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Published by Inter-cultural Book Promoters, 21 G 4 Peramuna Mawata, Eldeniya, Kadawata, Sri Lanka

 Preface

 Part I. Religion: The clarification needed

1. Religion: Ambiguity of the Word
2. Religions of Today: Their Clan and Adult Forms
3. Understanding Religion in an Adult Way

 Part II. The Old Testament: God-belief as a Vision of Life

4. Books of the Old Testament (The Hebrew Bible)
5. God-belief in the Old Testament: An Enlightened Attitude to Life

Part III. Message of the New Testament

6. Writings of the Christians: The New Testament
7. Jesus: The Universality of his Message
8. Religion according to Jesus
9.Religion according to Paul

Part IV. Christianity today

10. Christianity: Its Diverse Forms
11. Beliefs about Jesus Christ
12. Rites and Celebrations

Part V. Christianness: a vision to live by

13. A Vision of the Fuller Self
14. Adult Attitude to Life
15. The Mission of Christianity Today

PREFACE

A book on Christianity, as one on any other religion, is usually meant for its followers; and since there are numerous denominations in Christianity, a book on Christianity is just for the followers of a particular denomination. That is how we have Roman Catholic books for the Roman Catholics, Presbyterian books for the Presbyterians, and Anglican books for the Anglicans. Since denominations have differences, to find a book on Christianity usable by members of all denominations is not easy. In such a background, to think of a book on Christianity which addresses itself not just to Christians of all denominations, but equally to non-followers of Christianity is almost impossible. Nonetheless, however presumptuous it may sound, this is such a book. It is an exposition of Christianity meant for people of any religion and even of no religion.

A book intended for a readership so broad as that is bound to raise a large number of questions in the mind of any reader. What could the purpose of the book be? With what intention could it have been written? What need of contemporary society does it expect to fulfil? Christians may further be curious to know what the writer's stand with regard to Christianity is and non-Christians what the attitude to their religions would be. That is why I feel that, in fairness to the reader, I should clarify at the outset itself what the book is really about.

There is no better way for me to respond to such a barrage of questions than to say how the book came to be written. Let me say straight away that it was not seated comfortably on an arm-chair that I compiled it. The book originated as a course in Christianity that I had to conduct (along with, to some extent, courses on other religions too) for nearly twenty years in a secular university of Sri Lanka. When it comes to courses on religion, university students are hard to please. They shun blind faith. They want expositions on religion to be logical and to conform to common sense; and what is more frightful they are not all of one religious affiliation either.

Having in front of me students of various Christian denominations, of various religious traditions and even of philosophies such as the Marxist, I had no alternative but to re-examine the Christianity I had inherited, had been brought up in and had done theological studies on. I had to look for the elements in Christianity that were of meaning and interest to more than just its followers.

But to find out what Christianity had that was objective and universal enough to be discussed with anybody, I felt I had to go beyond Christianity and delve into the notion of religion itself. I had to ask first what 'religion' was all about and what it stood for. That research of which the more salient elements I have outlined in the first part of this book helped me immeasurably to realize that religion was conceivable in two forms, one as an institution committed to the preservation of its own tradition, and the other as a system of values that anybody could beneficially use to build his or her life on.

In that second sense, or in its life-transormative dimension, religion stood for 'religiousness' and Christianity for 'Christianness'. I opted for the second as it fitted better the requirements of my multi-form audience. I felt convinced that a Christianity which could be used by anybody for his/her inner growth would be of equal interest to people of all Christian denominations and of all religious traditions. After I had decided on the dimension of Christianity to focus attention on, I had to look for the methodology to adopt for its presentation.

Obviously, I couldn't lean on the method traditionally used when a religion is presented to its adherents, namely Theology. Theology is a system of argumentation that is used by all religions to prove to their followers that their religious organization is the only one which is right and true. Theology as a result varies from religion to religion and denomination to denomination. Within Christianity itself, Catholic Theology is different from the Presbyterian and the Presbyterian from the Eastern orthodox. It was evident that in the secular context in which I worked, Theology was of little help. I had to look for a system which treated all religions equally and any religion as just one of the world's religions.

Theology, because of the patronage it extends to just one religion or just one denomination in a religion, is in scope "uni-religious". That is not to say that Theology has no justifiable side to it. In a world where society is compartmentalized into culturally distinct communities and each community has its own religious tradition, the uni-religious approach can be said to answer a practical social need of human beings. But it could not fit a multi-religious class-room and be used in teaching a religion as just one of the world's religions. The context called for a more cosmopolitan attitude towards religions, one which could be called "cosmo-religious".

A "cosmo-religious" approach could naturally be used for analyzing religion from any angle. Scholars of analytical sciences use it to analyze religion in aspects such as the sociological, historical, anthropological, and the phenomenological. In actual practice however, such scholars restrict their analysis to just the elements that are externally observable and so to mainly its material dimension.

But as anyone who looks at religion introspectively will grant, there is more to religion than what is externally visible and materially analyzable. There is a "religiousness" or a "spirituality" aspect to it. 'Spirituality' of course, is a term that modern people feel ill at ease with. This is quite understandable. Most books on spirituality have been written by monks, hermits and contemplatives. There the idea is given that spirituality or religiousness is the preserve of people who leave the world and lead celibate lives.

But spirituality taken as humanness at its highest stature is a pattern of behavior that is within the reach of anybody and which everybody should strive for. There is no need to get away from normal life in society for that. What a spiritual person has to give up is only 'worldliness', not the "world". In secular language to be religious or spiritual is to be mentally mature.

If religion had anything to it that could make people mentally mature, it is the vision of life and right living that it presents. Every religion has such a vision. What I myself had to look for and present was the vision that Christianity upheld. Once my mind became clear about the dimension of Christianity that I had to present, the methodology required for it began to develop automatically though gradually. This method which I like to refer to very simply as the "Life-vision approach in religious education" is what I used in my class-room. It is an approach that could be used for teaching the spirituality of any religion.

It is largely my course of lectures based on that method (abridged and revised as required) that I present here. If I thought of bringing it out in a book, it is because I realized that the mixed class-room of a secular university is actually a microcosm of contemporary society. Irrespective of the religion they follow, and even irrespective of whether they follow one or not, people today are interested in religion and are looking for ways of coming to know more of it.

At the same time, I can't be blind to the fact that traditional Christians will have difficulties with a book such as this which treats Christianity as just one of the world's religions. They would find the interpretations given to some basic Christian beliefs different from the Theological explanations they are used to and therefore, unacceptable. The book could appear to them as one which alienates believers from their religious affiliation.

What I mean here by 'traditional Christians' are those who have been born to parents belonging to a denomination such as the Catholic, the Anglican, the Baptist or the Orthodox and have grown up strictly in that tradition. Such Christians feel so secure in the secluded denominational community they have belonged to from birth that they don't see any need or purpose in stretching out to people of other religions, or even those of other Christian denominations. They would experience pangs of guilt if they associated with them closely and particularly if they thought of entering into marriage with one of them. With regard to knowledge of religion, they are satisfied with what the official representatives of their institution tell them to uphold.

It is not with any sense of scorn that I here refer to 'traditional Christians' and their sectarian attitude to religion. I couldn't scorn them, as I would then be scorning myself. There was a time when I myself felt safe and secure in my sectarian attitude to religion. I too was born to fervent parents of a particular Christian denomination. I adhered so strongly to the denominational tradition I was brought up in, that I saw no good in any other religion and no truth except in what the teachers, pastors and dignitaries of my denomination told me. To acquire knowledge of religion, I relied exclusively on books written by the theologians of my denomination. For nearly thirty five years of my life (I am now 65) that was my attitude to religion.

Happily however, the research into inter-religious matters that circumstances eventually obliged me to engage in made me realize that a religion could be practiced with either the mentality of a child or the mentality of an adult. Children of 7 or 8 look at their religion just as they look at their family. For them, there is nothing good or valuable outside their family or their religion. Adults are different. They love their family, but they know that the real world is not just their family.

Peeping into my sub-conscious pattern of behavior, I discovered that, though physically grown up, I was still practicing Christianity with the mentality of a child. There was nothing good and true anywhere outside my denominational institution. When I realized that, I felt the time had come for me to grow up in my attitude to religion. The decision initially was not without its heart-pains, hesitations and fears. But eventually I was happy to realize that while staying in the same religious tradition I could look at people of all Christian denominations, whether Catholic, Anglican, or Presbyterian, at people of all religions, whether Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, and at people of all colors, whether black, white, or brown with an equal respect, for ultimately they were all one as human beings.

I know it is not prudent to be too personal in matters of religion. But if I have spoken of an evolution in my inner self, it is only to say that I understand the hesitation that traditional Christians could have about a book like this. I seriously doubt if I would have read this book had it come to my hands in that early era. My mind then was so much institutionally conditioned that I couldn't have read it without undergoing serious qualms of conscience.

There is one other question that could be asked about the book to which I feel obliged to give an answer. One could ask if there is any actual prospect of a book like this (which may not appeal to traditional Christians) getting into the hands of non-Christians, and in case it did, if it would be appreciated by them. That no doubt is an issue which deserves to be examined because there can be expectations that just end up as dreams. My feeling is that, granted the strange interest that contemporary people have about religion, it will. At least that is the conclusion I have been led to come to after seeing the positive reaction given by non-Buddhists, --mainly Christians-- to an earlier book of mine on Buddhism.

Since it was first published in America in 1983 under the name of "Buddhism Made Plain -- An Exposition for Christians and Jews" (with Leonard Swidler, Orbis, New York), it has gone to eight printings. It has appeared since in German, Italian, Spanish and French translations. Since people who speak these languages are of countries that are largely Christian, it shows that this book on Buddhism has been read by a reasonable number of Christians and also Jews and they would have read it because they found it personally useful.

If I have mentioned this book of mine it is not to give publicity to my writings but to cite a case in point that we can easily subject to analysis. My book was limited in scope. It did not deal , for example, with the diverse institutional forms of Buddhism. I just attempted to bring out what is at the heart of Buddhist spirituality in the way that the Buddha envisaged it. In other words, I dealt with Buddhism there exactly as I have dealt with Christianity here. What I want to point out thereby is that, if non-Buddhists could have found such a book on Buddhism useful, it is not impossible that non-Christians will find a book like this on Christianity useful.

Besides non-Christians, of course, I feel a book like this could be of use to at least some Christians. There are a number of them today who feel that, living in a world of multi-religious traditions and secular trends, they need to understand Christianity better if they are to practice it more genuinely and be able to discuss it with people of today's society openly without causing embarrassment to themselves or to others. Even though this book treats Christianity only as one of the world' religions, and so in a manner different from that of Theology, still because it concentrates on the spirituality of Christianity, it could be of use to such Christians.

However untraditional it may appear, there is no reason for anybody, even traditional Christians, to be disturbed by a presentation of Christianity such as this. That is because what it contains are purely reflections. There is nothing in it that a reader has obligatorily to accept. The presentation is such that it leaves readers free to take what appears to them to be in keeping with their common sense and conscience and reject what is not.

The book has no intention whatsoever of shaking the faith of believers in their religious institution or of turning them away from what they consider as part of their family tradition. Its only aim is to make them go deeper into that tradition so as to discover the teachings in it that are of universal value. The sole purpose of the book is to show what Christianity is as a path to mental maturity and that for the benefit of people of any Christian denomination or any religious tradition. Mental maturity as understood here is what helps individuals to look at life realistically, face its problems with courage and serenity, and acquire inner peace and contentment through a life of selfless service to the whole of humanity.

Antony Fernando

May 1999

PART I. RELIGION: THE CLARIFICATION NEEDED

Chapter One

RELIGION

Ambiguity of the Word

There was a time when a religion was of interest only to its followers. If a religion was discussed, it was only among themselves. Followers of one religion didn't care for those of others. Hinduism did not mean anything to Muslims nor Buddhism to Christians. Today too it is largely so. There is nothing unusual in that. It is only natural that a religion be of interest to its devotees.

To write on a religion for just its followers is easy. The need to define the word "religion" or clear doubts about its meaning will not arise then. For the followers, there is only one, real religion in the world: theirs, -- the one they refer to as "our religion". In comparison to that, those of others are not real religions. There cannot be anything true or correct in them.

In the modern world we witness a second attitude too, one which is evidently much broader. More and more people are getting interested in religions other than their own. We see this particularly in secular schools and universities. In them we come across young people who study religions that they do not necessarily follow. The press and other media are aware of the interest of modern people in religions. That is why they report so profusely on matters of religion.

The study of other religions is however not easy. Sooner or later most students realize that they cannot understand individual religions at depth without a right understanding of what "religion" in general stands for. That difficulty is understandable. A person who does not know what the term "bird" means will find it difficult to understand what a pigeon, a sparrow or a parrot is. In the same way, a person who does not know what "religion" stands for will have difficulties in grasping Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. That is one reason why a book on religion meant for more than just the followers is obliged to start with an inquiry into the meaning of the word "religion".

There is still another reason why in a book on religion a clarification of the word "religion" is called for. Too many conflicts taking place both in society and in the minds of individuals seem rather strangely to have their source in religion. Conflicts are so profuse that many are beginning to ask if religion is as good and useful to human beings as is commonly assumed. A few examples are:

(1) Clashes between religions: There is a great number of established religions today. All preach love and tolerance but seem to be at loggerheads with each other. There are unceasing clashes between people of different religions.

(2) Problem of denominational divisions: Clashes today are not just between religions but also within religions. Every major religion consists of a number of independent 'denominations' or 'sects'. There is little agreement between them with regard to beliefs and practices and in their dealings with each other there is more enmity than mutual respect.

(3) Claim to superiority: Each established religion claims to be superior to all others. Within individual religions, the claim is made by each denomination. If only one group made the claim, it would be logical. But every group is certain about its superiority over others. This "We-are-above-others" conviction of each religion baffles thinking people.

(4) Disagreement between religion and science: There is a psychological war between religion and science. Scientists consider religions as illogical in their teachings and religion treats science as its opponent. Due to this clash between science and religion, many people leave religious institutions and few enter them.

(5) Clash with socio-philosophical systems: There are constant clashes between religious institutions and socio-political philosophies. Religions have been restricted if not banned in areas in which philosophies like Marxism prevail. In the fields of sociology and philosophy there are many who strongly hold that religions are more a hindrance than a help to the unity and progress of humanity.

(6) Conscience-problems of devotees: Then, we have the case of believers who have serious problems regarding their own religion. They are unable to reconcile what their religion prescribes as right and wrong with what their conscience declares as such.

Amidst such situations, it is not surprising if people ask: Is the religion which is behind such conflicts identical with the one which is said to make people holy, sublime and even divine? Other questions asked are equally baffling: Is religion a unifier of humanity or its divider? Does religion enlighten people or blind them? There is only one answer possible. There is an ambiguity in the word 'religion' as used today. The word cannot be one which is employed in one and the same sense always. Religion must have either different dimensions or totally different meanings.

It is consoling to know that many scholars of religion today are aware of this ambiguity and are looking for solutions to it. According to some the best solution is to 'drop' the word altogether and never use it in discussions on religion. One such is Wilfred Cantwell Smith who in his book "The Meaning and End of Religion" says: The word 'religion' has had many meanings. It would be better dropped. This is partly because of its ambiguity and partly because most of its traditional meanings on scrutiny are illegitimate" 1.

The suggestion to drop the word may not be actually workable, but the drastic nature of the proposal should make one realize what confusion and misunderstanding the word causes. That suggestion alone is enough to show why a prelude on religion is indispensable even in an exposition of Christianity. If not cleared up, the ambiguity in religion will invariably lead to ambiguity in Christianity. That is why we have set apart the first three chapters of this book for an analysis of the notion of religion and very particularly for a search into the source of its ambiguity.

I. TWO USAGES OF THE WORD

The new view that I want to bring out here as a solution to the problem of ambiguity is basically a very simple one. What I want to show is that "religion" can be understood in a twofold way. With either interpretation it becomes a distinct reality having a goal of its own. The ambiguity comes from the fact that the two realities are not correctly distinguished when the word "religion" is used.

Religion, born-to

Of the two ways of understanding religion the one of which the boundaries are easy demarcate and so, more commonly talked about is brought out in the dialogue given below. This dialogue which we have taken from a course in the Sociology of Religion is imaginatively presented as taking place between a teacher and pupil in a French school.

Catherine, what is your nationality?

My nationality is French.

What is your religion?

My religion is Christianity.

 

Catherine, what would your nationality have been, if you had been born in Tibet?

If I had been born in Tibet, my nationality would have been Tibetan.

What would your religion have been, if you had been born in Tibet?

If I had been born in Tibet, my religion would, very likely, have been Buddhism.

 

Catherine, what would your nationality have been, if you had been born in Saudi Arabia?

If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, my nationality would have been Saudi Arabian.

If you had been born in Saudi Arabia, what would your religion have been?

If I had been born in Saudi Arabia, very likely my religion would have been Islam.

 

Catherine, what would your nationality have been if you had been born in India?

If I had been born in India, my nationality would have been Indian.

If you had been born in India, what would your religion have been?

If I had been born in India, my religion would, very likely, have been Hinduism.

If so, Catherine, isn't it by chance that you and I are Christian and French? Isn't it in the same way that all people acquire their nationality and religion? If things are so, does it not imply that we who, as French people, are today upholding the supremacy of Christianity, would have been upholding the supremacy of quite another religion had we been born elsewhere? Does that not mean that we should re-examine our customary attitude to nationality and religion, whether of our own, or of others?

This dialogue has no doubt a hurting side to it. Its composer seems to have wanted to drum into his students a truth that many of us would prefer to see just left buried underground. It is not easy to muster the honesty and the humility necessary to look fearlessly at the roots of our religious affiliations. The fact is that the religion we take pride in adhering to, and usually hail as the best religion in the world, is something that each of us has got as accidentally as the color of our skin.

I am Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist or Muslim simply because my parents were so. My religion is not something I have freely and conscientiously chosen. Before seeking membership in it, I did not submit it to any examination. I didn't weigh the pros and cons of its values. I was just born to it. This 'born-to' form of religion is what most people speak of proudly as 'our religion' and want established in the world as the only true religion.

An important point to be noted here is that the religion acquired at birth is not any religion but that of the parents. The religion of the parents being that of their ancestors, religion that is inherited is always that of the clan. A clan could be a race with a common ancestry or a nation with a common habitation. Each clan has a religion of its own just as it has a language of its own. As much as a common language, a common religion helps members of a race to understand one another and act in unison.

Inherited religion, of course, has a very comforting side to it. Followers of a religion feel that they are members of one clan or extended family. Religion imparts to its followers the happy feeling that they are not isolated individuals but an integral part of an intrinsically united community. That sense of belonging creates in members a feeling of solidarity, security and strength.

This sense of belonging in human beings can be said to have its parallel in animals who belong to one herd or flock. The clan-instinct of human beings and the herd-instinct of animals may have more in common than is generally assumed. Being instinctive, both operate at a sub-rational level. Based on the sense of belonging to one stock, both generate a feeling of group identity and group security.

Religion, awakened-to

Inherited religion, however, is not the only reality to which the word 'religion' is applied today. There is still another to which the word is applied. One enters that religion only when one is mature enough to seek the meaning of life and look for a way to bring it to its fulfillment. The great founders of religions were concerned mainly about that adult form of religion. Religion as they understood it calls for reflection, judgment, decision. What that type of religion stands for becomes clear if we take a glance at the lives and teachings of just the Buddha and Jesus.

Siddhartha Gautama, who eventually became the Buddha, started at the age of 29 to search for the religion that he wanted for himself. When he did not find it in the schools of asceticism and meditation that he frequented, he looked for it on his own. When, at the age of 35, he actually found it, he referred to that moment of discovery as the 'enlightenment' or the 'awakening (of the mind)'. It was at that moment that he awakened to the reality of life and to the path that leads to genuine happiness. Ever after, the Buddha ("the awakened") preached that religion of "mind-awakening" (Buddhism) to those around him. His mission was to awaken people from the dormant state of their minds. That religion of the "awakened to" form is not one that a person can inherit or acquire at birth.

Jesus of Nazareth did not practice or preach what we called above the "born-to" type of religion. He referred to his form of religion as the one to which a person is "re-born". When Nicodemus came to him to find out from him the path to the Kingdom of God, Jesus wanted him to be "re-born". Taking the word literally, Nicodemus queried: "But how is it possible for a man to be re-born when he is old? Can he enter his mother's womb a second time and be born?" The answer of Jesus, though of a poetic nature, throws light on what we are to understand by religion of the "awakened-to" or the "reborn-to" form. He said: "Flesh can give birth only to flesh. It is Spirit that gives birth to spirit" (Jn 3:1-8)

II. VIEWS OF SCHOLARS

The argument we have made above to show that "religion" is a word with two specific connotations is a very simple one based on common sense. But the light it throws on the intricate problem we are here tackling is by no means small. The idea that "religion" has two senses may not be one to which much thought has been given so far, but it is one which can no longer be ignored. Taken in one sense "religion" refers to an association and the common pattern of beliefs and practices that its members follow. In the other, religion is a personal matter and refers to the enlightened pattern of behavior of a mentally mature person.

To understand that distinction with a little more precision, let us turn to researches on religion done by Western scholars. For quite some time scholars have been striving to solve questions posed about the reality we refer to as "religion". They have conducted researches to find out how religions came to exist and what they actually do to people. Among them there are two who, though from two independent perspectives, have something very powerful to say about the issue we are concerned with, namely, the two forms of religion.

Emile Durkheim

One is the eminent sociologist of religion Emile Durkheim (1858-1917). As can be seen from his book "Elementary Forms of Religious Experience" 2 Durkheim was strongly of the opinion that religion was a constituent element of the common pattern of life of clan-communities. According to him religions are there to ensure the unity and the solidarity of clan-communities. Durkheim may not have used the word "clan" as such but the community he implied by his term "society" was exactly that. He did not use the word "society" in the sense of the universal human family.

An idea of Durkheim which is typical of his sociological thought, but which an ordinary person may find unusual and even resent a little, is that religion has nothing more to it than what is contained in the concept of clan-community. But, of course, we must not forget that for him a clan was not just an agglomeration of individuals. Members were inter-related and the sense of affinity which this produced transformed the community into one moral body. In the way he implied, it was one body because it was animated by one soul. To designate that moral body he used the Judeo-Christian term "church".

. For him, religion was just "church" or an association in which members had a reason to feel inter-related. The code of beliefs and practices that the "church" upheld had no other purpose than to keep the community-group bound together and to give it an identity of its own. He put so much stress on the clan-community that he explained even the belief in God as an outcome of an individual's submission to the community.

"In fact, we can say that the believer is not deceived when he believes in the existence of a moral power upon which he depends and from which he receives all that is best in himself. This power exists. It is society" 3

"In a general way, it is unquestionable that a society has all that is necessary to arouse the sensation of the divine in minds merely by the power it has over them. For to its members, it is what a god is to his worshipers" 4

It is not necessary for us here to go into Durkheim's explanation about God-belief. What is more important is his idea that religion is an integral element of a clan's community life. It is because religion and clan are inseparably linked that membership in a religion is transmitted by parents to children just as membership in the clan.

