 166, 202, 220, 222, 255,
268
cosmic covenant 157
council (s) 23, 24, 26, 27, 32, 33, 170,
187
creation, creator 12, 58, 78, 85, 101, 121,
126, 127, 128, 132, 135, 147, 152,
177, 178, 179, 182, 244, 263; doc-
trine of creation 12, 58; new creation
121, 125, 127, 128, 130, 134, 137,
140, 146, 263
creatio passiva 73
creed 15, 59, 83, 122, 124, 143, 166;
Apostolic Creed 15, 122, 124, 143,
166; Nicene Creed 120
criterion 96, 120, 261
cross 9, 44, 46, 52, 56, 59, 82, 83, 87,
100, 101, 106, 111, 113, 115, 117-
119, 125, 127, 157, 167, 178, 193,
194, 196, 202, 221, 223, 225, 228,
232, 233
culture (s) 8, 12, 15, 24, 71, 72, 143, 164,
191, 211, 239, 240, 249, 250, 258,
259, 265
dalit 242
denomination, denominationalism 12, 83,
266, 267
dharma 72, 217, 218, 234
dialogue 19, 28, 67, 142-145, 148, 149,
151, 154, 156, 158, 173, 177, 184,
187, 195, 196, 204, 205, 213
discipleship 207
dvaita 15, 112, 186, 192, 228
EATWOT 200, 206
ecumenical, ecumenism 173, 174, 181,
200, 201, 211, 212, 266, 283
energy 73, 128, 138, 141
epoche 157, 158
eschatology, eschatological 13, 86, 102,
157, 249
eschaton 146
eucharist, eucharistic 49, 109, 112, 156,
163, 180, 247
evangelical theology 27, 251, 262, 263,
266, 267
evangelistic 23, 98
evolution 38, 51, 121, 145, 176
exegesis 109, 182
existential 88, 104, 121, 158, 163
experience 16, 29, 31, 34-38, 88, 91, 92,
98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 108, 111, 115,
116, 122, 133, 136, 140-142, 154-
157, 169, 215, 218, 223, 224, 232,
234, 260
fall 152
Festschrift 173, 200, 201
folklore 251
freedom 12, 212
fulfillment 157, 176
Gospel, Gospel message 3-6, 13, 17-19,
20, 37, 41, 57, 59, 112, 120, 123,
126, 137, 140, 143, 144, 155, 162,
164, 170, 188, 191, 192, 196, 202,
204, 209, 211, 220, 229, 240, 241,
250, 256, 258, 260, 264
harijans 11, 21, 256
heresy, heretical 3, 7, 28, 56, 264
history, historical 13, 104, 117, 123,
127, 128, 139, 145-148, 165, 175-
178, 180, 181, 192-195, 213, 215,
221, 228, 239, 241, 247, 255, 260
Holy Spirit 32, 37, 44, 45, 54, 55, 58-60,
81, 93, 117, 118, 120, 126-129, 132-
134, 137, 138, 141, 144, 202, 210,
212, 243, 245, 250, 253, 256-258,
261, 262, 264, 268
human dignity, depravity, right 12, 203,
229, 246
humanity 7, 126, 204, 205, 226
humanization 52, 174, 179, 202, 204,
205
human nature 46, 225
human reason 69, 82, 182, 260
ideology (ies) 9, 53, 56, 132, 148, 173,
177, 179, 181, 187, 195, 206, 250,
264, 265
idolatry 16, 41, 42, 158, 218
image of God (imago Dei) 12, 145, 147,
176, 182, 211, 255
incarnation 7, 45, 58, 59, 67, 68, 74, 80,
83, 85, 88, 103, 107, 109, 110, 117,
124-129, 133, 164, 178, 186, 209,
224, 225, 227, 233, 248, 251
Indian Church 8, 66, 69, 75, 81, 106,
151, 200, 266, 267, 268
indigenisation 12, 20, 29, 63, 68, 69, 74,
75, 81, 95, 96, 103, 213, 243, 258,
264
indigenous 9, 21, 22, 24, 29, 54, 55, 63,
66, 68, 80, 139, 189, 199, 249
Indianising 5
infallibility 183
inspiration 133,177
interiority 156, 212
interpretation 107, 108, 111, 117, 136,
139, 140, 146, 148, 164, 211, 216,