His idea can be useful also if we want to understand the peculiar way -- at times even fanatical-- in which most people behave in the matter of beliefs and practices. His idea that, in matters of religion, individuals act more according to the dictates of their clan consciousness than according to their personal conscience is a point that no religious educator or analyst of religion can safely discard.

It is unfortunate that Durkheim focused attention exclusively on one form of religion, namely, the one we have referred to as the religion of the born-to form. He overlooked completely that of the "reborn-to" or the "awakened-to". But to understand the problems and complications of religion in modern society, Durkheim's view regarding the clan-group and its hold on the religious behavior of individuals is invaluable.

Rudolf Otto

The other authority whose views are fundamental for a deeper understanding of the issue in question is Rudolf Otto (1869-1937). He concentrated on the other version of religion. Judging from his book "The Idea of the Holy" 5 religion is rooted not in an individual's link with the clan, but in the intuitive awareness of the "Sacred" that every individual has in his or her heart. People are not only deeply aware of a most profound reality but also want to revere it and keep united with it.

Because of his close awareness of the Hindu-Buddhist religious systems of India --in which the idea of a personal God is not considered indispensable for the sense of the supernatural as in religions of the Judeo-Christian tradition -- Rudolf Otto abstained from describing the source of religion as "God-consciousness". He referred to it broadly as just "numinous consciousness" 6 since "numinous" was close in meaning to "higher life". According to him that consciousness of the "Sacred" is the basis of all religion. As he said:

"There is no religion in which it does not live as the real inmost core; and without it no religion would be worthy of the name" 7.

Rudolf Otto uses in his book a language that sounds mystical, but the religion he focuses on necessitates such holistic language. Religion for him is not, as for Durkheim, a form of "church" but a form of "spirituality". It represents a state of maturity that an individual aspires to achieve. The beginning of that state of maturity is a vision of higher life that one discovers through one's own experience of living.

Here again we have to say of Rudolf Otto what we said of Emile Durkheim. He too focused attention on just one sense of the word. He took it in the sense that we have referred to as "religion re-born-to" or "religion awakened-to". As a scientific exponent of that form of religion, we cannot think of a better person than Rudolf Otto. 

III. SOURCE OF CONFUSION

 As will be evident to anybody, the disparity between the interpretations of these two scholars is by no means small. For Durkheim, religion is purely a clan matter and its purpose is the safeguarding of the affinity between its members. All the features of a religion such as beliefs, rites, festivals, pilgrimages have no other purpose than to make members of a community think and act in unison. There will therefore be as many religions as there are such racially or quasi-racially united communities. The teacher-pupil dialogue cited above is thus quite in keeping with his view of religion. For the French, the Saudi Arabians, the Indians and the Tibetans to have religions that distinguish them from one another is just normal.

For Rudolf Otto, on the contrary, religion is purely a personal matter. It is what helps a person, to arrive at his or her highest stature as a human being. The yearning for the "sacred" or the "numinous" is so personal that there cannot be any barriers of race, region or religion to it. The aspiration to be human at its divine level is the same in the Frenchman and the Tibetan as also in the Hindu and the Muslim.

 But the crux of the matter is that, however legitimate the two stands be, as a matter of fact, in the way contemporarily used, the word "religion" could refer to either. The word these scholars are trying to define -- like, for example, the word "file" which at one moment refers to a container of papers and at another to a sharpener of blades -- is equivocal. Religion working for the welfare of just one clan and religion working for the welfare of the whole of humanity can't be identical. Religion as submission to the demands of clan consciousness and religion as submission to the universal laws that make people more fully human can't be the same.

 What could be really disturbing however, is the question that one is compelled to ask here: If scholars as great as these can take the word "religion" in two different senses, is it a matter for surprise if ordinary people mix up the senses when they use it? Is anyone to blame if at one time people wage wars under the name of "religion" and at the other engage in activities that promote peace and harmony? There is not the least doubt that much of today's conflicts within individuals and between individuals is due to the lack of precision with regard to the way "religion" is understood.

 Benefiting therefore from the light that these great scholars throw on the two forms of religion, we have now to coin two names to designate them. Even though it may look somewhat arbitrary, we intend to use the name "clan-protective religion" or in short "clan-religion" for the first, namely, that of the "born-to" type. "Clan" no doubt has the derogatory insinuation of "tribal" and "primitive" But if we can keep that insinuation out, we can't think of a better word than "clan" for the type of community this form of religion caters to. The main aim of this religion is to preserve intact the ancestral tradition handed down within the clan from generation to generation and thereby to ensure the unity, identity and well-being of the clan-group.

 The other which we referred to as the "awakened to" has as its aim the giving of a vision of life to people so that they can organize their day-to-day life fruitfully. For that reason we will call it "Life-vision religion" using a capital "L" for "Life" so as not to forget that the "Life" understood here is not just the physical but also the one that is above and beyond the physical, or in other words "Life" in its fullness. It could also be called "Adult religion", because its aim is to make people mentally adult.

By themselves, however, the names are of little importance. If more suitable terms can be thought of, they may be used instead. 8 Our purpose in proposing these names is to show how indiscriminate we are ordinarily in our use of the word "religion". We use it without concern for the distinct realities they represent. But on the other hand, we should be careful not to oversimplify the distinction and conclude that they are existentially separate or that they operate with no link with each other. The distinction is more subtle than that. To understand it more clearly we have to see how the two activate themselves within the religious traditions of contemporary society. It is that aspect we will examine in the next chapter.

1. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion

(London, SPCK, 1978) p.198

2. Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Expe-

rience: A Study in Religious Sociology (George Allen &

Unwin, New York, 1915)

3. ibid. p.257

4. ibid. p.236-237

5. Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Oxford University Press,

England, 1923)

6. ibid. p.6

7. ibid. p.169

8. A Buddhist reader of the first edition, for example, has sugges-

ted "mind-enlightening" as an alternative to "Life-vision".

According to him, "clan-protective" and "mind-enlightening"

indicate better the functions of each. The suggestion itself is

enlightening.

Chapter Two

RELIGIONS OF TODAY

 THEIR CLAN AND ADULT FORMS

 From what was said in the last chapter the conclusion to draw is clear. "Religion" is a common word for two distinct realities each with a precise function of its own. Clan-religion serves one particular clan-community and its main function is the securing of the unity and well-being of that community. Adult (or Life-vision) religion is for the whole of humanity and its main aim is to make individuals mature enough to be able to act rightly and responsibly on their own.

 The fact that the two realities are distinct does not imply that they operate in isolation and without relation to each other. As a matter of fact, they are generally found to be operating from within one and the same religious tradition. If we take just the major religions into account, since it is with those that we are mainly concerned here, their mode of operation is such that they have the power to create two versions of one and the same religion. As a result, any religion today, can be conceived in both clan and adult forms.

 A second outcome of their mode of operation is that it makes it possible for people to follow a religion with one of two mentalities. A person today has the possibility to practice a religion with either a clan-mentality or an adult mentality. All that goes to show that the clan-adult distinction we are bringing out here is more intricate than it appears initially. But the intricacy clears up if what the two notions represent is examined realistically, and dispassionately.

 I. CLAN RELIGION

 Of the two forms of religion introduced here, the one that many would find new and even intriguing is clan-religion. That is because the concept is never given importance in the traditional system of religious education. When a religion is taught to its followers, it is taken as one whole and so the need for pointing out the two dimensions is not generally felt. But today those studying religions are not just their followers.

 Clan and Culture

 To understand what clan-religion represents, we must go back to the earliest days of human history when tribes lived apart from each other, and each tribe or clan had a religion of its own. Religion was part of the clan's culture. In that era, culture clearly consisted of six basic elements. All the members of the clan shared a) one geographical habitation or place they considered their motherland, b) one ancestral history, c) one language which they considered their mother-tongue, d) one localized pattern of economic sustenance, e) one political chief, and last but not least, f) one religion. The role of culture was to provide a suitable environment for the clan to be stable and develop in. In the process it gave the clan an identity which made it distinct from other clans. Being an integral element of culture, religion too was intent on protecting the clan.

 The religion of any clan contained everything that is generally associated with the notion of religion such as beliefs, rites, festivals, code of conduct, records of history (remembered or recorded) and a system of religious instruction. Even in their primordial form, all religions, -- and this is a point we should never ignore-- contained within them not only elements that were meaningful to just the clan, but also elements that had a universal significance. Those elements could uplift the spirit of people of any clan. To illustrate what we mean, we can take the example of two religions of today whose origins go back to ancient times, namely, Judaism and Hinduism.

 The two religions belong to two long-standing clan-communities of our time, the Jews and the Indians. A characteristic feature of such age-old clan-communities is that their religions have no proper names. The name of the religion is the very name of the clan. The word "Jew" points to membership in both a clan and a religion. It is the same with Hinduism. To be "Indian" is to be "Hindu". The only difference between these two groups is that the Jewish sense of clan-community comes from the oneness of their ancestry and that of the Hindus from the oneness of the region they inhabit. Both these religions are endowed with a voluminous scripture coming down from early times. The scripture of the Jews is called the "Bible" and that of the Hindus the "Vedas". For our purpose, we take up just one teaching which is contained practically in a parallel way in both the scriptures, namely, that of Creation.

According to the Jewish story of Creation given in the book of Genesis (Gen 1:1-2:1) God created the world in seven days. The story has been devised in such a way as to fulfill both clan and adult functions at once. On one side, the idea that the world is the work of a good, almighty God, and not the outcome of aimless hazard gave the Jews a vision which enabled them to look at themselves as also at everything existing as endowed with meaning and purpose. That lesson of the Creation-story was universal in value and belonged to religion of the "Life-vision" or "adult" form.

 But that was not the only function that the story was to fulfill. The story also said that the work of Creation was executed by God in six days. God took rest on the "seventh" day. Saturday or the seventh day was the weekly holiday (Sabbath) of the Jews. The example of God working for six days and taking rest on the seventh was meant to show the Jewish people how they should organize their weekly work and weekly rest. The function of that part of the story was the structuring of the Jewish society in a way conducive to the socio-economic well-being of the Jewish race. That teaching pertained to clan-protective religion and was not meant for non-Jews. Nothing prevented non-Jews from taking their weekly rest on Fridays or Sundays.

 Like the Jewish story, the Hindu poem of creation 1 contained in the oldest book of the Hindu Scriptures, the "Rig Veda", also had two dimensions or themes. According to the first part of that poem the universe with all its seasons and living beings was the result of the sacrifice that the lower gods made of Purusha, a personified divine entity. The poetic idea of a universe originating from the sacrifice of a divine being made Indians accept a universe which came into existence endowed with divinity. The idea made them see a dignity and value in their existence. They were part of God. That teaching, like the parallel lesson in the Jewish story, was of universal value and belonged to Life-vision religion.

But like the Jewish story this poem had a typically clan function too to fulfill. The poem aimed at structuring Indian society so as to ensure its socio-economic well-being. According to the second part of the poem when the Purusha was sacrificed, Indian society consisting of four castes came into existence. From the mouth of the sacrificed deity came the Brahmana, from the arms the Rajanya, from the thighs the Vaisya, and from the feet the Sudra. The caste system was devised to ensure the division of labor and thereby the socio-economic stability of the Indian society. But that part of the poem was just clan-protective and was of no value to non-Indians.

What is true of Judaism and Hinduism can be assumed to be true of all religions in their primordial form. But the peculiarity of a religion rooted in its culture is that both Life-vision and clan-protective elements are inseparably joint together to form one "tradition". That tradition then becomes a heritage exclusive to the clan and to be handed down intact from generation to generation within the clan. Thus, taken in its primordial sense, religion was essentially a clan-tradition to be preserved intact within the clan.

 Major religions and culture

 From religions in their primordial form which are actually religions exclusive to people of one race or region, we have now to pass on to those called "major religions" and which are spread out in many lands. The best known among them are Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. Hinduism too could be included in the category, since in recent times it has begun to spread in Western countries. Still, there are many reasons that make one ask if with regard to the link between religion and culture, these major religions are really different from religions restricted to one race or region.

The multi-culturalness of the major religions is a matter that has to be approached with great discernment as appearances can be extremely deceptive. There are two factors to be given consideration. First, major religions are not as uniform as they are imagined to be. According to the impression created, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam are religions with one fixed form. But that is not so. In reality, there are many Hinduisms, Buddhisms, Christianities and Islams. Buddhism of Tibet, for example, is different from Buddhism of Japan, and Buddhism of Japan from that of Sri Lanka. Christianity is the same. The Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant versions of Christianity are vastly different from each other.

 When one particular religion is found in such diverse forms, we naturally ask what the cause of such diversities and even divisions could be. Is it possible that all these forms have been invented and initiated by the same founder? Could it be that both the Theravada and the Mahayana forms of Buddhism were initiated by the same Buddha, and that the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant versions of Christianity were started by the same Jesus?

There is no doubt that the religious thought of the great visionaries, in spite of the fact that they themselves lived in fixed cultures, was supra-cultural and so universal. But as soon as their thought was accepted by a clan, nation, or even an empire, it was not taken in exactly its original intent. Just as a cloth is cut and sewn to the size of an individual's body before it is used as a garment, religions were tailored to the cultural shape of the communities before they were accepted by them. Taken from that angle we have to say that the major religions have lost part of their original thrust when getting shaped to fit the requirements of different cultures.

 But there is another side to it too. Most cultures, specially those of smaller races and nations have not succeeded in re-shaping in-coming religions to fit their culture. What has happened in larger part is the reverse. Small races and nations have had to accept the religion along with the culture within which it had developed and to which it is inseparably linked. Every major religion has such a culture, -- one that could be treated as its mother-culture. That of Christianity, is European culture; of Islam, Arab; of Hinduism, Indian; and of Buddhism, diverse units of Asian culture.

 Those mother-cultures have thereafter acted as a mould reshaping the cultures of the nations into which the religion was introduced. With regard to Christianity, a brief glance at its history makes this clear. Though Christianity was born in the land of the Jews, already in its infancy it entered the Western world. At first, it was not welcome. It was banned in the Roman Empire for three full centuries. The situation changed only when Emperor Constantine embraced the religion in 313 AD. Not long after that it became the state religion of the empire allowing itself to be shaped according to its culture. The Christianity that we know today is Christianity with the trappings of that state religion.

 It was in that Roman (eventually European) shape that Christianity was later diffused in the rest of the world. The vestments worn by the Catholic priest at ceremonies have little to do with Jesus Christ. They are derived from the vestments of the dignitaries of the Roman empire. Even the hierarchical system of the Christian churches largely goes back to the administrative system of the Roman empire.

The role played by major religions in diffusing around the world a particular culture, -- the one they consider their own-- becomes clear even when we look at other religions. Their present shape is due more to the culture of the country in which the religion originated than to the visionary teachings of the founders. The turban of the Sikh, the cap of the Muslim, the robe of the Buddhist monk or the garb of the Hindu swami have roots more in the mould-culture than in any directives coming from the founders. The very tendency of religions to lean on the mother-tongue of their earliest ancestors,--Hebrew and Greek in Judaism, Latin and Greek in Christianity, Arabic in Islam, Sanskrit in Hinduism, Pali and Sanskrit in Buddhism, -- has the same basis.

 All that goes to show how closely linked even major religions are to a particular culture. In their link to a culture, and particularly in their role of protecting one particular clan-community, major religions (taken just in the aspect underlined here) are not different from clan-religions of the past. Major religions may be multi-regional but they are not multi-cultural. They are predominantly uni-cultural. As much as clan-religions which are restricted to one race or region, major religions which are diffused in different lands look at religion basically as a tradition to be handed down from generation to generation within the clan. The tradition's aim is to keep the clan's past, present and future generations united together as one large family.

 II. ADULT RELIGION

 In comparison to clan-religion, "Adult" or "Life-vision" religion is easier to grasp. At least in theory, religion has always stood for "spirituality'" and "religiousness" -- which we consider the sense proper of religion. Adult religion has its own goal which, unlike that of clan-religion, is not to make a person, a perfect Frenchman, a perfect Saudi Arabian, a perfect Indian or a perfect Tibetan, but to make anybody, Frenchman, Saudi Arabian, Indian or Tibetan, a perfect human being. Rather paradoxically however, humanness is not something that people acquire at birth or by the simple fact that they are endowed with a human form. People are born only with the potential to be human. That is how the achievement of humanness at its perfect level becomes the ultimate goal of human beings.

 Religious liberation

The elevation of the individual from the "not fully human" to the "fully human" is what is referred to in religion as "liberation" and it is also what religion of the Life-vision form is concerned with. But many today are at a loss to realize what religious liberation implies. They appreciate more easily the liberation that doctors offer humanity by healing people from their sicknesses, that teachers bring about by ridding people of their ignorance, that social welfare workers effect by saving people from their poverty.

 If they are unable to appreciate the work of religious educators as much as that of doctors, teachers and social workers, it is because they cannot picture correctly the sickness, the ignorance, and the poverty that religion redeems people from. One reason for it is that the redemption effected by religion is not of the physically visible body, but of the invisible mind. It is hardly possible to physically distinguish a mentally liberated person from a non-liberated one. Externally they will be the same. A saint and a criminal are not different in their facial features.

 Of the numerous explanations given to religious liberation, the one that a modern person will find easy to comprehend is that given by the Buddha. For him the liberation that human beings needed most was from the stunted state of their minds as this is what brought pain and anxiety to people. The human mind in its initial unenlightened state is controlled by emotional desires. In that state they fail to see what brings them true peace and joy and they run after sleazy objects of enjoyment which ultimately bring them more sorrow than contentment. That is why the Buddha made "right understanding of life" the basis of his path to liberation.

 The Buddha's explanation makes it very clear that liberation is a matter which pertains to the realm of the mind. To be liberated is to have a mind which is no longer wrongly oriented. For the mind to be rightly oriented all that it needs is a right vision or understanding of life. Through its intuitive powers and particularly the power of judgment which we refer to as the "conscience", the human mind can acquire that vision on its own as long as it receives the right guidance. The role of religion is to work for liberation of that most needed form, and that by giving people the guidance they need.

 III. TWO MENTALITIES

 If a religion is conceivable in clan and adult versions, then it is to be expected that a religion would be able to be practiced with clan and adult mentalities. The two mentalities however, are so far apart that any element of religion could take two different shapes when looked at through them. For purpose of illustration, we select just four elements that are generally considered to be constitutive of religion. They are a) Faith (beliefs), b) Rites and festivities c) Community or church and d) Law or code of conduct.

  a) Faith (beliefs)

Both within human beings and outside them, there is a realm that argumentative reason cannot reach. That realm is approached by faith or belief. Matters of faith have from ancient times been expressed in a picturized language. In keeping with their goals, clan and adult religions approach this language of religion differently.

Clan-Religion: In clan religion, beliefs are part of the ancestral tradition and they have to be professed by everybody uniformly whether what is believed is from the individual's point of view plausible or not. Clan-religion tends to attach greater importance to the pictorial formulation of doctrines than to their visionary content. Uniformity is easier preserved that way. Pictorial affirmations of ancestral days were, in course of time, formulated into dogmas and assembled into creeds. Creeds are declared to be revealed and so unchangeable and unchallengeable.

Adult Religion: Here what is important is "belief" and not "beliefs". Belief is the same as insight. Insight is what shows human beings how to live rightly and according to their conscience. Belief is in no way a blind submission to a handed-down tradition. It is what provides the vision, the courage and the strength to cope with the problems of life. Adult faith cannot be developed into creeds to be professed uniformly. Faith is a creative and joyful way of looking at life and its responsibilities.

b) Rites (celebrations)

 Rites and celebrations are a way of acting out or dramatizing the inner feelings and sentiments individuals experience before the mysterious dimension of life. Rites are common to both forms of religion, but the focus of attention in either is different.

 Clan-Religion: Like beliefs, rites too are a group matter. They are different from clan to clan. Fidelity of members in the performance of rites is generally taken as a sign of faithful adherence to the community. Disregard of rites is taken as a sign of disinterest in the community. Rites are to be performed by every member exactly in the same way. Since rites are primarily meant to ensure the unity and the identity of the clan-group, participation in rites of other clan-groups is strictly forbidden.

 Adult Religion: Rites here are seen as an aid to people to keep related not just to their clan-community but to whatever they have to be related, namely to humanity as a whole, to the universe and to the invisible power that sustains life. Taken as a whole, rites are an expression of the understanding that people have of themselves and of their responsibilities before the total reality of life.

 c) Religious Community or Church

 The notion of religion is intimately linked with the notion of community. The feeling of oneness with others is embedded in the religious experience. In the two forms of religion, however, the idea of community is understood and expressed differently.

 Clan-Religion: Behind every religious institution of the clan-form, there is a clan-community in which the members are, if not ethnically at least quasi-ethnically, related. In such a community the acquisition of membership is more by birth than by personal choice. Once in it, a member has obligatorily to accept its creeds, perform its rites, accept the laws enacted by it and be submissive to the authority.

 Adult Religion: Membership in the community is not by birth but by conviction; and the religious community one belongs to is as large as humanity itself. Individuals who search to be mentally adult, whatever clan or culture they may belong to, form a noble, though exteriorly invisible community of their own. The boundaries of this cosmopolitan Church or "the world-community of the mentally adult" cannot be demarcated in a visible way

 d) Law and Sin

 As much as the notions of belief, rites and membership, that of law is intrinsic to the notion of religion. In religion what is not in accordance with the law is considered wrong and so sinful. In the two forms of religion, we find two approaches to the notion of law.

 Clan-Religion: Even though there are in all clan-codes some laws that are universally valid, the larger number are of value only within the clan. Those vary from institution to institution. Most laws are prohibitions and are meant for preserving the purity in lineage of the clan-members as also the uniformity of the handed-down tradition. Communication with other clans in matters such as marriage and worship is strictly forbidden. These laws are presented as delivered by God or a quasi-divine authority. To break such laws is to commit sin. Sinners have to undergo penalties imposed by the institution or forfeit their membership.

 Adult Religion: In the way adult religion understands law, its purpose is to uplift the personality of individuals by making them independent in judgment and responsible in action. Laws that make people independent and responsible cannot really be formulated or written down. They have to be discovered by looking at the way nature operates and by listening to one's own heart or conscience. The wisdom of the great sages too could be illuminative.

Value of distinction

 However sketchy, this comparative analysis could be of help for understanding introspectively the two mentalities with which any religion could be followed. It could equally well be of benefit to those who feel the need to straighten up their attitude to religion. Not everybody, however, will feel that need. To see the type of persons concerned, we can take the case of just Christianity.

 Christianity today is composed of numerous denominational traditions. A Christian may be Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Presbyterian. A common characteristic of Christian denominations is that they all claim to conform to the Christian community as it was founded by Jesus. The claim may be justifiable if we take only what a denomination has in common with all others, but not if we take into account their differences. Historically, their diversity is due to the socio-political developments, and especially divisions, which occurred in the countries that originally constituted the Roman empire. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire three centuries after Christ.

 Among Christians of the various denominations there are some who have no difficulty whatsoever with the institution they have been brought up in and which they regard as part of their family tradition. Being sure that theirs is the only right religion, they do not see any purpose in being concerned about other religions or even other religious denominations.

 Poles apart from these are those who are so disgruntled with their religion that they don't practice it any longer. They consider themselves nominally Christian or more frequently just agnostic. Their argument is that the demands of Christianity are in no way compatible with modern life. Their number is increasing everyday.

 But between the two extremes, there are a number who love their institution but have problems with it. They find, for example, that some of its beliefs and practices are not rationally defensible. They also feel that the exclusive link they have to maintain with their institution restrains them from being in close relationship with people of other denominations, other religions and, in general, with humanity as a whole. Some find the situation so disturbing that they are uncertain as to whether they should stay in or get out.

 It is to such individuals that this distinction between the clan and adult forms of religion becomes particularly beneficial. It opens their eyes to the fact that their denomination too, whatever it be, has both tendencies. The elements that don't seem to tally with common sense and tend to keep individuals segregated come from the clan-protective version. In its Life-vision form, Christianity stands for --as we shall see with greater clarity later-- Christian-ness, which is a stature of life lived according to the standards upheld by Jesus. A basic teaching of Jesus was love for all people irrespective of caste or creed.

 Christians who are ready to accept that their denomination contains both versions will have no difficulty in seeing the right way to solve their difficulties with religion. All that they have to do is to observe the right priorities in their response to the demands made by each of them. Fidelity to right values is what has to be given primacy. Fidelity to tradition has to be subordinate to that. If the right priorities are maintained they will see that it is possible for them to be truly Christian and aspire to highest humanness along with all other human beings without losing one's link with one's particular denominational community. But if the order is reversed, and tradition, on one side, is made more important than right living and the institutional community, on the other, more important than humanity, what is likely to happen is that they will be very conspicuously Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Presbyterian, but very little Christian.

 ----------------

1. Griffith, R.T.H. (trans), J.L. Shastri (ed) The Hymns of the Rig

Veda, Book X, hymn XC, (Motilal Banassidas, New Delhi

reprint 1976)

Chapter Three

 UNDERSTANDING RELIGION IN AN ADULT WAY

 We have examined the clan-protective and Life-vision (or adult) forms of religion and also seen how important it is to present religions in their Life-vision version in the modern world. But to present a religion, including Christianity, in its Life-vision form is not easy. Many obstacles have to be overcome. Among them the most formidable is, without doubt, that of language.

 Religion uses a language of its own to express the vision it offers to people. That vision is, on one side, so sublime, and on the other, so much at a sub-conscious level that it cannot be expressed in the common day-to-day language of people. Religion has no alternative but to use pictures, images, myths and symbols for it. Imagery is usually a help to understanding. But the problem with religious imagery is that it has been created long ago, and has been retained in that ancient form ever since. The result is that modern people have great difficulty in understanding what religions are saying. The incomprehensibility of religious terminology, and the consequent imperceptibility of the message of religion, are probably the factors that have most contributed to the alienation of modern people from religion.

 To help modern people overcome that barrier of language is a serious obligation of today's teachers of religion. To illustrate how this could be done, we take up for analysis here one doctrine that people have most difficulties with, namely, revelation. "Revelation" is a term pivotal for a right grasp of any theistic religion. All theistic religions affirm that their scriptures are revealed by a divine being.

 1. REVELATION: THE REALITY BEHIND

 In the modern world there are many who are not at ease with the idea of a Being or beings from another world talking to human beings. They have difficulties with the idea of the other-world altogether. Quite a few ask whether God/gods, heaven and hell are not just concoctions, or result of the imagination of primitive people. The two most pronounced answers given to that question take such an extremist stand that they bypass the real issue.

 One is that of the "rationalists" for whom there is nothing true outside what the senses perceive. They put so much faith on the power of logic that for them no knowledge is possible outside the analytical sciences. For them what is not science is fiction. The second is the group, found practically in all religions, referred to as "fundamentalists". They insist that God/gods, heaven and hell exist in the same way as described in their books, traditions and creeds. The descriptions have to be taken word for word because they are "revealed". It is not surprising if "rationalists" and "fundamentalists" have always been at loggerheads with each other.

 What both these extremists fail to see is that religious language is poetic and imaginative. They forget that even in day-to-day matters, what is affirmed with the aid of images is only partly true. We can take a simple statement such as "She is a rose" made about a pretty little girl standing near-by. Such a statement does not make anyone look for rose petals on the girl's face. Everybody knows that what is meant is that the natural attractiveness of the rose is in her face too. But people do not use that sense of poesy for interpreting religious terminology.

 World Beyond

 Let us take the words "heaven" and "hell". In the imagery used, heaven is a place "up there" where everything that is good, attractive and pleasing on earth can be found at a highly intensified degree. Hell is a place "down under" where all that is bad, repulsive and unpleasant on earth can be found equally intensified. If taken literally, nothing is more untrue than hell and heaven. But on the other hand, nothing could express the mind-ennobling power of right-living and the personality-destructive power of wrong living as heaven and hell. Heaven and hell are pictures purely of the mental level in which human beings can spend their present life. Therefore we should say of religion what Pablo Picasso said of art. "Art is a lie which makes us see the truth". Hell-heaven talk therefore is very relative but, as long as human beings are human beings, it cannot be done away with.

 Talk about God or gods is not very different. The god-idea is common to all religions, and in all religions it is built up on the human image. Like human beings, God-gods have life and intelligence. They possess the ability to love and be loved. They have even the tendency to get angry, hate and take revenge. They can help as well as hurt. The only thing they do not have, except in stories of incarnations, is a body. This is because the body is associated with corruption and death. Nonetheless, they can be male or female and even get married. The Judeo-Christian concept of God as a father has the presupposition of God being male.

 If human beings have given their own shape to God/gods, this is because that is the only way in which they can express the mysteries of life that argumentative reason cannot penetrate. As Xenophanes, the Greek philosopher said, "If horses and bulls had hands and could draw, horses would draw god as a horse, and bulls as a bull".

 There is no gainsaying the fact that the human concept of God/gods is purely a creation of the imagination. But, on the other hand, no one can deny its usefulness, and its justifiability. It is unfortunate that teachers of religion have not taken the trouble to distinguish between the picture and the reality portrayed by the picture. As a result many interested in religion find themselves in a quandary. They are in the situation of the man who, holding a cup in his hands, says: "Can't drink it because it is hot; can't throw it out because it is milk". It is with such a double feeling that many today look at the beliefs they are accustomed to profess. They can't accept them because they look so anti-intellectual, they can't reject them because they are so appealing to the heart.

 Content of Revelation

 With that general introduction to the other-world language of religions, we can now examine what the message is behind the picture of divine revelation. As a general rule all established religions uphold that the teaching they propagate has been revealed by a divine or quasi-divine person.

 To grasp what revelation implies, we have to begin by asking what the reality is which is so much beyond human comprehension as to necessitate revelation by a supra-human power. There is in fact such a reality. It is not something far away from human beings. It is so close to them as to be within them or part of them. It is their life. To any human being, his/her life is a mystery. Human beings are in possession of what they refer to as "life". But what life is and how to live it correctly they do not know. To all human beings their life is extremely bewildering. We may look all around us without seeing anywhere proof that there is any lasting purpose or goal to our individual existence. Everybody starts life on earth, coming as it were from nowhere, and ends life on earth, going as it were nowhere. Human reason based on the physical senses is at a loss to provide an answer.

 But the strange fact is that though analytical reason, which is generally taken to be the supreme source of human knowledge, is incapable of giving an answer, still, somehow or other, human beings are in possession of the answer to the mystery of life at least to the extent that it is necessary to bring their individual life into fulfillment. If the discovery was not made by analytical reason, what could the source of the knowledge be? The seemingly logical answer which is in keeping with the popular belief in God or gods, is revelation by God.

 As a picture, "revelation" is very meaningful. It says that there is more to the reality of life than what analytical reason can penetrate. But if the word is taken as referring to the actual event of a God coming down to divulge some truth at a particular moment to a particular person, then it can lead to incongruities.

 A case in point is the way the word is generally used in reference to the three religions of Middle Eastern origin, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. All three believe in one God and they all claim that their religion in the institutional form found today has been revealed by the same God. Still they differ much in their teachings and are, as history testifies, always in rivalry with each other.

 Another incongruity comes from the fact that, while those religions of Middle Eastern origin resort to revelation to prove the authenticity of their beliefs, those of Indian origin such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism do without. Such incongruities arise if one forgets that "revelation" is actually an imagery used to express a reality that is not expressible in customary concepts.

 Wisdom

 It is also important to note here that revelation is not the only image that has been used to express that difficult-to-express source of supra-rational knowledge. That of "wisdom" imaginatively personified as a female deity existing from time immemorial is another. The image of the Goddess Wisdom enlightening human beings and showing them the path to true happiness is common to many religions notably to Judaism and Mahayana Buddhism. In the Bible book of Proverbs she is shown calling human beings to follow her path to true happiness:

Hear how Wisdom lifts her voice,

and Understanding cries out...

The Lord created me the beginning of his works,

before all else that he made long ago...

at the beginning long before earth itself...

Now my sons, listen to me,

listen to instruction and grow wise, do not reject it,

Happy the man who keeps to my ways,

Happy the man who listens to me,...(Pro 8: 1, 22-23, 32-34).

 

 In the Pragna-paramita Sutra (treatise on Wisdom-Virtue) of Mahayana Buddhism, we see human beings addressing Goddess Wisdom:

 Homage to Thee Perfect Wisdom

Boundless and transcending thought,

All thy limbs are without blemish,

Faultless those who Thee discern....

Teachers of the world, the Buddhas,

Are Thine own compassionate sons.1

 The image of "Goddess Wisdom" as seen here is not different from that of "revelation" when taken as a pointer to the supra-rational nature of the human knowledge about what it is to live rightly. In the same way we can assume that if introspectively understood, the secular terms "insight" or "intuition" are as much usable to point to the supra-rational nature of the knowledge implied. But for that we have to understand how insight differs from analytical reason while being related to it.

 Intuition and Reason

 Insight though different from analytical reason originates in the same mind and so the two are inter-connected. The fact that they are distinct does not imply that there is any disharmony or opposition between them. Like the two actions of hearing and seeing of the external senses, intuition and reason of the internal mind are different. But like hearing and seeing, intuition and reason cannot be at disparity with each other.

 The main point to remember here is that both reason and intuition have human welfare as their ultimate goal. But they look at it from different angles and approach it in different ways. Reason is concerned with the human being in its physical or quantitative form; intuition, with its behavioral or qualitative aspect. Both forms of knowledge, as also what they lead to, namely, science and religion, understand human welfare as liberation from some form of pain or suffering. Science attempts to liberate human beings from physical aspects of suffering; religion, from mental or internal. Both forms of relief are needed and so the two functions are complementary.

 Reason and Intuition however activate themselves differently. Reason can operate even in a person who is self-centered. Intuition arises only in those honestly seeking after right living. Reason explores reality by looking from the outside; intuition, by looking into one's experience of life. Reason argues things out and discovers new possibilities. Intuition contemplates and in contemplation realizes anew the value of age-old truths regarding life and living. For the same reason, the certitude or the conviction the two engender about any matter is not identical.

 An example could illustrate the point. According to reason, two halves are better than one. Two halves of a bun are more filling to a hungry stomach than one half. But let us suppose that a hungry person who has broken his bun into two finds next to him a child who also seems to be hungry. He shares his bun with the child giving him one half. He just senses that this is the better thing to do.

 What is the mathematics that justifies such a decision? This person's intuition tells him he will be more filled with one half of the bun than if he had eaten both. Intuition, from the angle of reason, is illogical. But the logic of intuition operates at a different level, the level not of entities but of values. Because it is concerned with values, intuition is what the conscience is built on. It is the conscience which tells a person what, in a given circumstance, is the right thing to do.

Enlightenment and Intuition

 The classic example of the inexpressible way in which intuition acts is the experience in the life of the Buddha referred to as the "Enlightenment". At the age of 29, Siddharta Gautama started an intensive search for a way to overcome "suffering" (dukkha) or anxieties of life and to arrive at peace of mind. For six years he had gone to schools of rigorous asceticism and teachers of ecstatic meditation without success. It was while restfully meditating under a large shady tree that he finally found what he sought. That discovery is referred to as "enlightenment", "awakening" or "illumination". Enlightenment is what intuition brings about.

It is not impossible that traditional theists will have difficulty in seeing revelation equated to insight. Their objection would be that intuition is from within the individual whereas revelation is from outside. But should we take intuition as an activity that starts and ends within the brain of an individual? Such a question may sound strange and even fanciful, but it is one that the well-known psychoanalyst Carl C. Jung thought worth posing. His answer deserves to be given thought. His opinion is that intuition is not so much the result of the activity of an individual mind as that of a universal psyche operating through a personal mind.

 This is the reason why I differentiate between that which I have produced or acquired by my own conscious effort and that which is clearly and unmistakably a product of the unconscious mind. Someone may object that the so called unconscious mind is merely my own mind and that therefore such a differentiation is superfluous. But I am not at all certain whether the unconscious mind is merely my mind, because the term "unconscious" means that I am not even conscious of it...My psychological experience has shown time and again that certain contents issue from a psyche more complete than consciousness. They often contain a superior analysis or insight or knowledge which consciousness has not been able to produce. We have a suitable word for such occurrences: intuition. You do not make an intuition. It comes to you. 2

 In this regard even the way that the Buddha, a non-theist, looked at his own enlightenment is illuminative. Even though he was engaged in an intensive personal search, he did not look at the enlightenment as something he personally brought about. Of that moment of mind-awakening he said, "Knowledge and vision arose in me. Unshakable is my deliverance of mind". 3 The idea of a vision "arising" suggests that there is more to intuition than can be explained purely as an activity of the individual mind.

 This short explanation shows that, if introspectively understood, intuition could well be the reality implied by the pictorial image of "revelation". Such an interpretation is of great value to understand in an adult way what is meant when it is said that the scriptures of religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam are revealed. They are "revealed" because what they contain is not what has been found out through analytical reason by ordinary self-centered people. They are insights of extraordinary men who have understood life at depth. The Hebrew Bible thus contains the insights into life and right living of Moses and the prophets, the New Testament of Jesus and Paul, and the Koran of Mohammed.

 Revelation is of course just one aspect of the belief in God or gods that we generally refer to as "God-talk". If we are to understand god-talk rightly, we must realize that anything said with the word "god" in it is symbolic. Expressions such as "God speaks, God listens, God creates, God protects, God pardons, God punishes" if taken in themselves are only poetry. What is of value is the reality and the message behind the poetic expression. The meaning of such expressions, specially in their application to Christianity, will be examined in the course of this book.

II. PERSPECTIVE OF BOOK

 As we come to the end of the first and preliminary section of the book, let me now make clear the pattern I follow in this study on the message of Christianity. In this preliminary part we have searched for the meaning of the word "religion". We have also made some reflections on how religious language should be interpreted. From what has been said, there cannot be any doubt as to what perspective I should follow. It is that of Christianity taken in its adult or Life-vision form.

 The methodology of presentation has naturally to fit that perspective. As is evident we cannot follow the uni-religious method of traditional theology which assumes that Christianity is the one and only true religion and which is used when Christianity of a particular denomination is taught to Christians of the same denomination. The method adopted here is cosmo-religious. It looks at people of all religions with equal respect, but is concerned exclusively with the "spirituality" or the Life-vision dimension of Christianity.

 It is also based on the Bible as any exposition of Christianity has to be. It regards the Bible as one of the greatest books that have inspired people to aspire after a life of right values though not as the only such book. The interpretations given here of the Bible are in no way arbitrary, but they are not intended to be obligatorily accepted. Their purpose is only to make readers think and make decisions on their own. Respect for a person's freedom of mind is a requirement of religious education when taken in its adult form.

 It is thus an exposition of Christianity to be read more meditatively than argumentatively. That is also why the text has not been burdened with too many footnotes, giving references to authorities. The authority valued here is the reader who has the ability to make judgments and draw conclusions on his own. That is also why the need has not been felt for the inclusion of a bibliography. That I think is the only way in which a book on Christianity can be submitted to not only Christians of all denominations but even to non-Christians for their personal reflection.

 The special characteristics of a presentation of Christianity in its Christianness form is that by its very nature it is supra-cultural and supra-institutional. And so, a Life-vision presentation permits a non-Christian reader to benefit from that religion without having to give up one's own religio-cultural tradition. This idea of accepting the values of a newly- learnt religion without having to give up one's own traditional religion is not just a theoretical possibility, but a reality that is becoming very common today.

 In Western countries for instance, there are a large number of Christians who benefit from the teachings of Hinduism and Buddhism and adopt elements such as methods of meditation in their personal life. They do not think it necessary to give up their Christian traditions to benefit from the Hindu or Buddhist insights into life. If Westerners could do that with regard to non-Western religions, it goes without saying that non-Westerners too could do so with regard to a religion such as Christianity which took much of its present form from Western culture. A Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or agnostic of Asia or Africa should be able to adopt Christ's vision of life and benefit from Christian insights without having to become institutionally Christian or culturally Western.

 This, in any case, is also what is actually happening. There are, for instance, today great Hindu thinkers and teachers who value the spiritual message of Christianity and even make it known around them without giving up in any way the religion of their culture, Hinduism. Purely for the purpose of illustrating this fact, we give below a brief extract from the booklet "The Christ we Adore" by the revered Hindu "guru" or master, Swami Ranganathananda of the Ramakrishna Mission, Calcutta. The introductory paragraph of the book is as follows:

 We in India have learnt through our religion to look upon great teachers with a heart open to the inspiration which they hold for all humanity. The approach of our people to the lives of all teachers has something refreshingly beautiful about it; It is hard for non-Hindus to understand how we, professing a different religion, can open our hearts, with equal fervor, to receive the inspiration of this great Son of Man, Jesus. India's approach to religion is experiential and not dogmatic. It is spirituality that India seeks in its religious quest and not a creed or dogma.

 This is also the approach of Jesus Christ to religion, as we shall presently see. It is this approach that explains the spiritual hospitality of the Indian mind. This broad all-inclusive approach will be increasingly appreciated and accepted by the thinking people of the world in the coming years. What is now the cherished possession of a national culture will eventually become an integral part of human culture and civilization. Such a consummation will help to release the Christ-spirit from the shackles of a narrow sectarian creed in which it has been stifled for centuries. This will be the service that the spirit of India will render in this age to the religion of this great Master. 4

 This statement of a revered religious teacher of India is extremely profound and contains a thought very relevant to our issue. We cannot find a better thought to spotlight as we conclude the preliminary section of our book and to underline the perspective with which we will be examining Christianity in the pages which follow.

.......................

1. Conze, Edward, Buddhist Scriptures, (Harmondsworth, 1959)

pp. 168-171

2. Carl Gustav Jung, Psychology and Religion (New Haven, Yale

University Press, 9th printing 1955) pp. 46-49

3. For more details see Buddhism Made Plain Antony Fernando

with Leonard Swidler, (Orbis, New York)

4.Swami Ranganathananda, The Christ We Adore (The

Ramakrishna Mission, Institute of Culture, Calcutta, '60) pp.1-2

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PART II. THE OLD TESTAMENT:

GOD-BELIEF AS A VISION OF LIFE

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 Chapter Four 

BOOKS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

(The Hebrew Bible)

 No religion of today can be properly understood without some knowledge of the religion or religions that preceded it in the same locality. Many religions are either a revival of a pre-existing one or a reaction to it. That is why we cannot understand fully what the Buddha taught without having some idea of the state of Hinduism or Brahmanism that prevailed in his society, or what Mohammed taught without some notion of the religious forms including Judaism and Christianity that existed in Arabia of his day.

 But probably no religion is so closely dependent on another as Christianity is on Judaism. Christianity actually grew out of it. Judaism is what gave birth to Christianity. Jesus, Christianity's founder, was born and died a Jew. He never abandoned Judaism nor did he dissociate himself from it. In the ministry, his primary concern was to correct the wrong ways in which his people practiced Judaism.

 Christians of today do not talk much of their Jewish roots. When explaining their history, they do not, as a rule, go beyond the life-time of their founder. They prefer to ensure the distinctness of their institutional identity. To begin the history of Christianity from Jesus would be as incorrect as to begin the history of Protestantism from Luther. Protestantism is a reform of Christianity as Christianity is of Judaism. Christianity cannot be understood without taking into account Pre-Christian Judaism. The inner affinity between the two is well established by the fact that the Scriptures of the Jewish religion are an integral part of the Christian Scriptures. Christians have taken over the Jewish Scriptures exactly as they are without making even the smallest alteration in them.

The Jewish Scriptures are commonly referred to today as the "Hebrew Bible". The word "Hebrew" points to the language in which they were first written. "Bible" comes from the Greek for "book". The Jews looked at their scriptures as the book par excellence. Keeping to the practice of the time, Jesus referred to it either as "the Law" or "the Law and the Prophets". He conformed to what was stated in it. He did not want to change anything in the Hebrew Bible.

 Do not suppose that I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to complete. I tell you this: so long as heaven and earth endure, not a letter, not a stroke, will disappear from the Law until all that must happen has happened (Mt.5: 17-18).

 Hebrew Bible

 We can't think of any other religion that has taken over in all its entirety the scriptures of another religion. The Christian Scriptures however are not restricted to the Hebrew Bible. Christians have a collection of their own writings too. These contain information about the life and activities of Jesus as well as about the community of the first Christians. The two parts, the Jewish and the Christian, are today commonly treated as one book.

 In size the two parts are far from equal. The second is much smaller than the first. If we take a common size Bible such as the popular version of the "New English Bible" 1 (from which incidentally quotations in this book are taken) the first or the Jewish part extends to as many as 1164 pages but the second or the exclusively Christian part has only 313 pages, which means that the first part is more than three times that of the second. The Christians name the Hebrew Bible, the "Old Testament" and their own writings the "New Testament".

 In the religious language of the Jews (known in early times as Israelites) "testament" meant "covenant", "contract", "treatise" or "bond". They believed that they were a people joined to God by a special bond. Such a claim is not exclusive to the Jews. Most ancient communities claimed that they had a special link with a god or goddess, and that this was their protector. In the way the Jews understood their testament, God had to protect the Israelite people and the Israelite people had to observe the Law of God.

 Accepting the same term, the Christians called the Hebrew Scriptures the "Old Testament" and their own writings the "New Testament". The word "old" here should not be taken as meaning "outdated" or "obsolete"; It only means that the Christians, while respecting the Jewish conviction that they, as one tribe of the world, had a special covenant with God, believed in another covenant-- one more universal -- that God had with the whole of humankind.

 From what has been said it is evident that a good grasp of the Hebrew Bible is important for the understanding of Christianity. Therefore in this chapter, we will examine the structure of the Old Testament and the nature of its books. In the next we will examine its idea of religion particularly through its teaching on God-belief.

 It is not always easy to find the order in which the books of the Old Testament are best examined. The grouping followed from ancient times by the Jewish teachers is considered simple and practical. According to this Jewish tradition, the Hebrew Bible consists of three parts, i) the Law, ii) the Prophets, and iii) the Writings. This is the order that is commonly followed in Christian studies on the Bible too.