226, 229, 233, 244; Christian 173;
Hindu 45, 235; of Christ 43, 46, 122,
188, 196, 215, 230, 232, 245; of
Christian message 28, 192, 240; of
Christianity 104, 107; of cross 111,
193; of moksha 108; of tradition 21;
Islamization 21
Jesus 3, 4, 42-45, 98, 103, 105, 109, 115-
118, 122-128, 132, 134, 135, 144,
152, 153, 163, 166, 167, 169, 176,
178, 186, 188, 193, 194, 196, 201,
202, 204, 206-208, 212, 215-217,
220, 229, 233, 242, 244, 257, 258,
259, 261, 268
283
journeying God 52
jnana marga 85, 107, 118, 119, 163, 164,
185, 253
justice 175, 195, 196, 200, 203, 204,
206, 207, 232; of God 79, 82, 87,
207; automatic justice 232; social jus-
tice 11, 13, 28, 147
karma 73, 79, 80, 101, 110, 111, 113,
126, 136, 138, 144, 147, 163, 203,
232, 246, 249, 251, 252, 255; karma
marga 85, 107, 118, 119, 160, 162,
164, 185, 253
kenosis 51, 119, 120, 178
kerygma 147, 183
Kingdom of God 45, 128, 129, 131, 132,
137, 141, 160, 176, 177, 189, 207,
208, 211, 233
Koran 96
liberalism, liberal 28, 167, 172, 219, 233
liberation 12, 17, 28, 48, 175, 176, 200,
211, 242, 257
linguism 11
literature 19, 25, 34, 42, 81, 105, 106,
142, 166, 173, 251, 266; bhakti 105,
106, 108; Christian 24, 85, 96; Hindu
107, 108, 136; Sanskrit 106; Tamil
106;Vedic 152
logic 15, 35, 78, 80, 103, 151, 161, 184,
186, 252, 260
logos 35, 51, 70, 74, 76, 86, 109, 148,
157, 184, 186
low caste 11
mahavakya 55, 58, 107, 118, 228, 245
martyr 221, 223
Marxism 171, 177, 180, 206
maya 4, 13, 45, 68, 71, 72, 73, 78, 79, 89,
105, 117, 142, 143, 146, 147, 192,
193, 232, 244, 245, 251, 252
methodology, method 14, 68, 113, 164,
174
284
mission - Christian mission 17, 26, 148,
157, 209, 216, 239; of Christian be-
liever 148, 212; of Goreh 78; of Jesus
125; of the church 132, 137, 155,
175, 176, 179, 180, 202, 205, 266; of
Gandhi 215, 216; of Radhakrishnan
235; of Ramakrishna 17, 224;
Ranthodji’s Medical mission 18; secu-
lar mission 121
missions - Brahmo missions 48; Bud-
dhist counter-missions 267; Chris-
tian missions 8, 16, 17, 23; emer-
gence of missions 21; Hindu missions
41; indigenous missions 22; Interna-
tional Review of Missions 200;
moksha 18, 85, 107, 108, 152, 252
monotheism, monism 16, 42, 78, 117,
251
motherhood of God 49, 106
mystery (of Christ) 73, 164, 188, 194
mystical, mystic, 37, 105, 106,156, 222,
223, 233, 263
nationalism 8, 9, 12, 28, 42, 64, 165
natural theology 69, 73, 154, 182
nature 82, 86, 194; Church’s nature 206;
nature of God 73; nature-supernature
relationship 69, 70, 71, 182; nature
and person 185, 227, 246
new dispensation 48, 49, 53, 54, 55, 57
Nicene formula 44, 50,
Niyogi Commission 166
non-violence 171, 216-219 (see also
ahimsa)
Omega Point 131
pantheism 57, 58, 60, 69, 70, 78, 251
pentecost 117
pluralism 14, 19, 28, 160, 204, 234, 250,
267
pneumatology 60, 61, 117
pneumomonism 60
polytheism 16, 41, 251
poor, poverty 7, 207, 208, 210, 223
pramana 33, 34,
pre-understanding 4, 5, 6, 69, 264, 265
preparatio evangelica 24, 35, 79, 80,
personality - concept in Bhakti literature
108; Gandhi’s 215, 230; K.C. Sen’s