I. THE LAW

The first part of the Old Testament called "the Law" consists of five books: 1) Genesis, 2) Exodus, 3) Leviticus, 4) Numbers, and 5) Deuteronomy. These five books are regarded by the Jews as one whole and so are at times referred to as the Pentateuch, a Greek word meaning the "five-book unit". If they are more commonly referred to as "the Law" it is because in the pages of these books are contained the basic elements of the religio-political constitution of the Jews. Though called books of the Law they are valuable also as books of history, and of spirituality. For that reason, the Pentateuch must be looked at from all those three angles.

a) Books of Law

The heart of the Law is the Ten Commandments which the Jews believe to have been given directly by God himself. The number of the commandments was kept to the figure ten as a memory-aid. In the Law books, the commandments are not only just enunciated. They are also extensively commented on and explained. The explanations include many practical details. The Jewish Law gives great prominence to the social obligations of the individual. Some of the social laws have been so well thought out that they could be equally applicable in any community. A few of them taken from the book of Exodus (Ex 22:22-23:8) are (in the abridged form of the "Reader's Bible") as follows:

You shall not afflict any widow or orphan; if you do, I shall surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn; I will kill you, and your wives shall become widows, and your children fatherless. If you lend money to any of my people who is poor, you shall not exact interest. If you take your neighbor's garment in pledge you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down for that is his only covering; in what else shall he sleep? ...You shall not revile God nor curse a ruler of my people. You shall not utter a false report. You shall not follow a multitude to do evil; nor shall you bear witness in a suit, turning aside after a multitude, so as to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his suit. You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds officials, and subverts the cause of those in the right.

The value and opportuneness of such laws impress any modern reader. Still, some readers could be taken aback by the tone of some of God's utterances. An expression such as "..my wrath will burn; I will kill you, and your wives will become widows, and your children fatherless" could appear as ill-suited for the lips of a holy God. Such statements, however, are shocking only to those who have an unrealistic understanding of what Revelation means. The idea that God is the author of the Bible should not be interpreted fancifully.

The laws declared here are presented as God's. But it is Moses who through his visionary insight identifies them as in keeping with the mind of God. The language and the drama-script are from Moses. Besides being a visionary, Moses was also a clever and strong-handed leader of his people. He understood well that a hot-headed clan like the one he led couldn't be controlled or disciplined without using death-threats. He had, as the popular saying goes, to "put the fear of Moses into them". He wanted discipline in his people. That is why he depicted God like a rigorous disciplinarian who was ready to cane mischief-makers wherever necessary.

The Jewish Law contains not only prescriptions regarding human dealings between members of the Jewish community, but also rules of ritual. The book called "Leviticus" for example, contains a detailed exposition of the rites and rituals that the Jewish people had to observe as well as the feasts and festivals they had to celebrate. It contains a lengthy account of the duties of Jewish priests too. In Jewish society a particular clan, the one that derived from the family of Levi, was set apart for priestly work, a custom not very different from that followed in Hinduism where a caste, the Brahmin, is set apart.

b) Books of History

Though they contain several collections of laws, one should not consider the Pentateuch exclusively as books of Law. What it contains more extensively is the history of the Jewish people. To find out anything about the earliest stages of the history of the Jewish people it is to these books that one has invariably to turn.

When speaking of this history, we have first to remember that those who are today called "Jews" have not always been called so. Throughout their history, they have been known by a number of names. From the father of their tribe, who had incurred the nick-name "Israel", they were in their very early days known as the "Children of Israel" or in short as "Israelites" or "Israel". The nick-name "Isra-el" literally "fighter with God" could have been a humorous allusion to the courage, daring or endurance for which among his neighbors, Jacob was reputed.

Among the neighboring nations they were also recognized by the Hebrew language they spoke. Hence they were called the "Hebrews". But in the Bible itself because of their belief that they were a people chosen by God, they are referred to as the "People of God".

From among the books of the Pentateuch, the first two, namely Genesis and Exodus, are specially revered by the Jewish people because the story of their origins is contained and preserved in them. Genesis contains the story of their origin as a large family or tribe and Exodus of their origin as a race. According to the book of Genesis, Jacob had twelve sons and the twelve sub-tribes that constituted the Israelite people are said to have derived from them. Jacob was the son of Isaac who in turn was the son of Abraham who is assumed to have lived about 1800 BC. Abraham has always been considered the first and chief patriarch of the Jewish people.

The second book, Exodus, develops the history of this people up to the time they became, under the leadership of Moses, an independent race. Moses liberated his people when, under the kings of Egypt, called Pharaohs, they were used as slaves for the construction of big buildings and roads and underwent great suffering and hardship. Rebelling against the Egyptian rulers, Moses made his people escape from Egypt into a desert region, there to recover their dignity as a free people and develop into an independent race. This escape of the Jewish people from Egypt is called the Exodus (exit) and is believed to have taken place around 1250 BC.

As in the case with all ancient tribes, the account given in these books is seen exclusively from the side of the tribe or clan and so are not impartial records of history. They instilled into its members a love for the clan as also a strong pride in it.

c) Books of Spirituality

The first five books can be looked at also as books of spirituality because they contain some of the deepest spiritual insights of the Jewish people. It is in these books that we find the account of the Creation of the universe by God. The creation story has played an immeasurably great role in making people recognize with humility their creatureliness and with a sense of responsibility their dignity as beings made in the image of God. Then again in these books we find the story of the spiritual quest of Abraham. Abraham is presented as the model God-believer. He knew what it was to listen to God. Of equally great importance is the story of Moses who taught the Jewish people through his codes of Law and his visionary idea of the Covenant what belief in God had to be.

What is to the greatest credit of Judaism is that, while being basically a religion of the clan-form, it contained within it elements of adult religion at a very sublime level and which people who were not Jews too could cherish and adopt. That is how their form of monotheism became ultimately the foundation for two multi-racial religions, Christianity and Islam.

The "Law" or the Pentateuch is the most ancient part of the Bible. At a very early stage it constituted the complete Bible. In fact, in a group that broke away from Judaism called the Samaritans, it is still today the complete Bible. For one who studies the Old Testament to find out what Christianity has inherited from Judaism, the Pentateuch can easily be considered the most revealing part of the Old Testament.

II. THE PROPHETS

The second important group of Old Testament books is called the "Prophets". The word "prophet" deriving from a Greek root meaning "speak for" was applied by the Jewish people to certain individuals whom they looked at as "God's spokesmen" or "speakers for God". Prophets prefaced their message with statements such as "The Lord of Hosts has revealed himself to me" (Is 22: 14) or "These were the words of the Lord, the Lord of Hosts" (Is 22:15). These individuals, out of a deep love for their community, pointed out in public the wrong doings that they saw prevailing within it. While doing so, they also warned of the unhappy consequences that would follow if these misdeeds were not amended.

The notion of prophet and prophecy that we find in the Old Testament is no doubt a Jewish one. Nevertheless, prophecy is not something exclusively Jewish. Prophecy exists wherever there are honest people who are courageous enough to point out to their society its misdoings and injustices. It is thus not restricted to a particular nation, time or religion. Men like Martin Luther King of America and Mahatma Gandhi of India who denounced the injustices perpetrated in their society can also be considered prophets.

Genuine prophets have been appreciated by people of all cultures and times. But still prophets have never been so much appreciated by anybody as by the Jewish people. They often recognized the value of the prophets more after their life-time than during it. But when they recognized their value, they treated their utterances as pronouncements of God himself, and collecting them together preserved them for the benefit of their progeny. That is how we have today an important section in the Old Testament called the "Prophets".

The number of books contained in the "Prophets" is very big. Because of that, the Jewish teachers divided them up into two groups, the first called "Former Prophets" and the second "Latter Prophets". The "Former Prophets" consists of the 4 books, a) Joshua, b) Judges, c) Samuel (I-II) and d) Kings (I-II). The "Latter Prophets" consists of 15 books. Of these the first three bigger books, namely, a) Isaiah, b) Jeremiah, and c) Ezekiel, are called the "major" prophets and the shorter twelve, the "minor" prophets. The minor prophets are 1. Hosea, 2. Joel, 3. Amos, 4. Obadiah, 5. Jonah, 6. Micah, 7. Nahum, 8. Habakkuk, 9. Zephaniah, 10. Haggai, 11. Zachariah, and 12. Malachi. In the Jewish Bible, the 12 minor prophets, because they were copied in one scroll, are customarily treated as integral parts of one book, but in Christian Bibles they are treated as 12 separate books.

Just as the section called the "Law" did not contain only laws, "Prophets" does not contain only prophecy. The four books called the "Former Prophets". for example, have little to do with prophecy. They are primarily books of political history and cover the history of the Jewish people from the death of Moses onwards. They contain the story of the struggle the Jewish people waged first to acquire a foothold in the land of Canaan, later known as Palestine and thereafter to have in the same land a government of their own. The "Latter Prophets" however, are different. These comprise actual utterances and even the writings of the prophets themselves. With regard to the prophets, a reader will notice that at times their utterances are very nationalistic in character. They are seen even cursing enemy nations and invoking God's vengeance on them. Such behavior is not unusual in a religion restricted to a clan.

Political History of Israel

The history of the Jewish people as given in the Prophets can be divided into three stages. The first is one that could be named the "Era of one kingdom". It starts in 1020 BC and goes on till 933 BC. During that period of 87 years, under the three kings Saul, David and Solomon, the Jews (then called Israelites) had a kingdom of their own.

That period was followed by the era of the two kingdoms. After the reign of Solomon, interior conflicts led to the division of the nation into two parts. The larger group retaining the name "Israel", occupied the north of the country and had their own king. The smaller group called "Judah" (the name of one of the sub-clans of the original Israel) occupied the south of the country with Jerusalem as its center. They had their own king.

The northern kingdom of Israel carried on amidst great difficulty for a little over two centuries (212 years). It completely disappeared in 721 BC under the invasion of the Assyrians, one of the great imperial powers of the time. After that we do not hear of Israel or the northern kingdom ever again. The southern kingdom of Judah safeguarded its independence for a little longer. Its inhabitants came to be called the Jews. As a self-governing body, its inhabitants survived for altogether three and a half centuries (346 years). Thereafter they lost their independence.

The third era or that of Judah under foreign rule starts in 587 BC. The citizens of Judah did not disappear totally like the citizens of Israel in the north. But ever after (except for a brief period under a revolutionary Jewish family called the Maccabees) they lived under foreign rule. Their rulers changed constantly. They were under the Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. While under the Babylonians, a large number of Jews were deported to Babylon. The sojourn of the Jews in Babylon is referred to as the "Babylonian exile".

During the time of Jesus, they were living under the Romans. By this time the Jews had a history of nearly six centuries of foreign domination. But even though they had lost their independence for so long, they never lost their dream. Their dream always was to return to the era of David which for them meant the era with an autonomous kingdom of their own.

This bit of Jewish history has to be kept in mind while attempting to grasp the activity and utterances of the prophets. Otherwise it is difficult to understand the hope on one hand, and the agony on the other of the clan-society within which the prophets operated and to which they addressed their messages.

Since the activity of the prophets was inseparable from the uni-racial Jewish context in which they fulfilled their mission, the Christians who followed a multi-racial tradition had much difficulty in appreciating contextually the teachings of the prophets. They began to look at prophetical statements from a totally new perspective. They interpreted prophecy as a forecasting or a foretelling of the future and looked at the prophets as a group of people who had been sent by God to announce the advent of Jesus Christ. In doing so they downgraded a little the old Jewish understanding of prophet as a religion-reformer and a society-educator.

But to understand the "Prophets" correctly, we must see the role they played in showing the Jewish people what right worship of God was. That lesson which we will examine in the next chapter is very valuable for our understanding of what is implied by "God-belief" in the Bible. After the "Law", the "Prophets" is the most important part of the Bible. There was even an era when the Hebrew Bible consisted of only those two parts. At that time the expression "the Law and the Prophets" meant the same as today's term "Bible".

III. THE WRITINGS

The third part of the Old Testament is called simply the "Writings". The great writings outside the Law and the Prophets that the Jewish people in their long history had begun to cherish were assembled and attached to the Bible under this name. They include poems, short stories, history, apocalyptic writings and proverbial sayings. There are twelve such books. 1. Job, 2. Psalms, 3. Proverbs, 4. Ruth, 5. Esther, 6. Ecclesiastes, 7. Song of Solomon, 8. Lamentations, 9. Chronicles, 10. Ezra, 11. Nehemiah, 12. Daniel.

From among these, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, are generally ranked as "Wisdom" literature. A number of the hymns called "Psalms" too would fall into that category. These Wisdom books are very different in content from those contained in the Law and the Prophets or even from the other books of this third part. They comprise reflections on life that are of an adult level and so are of universal value. The ideas expressed in the Wisdom books have very much in common with the ideas expressed in the Scriptures of religions like Hinduism and Buddhism.

Reading the Bible

The few facts given above should help us to get a general idea of what the Old Testament is. . But of course, even with such an introduction, the Bible cannot be read with the same ease as a book written in our era. To understand all the ramifications of such an ancient book, much study and reflection would be necessary. Nevertheless, we should be careful not to go to the other extreme and say that the message of the Bible can be understood only by scholars. If that were so, the very purpose of the Bible would get beaten. Scriptures of all religions address themselves to everybody. Although they are written down they largely belong to the oral tradition

Moreover, we must not forget that like the Sacred Scriptures of all the religious traditions, the Bible has both a clan dimension and a life-vision dimension to it. It is the latter that is of value to one who seeks the universal spiritual message of the Bible. To discover that we should read it meditatively and look between the lines for the eternal Bible that is in the heart and conscience of everybody. We must read to find out not about styles and patterns of literature but about the way to achieve our own liberation and fulfillment as human beings. The simple answer of the Bible for that search can be expressed in the brief formula: "Belief in God". In our next chapter we examine what the Old Testament implies by "Belief in God".

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1. Bible quotations in this book are taken from The New English

Bible (Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press

1970)

Chapter Five

GOD-BELIEF IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

AN ENLIGHTENED ATTITUDE TO LIFE

For a right understanding of the God-belief that Christians inherited from the Jewish people, the source to go to is the Old Testament. The God-belief in the Hebrew Bible is, of course, expounded from the perspective of the Jewish people. It is inextricably woven into their racial history and has been shaped by their psychology. But it has also aspects that are universal in value because they provide people of any clan or culture with a vision to build their life on. When seen introspectively God-belief in the Old Testament is an enlightened attitude to life. Seven aspects of that attitude are given below. Five of them are taken from the first part, the "Law", one from the "Prophets" and the last from the "Writings".

I. FEELING PROTECTED

IN ADVERSITY

According to the concept of the Jews, life in its concrete individualized form is not a reality that is abandoned to itself and left to depend on its own resources. Human beings are mysteriously protected. If they put their trust in that protective power, they get the means necessary to solve their problems and overcome adversities.

A proof of that dimension of God-belief is Abraham, whom the Jews consider not only as the father of their race, but also as the model God-believer. Abraham was a chieftain who lived in Ur of Mesopotamia. He was relatively well off, but there was one desire in his life that remained unfulfilled. He and his wife had no children. At the time that the Bible starts speaking of him, he was too old to have a child. He was one hundred years old. He discusses his problem with God. Quite humanly, Abraham is skeptical and so asks God how his dream could ever be realized. "Can a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah bear a son when she is ninety?" (Gen 17:17)

The story is a lesson on the power that protects human life. It is Abraham's faith in life's miraculous power of protection that is shown here symbolically as belief in a personal God. In spite of his initial skepticism, Abraham believes in God, and his faith is rewarded. He is blessed with a child (Gen 21:1-7).

The story points to the fact that the Life-Power of the universe is always by the side of human beings to offer them assistance. This Life-Power, whether we call it Universe, Nature, God or Life, is concerned with the individual needs of all human beings, whether this be food, shelter, progeny or any other. But for that Power to become effective, the life-bearer must put his/her full trust in it.

As the Bible saw it, this mysterious protective power offers its assistance not just to individuals but to entire communities, be it a family, a race or an entire nation. Its assistance is particularly available when such communities face grave adversities and calamities. This is beautifully illustrated in the story of Moses given in the book of Exodus. The Jews were in a pitiable situation. They were slaves and under heavy oppression from the rulers of Egypt. Moses wanted to save them from the oppression. He trusted in God and so was convinced that he would succeed in his plan.

What is most striking in this story is the way in which Moses and the Israelite people are internally strengthened and supported in their struggle for liberation. God is shown coming forward to protect them almost like a military leader. It is he who threatens the Egyptian rulers. It is he who advises Moses what to do. And when the people start their escape from Egypt, it is he who goes before them as a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, to show the way.

According to that story and that of Abraham, God not only comes to the rescue of human beings, but mingling with them, he talks to them. The talking of God with human beings as described in the Bible, is no doubt picturization, but the picture expresses a truth valid for all time. It reminds human beings that Life or Nature is in conversation with them always, and very particularly at their moments of trial and pain. It shows that the Life-Power behind nature or the universe of which human beings are part is not dead, deaf or dumb. It listens, understands, feels. It even talks. To those who are able to listen to that voice, it always says: "You are divinely protected, do not fear."

The impact that the doctrine of divine protection can have on the psychology of people, cannot be over-emphasized. What people lack most in life, more than even food, shelter, health or education-- is courage and self-confidence. In face of day to day problems and difficulties, human beings, whether as individuals or a community, easily become a prey to despair and frustration. A message such as this, which informs helpless human beings of the availability of a miraculous source of protection and sustenance, makes them regain their lost self-confidence and courage. It makes them do things that otherwise they would not dare.

We can imagine what belief in God of that particular form meant to the Jews both as individuals and as a race. For them, God was first and foremost their liberator, their protector. Jesus himself was deeply influenced by this idea of the Bible. It was that same idea that he presented to the people of his day through the notion of the fatherhood of God.

II. LOVING THE UNIVERSE

The second great insight of the Jewish people regarding life was about its relationship to the cosmos. As they saw it, human beings were part of a great universe with its sun, moon, stars, trees and animals. The universe was their home. It was something to be loved and cherished. The fact that they are an integral part of the universe should not be taken for granted. They must learn to safeguard the relationship. The story of Creation given in the very first page of the Bible was meant to give people the instruction they required in that regard.

In the beginning of creation, when God made heaven and earth, the earth was without form and void, with darkness over the face of the abyss, and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. God said, "Let there be light", and there was light; ...So evening came, and morning came, the first day...

God said, "Let the waters under heaven be gathered into one place, so that dry land may appear," and so it was. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters he called seas; and God saw that it was good...

God said "Let the earth bring forth living creatures, according to their kind: cattle, reptiles, and wild animals, all according to their kind"...and he saw that it was good...Then God said, "Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, and all reptiles that crawl upon the earth." So God created man in his own image;... male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them "Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, and every living thing that moves upon the earth...God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Evening came, and morning came, a sixth day...

On the sixth day God completed all the work he had been doing, and on the seventh day he ceased from all his work (Gen 1:1 - 2:3).

The Old Testament of course is not the only book to contain a story of creation. Creation stories are found in the sacred texts of most religions. The Old Testament story shows us how the Jewish tradition looked at life and the universe. For them the universe was one united whole. Everything in it was inter-related. The world in that sense was very different from a trash-heap. In a trash-heap different things are only physically close to each other; they are not inter-related nor arranged according to a plan.

In the universe every flower, every feather, is part of a definitive plan. What that plan is human beings may never know. But that there should be such a plan is a fact that human insight seems capable of clearly affirming. There is more unity to the universe than we can imagine. When taken as a whole, the universe is one body animated, as it were, by one living soul. The very Spirit or the Breath of God is in it. According to the story, the universe began when "the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters".

In the view of the Bible, everything in the world is good and beautiful. God saw "It was good". So the universe and everything in it deserved to be admired, loved and beneficially made use of. This positive way in which Judaism looks at the material universe has something very special in it. Still today interpretations of religion exist in which the material world is taken as hostile, harmful and even dangerous to human beings and therefore, to be abandoned and left untouched. According to the Jews, what had to be abandoned was not the world but worldliness, or the wrong attitude to the world. Worldliness is an attitude of a degraded heart. The world itself and everything in it is good. Earthly life itself is to be cherished.

As the Jews saw it, human beings are endowed with a responsibility in the management of the world in so far as they were images of God, the master-planner and master-maker. Human beings are not the makers of the universe, but they are its careful maintainers and its developers. They have to care for the world, and make it "fruitful". If they have to look after the world, then they cannot just let things happen. They have also to make things happen. They might not be able to do much, but the little they can do is valuable. As a Chinese proverb has it, "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness".

The creation-story also taught human beings the importance of accepting their human limitations. Human beings are not in total control of their existence. They are not fully autonomous. The life they enjoy is transitory and ends with death. While recognizing their inner dignity as entities made in the image of God, human beings have also to accept their creatureliness. To be truly human, they have to accept themselves as they in actuality are.

The creation story has a lesson for a better understanding of society too. God created the whole of mankind and not just the Jews (or the Christians). Human beings of any shape, color, culture or religion, are the product of God. When we take all these aspects together, we have to say that the Jewish belief in God the Creator, is the outcome of the very positive way in which they looked at life, mankind and the universe.

In the way the story has been constructed, it looks that the author wanted to include in it a side-lesson of value exclusively to the Jewish people. The Jews divided their week into six working days and one day of rest. Their day of rest was Saturday, called Sabbath. There have been times when due to either their need for money or their greed for it, they turned the Sabbath too into a working day. With the aim of correcting that trend, the author of the Bible story tried to show that God himself works only six days a week and takes rest on the Sabbath day! Even when creating the world, according to the story, God has been faithful to that schedule.

Strictly speaking, the Creation story has nothing to do with the historical origins of the universe. The teaching in it is not addressed to paleontologists, or people researching into the origins of life. It is a meditation meant to make people recognize their creatureliness as also their inner nobility. It awakens people to the importance of loving the universe and living in constant communion with it. Nothing shows people the invisible face of God as the visible mystery of the universe. Nothing brings them inner peace and stability as living in harmony with it. In short, the Creation narrative is a pointer to the attitudes of joy, admiration, gratitude, hope, responsibility with which human beings should embellish their life on earth.

III. NATURALNESS OF HUMAN WEAKNESS

The Jewish belief in God contained a third major insight into life. Human nature, in the concrete form in which it is experienced by individuals, has a weak side to it. The inclination of human beings to fall into error and do wrong is, as it were, natural to them because they are born with the "original sin" of selfishness and self-centeredness. As a result, human beings are not fully human by birth. Humanness in its noblest form is not innate, it has to be achieved.

The sad fact of this human predicament is impressively portrayed through a second story of creation. Though called a creation-story, it is more a story of the "fallen nature of human beings". According to this story, God created the universe, and since there was no farmer to cultivate the earth, he created man. He created him by taking a handful of dust, and breathing life into it. Judging from this description, human beings are a strange combination of two contrary elements: something that is as flimsy as dust and something as indestructible as the breath or the life-power of God.

After man was created, he was put in a beautiful garden. The man was called Adam, literally "the man". The garden he was given to live in was called Eden. After making man, God also made a companion for him, a woman. She was called Eve. The woman was made from a bone taken out of man himself, a beautiful allusion to the natural fact of inter-dependence between male and female. God handed over the garden to them both to develop and enjoy but with one restriction:

The Lord God took the man, and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and care for it. He told the man "You may eat from every tree in the garden, but not from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die" (Gen 2: 15-17) .

This no doubt is a strange injunction for a landlord God to give a gardener. Further, what is wrong in eating fruits from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? One would think it is the main tree that they should eat from, for what a human being should be most familiar with is good and evil. The "knowledge" referred to here cannot therefore be what enlightens the conscience of a human being to distinguish correctly between right and wrong. It is rather the wrong assessment of oneself which make individuals foolish enough to declare "I know it all; no one needs to tell me what is right and what is wrong. What pleases me is good. What displeases me is bad".

An individual who had the authority to decide what is good and what is bad on one's own would automatically become equal to God. To be truly human, human beings have to be in harmony with the laws built into their nature. If they are not in harmony with universal Nature, by that very fact, they cease to be human. In that sense, they "die".

The story goes on to say that the first man and woman made the mistake of taking the law into their hands. The narrator of the story however reduces the guilt in their action and insinuates that sin is not so much an outcome of malice as an unfortunate consequence of inner immaturity. Immaturity is due to the fact that sense-desires are not under control; and so he says that the man was misled by the woman, who was in turn misled by the "serpent", the uncanny power of the world that induces people to do evil. The story ends with Adam and Eve being expelled from the garden of Eden, destined to work out their life amidst pain and misery. That shows that infidelity to the Law of Nature and human fulfillment cannot go together.

The analysis of the human predicament in this story has much in common with the analysis given in Buddhism. According to the Buddha, human beings inevitably are in a state of sorrow and mental agony. The cause for it is their selfishness or self-centeredness; the cause behind that selfishness is their ignorance or lack of judgment. They are unable to grasp the reality of life. If ignorance is overcome and with it selfishness, the path is open according to the Buddha to liberation from sorrow. Liberation is achieved when a person conforms to the law of life's reality, the Dharma Law.

The second story of creation contains within it an insight into the human situation that no thinking person can easily brush aside. Human nature has a pathetic side to it. Human beings cannot think and act as rightly as they wish to, because they are victims of inner tendencies that prevent them from doing so. As a result, there is within them an endless conflict between the desires of the senses and the demands of the conscience. But human beings must not be ashamed of that situation for there is a remedy to it. It is to become mentally mature and adult. Human beings have not been born perfectly human, but the key to perfect humanness is nonetheless in their hands.

IV. OBLIGATIONS OF LIFE

A fourth Jewish insight which could be of benefit to anybody is the one into the obligations that individuals have to fulfill within the society in which they live. The Jews looked at such obligations as imposed by God and so referred to them as "Commandments of God" or as the "Law of God".

To make it easy for ordinary people to remember those obligations, they were summed up in a formula that we today refer to as the "Ten Commandments". It is given in two books of the Pentateuch, namely Exodus (20: 1-21) and Deuteronomy (5: 6-21). The one in the Exodus is as follows. (N.B. The numbers indicating the commandments are added.)

God spoke and these were his words:

I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

1) You shall have no other God to set against me

You shall not make a carved image for yourself nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous god. I punish the children for the sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. But I keep faith with thousands, with those who love me and keep my commandments.

2) You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; The Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name.

3) Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy.

You have six days to labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God; that day you shall not do any work, you, your son or your daughter, your slave or your slave girl, your cattle or the alien within your gates; for in six days the lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and on the seventh day he rested. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.

4) Honor your father and mother that you may live long in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

5) You shall not commit murder.

6) You shall not commit adultery.

7) You shall not steal.

8) You shall not give false evidence against your neighbor.

9-10) You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his slave, his slave-girl, his ox, his ass, or anything that belongs to him.

When all the people saw how it thundered and the lightening flashed, when they heard the trumpet sound and saw the mountain smoking, they trembled and stood at a distance. "Speak to us yourself" they said to Moses "and we will listen; but if God speaks to us we shall die". Moses answered, "Do not be afraid. God has come only to test you, so that the fear of him may remain with you and keep you from sin." So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the dark cloud where God was.

As given in Bible, the Ten Commandments formed the basis of the civic constitution of the Jewish people. As such, the Commandments were meant exclusively for them. This is clear if we take, for example, the third commandment which declared Saturday as the day of weekly rest (Sabbath). Such a law is not binding on other people. Further, even the God to whom the Commandments were attributed is not so much God taken as the governor of the whole world, but just God taken as the protector of the Jewish race: "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery".

Nonetheless, the respect for right values shown here as a vital requirement for the survival and stability of the Jewish community is of equal validity to people of any other. People of any race or country have to uphold those principles if they are to achieve the progress and prosperity of their community.

The first two Commandments outline the sense of religion that individuals should be guided by if they are to achieve fulfillment in their personal life. The first is worded "You shall have no other gods to set against me. You shall not make any carved image of me." and the second "You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God". The Jewish people sometimes presented the first Commandment with the popular image of human love: "You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole strength and with your whole mind" (Lk 10:27). What this formula says is that, if people want to be truly human, truly noble, truly divine, they must seek goodness and right values with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their strength, with all their mind.

The second commandment, taken literally, means that the word "God" should not be lightly used as a swear-word. Taken in its deeper sense, it is a reminder to people not to take lightly the higher values of life, or turn religion into a mockery. In essence what the two commandments say is "Don't have false gods" but what it simply means is "Don't build up your life on false values". This idea is at the basis of all religions in their adult or life-vision form.

The third Commandment itself, though in its practical application is restricted to just the Jewish community, contains a lesson of universal value. The obligation of taking a day's rest every week reminds people that just as no-work makes a person a beggar, over-work can make him a wreck. Work without due rest can be motivated by avarice and could lead to ill-health.

Of the ten Commandments, the last seven form a unified whole and show the responsibilities that members of a community have to fulfill in their dealings with each other. Of these the 4th (Honor thy father and mother) the 6th (You shall not commit adultery) and the 10th (You shall not covet another's wife) are meant for the preservation of the most basic unit of the human society, the family.

The remaining four namely the 5th (You shall not kill), the 7th with the 9th (You shall not steal the goods of others or even covet them) and the 8th (You shall not bear false witness) show that human beings have responsibilities not just to their own family but also to the entire clan-community. The members of a community cannot hurt others, deceive others, exploit others. They should abstain from destroying not just the life of individuals, but even their character or their future.

What the Ten Commandments say of the family or social responsibilities of individuals has its parallels in other cultures and other religions. The "Five Moral Precepts" (Pancha Seela) of religions which belong to the Indian tradition such as Hinduism and Buddhism express the same though in the form of "vows": 1. I vow to abstain from taking life. 2. I vow not to misappropriate the possessions of others. 3. I vow to abstain from indulging in wrong sexual behavior. 4. I vow to abstain from telling lies. 5. I vow to abstain from taking intoxicants. The Jewish "Commandments" and the Indian "Precepts" have much in common.

V. FAITH IN PRACTICE

What the books of the Law have to say about the manner in which faith in God should be practiced in one's personal life is equally enlightening. The right way to follow the Commandment of "no other gods" is shown in a dramatic episode from the life of Abraham. This is the Sacrifice of Abraham given in the very first book of the Law. According to the account given (Gen 22:1-18) Abraham was asked by God to sacrifice to him Isaac, his only son.

The notion of human sacrifice here sounds a little abhorrent to us. But we must not forget that the story was originally narrated in a society where human sacrifice was not uncommon. Isaac was the only child that Abraham possessed, his only source of security for his future. Without Isaac, his future as well as his entire life would be empty. But Abraham had a greater faith in life and its values than in his own progeny. He readily obeyed. He prepared the fire for the sacrifice. When God saw the selfless spirit of Abraham, he was satisfied. He stopped the sacrifice and provided through an angel a ram for the purpose.

Sacrifice is a sublime expression of the worship of God. This is because it is a symbol of a person's submission to right values of life as opposed to subservience to selfish desires. The self tries to find security through possessions. But could a human being possess anything? As the Buddha says in the Dhamma pada (ch. 5 verse 3) "If one does not possess one's own life, how can one possess one's own sons and daughters?" Faith in the one and only God therefore, is nothing other than a deep and selfless trust in the real values of life as opposed to those that are self-centered and therefore illusory. Taken in that sense we have to say that the above mentioned story of Abraham is the best and most authentic illustration of the Commandment "Do not set other gods against me".

VI. SEEING GOD IN THE NEEDY

No less than the books of the Law, those of the second part of the Old Testament, the "Prophets" present very valuable aspects of the Jewish belief in God. In them too God-belief stands for a vision that helps individuals to organize their day-to-day life rightly. We select just one which teaches a lesson of particular importance to our times. It is the identification of God-worship with care for the needy.

As generally understood, sacrifice is an act of reverence to God. But for a sacrifice to be truly an act of reverence to God, it had to be offered in a genuine spirit of self-sacrifice. For the prophets, a sacrifice was genuine only if it was offered by a person who was rightly related to other human beings. In their view, without genuine selflessness and true charity, ritual worship is barren. Prophets like Isaiah and Amos, for example, spoke very vehemently against the meaninglessness of sacrifices that are not accompanied by right living. Isaiah put the following condemnation of Jewish ritual into the mouth of God.

Your countless sacrifices, what are they to me? says the Lord, I am sated with the whole offerings of rams and the fat of buffaloes; I have no desire for the blood of bulls, of sheep and of he-goats. Whenever you come to enter my presence, who asked you for this?...I cannot tolerate your new moons and your festivals, they have become a burden to me, and I can put up with them no longer, when you lift your hands outspread in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you. Though you offer countless prayers, I will not listen. There is blood on your hands; wash yourselves and be clean. Put away the evil of your deeds, away out of my sight. Cease to do evil and learn to do right, pursue justice and champion the oppressed; give the orphan his rights, plead the widow's cause (Is 1:11-17).

In the book of Amos God is shown condemning the callousness of the rich people in Israel. Regardless of the ruin that the country had fallen into, and the sufferings that the people were going through, they ate and drank sumptuously and lived luxuriously. While doing so, they pretended to be religious by singing prayer-songs to the accompaniment of ritual harps.

You who loll on beds inlaid with ivory and sprawl over your couches, feasting on lambs from the flock and fatted calves, you who pluck the strings of the lute and invent musical instruments like David, you who drink wine by the bowlful and lard yourself with the richest of oils, but are not grieved at the ruin of Joseph (i.e. Israelite people)-- now therefore, you shall head the column of exiles; that will be the end of sprawling and revelry (Amos 6:4-7).

Such statements expose the real meaning of sacrifice as an expression of God-worship. What the Prophets say looks very revolutionary and to a traditional believer sound even anti-religious. But what they are saying is what insightful people who have understood religion as a way of right living have always affirmed. What the great Indian sage and prophet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) says, for example, in his well-known poem "Gitanjali" (Song Offerings) is very similar.

Leave this chanting and singing and telling of beads! Whom dost thou worship in this lonely dark corner of a temple with doors all shut ? Open thine eyes and see thy God is not before thee!

He is there where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and where the path-maker is breaking stones. He is with them in sun and in shower and his garment is covered with dust. Put off thy holy mantle and even like him come down on the dusty soil! 1

According to the Prophets, whether Jewish, Indian or any other, God-belief is not in the public profession of beliefs or creeds. To believe in God is to respect right life-values. When taken so, God-belief becomes simply a way to genuine humanness. Human beings who are inhuman towards other human beings cannot be called God-believers even if they offer the costliest sacrifices in their churches and temples.

VII. GRASPING THE MYSTERY

BEHIND SUFFERING

The books of the third part of the Old Testament add their own dimension to the notion of God-belief as a way of facing life. We examine here the book of Job because of the lesson it teaches about the way to understand the mystery behind suffering.

If there is one question that has baffled human beings of all times and places it is: Why have people to suffer? How is it that so many innocent people suffer for no fault of their own? Can one believe in a just God amidst so much suffering and so much unfair suffering? Those are the very questions to which the Bible short story called "Job" attempts to provide an answer.

The chief character of the story is a man called Job. He is a native of "the land of Uz, a man of blameless and upright life". He "feared God and set his face against wrong doing. He had seven sons and three daughters; and he owned seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred asses, with a large number of slaves. Thus Job was the greatest man in all the East" (Job 1:1-3). But in spite of his goodness and innocence, it so happened that he became victim of one affliction after another. These afflictions were instigated by Satan, (appearing in the story more as an advocate of God than an adversary of his) for the purpose of examining Job's virtuousness.

He first loses his material possessions. The oxen, the sheep and the camels. The blow that was to follow was worse than all these. All his sons and daughters who had gathered at his elder brother's house to celebrate a festival are caught in a whirlwind and are eventually destroyed. The torment that he has to endure is not small but he accepts the losses saying,

Naked I came from the womb

Naked shall I return whence I came

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away,

Blessed be the name of the Lord (Job 1: 21).

But that was not the end of his suffering. Up to now he lost only what he possessed. His body was unhurt. But that grace too ended and he was afflicted with blisters which transformed his body into one complete sore. The story goes on from there to spotlight the stormy conflict that develops in the mind of Job. His friends visit him with the intention of consoling him, but they end up by trying to convince him that he must be paying for some secret sins of his. Their stand is based on the principle that only sinners suffer and no innocent person can suffer.

In the final scene of the story, Job is in a state of deep stress. He cannot vindicate his innocence nor see any solution to the question: Why do innocent people suffer? Seeing no solace forthcoming he decides to turn to God, the God whom he had never dared to question before. Because of the state of utter helplessness he is in, he almost accuses God of cruelty for the unjust treatment he had meted out to him.

I call for thy help but thou does not answer,

I stand up to plead, but thou sittest aloof;

thou has turned cruelly against me

and with thy strong hand pursuest me in hatred.....

Let me but call a witness in my defense!

Let the Almighty state his case against me (Job 30:20-25;

31:35).

God replies to him, but his reply is in itself a question. That question which brings the story to its climax not only keeps Job spellbound, but also wakes up his benumbed mind to see the reality of human existence in a totally new light.

Then the Lord answered Job out of the tempest,

Who is this whose ignorant words

cloud my design in darkness?

Brace yourself and stand up like a man.

I will ask questions and you shall answer,

Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?

Tell me if you know and understand.

Who settled its dimensions? Surely you should know.

Who stretched his measuring line over it

On what do its supporting pillars rest?... (Job 38:1-5)

Strange as it is, this talk of God does not contain any reference to the question why people suffer, or even suffer unjustly but still there couldn't have been a more enlightening answer to that question. It simply says that the human mind is too small to understand God's plan on suffering, just as it is too small to understand God's plan for the universe as a whole. The answer is no doubt humiliating to a human being, because it rejects the ability of the human mind to understand suffering as also death and what follows death. On the other, the answer brings great relief for it shows that what is unintelligible to the human being is not necessarily unplanned and unprovided for. Therefore human beings must face life in a spirit of creaturely humility but also with a joyful trust because life is the product of a God who is at the same time intelligent, powerful and benevolent. Job's reply makes that clear.

Then Job answered the Lord:

I know that thou canst do all things

and that no purpose is beyond thee,

But I have spoken of great things which I have not

understood

things too wonderful for me to know (Job 42:1-3).

In those words, Job acknowledges his foolishness and re-states his complete faith in God. The story ends with the scene where Job is shown to be rewarded. What he lost is given back. As the text says, "The Lord blessed the end of Job's life more than the beginning".

The story may look simple, but what it teaches is by no means simple. On the question of human suffering no answer could be so consoling or reassuring, for in it God is shown taking the total responsibility for the existence of suffering in the world. Suffering thus is not the outcome of mere hazard or the product of an evil power. God alone is the cause of suffering at least of suffering in its unavoidable, insurmountable form. That is exactly what makes the answer so reassuring. If a good and powerful God is the cause of human suffering, then suffering cannot be destructive. However humanly un-intelligible, it cannot but have a good purpose.

The analysis we have made of God-belief in the Old Testament, should help us to see many vital aspects of Jewish God-belief that Christianity inherited. If we have analyzed rather lengthily the notion of God-belief in the Old Testament, it is primarily because of the lasting value of this Jewish concept. Another reason is that Christianity cannot be understood without a right grasp of the Jewish idea of God-belief. Jesus himself did nothing more than clarify to his listeners the notion of God-belief in the Bible.

If all the aspects of Jewish God-belief as explained above are taken together and summed up in ordinary secular language: to rightly believe in God is to live one's life realistically facing one's problems and shouldering one's obligations in an adult way.

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1. Tagore, Rabindranath, Gitanjali, (Macmillan, London, 1953)

poem 11 pp.8-9

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PART III. MESSAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

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Chapter Six

WRITINGS OF THE CHRISTIANS

THE NEW TESTAMENT

The Bible of the Christians includes, as mentioned earlier, not only the Hebrew Scriptures but also a collection of their own writings. This collection called the New Testament is what one must examine to learn about Christianity in its earliest and most authentic form. To use this specifically Christian part of the Bible beneficially, one has to be acquainted with the books it is composed of. This chapter is a general introduction and consists of two parts. The first introduces briefly the books of the New Testament. The second focuses attention on the Gospels and selects for discussion one issue in them that most readers find intriguing, namely, the miracle-stories.

I. BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

In the form recognized by Christians of all denominations, the New Testament consists of 27 separate books or writings. The writings are so small that it is better to call them booklets than books. The biggest among them is only about thirty pages of ordinary octavo size while there are some that are not more than two or three pages each. Taking into account their content, their aims, and their writing styles, the books are traditionally divided into four groups:

a) Gospels (four books in all)

b) Acts of the Apostles (one book)

c) Epistles (21 in all)

d) Revelation (one book)

Since the books of the New Testament were written by different individuals and also to fit into situations that were not identical, the link and the cohesiveness of their content cause problems to readers of the Bible. That problem however gets easily solved if one keeps in mind that all the books are woven around two principal themes. One is the life and ministry of Jesus, treated mainly in the Gospels. The other is the birth of the Church dealt with in the other books of the New Testament. Once those two themes are kept in mind, connecting the content of the diverse books becomes relatively easy.

Gospels

The best known among the books of the New Testament, and so also placed at the head, are the four Gospels. They are distinguished by the names of the authors they are traditionally attributed to. They are thus referred to as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The word "Gospel" by which these life-accounts have always been called means in Greek "good news", and is a term that Jesus himself used at the inauguration of his ministry (Mk 1:15) to allude to the relief-fullness of the message he had come forward to propound.

His message was directly addressed to his own people, the Jews, and its aim was to establish the value of true belief in God or of true religion. As Jesus saw it, true religion as opposed to false religion brings relief to people from the deepest ills they are victims of. The first Christians saw not only the message but the preacher himself as a source of great relief and so a "good news". Because of that, they called the very life-accounts of Jesus, "Gospels".

In their attempt to designate him in a manner that would bring out forcefully the relief-fullness of his ministry, the first Christians, being mainly Jews, made use of the ideas prevalent in their own society. One was that of the "Messiah" or the "Christ". Both words, one Hebrew, the other Greek, meant the "hoped-for redeemer of the race." Due to the sufferings the Jewish people were going through, they had for generations entertained the belief that God, the protector of their race, would, some day, send them such a redeemer for their liberation. Their great teachers, the Prophets, also had fostered that belief.

The Jews who formed a substantial part of the first Christian community regarded Jesus as their "hoped-for redeemer" and so they referred to him as "the Christ". Among the non-Jewish members of the Christian community, who were unaware of the significance that word had for the Jews, the term "Son of God" came to be adapted. For them the title "Son of God" was better suited to bring out the dignity and nobility of Jesus' personality than the typically Jewish term "Christ". In the Gospels, Jesus is referred to both as "the Christ" and as "the Son of God".

Of the four Gospels, the first three, namely, Matthew, Mark and Luke have in both writing style and content many common points or parallels. These parallels indicate that the three Gospels were produced either with dependence on one another or with dependence on some common source or sources. Because of this similarity, these three Gospels are referred to by Bible analysts as the "Synoptic Gospels". "Synoptic" means "seen from one view".

The fourth Gospel, the one by John, is of later origin and of an altogether different style. It is more a meditative study of the significance of Jesus for the reawakening of mankind in general. Its message is expressed with great dependence on poetic symbols. The Gospel of John is considered to be also a study of Christian spirituality and mysticism presented within the framework of a life of Jesus.

In their literary form however, all the four Gospels are basically religious biographies of Jesus. Though they contain many historical details, they are primarily intended by their authors to be "life-stories" of Jesus rather than "life-histories". The Gospels did not originate as historical records but as books of religious instruction. These developed from sermons and meditational reflections that the early Church leaders presented at the religious assemblies of Christians or in classes meant for converts to Christianity.

Acts of the Apostles

The four accounts of the life of Jesus called the Gospels, are followed by an account of the life of the early Church named the "Acts". The name "Acts" is a shortened form for "Acts of the Apostles" which simply means "What the Apostles did". It is generally attributed to Luke the author of the third Gospel.

In its present form, "Acts" is a very important history book. It is considered the best informational source on the Church in its earliest form. It shows how the Church, which took birth as a uni-racial body consisting almost exclusively of Jews, eventually evolved into a multi-racial or catholic community. The author of Acts has presented that transformation as one which took place rather peaceably and as it were spontaneously. The letters of Paul however create a different impression. According to these the transition had not been as smooth as assumed in the Acts.

Though titled "Acts of the Apostles" this book does not recount the "acts" or activities of all the Apostles. After dedicating the first three chapters to the origin of the Christian community under the leadership of Peter, it goes on to describe at length the life and activities of Paul. This is because Christianity owed a great deal to the activities of Paul for its ultimate form and expression. The book could equally well have been called "Acts of Paul".

Epistles

After the Gospels and the Acts, we find in the New Testament twenty one writings called the Epistles. Epistles are really letters written by the leaders of the early Church to groups of Christians or single individuals living in distant places. Epistles were thus used to educate believers who were not within easy reach. Judging from the number of Epistles preserved in the New Testament, one wonders if the early Church leaders would not have been the originators of the modern system of distance-education!!

Of the twenty one Epistles, as many as thirteen are by Paul; and as a rule, those of Paul are chronologically prior to those of the others. Some of his Epistles are even older than the Gospels. The fact that so many of Paul's epistles were preserved for the benefit of subsequent generations by their first users is clear proof of the deep esteem that the first Christians had for him.

The Epistles of Paul, however, are not always easy to understand, and the message they convey could be missed if not taken in the background of his life and mission. Paul's thought and work will be treated in a separate chapter.

Revelation

The New Testament ends with a book that in content and form is very much different from the others. Attributed to a writer named John the Divine, it is called the Book of Revelation. This book, which contains a number of mystical allusions to events, places, and persons that a modern reader would find difficult to decipher, falls into a category of literature called "apocalyptic" or "end-of-the-world" literature. Apocalyptic literature came into existence at periods when believers were brutally tortured and persecuted by their enemies and specially by powerful governments. At those times, books that contained forecasts about a future day of victory were produced to comfort and encourage the sufferers.