49; of Christ 89, 90, 146; of man 74,
90, 91, 101, 110, 119, 145, 147, 165,
171, 176, 193; one man’s personality
226
praxis 148
prayer 98, 154, 170
proselytism 146, 221, 222
reality - ethical 222; historical 45; Indian
29; Jesus’ 166; ladder of 232; second
order 13, 72, 193; spiritual 158; ulti-
mate 4, 97, 146, 163, 164, 251
reason 37, 81, 111, 129, 182, 183, 222
reconciliation 124, 126, 181, 189
redemption 127, 152, 194
reform 144, 210
reformation - in Hinduism 16; Protestant
32, 33, 112, 149
reincarnation 70, 80,
reinterpretation, reinterprete 7, 17, 19,
41, 122, 196, 254
relevance, relevant 3-7, 18, 19, 30, 85,
108, 166, 239, 255, 258, 259, 265,
267
religion 15, 72, 91, 92, 97, 131, 134, 136,
140, 143, 146, 153-155, 158, 179,
183, 184, 186, 191, 195, 196, 201,
204, 205, 208, 213, 217, 219, 220-
222, 224, 225, 227, 229, 231, 234,
235, 241, 259, 264, 250; theology of
71, 143; of Mlecchas 76; history of
142; cosmic 153, 184; Eastern 154;
equality of religions 217, 225, 229;
universal 235
renaissance 16, 20, 42, 43, 46, 174, 175,
188
renunciation 18, 191, 220, 227, 252, 254
repentance 44, 52, 66, 85, 102, 132, 205
resurrection 44, 45, 52, 59, 66, 83, 88,
89, 102, 125-127, 140, 155, 167,
178, 191, 193, 194, 196, 202, 221,
233, 255
Rethinking Group, rethinking Christian-
ity 116, 123, 190
revelation 3, 35, 36, 44, 48, 49, 53, 54,
58, 59, 70, 73, 78, 82, 87, 92, 99, 105,
109, 123, 133, 143, 154, 167, 181-
184, 186, 189, 221, 222, 258, 263,
267
revolution (s) 14, 18, 28, 47, 65, 124,
172, 173, 175-177, 179, 181, 186,
212
sabbath 208
saccidananda 50, 55, 72, 73, 85, 154,
157, 243, 245
sacraments 75, 80, 132, 170, 183, 247
sacrifice 5, 49, 82, 118, 126, 127, 151,
152, 153, 157
Saiva Siddhanta 110
salvation 18, 44, 52, 58, 61, 72, 73, 82,
83, 87, 100, 102, 104, 121, 127, 132,
140, 145, 148, 152, 162, 174, 179,
188, 193, 195, 209, 248, 255
sansara 232, 244
sanskrit 23, 43, 76, 102, 120, 151, 183,
223, 227, 240, 243, 246
sanctification 100, 106, 183, 255
sanyasa 66,
scriptures 7, 22, 32, 36, 37, 38, ,48, 49,
54, 80, 81, 87, 99, 103, 111, 112,
120, 121, 124, 131, 133, 134, 135,
155, 160, 164, 166, 167, 181, 191,
222, 230, 231, 253, 257, 258, 260,
261, 266
secular, secularism, secularization 9, 11,
285
 12, 18, 19, 174, 175, 203, 204 121, 124, 132, 133, 153-155, 188, PERSON INDEX
self-sacrifice 52, 57, 85, 152, 178, 19 207, 208, 240, 262
sermon on the mount 9, 42, 76, 220 transform 141, 208 Abhishiktananda 154-158, 168 Boyd, Robin 22, 23, 26, 35, 36, 38, 42,
sin 46, 52, 53, 73, 76, 79, 82, 100, 101, transformation 146, 185, 202 Abrecht, Paul 172 46, 52, 61, 64, 72, 74, 87, 90, 93, 109,
106, 110, 111, 113, 126, 127, 145, transmigration 70 121, 145, 153, 158, 165, 168, 239,
Adiseshaiah, M. 171
152, 155, 177, 193, 194, 202, 225, 240, 249, 252
trinity 44, 50, 58, 60, 61, 68, 74, 86, 120, Ahmed, Mirza Ghulam 21
228, 229, 248, 261-2631 125, 127, 128, 139, 157, 183, 185, Brunner, E. 124, 149, 172
sinlesslness 117 186, 245, 246; trinitarianism 118 Amirtham, Samuel 201