The Book of Revelation was written at the time that Christians were undergoing persecution at the hands of the Roman government. Through it, the Christians were reminded that their sufferings would be redressed at the end of the world, which was believed to be the moment when the dominion of the evil powers would end and the reign of God begin.

New Testament: Way to Study

This brief summary should help us to have a general idea of what the books are that constitute the New Testament. But for the sake of those who intend to read these books from a life-vision perspective, it has to be mentioned that they are not as easy to read and understand as generally assumed. If they are read with the aim of finding out not what they say, for example, about angels and devils but what they say about life-values a very special attentiveness is necessary. This is particularly so with regard to the Gospels which are the first and the most important books of the New Testament.

The Gospels flow out of a particular cultural and historical context. The incidents that the books refer to took place in a community which was, if not exclusively at least predominantly, Jewish. Like people of all races, the Jews had their own style of life and their own way of thinking. For those of us who belong to other cultures and to another era, things that happened within an isolated community in a particular epoch are not all that easy to decipher. Then, outside the problem of context, there is the problem of language. Religious books in all traditions have a language of their own; that language is different from the ordinary day-to-day language of people.

If that particular context and language are not taken into account, much of what the Gospel writers are trying to say could be missed or even get totally misunderstood. To show the type of cautiousness and introspectiveness needed, we give below a brief analysis of one aspect of the Gospel account of Jesus. It is chosen here mainly because it is one point that many modern readers of the Gospels have difficulties with. It is the picture that the Gospels present of Jesus as a person who healed numerous sick people miraculously.

II. MIRACLE-STORIES OF THE GOSPELS

 Jesus is presented in the Gospels primarily as a healer. He healed people by his miracles. And to heal people it looks as if he did one miracle after another. The miracle is given such a prominent place in the Gospels, that they could easily appear as books of miracle-stories. The following text from the Gospel of Mark shows this.

 They (i.e. Jesus and his disciples) came to Capernaum and on the Sabbath he went to the synagogue and began to teach...Now there was a man in the synagogue possessed by an unclean spirit. He shrieked: "What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth, Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are,--the Holy One of God?" Jesus rebuked him: "Be silent...and come out of him." And the unclean spirit...with a loud cry left him.

On leaving the synagogue, they went straight to the house of Simon and Andrew...Simon's mother-in-law was ill in bed with fever. They told him about her at once. He came forward, took her by the hand, and helped her to her feet. The fever left her and she waited upon them.

That evening after sunset they brought to him all who were ill or possessed by devils; and the whole town was there gathered at the door. He healed many who suffered from various diseases, and drove out many devils. He would not let the devils speak, because they knew who he was.....

Once he was approached by a leper, who knelt before him begging his help. "If only you will", said the man, "you can cleanse me". In warm indignation, Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, "Indeed I will, be clean again." The leprosy left him immediately and he was clean (Mk 1:21-42).

 In Mark's Gospel, out of a total of 666 verses, as many as 209 or 31% deal directly with miracles. If we leave out the passion-narrative which contains very little of the miraculous element, we see that as much as 41% of Mark talks about miracles. Miracles are not only a big but also a very important part of the Gospels. If the Gospels are better known than most other books of the New Testament, it is because of the miracle-stories in them. People like stories. They remember stories well. The more striking, the better they are remembered. And there couldn't be anywhere in the world more striking stories than miracles. But miracles have another side to them. Modern people are ill at ease with miracles. For them miracles border on the legendary. For many, miracles are more an obstacle to the appreciation of the Gospel message than a help.

 Miracles are not easy to understand. The only way to understand them rightly is to take them in the light of the role they played in the community of the first Christians. That was to show who Jesus had been and what exactly had been his mission within the Jewish community. But if we are to see that connection between the miracle-stories and the mission of Jesus, there are a number of basic points that we have to keep in mind. We give five of them below.

 1) Difference between miracles and wonders: Christ's dislike to be a wonder-worker: To understand miracles properly, we must distinguish them from wonders. Miracles uplift suffering people. They bring relief and liberation. But wonders only astonish and mystify. True saints and sages never want to astonish people. They do not want to be referred to as wonder-workers or miracle-workers. Only false saints and sages desire that. Buddha saw clearly the danger of such pretensions to sanctity and so he not only forbade his disciples from attempting to do wonders, but also made the very claim to such powers a disqualification to membership in his monastic order. Christ didn't believe in wonders either. Jesus condemned those who asked him to do a miracle as a sign of his authority.

"When the doctors of the Law and the Pharisees asked him "Master, we should like you to show a sign", Jesus replied, "It is a wicked, godless generation that asks for a sign" (Mt 12:38).

 We see the same attitude in the pictorial story of the temptation in the desert; there too, Jesus clearly expressed his distaste for appearing before the world as a wonder-worker. He refused to accede to the Satanic request to turn stone into bread or to jump down from the pinnacle and come out uninjured (Mt 4:1-11).

 2) Main reason for the Gospel emphasis on miraculous healings: Even though miracle-stories are found in all religions, we have to admit that they occupy a larger place in the Gospels than they do in the scriptures of most other religions. There is a very special reason for this. The picture of Jesus as a miraculous healer had, from the view of the first Christians, a very special function to fulfill.

 The Jews who accepted the teachings of Jesus were convinced that Jesus was the Christ that their race had been long awaiting. For the Jews, Christ was the one who would bring relief from pain and suffering and inaugurate the Kingdom of God. The Christian Jews had now to prove the justifiability of their conviction to the other members of their community. For that they had to show that he actually brought relief from pain and suffering. The picture that the Prophets had given of the Christ too was of such a redeemer. The text Jesus cited from Isaiah (61;1-2) at the very first sermon he gave to the people in the synagogue makes that clear.

The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me;

He has sent me to announce good news to the poor,

to proclaim release for prisoners

and recovery of sight for theblind;

to let the broken victims go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor (Lk 4:18-19).

 The type of miracles to which prominence is given in the Gospels --healing of the deaf, dumb, crippled, paralyzed and driving out of devils -- have thus a very special aim in view. It is to show that Jesus was the "Christ" or the "liberator from suffering" that the Jewish people had long been expecting.

 3) General attitude of people to miracles: But of course, we must not forget that the need to establish Jesus as the Christ and to use miracles of healing as an argument for that purpose was exclusive to just the first Christians who were mainly Jews. Not having an idea of what the concept of a long awaited Christ meant for the Jews, Christians of a later era wouldn't have been able to value the Gospel miracles in their original intent. They would have looked at the Gospel miracles in the way that miracles are generally looked at by religious people. People of all times have cherished miracle stories, and miracle stories have conveyed a special message to them. For ordinary people a miracle-worker is a person who is holy to an extra-ordinary degree.

 Miracles are as much a subject of discussion today as at any time in history. Every now and then we come across individuals who are considered to be miracle-workers. Anybody who has heard for example of Satya Sai Baba, a contemporary (at the time of writing) religious teacher of India will know that. Millions of people who admire and follow him attribute great miracles to him. His followers have no difficulty in considering him as an incarnation of God. They refer to him as "Bhagavan" or "Lord God".

 Our intention here is not to take a stand on the authenticity or the non-authenticity of miracles attributed to this or that individual, but to bring out the purpose for which miracle language is generally used. Most people who talk of miracles are, in fact, not even concerned about verifying if this or that miracle has really happened. They know what the attribution of miracles implies. Individuals to whom miracles are attributed are extraordinary.

 4) Miracles an Outcome of Faith: Another very vital point to be pondered on is the explanation that Jesus gives about the way miracles take effect and the insistence he made about the possibility of everybody to perform miracles. Anybody with faith, that is, with a positive trust in the protective power of life is capable of working miracles. This is clear from what he told his disciples.

 I tell you this: if you have faith no bigger even than a mustard-seed, you will say to this mountain, "Move from here to there" and it will move. Nothing will prove impossible for you (Mt 17:20).

 According to Jesus, anybody who keeps united with the source of life gets a miraculous strength to overcome problems, however big and insurmountable they may appear to be. Jesus had no intention of making himself the only miracle-worker. Jesus always regarded the miracle as an outcome of an individual's faith. In the way he made people understand, even the miraculous healings that took place around him were not so much an outcome of his own activity as that of the faith of the individuals themselves. This is clear from words such as these that he spoke to those who were healed: "Stand up, and go on your way; your faith has cured you" (Lk 17:19); "Take heart my daughter, your faith has cured you" (Mt 9:22).

 Furthermore, the faith on which healing power rests is not faith in Jesus as such. Jesus was no doubt a positive aid for the people to gather up their faith. But the faith that healed was faith in God or more intelligibly, faith in the protective power of life. When that faith was missing Jesus was totally incapacitated. In his own village town of Nazareth for example, Jesus could not work any miracles because people had no faith.

He could work no miracles there, except that he put his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was taken aback by their want of faith (Mk 6:5).

The point that Jesus did not restrict the power of miracles to himself and considered anybody with faith to be capable of working miracles, is one which many today seem to ignore. They use Gospel miracles to show that Jesus was divine. There is not the least doubt that the Gospel-miracles show that Jesus was divine. They also show that Jesus wanted to make all human beings divine too.

 5) The Healing Ministry of Jesus: There is still another fact that we have to take into account if we are to understand rightly the role of Jesus as a healer. Since most of the miracle-stories center around the healing of a physical ailment they could easily lead us to conclude that the sole purpose of Jesus in his ministry was to cure people of their physical illnesses. The Gospels however contain not only miracle-stories. Jesus not only does miracles; he teaches, he preaches, he converts.

 Jesus should never be mistaken for a medical doctor. The team of disciples that he sent out was not a red-cross team of medical men. It is true that the commission with which they were sent was that of "curing every disease and sickness" (Mt 10:1). But the diseases and sicknesses that they had to heal were of a different order.

 Jesus no doubt was interested in the material well-being of individuals. He took their problems regarding, food, clothing, shelter and health seriously when in his instruction on Divine Providence he asked the people to put their trust in God who looks after the birds of the air and the lilies of the field (Lk 12:22-28). But his interest was not exclusively in the material well-being of people, for he ended that very instruction on the Providence of God saying,

 And so you are not to set your mind on food and drink; you are not to worry. For all these are things for the heathen to run after; for you have a Father who knows you need them. No, set your mind upon his kingdom and all the rest will come to you as well (Lk 12:29-31).

 We should interpret the miracle-stories in keeping with the central teachings of Jesus. The healing Jesus wanted to bring about is deeper. He wanted to heal the blindness, the dumbness, the deafness and the lameness in the hearts of the people. He wanted to resurrect the people from the death their souls had fallen to. The devils he wanted to see driven out were those that possessed not the bodies of people but their hearts. As Jesus saw it, the people around him were more seriously sick than they appeared to be. They were sick with the dreadful illnesses of envy, hatred, despair, fear, frustration. They lacked vision, a right understanding of values. Interiorly they were dead. In actual fact, they were walking corpses.

 This brief explanation about the miracle-stories indicates the type of attentiveness needed when studying the New Testament, and very particularly the Gospels. When read with insight and adult realism, the Gospels are not fairy tales or pious legends. They are books that offer a vision of life and show the path to true humanness.

Chapter Seven

 JESUS: THE UNIVERSALITY

OF HIS MESSAGE

 If we rely on what the New Testament says about Jesus' ministry, it is clear that he did not teach any other religion than Judaism, and to no other people than the Jews. That is a conclusion we come to if we look at just the directive he gave his disciples when sending them to preach. He said:" Do not take the road to gentile lands and do not enter any Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 10: 5-6). It is true that the Gospels record him as saying "Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples....and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you (Mt 28:19-20). But that is an injunction attributed to him after his resurrection from the dead.

 Therefore, it is beyond question that Jesus did not preach anything outside Judaism. If his teaching contained a message that could be preached to people of all nations, it was because in what he told the Jews about Judaism there was ingrained a vision of life that was of value to more than just the Jews. That is how his teaching could become the basis for the multi-racial, multi-cultural religion that we today refer to as Christianity. But if we examine his teaching close enough, we will see that it is wrong to think that it can be made use of only by those who today call themselves Christians.

 Jesus' message, if taken in its real intent is one that is of value and usefulness to the whole of humanity and not just to the Christian community. In today's world the number of people outside Christianity is far greater than that within it. Jesus' mission represents a vision of life that a person of any culture or religion can adopt. To understand that extent of its universality, we must get a clear idea of his message and also find out what made it so universal in its applicability. In this chapter after a brief description of his life and ministry, we will examine the core of his message to find that out.

I. LIFE OF JESUS IN OUTLINE

 Jesus was by race and religion a Jew. He lived in Palestine which the Jews considered their homeland. When Jesus was born however, his land was a colony of the Roman Empire. The supreme authority was the emperor in Rome. Jesus is traditionally believed to have been born in 01 AD. Our calendar counts its years from that year. Recent research, however, has shown that this assumption is not correct. It is generally asserted by scholars that Jesus would have been born 4 to 6 years prior to 01 AD.

 Life before ministry

 Very little is known about the life that Jesus led before he started his ministry. His mother was called Mary and she was married to a carpenter named Joseph. A remark about Jesus made by the inhabitants of his village and reported in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark indicates that he belonged to a rather big family. Members of his village after listening to a sermon of his queried "Is he not the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary, his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? And are not all his sisters here with us?" (Mt 13:55; Mk 6:3).

 Since he himself was referred to by people as "carpenter" (Mk 6:3) or "son of the carpenter" (Mt 13:55), it is likely that he himself engaged in the trade of a carpenter. As in any village, also in Nazareth, his family's village, carpentry was a respected trade, and the carpenter a respected person. He could be expected to have known his trade well. As a Jew he knew his Bible well and without any doubt he would have meditated on its message profusely.

 Judging from the exuberance that we see in him later, it is however difficult to imagine that he would have been the ordinary type of family-supporting carpenter limiting himself to his trade, his home and even his religion. He is a person who would have kept his eyes wide open. He had evidently a contemplative and poetic mind. He admired nature. Otherwise he would not have been able to speak so enthusiastically about the birds of the air and the flowers in the field. Even though by trade a carpenter, he knew well of farmers, the way they sowed and harvested. He knew of the shepherds and how they looked after their sheep and goats.

 Combined with that awareness of the surroundings, he also had a delicate heart and an alert conscience. He was cut to the quick whenever he saw injustice, hypocrisy, false religion. He had compassion for the needy and the poor. He also had a temperament that made him very outspoken.

 If we assume that in his youth he had those qualities that became manifest during his days of ministry, he certainly would have had an out-going temperament which enabled him to take an active part in the community affairs of the village. He certainly had leadership qualities. He had the capacity to gather a crowd to listen to him. He could win over individuals to follow him.

 Meeting the Baptist

 It was when he was about thirty, the age at which a person is normally considered mature, that he set off on his ministry. The exact circumstances that impelled him to launch into preaching are not clear. But the decision had much to do with his meeting John the Baptist, the hermit who preached by the river Jordan in Judea.

 In his preaching, John openly denounced the corruption prevailing in the society of his day. To all who came, he preached the necessity of repentance and stressed the need for changing their selfish life-styles. His message was simple: "Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you" (Mt 3:2). Those who decided to follow his teaching, he subjected to a ritual bath in the river. From the Greek word for "bath" (baptisma) this rite has been called "Baptism", and John himself, "John the Baptizer "or "John the Baptist". According to the Gospels Jesus too went to be baptized by him.

 Then Jesus arrived at the Jordan from Galilee and came to John to be baptized by him. John tried to dissuade him. "Do you come to me?" he said; "I need rather to be baptized by you". Jesus replied, "Let it be so for the present. We do well to conform in this way with all that God requires". John then allowed him to come. After baptism Jesus came out of the water at once, and at that moment heaven opened; he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove to alight upon him; and a voice from heaven was heard saying, "This is my Son, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests" (Mt 3:13-17).

 The supra-earthly language in which the incident is recounted shows how episodes of the life of Jesus were narrated in the early Christian community in which a great devotion to the personality of Jesus had built up. If that devotional language could be understood realistically what the passage says is revealing. John was far from being unknown to Jesus. John was a close relative of his. Being children of two cousin sisters, the two may have been even playmates. John was senior to Jesus only by six months (Lk 1:36).

 John, was aware of the caliber of Jesus' life. He took the opportunity of Jesus' visit to show that he was more suited than himself to undertake the ministry that the Jewish society urgently needed. What then took place in Jesus' mind couldn't have been better expressed than through this story of heaven opening, the Spirit coming down and God speaking out his approval from heaven. The meeting with John the Baptist gave Jesus' vision of life a confirmation that turned his whole career in a new direction. His deeper self spoke to him with a voice that left no room for doubt as to what he had to do in the future. He was sure that he had a great mission to fulfill in his society and that he was endowed with the strength to do it. He felt that the Spirit was in him. In Jewish thought, the Spirit was the life-power of God that enlightened human beings to see their mission in society and enlivened them to fulfill it conscientiously. As a result of that meeting with John, Jesus the carpenter became Jesus the society-awakener.

 Ministry

 Jesus started his ministry not in the same region as John, namely Judea, but in his own province of Galilee. But the message he started with was identical: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you" (Mt 4:17). Judging from the manner in which Jesus started his ministry, it is evident that the example of John had a great impact on the mind of Jesus. Probably that is what is hinted at by the Gospel reference to John as one destined by God to "prepare a way for the Lord (and) make his paths straight" (Mt 3:3; 11:10).

 With regard to their ministry, Jesus and John had two major things in common. Both subscribed to the belief that the end of the world was near. In the Jewish understanding, the end of the world meant the end of the reign of evil and suffering and the dawn on earth of a reign of goodness and peace. It was to expedite that reign of goodness and peace or in other words to bring about a better world that both of them committed their lives.

 The second point they had in common was the way they understood religion. Both were very clear in their understanding that true religion was very different from religion of the clan-centric form. Race and religion are not identical. Nobody ever became religious by simply belonging to a race or an institution. Religion was adherence to right values of life and not simply adherence to a tradition of beliefs and practices that contribute to the solidarity of a particular community. John made it absolutely clear that Judaism as a vision of Life-values had nothing to do with Jewishness as membership in a race. This is why he said,: Do not presume to tell yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father." I tell you that God can make children for Abraham out of these stones here (Mt 3:9).

 Between Jesus and John however, there was one difference. Each chose a different path for the execution of their ministry. John selected that of rigorous asceticism; Jesus opted for compassionate service. He wanted to bring healing to society while living within it.

 End of ministry

 To make his reform campaign effective, Jesus selected a number of disciples and trained them for the task. Those closest to him were called apostles and their number is given as twelve. The ministry of Jesus was greatly appreciated by people of all walks of life, specially the ordinary people. They admired the courage with which he denounced corruptions prevalent in their society. They found inner strength through the interpretation that he gave to religion. The poor, the discarded and the forgotten particularly saw him as a compassionate person. To them, he was purely and simply a redeemer.

 His work however, as also the work of all prophets before him, did not appeal to the religious leaders. They saw his ideas of reform as a threat to Judaism and even to the security of the race. They campaigned against him before the Roman authorities, and secured his condemnation to death. Jesus ended his life through a death on the cross, the Roman equivalent of our present gallows.

 It is not clear how long his ministry lasted. It could have been from one year to three years. According to a calculation of modern scholars, Jesus was born in 05 BC and died on Friday the 7th April 30 AD, which would mean that he was 35 years when he died.1 In comparison with the lives of other religious founders, that of Jesus is short. The Buddha, for instance, carried on a ministry of about 45 years and lived up to nearly 80 years of age.

 Granted the brevity of Jesus' ministry and the intensity of the opposition he had to face, one is led to wonder if Jesus could have achieved much. But to see the real impact of his ministry, we should link it with what those who believed in him achieved after his death. After the death of Jesus, his disciples organized his followers into a new religion that opened its doors widely to non-Jews. The outcome alone goes to show that there was a richness and depth in the ministry of Jesus that was absent in the ministries, for instance, of the Jewish prophets including John the Baptist. Their ministries did not lead to the start of a new religion, and least of all, of one that was in membership multi-racial and universal.

II. WHAT JESUS TAUGHT

 To find out what was really special in his ministry, we have to examine the message that his teaching contained. It is unfortunate that we do not have in the Bible a collection of his sermons which would have made such an investigation easy. There is only one text in the Gospels that is even generally referred to as a sermon. It is the section in Matthew which starts with the words " When he saw the crowds, he went up the hill. There he took his seat and began to address them" (Mt 5:1-2).

 This address which now is referred to as the "Sermon on the Mount" 2 is still not one that could be taken as a sermon given at one occasion. Scholars tell us that what we find there is a collection of statements made by Jesus on different occasions. They would have been statements that struck a special chord in the hearts and minds of the disciples. Such statements are remembered for long when lengthy sermons are easily forgotten.

 What is still more noteworthy is that in the view of scholars, they are a reproduction from a very early record of Jesus' sayings compiled long before the Gospels. That record has been referred to by some as the "Lost Gospel"3. If that is so, the Sermon on the Mount becomes a valuable text because it could take us very close to the actual thought of Jesus. What is most illuminative about these sayings is that they help us to grasp how the lessons he taught only the Jews were of value to anybody and everybody. He told the Jews not just how to be Jewish but how to be human. He did so by answering questions that the Jews posed within themselves not as just Jews but as human beings.

 Of all the questions that human beings ask themselves constantly, there is one that they feel is very pressing. The question is worded in different ways but the problem it deals with is one: How can I be truly a great person? How can I be really happy? How can I achieve the highest fulfillment in my existence? Human beings whether Jew or non-Jew, Christian or non-Christian all want to know how they could achieve nobility in its highest form. The question that Jesus answered was just that . We give below a few extracts from the Sermon on the Mount that gives Jesus' answer.

 The truly noble

 The sermon begins with a set of statements which show what it is to be truly blest, really noble.

 How blest are those who know their need of God;

the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

How blest are the sorrowful;

they shall find consolation.

How blest are those of a gentle spirit;

they shall have the earth for their possession.

How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail;

they shall be satisfied.

How blest are those who show mercy;

mercy shall be shown them.

How blest are those whose hearts are pure;

they shall see God.

How blest are the peacemakers;

God shall call them his sons.

How blest are those who have suffered persecution for the cause of right;

the kingdom of Heaven is theirs (Mt 5:3-10).

 Since each of these eight statements starts with the words "how blest" or "how happy", they are referred to as the "beatitudes". Taken as a whole, their thrust is beyond question. They indicate that Jesus had a view of human happiness or blessedness very different from that of most of us. For many, to be happy is to have power, pleasure, possessions. Jesus turns that idea upside down. For him, happiness is achieved not by having good things but by having a good heart.

 Jesus is not presenting here a philosophy of happiness to be discussed in classrooms. He is talking to people with afflicted hearts. He is concerned with the sorrows and sufferings people face in their day-to-day life. So the beatitudes are not philosophical musings, but words of consolation, compassion and encouragement.

 He not only sympathizes with people in their affliction and sorrow but shows them the great treasures they nonetheless possess. Their possessions are not quantitative but qualitative: gentleness of spirit, hunger and thirst for the reign of right values, mercifulness, purity of heart, desire to bring about peace between those torn apart, suffering for the cause of righteousness. Such qualities give human beings deeper happiness than material things.