Calvin 258
social justice 12,13,28, Truth 217, 218, 234 Andrews, C.F. 49, 255
Carey, William 24
sources 22, uniqueness, unique 156, 167, 233; of Animananda 84
Chakkarai, Vengal 115-120, 138, 149,
spirit - doctrine of 57-60; of Christ 87, Christianity 128; of Jesus 221, 223 Appasami, A.J. 36-38, 104-113, 115, 169, 190, 253, 258
117, 119, 137, 155, 157, 166, 171; as unitarian, unitarianism 45 248, 253
Chandran Russel 68, 187, 197, 199-206,
contrasted to matter 89, 90, 131, 148, untouchables 11, 13, 216, 256 Appasami Pillai, A.S. 106 226
156, 163, 219, 246; of the times 139; Aquinas, Thomas 3, 23, 38, 69, 73, 172, Chenchiah 25, 36, 38, 98, 115, 121-142,
universal, universalism 7, 59, 60, 102,
as Holy Spirit 158, 182, 185, 245, 182, 258 149, 169, 176, 178, 190
104, 119, 122, 179, 185, 188, 191,
253, 256, 257; human spirit 176;
212, 225, 226, 228, 233, 255 Aristotle 23, 172 Cullman, O. 193
swadeshi spirit 219
Upanishads 16, 17, 42, 58, 86, 96, 133, Athyal, Saphir 212-214 Das, Motilal 49
spirituality 6, 19, 29, 57, 154, 158, 166,
155-158, 233 Augustine 172 Dawson, Christopher 171
176, 177, 181, 186, 192, 193, 218,
230, 233, 252 vaishnava 47, 48, 105, 115, 215, 224 Aurobindo 38, 121, 130 De Chardin, Pierre Teilhard 131
subordination 107 varnashrama dharma 15, 219 Azariah V.S. 49 Devanandan, P.D. 25, 142-149, 169, 173,
substitution, penal 52, 56, 76, 79, 80, Vatican II 180, 183 Baago, Kaj 26, 67, 70, 71, 270 193
100, 111, 118, 178, 196 vedanta 38, 64, 69, 70, 68, 71-75, 78, 79, Banerjea, K.M. 151-154 Devi, Sarada 47
suffering 44, 85, 100, 101, 111, 119, 81, 82, 89, 104, 118, 183, 227, 247 Dey, Lal Behari 81-83
Banerjea, S.N. 49
179, 180, 194, 209 vegetarianism 218
Banerjea, Kalicharan 63-65 Dodd, C.H. 171
supernature 69, 70, 71, 75, 99, 131, 140, violence 170, 207, 216
Banerjee, H.C. 49 Dom Henri Le Saux (see Abhishitananda)
141, 182, 183 virgin birth 44, 130
Banerjee, Bhawani Charan Duff, Alexander 24, 81, 151
syncretism 18-20, 28, 45, 53, 56, 177, vishishtadvaita 15, 38, 104-106, 110,
233, 235 (see Upadhyaya) Fakirbhai, Dhanjibhai 85-87
228, 248
systematic 32, 49, 103, 115, 164, 199, Barth, Karl 3, 92 Farquhar, J.N. 24, 67, 80, 106
vision, ecstatic 223, 224
213, 217, 241, 258, 266, 267 Berdyaev, Nicolas 171 Gandhi, Indira 12
worship 5, 12, 15, 42, 44, 45, 66, 72, 74,
Tamil 23, 105, 200 Berkhof 258 Gandhi, M.K., 9, 10, 17, 25, 92, 115,
97, 102, 105, 122, 147, 148, 163,
Theandrism 185, 186 191, 206, 218, 227, 247, 251, 257, Bhairavi 223 141, 165, 215-223, 252, 268
theological education 29, 30, 182 262, 264, 267 Bhave, Vinobha 11, 18 George, S.K. 165-167, 216
theologization, theologisation 3, 4, 29, wrath of God 82, 87 Bishop Westcott 6 George, Mary 165
187 yagna 160, 162 Bonhoeffer, D. 140 Ghose, K.S. 49
third world 7, 257 yin-yang 252, 254, 269 Borthwick, Meredith 49 Gokhale, Gopala Krishna 17
Thomism 69, 70, 75, 186 yoga 18, 96, 136, 223, 234; prema yoga Bose, Mathuranath 46-48 Goreh, Nehmiah 25, 38, 76-81, 84, 253
tradition (s) 6, 16, 21, 22-25, 33, 36, 37, 85, 86 Bose, Subhash Chandra 10 Goreh, Lakshmi 76