 The way in which Jesus here talks of "the Kingdom of Heaven", as also of "God" or "Sons of God" is also noteworthy. Christians today sometimes conceive of the Kingdom of Heaven as a place to arrive at after death. For Jesus, the Kingdom is a state of mind, an attitude to life. Those who feel the "need of God", or who suffer for "the cause of right" are in the Kingdom of Heaven.

 For Jesus further, people do not have to wait till they come to heaven to see God. The "pure of heart" see God now. Then again, most Christians today use the word "Son of God" exclusively in reference to Jesus. But here Jesus says that "peacemakers" will be called by God himself "his sons". Jesus had only one aim in presenting the beatitudes, namely, to pinpoint what made human beings genuinely human and thus true "sons (and daughters) of God".

 The need for good example

 According to Jesus people with noble minds have a great role to play in society. This is because society or individuals don't become good automatically. If goodness is to grow it must be nurtured by good example. Societies are transformed and uplifted by enlightened individuals who in their daily life uphold and diffuse goodness. People who seek to be truly noble must lead their lives in such a way as to be an inspiration to the weak and a light to those in the dark. If good example lags behind, evil triumphs.

You are the salt to the world. And if salt becomes tasteless, how is its saltness to be restored? It is now good for nothing but to be thrown away and trodden under foot.

 You are the light for all the world. A town that stands on a hill cannot be hidden. When a lamp is lit, it is not put under the meal-tub, but on the lamp-stand where it gives light to everybody in the house. And you, like the lamp must shed light among your fellows, so that when they see the good you do, they may give praise to your Father in heaven (Mt 5 :13-16).

 To be genuinely rich

 Religion for Jesus was simply a matter of giving priority to what priority was due. Human beings must choose what they give priority to. They must in their mind, enthrone the values they want to live for and safeguard. Nobody can work for two goals that are contrary to each other. A person cannot be self-seeking and altruistic at the same time.

 Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where it grows rusty and moth eaten and thieves break in and steal it. Store up treasure in heaven, where there is no moth and no rust to spoil it, no thieves to break in and steal. For where your treasure is there will your heart be also...

 No servant can be the slave of two masters; for either he will hate the first and love the second, or he will be devoted to the first and think nothing of the second. You cannot serve God and money (Mt 6:19-24) .

Realism regarding oneself

 Religion according to Jesus is realism. People who are realistic accept their faults. But in the world such realistic people are rare. One of the biggest weaknesses of the world is that there are in it more correctors of other people than correctors of themselves. Truly great people correct themselves and are not critical of others.

 Pass no judgment and you will not be judged. For as you judge others, so you will yourselves be judged, and whatever measures you deal out to others will be dealt back to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye, with never a thought for the great plank in your own?

Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye" when all the time there is that plank in your own? You hypocrite! first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's (Mt 7:1-5).

 Strength of character

 According to Jesus, there is only one thing that makes people great and strong; that is fidelity to right Life-values. But the way of right Life-values is narrow. Those who want to keep to the right path must avoid false guides who give wrong directions. There could be many who, under cover of teaching religion only want to build up their power, enlarge their institution or promote their culture. They are not interested in diffusing right values or building up character. Such religious teachers Jesus sees as wolves in sheep's clothing.

 But if people don't get misled and discover what the ideals are that deserve to be adhered to, then they bear fruit like a well manured tree; they remain unshaken like a house built on a rock.

 Enter by the narrow gate. The gate is wide that leads to perdition, there is plenty of room on the road, and many go that way; but the gate that leads to life is small and the road is narrow, and those who find it are few.

Beware of false prophets, men who come to you dressed up as sheep while underneath they are savage wolves. You will recognize them by the fruits they bear. Can grapes be picked from briars or figs from thistles? In the same way, a good tree always yields good fruit, and a poor tree bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, or a poor tree good fruit.

What then of the man who hears these words of mine and acts upon them? He is like a man who has had the sense to build his house on rock. The rain came down, the floods rose, the wind blew, and beat upon that house; but it did not fall because its foundations were on rock (Mt 7:13-25).

 Religion in a Nutshell

 One very valuable saying of Jesus which on the one hand is too brief to get misunderstood and on the other too deep for comment is the following:

Always treat others as you would like them to treat you; that is the Law and the Prophets. (Mt 7:12) Jesus was talking only about Judaism to the Jews. So what he had to teach them was what was contained in their Bible, popularly referred to at that time as "the Law and the Prophets". And so what Jesus is saying here is that their Bible of over thousand pages could be summed up in that simple injunction of less than a dozen words.

One could, of course, challenge here the audacity of Jesus in reducing the entire teaching of the Bible to such a pithy precept. One could always ask: Is that all that the Bible contains? What about all that lengthy talk about God? The answer is very simple. The idea that Jesus has of religion is very different from that many of us today have of it. Religion for him is not a matter to be conceptualized or argued about. It is something to be experienced and lived. And however strange it may sound, the real way to experience God and even one's own deeper self is to love and care for people. It is this subtle truth that a great poet has expressed succinctly in the following verse:

 I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see.

I sought my God, but my God eluded me.

I sought my brother, and I found all three.

 The few extracts from the Sermon on the Mount we have reproduced above and which according to scholars are traceable to a very early collection of Jesus' sayings makes one point about Jesus' ministry clear. It shows why the message that Jesus gave only to the Jews is of value not just to the Jews -- and today not just to the Christians-- but to anybody and everybody. The reason is simple. Jesus was speaking to the Jews not as just Jews --or even to Christians as just Christians --, but to all human beings as human beings. He wanted to show human beings how to arrive at the noblest level of humanness in the life they are endowed with. As requirements for achieving that goal, he did not mention matters, that today many give importance to, such as profession of creeds, performance of rites, and membership in an institution. For him, religion was adhesion to values that ennoble life and living. That is what makes his message so appealing, so comforting and so universal in its acceptability. More of the pattern of life that he understood by religion we will see in the next chapter.

 ---------------------

1. The Oxford Bible Reader's Dictionary and Concordance

(Oxford University Press, London) p.44-51

2. In a shorter form, the Sermon on the Mount is found also in the

Gospel of Luke. See: Lk 6:20-49

3. See Mack, Burton L, The Lost Gospel, the book of Q and

Christian Origins, (Harper, San Francisco, 1993) pp. 71-102.

 Chapter Eight

RELIGION ACCORDING TO JESUS

 The Sermon on the Mount that we examined in the last chapter is beyond doubt an invaluable source to go to for finding out what Jesus taught. But his teachings are found in a number of other places too. In those places of the Gospels they are found in the form of parables, pithy sayings, counsels and warnings. In whatever form it be, what he said had just one aim: to teach his people what true religion is. For him to establish the Kingdom of God was to establish true religion or religion in its religiousness (or life-transformative) form.

 In this chapter with the aim of finding out how Jesus understood religion, we examine his teachings from three different angles under the following topics: (i) Jesus' teachings on true and false religion, (ii) Jesus' way to perfect humanness, and (iii) Jesus' vision of the Church.

 I. TRUE AND FALSE RELIGION

 According to Jesus, there was a true as also a false form to religion. In its true form, it helps people to grow up and be adult. In its false form it is a self-deceptive superstition; and superstition like an ulcer, drains out of people their inner vitality. Religions at times succumb to this ulcerous growth. As Jesus saw it, Judaism of his day had fallen into that unfortunate state and so it needed healing.

 False religion has its own characteristics. False religious people can be found out. Jesus pointed out a number of these characteristics. Four are given below.

 Self-complacency: False religion leads people to be too sure of themselves. It makes them victims of the false belief that they are superior to others. That is the lesson that Jesus taught through his parable of the Pharisee and the Publican. Pharisees were members of a holy sect among the Jews and because of the tendency of some to keep aloof from unholy people, the term "Pharisee" was used as a symbol of religious uppishness. Publicans were tax-collectors and because of their customary unscrupulousness in extorting money from people they were generally regarded as an irreligious lot in Jewish society. Both the Pharisee and the Publican had gone to the temple to pray.

 The Pharisee stood up and prayed thus: I thank thee, O God, that I am not like the rest of men, greedy, dishonest, adulterous; or, for that matter, like this tax-gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all that I get" But the other kept his distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat upon his breast saying: O God, have mercy on me, sinner that I am (Lk 18: 11-13)

 According to Jesus, there was greater religiousness in the self-accepting Publican than in the self-complacent Pharisee. The Publican saw himself as he was. The Pharisee did not know who he really was.

 Pretense: Another characteristic of false religion is pretense. Falsely religious people like to show off that they are religious. They like to play the "Saint". Jesus saw that as a weakness of many professionally religious people of his day and even spoke sarcastically about them. He told his disciples not to imitate them.

 Be careful not to make a show of your religion before men...Thus when you do some act of charity, do not announce it with a flourish of trumpets as the hypocrites do in synagogue and in the streets to win admiration from men. I tell you this: they have their reward already. (note: Christ can be sarcastic!) No; when you do some act of charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing; your good deed must be secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Mt 6: 1-6).

 Ritualism: A third characteristic of false religion is ritualism. Rites and rituals are natural to human beings. Still they are only a means and not an end. If they do not lead people to execute their social responsibilities adequately, they become a farce. In the Judaism of Jesus' day rites and rituals had fallen into that state. For the priests, they were more important than concern for the poor and the needy. Jesus strongly condemned such false interpretations of God-worship.

 What hypocrisy! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: This people pays me lip service, but their heart is far from me;their worship of me is in vain, for they teach as doctrines the commandments of men. (Mt 15: 7-9)

Legalism: Still another characteristic of false religion is legalism. Law is important for harmony in life and society. But when the spirit of the Law is replaced by the letter of the Law, and man made-laws are given priority over the natural laws of charity and mercy, religion becomes a superstition, and the law itself an oppression.

 One of the greatest weaknesses of Judaism in the time of Jesus was its legalism. The law on the observance of the Sabbath, for instance, had been subjected to an extremely legalistic interpretation. Jesus considered this a distortion of the Law and expressed his resentment when he said" The Sabbath was made for the sake of man and not man for the Sabbath" (Mk 2:27).

 People who interpret religion legalistically are fanatical about small rules but utterly callous about the more important human obligations. Jesus pointed to that defect when he told the Pharisees:

 Alas for you Lawyers and Pharisees! You pay tithes of mint and dill and cumin; but you have overlooked the weightier demands of the Law, justice , mercy and good faith. It is these you should have practiced, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, you strain off a midge, you gulp down a camel (Mt 23: 23-24)

 Jesus thus distinguished between right and wrong religion so as to show his listeners what Judaism of the adult form was. The drastic language that Jesus used to condemn false, formal, mechanical religion could shock readers of the Gospels. As a matter of fact, his language sounds even more vehement than that of those in our day who condemn religion calling it an "opium" or an "illusion". But Jesus is more introspective than those who condemn religion outright. He condemned religion not because he disliked religion, or wanted to do away with it, but because he positively loved it and wanted to save it.

II. WAY TO PERFECT HUMANNESS

 Jesus did not just condemn false religion. He showed what true religion was. He indicated the way to perfect humanness. Three important characteristics of that way are given below. They are a) Faith in a Protector God, b) Faith in a Forgiving God and c) Positive concern for the needs of other human beings. Jesus did not refer to those characteristics just for an academic purpose. He did so to help people find the inner healing they needed, and to make them grow up into adulthood.

 i. Protector God

 Through his insight into human nature, Jesus clearly saw that many are unable to accept adult responsibility in life and act as free, noble beings because they are thwarted by feelings of inner anxiety and despair. There are numerous situations that bring about a psychological incapacitation in people. At these moments, they come to such a state of despair and depression, that they say to themselves: "No, I cannot." "I am finished." "There is nothing more I can do." It was to redeem human beings from such a state of despair and depression that Jesus taught the doctrine of faith in a Providing or Protector god.

 Therefore I bid you, put away anxious thoughts about food and drink to keep you alive, or clothes to cover your body. Surely life is more than food, the body more than clothes. Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow and reap and store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are worth more than the birds! ...And why be anxious about clothes? Consider how the lilies grow in the field; they do not work; they do not spin; and yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendor was not attired like one of these. But if that is how God clothes the grass in the fields which is there today, and tomorrow is thrown on the stove, will he not all the more clothe you? How little faith you have?...Your heavenly father knows that you need them all. Set your mind on God's Kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well (Mt. 6:25-33).

 The doctrine of the Providence of God or of "faith" as Jesus termed it, is of course not original to Jesus. It was an idea in Judaism from the very beginning. Nor is it restricted to Judaism. Though not in the same monotheistic form, faith in a providing God or gods is common to most religions. Jesus stressed it not because of its novelty but because of its importance. It has a therapeutic value, and a religion's primary function is to provide healing and inner strength.

 Faith in a Protector God may look mythical to many today. That is because they fail to understand the pictorial language in which it is expressed. If the picture is correctly grasped, faith in a Providing God is full of deep sense. All it says is that, in the worst circumstances of life, human beings have no reason to feel weak. Weakness results from a false belief that they are isolated, totally abandoned. The doctrine of a Providing God reminds them that they are part of the universe, always linked with it and constantly sustained by its powers.

The universe has more resources of energy than are known. And as long as people do not block the flow of their power into them, they can harness the life-supporting, problem-solving energy of the Universe for their preservation, progress and perfection. Through the doctrine of Providence Jesus, as it were, said to the depressed: Have faith and keep united with the life-giving energy of the universe; it is within you and is waiting to revitalize you.

 Faith in God, in Jesus' eyes, is just a commitment to right priorities in life. That is what he meant when he said "Set you mind on God's Kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well" (Lk 12:31) The essence of Jesus' teaching on Providence is simply this: Seek goodness in everything you do, and goodness will look after you. That could be considered an eternal law recognized by all religions.

ii. Forgiving God

 To cure human beings of another equally disabilitating and dehumanizing mental sickness, Jesus spoke of the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins. To understand the value of forgiveness, we must visualize the extensiveness of the psychological damage that guilt feelings cause in a person. Most religion-teachers have spoken against sin, but perhaps no one has paid so much attention to its guilt dimension as Jesus. Many teachers, because of the lack of their acquaintance with the torturous nature of guilt, refer only to punishment when they speak of sin. Jesus stresses forgiveness.

 Jesus' doctrine of forgiveness is enshrined in his parable referred to as that of the "Prodigal Son" but which to be more meaningful, should be called the parable of the Benevolent Father (Lk 15; 11-32). According to that story, the youngest son in a family decided to break away from the father, take his share of the family inheritance and go off to a distant land in search of worldly thrills. Not long after his departure, he made a mess of his life and realized the folly of his decision. In the resultant state of utter helplessness, he decided to go back home.

 One would have expected the father of such a break-away son to have disowned the son on his departure, and to have thrown him out on his return. But not so, this father. From the day of the son's departure, he yearned for his return, and when he did return, he welcomed him back with open arms. The benevolent father in the story is the ever-benevolent God. Through the story, Jesus sought to console those ridden with guilt feelings, saying to them that God, the universal source of goodness and life, does not reject them, and so, there is no justification in their rejecting themselves. Forgiveness is a doctrine that some have found difficult to approve. For them, it is an incentive to further sinning. They furthermore consider forgiveness to be unjust because it ignores the goodness of the virtuous. In the story of the Prodigal Son, that attitude is taken by the elder son whose intervention is described in the second half of the parable. He objected to the open-hearted forgiving attitude of his father. According to Jesus, those who do not permit others to be forgiven live under an illusion about themselves. Those who easily pass judgment on others are often concealing a guilty conscience.

 According to Jesus, even those who appeared virtuous were sinners at heart, and had no right to object to the forgiveness extended to those suffering from guilt. As in the doctrine of Providence above, the visualizable image of God is not what is important for the appreciation of the doctrine of forgiveness. The Jewish idea of a forgiving God is taken from the image of a forgiving human father, and as such it is a help to the imagination. The purpose of Jesus however, is not to draw a picture of God, but to lead human beings to a correct sense of self-acceptance.

 Modern psychologists who do not stop with the image, attach increasing therapeutic value to Jesus' doctrine of forgiveness. According to them every immature person is a split personality. The emotional self and the intuitive self are irreconcilably torn apart. Forgiveness represents the state when the intuitive self assures the emotional self "You are accepted by me." The split caused in the personality by the sense of guilt is thereby healed. The person so restored and re-instated can resume a life unperturbed by the contempt that society may show him or her. In the parable, the father represents Nature. Nature tells the fallen person: I understand you even if society does not. Society is represented by the elder son. If Jesus spoke of God often, it was not so much to make people understand God better, but to make them understand their human nature better. This is evident from his teachings on both Providence and forgiveness. He spoke of God's providence and forgiveness purely to make human beings internally more strong and mentally more mature.

iii. Concern for others

 There is according to Jesus a third deficiency in human beings that prevents them from achieving a truly human stature. It is blindness to their inner oneness with other human beings. Immature people, due to a very childish view of themselves and of life, think that the only way to achieve true greatness is to live exclusively for themselves. Jesus showed that such an attitude destroys its very goal.

 Human beings are by essence inter-related , and they cannot be fully human if they do not live and practice their inter-relatedness. Jesus used two beautiful parables to point that out. The first is the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16: 19-31). The rich man lived a life of luxury. He draped himself in rich clothes. He ate and drank sumptuously. At the entrance to his gate was Lazarus, a beggar, sick and covered with sores. His only food was the crumbs of bread fallen from the rich man's table, and brought to him by his servants. The story ends with the picture of what happens to these two after their death. Lazarus is in heaven; the rich man is in hell.

 The lesson that Jesus puts across through this story is a powerful one. There was nothing in the behavior of the rich man that, according to popular assessment, was reproachable and could justify his being condemned to eternal hell-fire. There was nothing immoral in his life. He did not kill, steal or commit adultery. He did not hurt the poor man at the gate. He did not kick him as he passed by or throw him out; and after all, what is wrong in a person enjoying a good life if blessed with a rich inheritance? But Jesus says the rich man was guilty. He was guilty even to the extent of meriting hell-fire. His only crime was that he ignored the poor man at the gate. He was unconcerned about the helplessness of persons in his immediate environment. He led a selfish unadult life. No responsible person according to Jesus, can be unconcerned about the needy. Human beings are truly human only to the extent they live up to their nature as inter-related beings.

 Jesus' second story is equally powerful. It is the story of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37). There are three characters in the story, a Jewish priest, a Jewish Levite and a Samaritan. The first two characters are symbols of accepted religious piety. The third is an outcast considered by the Jews as religiously impure. All of them meet one after the other, a helpless person fallen by the wayside, a victim of brigands. The first two see him and pass by. Probably they were in a hurry to officiate at a religious ceremony. The despised Samaritan alone comes to the poor man's rescue. It was the Samaritan that Jesus pointed to as the truly religious person, the only adult in the group.

 What the Samaritan was to the Jew of 2000 years ago, a Hindu or Buddhist would be to the Christian of today. In a parallel way, the Jewish priest and the Levite would be close to a Christian bishop and priest. Thus if broadly adapted to the twentieth century religious context what Jesus says is that the charitable Hindu or Buddhist is more religious than a self-conceited bishop or priest of the mechanically Christian type. For Jesus, it is only a person who is genuinely concerned with others that is truly religious.

 The three doctrines explained above, namely, that of faith in a Protector God, that of faith in a Forgiving God, and that of positive concern for others do not leave any room for doubt as to what right religion was for Jesus. Religion for him was not this or that organization. It was a way of life or a level of life that made it possible for human beings, not just in external appearance but in reality, to be human. Religion thus is what liberated human beings from their innate state of non-humanness by making them grow up into adulthood. Adults are persons who take life into their hands with all the responsibility, the obligations and the joys that go with it.

  III. THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH

 From what the New Testament says of Jesus' ministry, there is not the least doubt that the Kingdom of God was the main theme of his preaching. Its establishment in society was his main concern. The Kingdom of God was a concept that everybody in his community was well acquainted with it. The majority of them, however, looked at it as something to come about at the "end of the world". Jesus too often made use of that popular end-of-the-world image when speaking of it but what he was really concerned with was its realization here and now. This is clear from the prayer he taught his disciples to say. " May your Kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". For him thus the Kingdom stood for a society of people doing the will of God on earth.

 With the aim of building up the Kingdom of God, Jesus gathered around him a team of apostles and began training them. They were to be the leaders of the organization that would work for the establishment of the Kingdom. It is this organization that is referred to today as the "Church". Even though, in the way explained in the Acts, the Church came into existence only with the descent of the Holy Spirit fifty days after his death, since it was the apostles who brought it about, we have to consider Jesus as its real founder.

 The form that this Church eventually took was determined by the historical circumstances in the region in which it grew and developed. With Christianity becoming the official religion of the Roman empire, territorially it became as extensive as the Roman empire itself. The form in which the Church is found today has much to do with the socio-political happenings in the region which was once the Roman empire. Today the Church is not a unified body but a splintered organization. As will be explained in a subsequent chapter, it consists of a large number of denominations the main branches of which are the institutions referred to as the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, the Protestant and the Post-Protestant.

 In spite of the diversity in the structure of these denominations, since all Christians acknowledge Jesus as their founder, taking it in a broad sense, the word "Church" can be used also for all the Christians taken together. Since further, the larger number of these denominations consider the rite of Baptism as an indispensable requirement for entry into them, the Church of this collective form can be designated also as the "Church of the ritually baptized".

 It is not our intention here to question the form that the Church has taken and, in any case, we cannot reverse history. But there is one question that we have to ask purely with the aim of bringing out the mind of Jesus on the Kingdom he wanted to establish. This is because there is a tendency among a large number of believers to uphold that salvation is possible only within the Church and that entry into the heavenly Kingdom is only for the baptized. But when we look at the teachings of Jesus the main requirement for entry into the Kingdom is something other than Baptism.

 We have only to look at the parable of the Last Judgment for that. Jesus used that story to explain to the Jewish people in their own end-of-the-world language what the main requirement is for admission into the Kingdom of God.

 When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, he will sit in state on his throne, with all the nations gathered before him. He will separate men into two groups, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.

Then the king will say to those on his right hand "You have my Father's blessing; come, enter and possess the kingdom that has been ready for you since the world was made. For when I was hungry you gave me food; when thirsty you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me to your home; when naked you clothed me; when I was ill you came to my help, when in prison you visited me".

 Then the righteous will reply, "Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you, or thirsty and gave you drink, a stranger and took you home, or naked and clothed you? When did we see you ill or in prison and came to visit you? And the king will answer, "I tell you this: anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did it for me (Mt 25:31-40).

 The lesson of the story is clear. The most notable characteristic of those who are truly noble is their ability to read the anxiety that is in the heart of another and be selflessly a source of relief to that person. Concern for others is such a difficult quality to achieve that those who have it can be said to be in possession of all other qualities that true religiousness stands for.

 That is why Jesus considered it the most decisive requirement for achieving salvation. Further for him, that was a quality that anybody of any culture or religion could acquire. This becomes evident to one who can read between the lines of Jesus' story. The supreme judge is not shown here inquiring whether a person is baptized or not. He does not seem to care whether the person to be admitted to the Kingdom is Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or agnostic. The quality he focuses attention on is that of caring for the needy.