46, 56, 86, 104-106, 108, 110, 112, Grant, Sarah 155

286 287
Grregorios, Paulos Mar 211-212 Melanchthon 258 Ranson, Charles 30 St, Gregory of Nyassa 212
Harrison, M.H. 30 Melchizedek 157 Ranthodji 18, 77 St. Francis 270
Heaton 65 Miller, William 115, 149 Rao, Venkatasami (Master CVV) 121, St. Teresa 270
Hegel 264 Monchanin, Jules 154 130, 132 Stokes, S.E. 97
Heiler, F. 113 Moses, David G. 90-93 Robinson, J.A.T. 149 Streeter, B.H. 106, 113
Hengal 246 Mozoomdar, P.C. 49, 57-61 Rodman 65 Subbarao 25, 190
Hingorani, Anand T. 216 Mozoomdar, B. 49 Roy, Raja Rammohan 16, 17, 25, 41-46, Sudarsanam, A.N. 138
48, 50, 55, 190
Hogg, A.G. 258 Mueller, Max 49, 78 Sugden, Christopher 209
Roy, G.G. 49
Huegel, Friedrich Von 106 Naraharidas (Upadhyaya) 74 Swami Vivekananda 17, 37, 63-65, 190,
Roy, B.V. 49 201, 220, 223-231, 235
Iqbal, Mohammed 20 Narayan, J.P. 18
Sadhu Sunder Singh 36, 38, 75, 96-104, Swami Akhilananda 190
Iraneues 32 Nehru, Jawahar Lal 9-11, 138
106, 253, 255
Jaisingh, Herbert 258, 269 Newbigin, L. 158 Tagore, Dwaraknath 42
Sadhu Mathai 171
Job, G.V. 138 Nicholls, Bruce 255, 264, 269 Takenaka 14
Sadiq, John W. 216
Jones, Stanley 222, 268 Niebuhr, Reinhold 171, 172 Tertullian 32
Sai Baba 159
Kabir 105 Nimbarka 160 Thangasami D.A. 121, 138, 149
Samartha, S.J. 26, 28, 56, 169, 187-196
Keithahn, Ralph 171 Nobili, Robert de 23, 24, 67, 69, 75, 154 Thomas M.M. 26, 46, 53, 56, 57, 61,
Samuel, Vinay Kumar 206-209 158, 169-181, 185-188, 197, 205,
Khan, Syed Ahmed 20, 21 Otto, Rudolf 106, 248
Saraswati, Dayananda 16, 48, 63 212, 220, 224
Khasim Bhai 77 Panikkar, Raymondo 26, 36, 56, 155,
Sauch Gispert 68 Thomas, the Apostle 23
Klostermaier, Klaus 159-165, 168, 190, 158, 169, 181-187, 190, 253
Schleiermacher 264 Tilak, Narayan Vaman 76, 106, 249
248, 249 Paramahamsa, Ramakrishna 16, 17, 37,
48, 49, 63-65, 137, 190, 223-225, Schweitzer, Albert 116 Tillich, Paul 3, 56, 172, 186, 258
Kraemer, Hendrick 143, 171
229 Sen, Keshub Chunder 44, 46-57, 61, 63- Totapuri 224
Krishna Pillai 106
Parananda 64, 84 65, 72, 74 Upadhyaya, Brahmabandhab 36, 38, 63-
Krishnapillai, H.A. 106
Parekh, Manilal 25, 49, 190 Sen, P.K. 49 76, 84, 96, 248, 253
Kukade, Sahu Daji 77
Paul (the Apostle) 6, 116, 239, 260, 266, Sen, Piari Mohun 47 Valmiki 163
Kumar, Prosonno 42
271 Shankara 38, 71, 105, 110, 160, 185, Varghese, Paul (see Paulos Mar
Lee, Jung Young 269 192, 232 Gregorios)
Paul, K.T. 142
Luther, Martin 31, 32, 172 Singh, Surjit 88-90, 93, 248, 255 Victoria II 77
Pennamma 173
Madhava 160, 185 Singh, Maharaja Dulip 77 Xavier, Francis 23
Philip 257, 258
Madhavji, Kahanji 106 Slater, T.E. 49 Zetland, Marquess 49
Prabhu 216
Malik, Jadhu 224 Smith, William 76 Ziegenbalg 24
Radhakrishnan 17, 25, 89-92, 187, 190,
Mangalwadi, Vishal 209-211 228, 230-235, 241, 252
Manikkavasagar 105 Rahner, Karl 56
Manu 15, 151 Rajneesh 18
Marshman, J. 44 Ramabai, Pandita 76, 77
Martin, Henry 21 Ramana 164
Martyr, Justin 70 Ramanuja 38, 105, 106, 109, 110, 113,
160, 185, 192, 248
288 289