 The story is no doubt disturbing for those who uphold that there is no salvation outside the Church. But probably there is no other parable that could indicate with as much clarity what, in Jesus' view, true religion and true Christianity will have to be.

 Chapter Nine

RELIGION ACCORDING TO PAUL

 If after examining what Jesus said and did, we want to find out more about Christianity, there is no better person we can go to than Paul. After Jesus, it is of Paul that the New Testament speaks most. The larger part of the New Testament too is by him.

 There is even a book on him in the New Testament, the "Acts of the Apostles". Looking at its name, one would expect the book to record the activities of, if not all the apostles, at least a number of them. But the "apostle" it talks of almost exclusively is not one of the twelve, but Paul, a convert to Christianity after the death of Jesus. Of the 28 chapters in it, 23 are dedicated to his life and activities, a clear proof of the prominent role he played in the building up of the Church. The 13 letters written by him included in the New Testament are further proof of the struggle he waged in the establishment of the early Church.

 I. PAUL'S ENTRY INTO THE CHURCH

 According to Acts (2:1-41), the inauguration of the Christian Church took place during the Jewish festival of Pentecost, a harvest festival of thanksgiving held exactly fifty days after the Pasch. It was at the previous Pasch that the Jewish priestly authorities had got Jesus condemned to death. On that day when the apostles who had come to Jerusalem to participate in the Festival were assembled together in one room, the Spirit of God descended upon them like "tongues of fire that dispersed among them and rested on each one". Strengthened by the experience, Peter, along with the other disciples, came out to preach to the people about Jesus. Those who listened to them and accepted the message "were baptized and some three thousand were added to their number that day."

 The lesson of the story is clear. The Church is the work of the Spirit, the Life-power of God. Whenever particular individuals were entrusted with a special function to perform in society, the Holy Spirit came on them to impart the light and the strength necessary for the task. When Jesus, after baptism by John, stepped out of the water to inaugurate his preaching ministry, the Spirit came down on him in the form of a dove.

 The story also throws light on the type of individuals who formed the early Christian community. The first three thousand, were from those who had come to participate in the Jewish Festival of Pentecost, all devotees of the Jewish faith. What we need specially to take note of here is that among the participants there were some who were racially not Jews. They were converts to Judaism called "proselytes" (literally "alien residents") or just "God-fearers". This is because the Jews granted a subsidiary type of membership to the "gentiles", the name they used for designating all in the world who were racially not Jews. Such converts had to lay aside their cultural traditions and adhere to Jewish customs beginning with circumcision. It was among such people, namely Jews and proselytes that Christianity first spread.

 Christianity started as a branch or sect of Judaism. Christians remained adherents of Judaism in all aspects except in the devotion to their teacher, Jesus whom they regarded as the "Christ", the long awaited liberator of the Jews. They went for worship in the temple. As Acts says, " with one mind they kept up their attendance at the temple" (Acts 2:46) But that situation couldn't last long. The Jewish leaders who had got Jesus condemned to death, wouldn't treat his followers differently. So there was nothing abnormal in their insisting that the doors of the temple be closed to the new sect and that, if possible, the sect be exterminated.

 The Christian community had to face up to the situation and start re-organizing itself. This led to a number of problems of which the most vital and the most urgent was the selection of the shape that the Church as an independent organization should take. Two viewpoints came to the forefront. The larger number felt that after becoming an independent organization, they should keep up the ancestral Jewish traditions. Non-Jewish converts should be made to undergo circumcision. Since Jews were God's chosen people and salvation had to come only through affiliation with them, it had to be so. The proponents of that view were called the "Judaizers".

 The other group, more far-seeing but certainly less numerous realized that this procedure, while being an obstacle to the expansion of Christianity, would --and this was what was primary-- not be in keeping with the Life-vision version of religion that Jesus upheld. In their view Jesus had a very open-hearted attitude to people of other races and cultures. According to him, salvation could be achieved by anybody who adhered to right life-values, irrespective of race or culture. Therefore they were strongly of the opinion that no Jewish cultural practices should be imposed on converts. Newcomers should be free to retain their cultural traditions. They must only follow the life of the Spirit. Those who upheld that view were called "anti-Judaizers".

 According to the picture of the early Church given by the New Testament, there is not the least doubt that the battle between the Judaizers and the anti-Judaizers was a major issue in it. That was the state in which Christianity was when Paul joined it.

 Paul's Conversion

 According to Acts, the path on which Paul came to Christianity is unimaginably unusual. He had been a persecutor of Christianity before he joined it. As an ardent follower of Judaism, he had regarded the small number of Jews who treated Jesus as the "Christ" as a heretical sect. Acts narrates an incident where he is seen directing the stoning to death of a Christian named Stephen.

 The witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. So they stoned Stephen, and as they did so he called out " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit". Then he fell on his knees and cried aloud "Lord, do not hold this sin against them" and with that he died. And Saul was among them who approved of his murder. (Acts 7: 58-8:1)

 It was because of a sermon that Stephen had preached that Saul wanted him killed. Stephen had spoken derogatorily of Judaism. He had said that people did not need the Jewish temple to reach God for, according to the Bible itself, he could be met anywhere under the heavens or on the earth. Judging from his sermon, it seems likely that Stephen was a Christian who belonged to the anti-Judaizer few.

 Saul who is shown here as a persecutor of Christians eventually changed into Paul, early Church's greatest propagator of Christianity. According to Acts, the change was due to a vision that he had of Jesus when with letters of authorization from the Jewish priests he was going to Damascus to destroy the Christians.

 While he was still on the road and nearing Damascus, suddenly a light flashed from the sky all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? "Tell me Lord" he said, "who are you?" The voice answered, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:1-5)....

 It is difficult for us to conclude from that narrative alone what exactly happened. But from the detail mentioned "suddenly a light flashed from the sky all around him", we can safely conclude that what is at the bottom of it is an enlightenment. Paul seems to have been shown the solution to some problem that had been bothering him for some time. Moments of enlightenment may come abruptly but they are generally a culmination of a long and arduous search after deep truths of life. To find out what the enlightenment of Paul was all about, we have to look at the transformation that it brought about in his life.

 Paul is believed to have been born about 10 AD. If his conversion took place as generally assumed about 36 AD, he was about 26 at the time he had the vision. Being by race and religion a Jew, he knew his Bible well. He had studied it under a well-known doctor of the Law called Gamaliel. He grew up, however, outside the land of the Jews, in Tarsus a hellenized city of Cilicia, now Southern Turkey. He thus was constantly in association with people other than Jews. He knew of their religions and cultures too.

 In the first 26 years of his life, he had practiced the religion he inherited by birth in the way he had been taught to, and in the manner expected of him by the society he belonged to. His religion, Judaism, had been explained to him, in the way religions are generally taught to followers, from a clan-protective angle. He followed Judaism taking it in that perspective. If he persecuted the Christians, it was because he felt that this was the right way to be faithful to religion and to his race. But somehow or other deep in his heart problems had arisen with that understanding of religion.

 If the enlightenment resolved his problem it was by making him see another dimension of religion. He saw that Judaism could be taken in a Life-vision dimension too. When taken in that dimension, the Jewish belief in God provided a vision that anybody of any clan could live by. That was the Judaism that Jesus was concerned with.

 How Paul who had never met Jesus in his life-time came to know of this stand of his we do not know. It could well be that Jesus spoke to him through the sermons of his followers whom Paul was persecuting. We know at least of one sermon he listened to, that of Stephen. But whatever the source of the information be, one thing is clear. Ever after for Paul the very word "Jesus" stood for "Salvation is not just for Jews. It is for Jews and non-Jews alike".

 II. PAUL'S FIGHT AGAINST

CLAN-PROTECTIVE CHRISTIANITY

 Soon after his encounter with Jesus, Paul joined Christianity. But we must be careful here ; it was not any Christianity that he joined. That is a fact we cannot hide from if we read Paul's own letters attentively. From his letters it is clear that he saw two churches in Christianity, one clan-protective and the other adult. The apostles themselves were largely on the clan-protective side. He was not anxious to join that side. As he told the Galatians:

 You have heard what my manner of life was when I was still a practicing Jew: how savagely I persecuted the Church of God and tried to destroy it. And how in the practice of our national religion, I was outstripping many of my Jewish contemporaries in my boundless devotion to the traditions of my ancestors. But in his good pleasure God, who had set me apart from birth and called me through his grace, chose to reveal his Son to me and through me, in order that I may proclaim him among the gentiles.

When that happened, without consulting any human being, without going to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me, I went off at once to Arabia , and afterwards returned to Damascus. Three years later, I did go to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas (i.e Peter). I stayed with him for a fortnight without seeing any other of the apostles except James the Lord's brother. What I write is plain truth; before God, I am not lying. (Gal 1:13-20)

 This statement of Paul has an intriguing side to it. He became a convert to Christianity. But he did not go to anybody in the Church for religious instruction. He intentionally avoided doing so. According to Acts his only source of knowledge about Jesus and his teaching is the vision he had on his way to Damascus. That vision consisted of just one question posed by Jesus. The question was: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Paul understood what those few words meant. What the question told his troubled mind is something like this: You persecute me thinking that I am against Judaism. It is true I uphold Judaism of the Life-vision form and not Judaism of the clan-protective form. But isn't that the Judaism of the deeper form, the Judaism that is of value to the whole of humanity?

That question contained all the religious instruction he needed. In understanding what Judaism is in its universally adaptable dimension, he had met Jesus face to face. Paul did not want to know anything more about Jesus. As he says in his Epistle to the Ephesians:

 It was by a revelation that his secret was made known to me. I have already written a brief account of this, and by reading it you may perceive that I understood the secret of Christ. In former generations this was not disclosed to the human race; but now it has been revealed by inspiration to his dedicated apostles and prophets that through the Gospel, the Gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body, sharers together in the promise made in Christ Jesus. Such is the Gospel of which I was made a minister by God's gift bestowed unmerited on me. (Ephes 3:3-7)

 The new truth that he discovered and which he called the "secret of Christ" is that "the Gentiles are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body". Many of us today find it difficult to understand what "secret of Christ" implies because the word "gentiles" does not strike us with the same force it did Paul. For him "gentiles" (as also its equivalent "uncircumcised" ) referred to all in the world who are not racially Jews. "Gentiles" would thus today include the Chinese and the Africans, the Hindus and the Buddhists.

 So, if we repeat Paul's idea taking it in its application to our times it would be this: "The secret of Christ ... (which) in former generations... was not disclosed to the human race....(is that).. the gentiles (that is, all non-Jews including the Chinese and the Africans, the Hindus and the Buddhists) are joint heirs with the Jews, part of the same body". This conviction of Paul that salvation or humanness of the highest stature is achievable by people of all regions and religions, -- a conviction that Christian Theology, being institution-protective will find difficult to concede to -- is what compelled Paul to join the anti-Judaizer group when he entered the Church. It is generally assumed that it is 3 to 6 years after the death of Jesus that Paul had the vision of Jesus and entered the Church. During that period a number of Jews and non-Jews had entered Christianity. Non-Jews had been admitted according to the method followed in Judaism for the admission of proselytes. They had to adhere to the cultural traditions proper to the Jewish people.

 Paul knew of this method of admission and the support it received from the Church leaders. That is why he decided to launch out his own campaign of conversion without even consulting them on it. That is also why he avoided going to see them at the beginning and for quite some time.

 Without circumcision

 Of the Jewish customs imposed on the converts, the one that was considered the most compulsory, and for the converts the most cumbersome was circumcision. It involved surgery on the sex organ of the male. Paul started admitting non-Jews to Christianity without circumcision. With such uncircumcised Christians, he built up many communities.

 His reason for going against the accepted custom is simple. If non-Jewish converts to Christianity had to subscribe to Jewish cultural traditions simply because Christianity originated in a Jewish culture, there was something wrong somewhere. Paul saw where the mistake was. People unduly linked religion with culture and made religion subservient to it. So, according to him, if Christianity as a vision of life was to be adopted by people of all clans and cultures, it had to be above culture or supra-cultural.

 But with regard to this approach to the diffusion of Christianity, Paul -- and this is what many Christian devotees could find disturbing-- had trouble with the Church leaders most of whom were still the apostles. What could seem worse, he had difficulties even with Peter the chief of the apostles, the one considered the head of the Church. Peter, of course, though a little impulsive at times, was a genuinely gracious man and an un-ostentatious leader. But, like for most human beings, it was not easy for him to change the ideas he had been brought up in. He had been taught from childhood that only his race was pure and so he, as a member of that race, could not share a meal with those who were uncircumcised. To change an idea that one has grown up with from infancy something unusual has to happen.

 In the case of Peter, such a thing happened. He was given a vision --a somewhat strange one -- to discover the truth (Acts 10:9-16). He was presented with a vessel that contained all kinds of animals some of whom according to Jewish criteria were pure and others impure. Peter was asked to use all of them for his food. Peter refused to make use of those considered impure. A voice from heaven was then heard by him: "It is not for you to call impure what God considers pure". Peter understood the message. The distinction between pure and impure whether in animals or human beings, is a man-made distinction. Peter saw that Chinese, Africans, Indians do not need Jewish circumcision to become clean.

 After the vision Peter was convinced of the truth. But conviction can't change long-standing habits at once. And so, even after the vision, though through no other fault of his than timidity, there was an instance where he couldn't take the right stand. Paul confronted Peter in public when he saw that.

 But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because clearly he was in the wrong. For until certain persons came from James he was taking his meals with gentile Christians; but when they came he drew back and began to hold aloof, because he was afraid of the advocates of circumcision. The other Jewish Christians showed the same lack of principle;........ But when I saw that their conduct did not square with the truth, I said to Cephas before the whole congregation," If you a Jew, born and bred, live like a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you insist that gentiles must live like Jews? (Gal 2:11-14)

 In many places the people whom he had admitted to Christianity without circumcision were forced by other Church leaders to undergo circumcision. He warned his converts against getting misled by such preachers. And he did not hesitate to talk out his mind against such misguided preachers who wanted to diffuse their culture under cover of diffusing religion. One of the crudest attacks of Paul on the imposers of circumcision may well be the following contained in the letter he sent to the Philippians. There he calls those who impose circumcision on converts as "dogs".

 To repeat what I have written to you before is no trouble to me and it is a safeguard to you. Beware of those dogs and their malpractices. Beware of those who insist on mutilation,--"circumcision" I will not call it. We are the circumcised, we whose worship is spiritual, whose pride is in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in anything external. (Phil 3:1-3)

Council of Jerusalem

 We may say that Paul succeeded to a large extent in getting his idea accepted by the Church authorities. When his endeavors met with serious opposition and led to major controversies in both Jerusalem and Antioch, Paul appealed to the Church leaders, mainly Peter, the chief of the apostles and James the Bishop of Jerusalem to take a stand. The decision taken at the council (Acts 15:3-35) convened for the purpose in Jerusalem ,-- the first of the numerous ecumenical councils in Christianity's history --shows that not only Peter but even James who had originally been doubtful about the rectitude of Paul's approach, had come to accept that his vision was in keeping with the idea of Jesus.

 The fact that Paul fought against the imposition of circumcision on converts to Christianity should not, of course, make one think that this was all he was concerned about. Circumcision was just one issue of the missionary principle that he wanted to see safeguarded and established. He himself did not attach more importance than necessary to it as he said: "Circumcision is nothing. Uncircumcision is nothing. The only thing that counts is new creation (Gal 6:15). "New creation" refers to the inner transformation that conversion should bring to an individual and about which alone he was concerned.

 Conversion: the right way

 His real fight was for the right pattern that missionaries should follow when diffusing Christianity and making converts to Christianity. His stand came from a very realistic understanding of what religion is and what it should be. In this regard, his understanding was the same as that of Jesus. Both objected to the tendency of religions to be subservient to or be unduly linked to the culture of one racial or regional community, even if that happened to be the community within which the religion originated or grew up.

 A religion has to be diffused for the vision of life and right living it upholds. A vision loses its spirit as also the power to transform people internally when controlled by a culture. Further people of any clan or culture should be in a position to enhance the vision provided by a religion without having to give up their culture. Therefore what missionaries should diffuse, according to him, are values and not the culture of any one particular community.

 For a fuller understanding of the missionary principle that Paul defended, we must look at the values he wanted diffused and which in his view were characteristically Christian. That should be the most important part in any study of Paul. This is what we present below under the title "Christianness according to Paul". But before we go to that, we feel a word of advice will be in place to prospective readers of Paul's writings as to how these should be read. This is because there seem to be many today who have difficulties in getting a realistic view of Paul's concept of Christianity.

III. PAULINE LANGUAGE

 Paul's writings have certainly a complex side to them. Complexities are unavoidable in any ancient piece of literature and Paul's epistles were composed twenty centuries ago. But writings of Paul have their own difficulties too. There are times when what he actually says does not seem to tally with what he wants to say and the reader is at a loss to find out exactly what he is talking about. For purpose of illustration we will take here two topics treated in his writings and given great importance in Christian Theology, namely, the resurrection of the dead and the divine sonship of Jesus.

 Let us take first the topic of the resurrection of the dead and see how introspective one has to be to find out what is central to Paul's teaching and what is peripheral. Some things he says about the resurrection can in no way belong to the core of his message. These he has taken from the popular assumptions --for an outsider rather fanciful -- of the Jewish people of his day. He for instance, states that the end of the world with its resurrection of the dead is imminent. He took it to be so imminent that he affirmed even as the "word of the Lord" that he and those around him will be resurrected without even having to die.

 We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so it will be for those who died as Christians; God will bring them to life with Jesus.For this we tell you as the Lord's word: we who are left alive until the Lord comes shall not forestall those who have died; because at the word of command, at the sound of the archangel's voice and God's trumpet call, the Lord himself will descend from heaven; first the Christian dead will rise, then we who are left alive shall join them, caught up in clouds to meet the Lord in the air (1 Thess 4:14-17).

 The imminence of the end of the world as also the resurrection of the dead were beliefs characteristic of Paul's society. The belief was shared by John the Baptist and Jesus Christ himself, as also by Peter and the other apostles. That belief, in fact proved false. The resurrection did not come in Paul's life-time nor soon after. That cannot therefore belong to the core of Paul's message regarding death and resurrection which, when taken rightly, is the foundation of all Christian belief.

Then there are other statements on the resurrection to understand which we must know his method of argumentation which is very special to him. We give below as an example the text in which he discusses the spiritual meaning of the baptismal rite using as his chief premise the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Paul believed Jesus to be resurrected just as he believed that everybody living in his life time would be resurrected. But when he speaks of the resurrection in this passage what he is concerned with is not the reality of the bodily resurrection but that of right living.

 Have you forgotten that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus we were baptized into his death. By baptism we were buried with him and lay dead in order that as Christ was raised from the dead, in the splendor of the father, so also we might set our feet upon the new path of life.

For if we have become incorporate with him in a death like his, we shall also be with him in a resurrection like his. We know that the man we once were has been crucified with Christ, for the destruction of the sinful self.....For in dying as he died, he died to sin once and for all, and in living as he lives, he lives to God. In the same way you must regard yourselves as dead to sin and alive to God in union with Christ Jesus (Rom 6: 3-11) .

 This argument of Paul is such that a student of logic may even find a strong anomaly in it. In the premise he speaks of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. One would expect that in the conclusion he will speak of the bodily resurrection of the faithful. But it is about their spiritual resurrection, that is about their ability to be resurrected while alive, that he speaks. In the way Paul saw it, the inner transformation that a Christian undergoes by being "dead to sin and alive to God" is of such a high stature that it can be compared only to a rising from the dead. Resurrection as a very profound transformation in a person's behavior is what pertains to the essence of Paul's message. The language of bodily resurrection is from the time and culture he belonged to.

 The other topic, that on Jesus or faith in Jesus, is one which requires no less perspicacity if we are to find out exactly what he wants to say. Paul speaks of Jesus the eternal son of God, as also of faith in Jesus so profusely that one could conclude, --as is often done in Denominational Theology,-- that belief in the Jesus of Judea as the eternal Son of God is what is central to his message and what is ultimately necessary for a person to find salvation.

If Paul spoke of Jesus in the forceful way he did, we must not forget that this was because, in the dreadful war he waged almost single-handed with the powerful "Judaizer" group he had a need for doing so. They wanted to thwart his enterprise of admitting non-Jews without circumcision. And so, they threw at him the argument that circumcision is necessary for salvation because it is given in the Law which God gave to the Jewish people. To them his reply was that such a claim was absurd because salvation was not through the Law but through Jesus. When saying so he took "Jesus the eternal son of God" as "the eternal principle of God regarding salvation". It is rather unfortunate that many Christians today affirm strongly their belief in Jesus as the Son of the Eternal God but are far from open to the idea of the universality of salvation. For Paul, the two couldn't be separated.

 The text given below is very useful to find out the method Paul uses when he wants to prove a point. It also shows the normal sequence of Paul's thoughts when he talks of Jesus. (For clarification's sake the phrase "Chinese-African, Hindu-Buddhist" will be inserted into the text within brackets alongside the words "gentiles" and "uncircumcised" whenever they occur.)

 But now, quite independently of the Law, God's justice has been brought to light....... For all alike have sinned, and are deprived of the divine splendor, and all are justified by God's free grace alone, through his act of liberation in the person of Christ Jesus. For God designed him to be the means of expiating sin by his sacrificial death effective through faith. God meant by this to demonstrate his justice... and to demonstrate that he justifies any man who puts his faith in Jesus.

 ......For our argument is that man is justified by faith quite apart from success in keeping the law. Do you suppose that God is the God of the Jews alone? Is he not the God of the Gentiles [Chinese, Africans, Hindus, Buddhists] also? Certainly of Gentiles [Chinese, Africans, Hindus, Buddhists] also, if it be true that God is one. And he will therefore justify both the circumcised in virtue of their faith and the uncircumcised [Chinese, Africans, Hindus, Buddhists] through their faith (Rom 3: 21-31).

 If we see the sequence of Paul's argument we find that his teaching here is not directly about Jesus. In the argument Jesus is the premise. The conclusion is what matters. Not only Jews but also Chinese, Africans, Hindus and Buddhists have salvation and that is because "God is one". This shows how complex Pauline language is and how important it is that it be understood in the light of the totality of his message.

 It is true that Paul says here in the premise of the argument that salvation came to the world through the death of Jesus and that anyone who has faith in Jesus is saved. But that type of statement should not be made absolute and interpreted without reference to his argument and the lesson he wants to teach. According to that lesson, Abraham who lived 1800 years before Jesus too was saved. And he too was saved by faith. He did not know Jesus to have faith in him.

 Consider: We say Abraham's faith was counted as righteousness; in what circumstances was it so counted? Was he circumcised at that time or not? He was not yet circumcised but uncircumcised... Consequently, he is the father of all who have faith when uncircumcised [Chinese, African, Hindu, Buddhist], so that "righteousness" is counted to them (Rom 4:9-11).

 All that goes to say that Paul's talk about faith in Jesus Christ must be taken in the light of the main lesson that he wants to teach his predominantly Jewish audience. The lesson is the universality of salvation. For Paul the faith that saves is basically faith in God. But the expression faith in Jesus had the power to remind his Jewish audience that the salvation which faith in God brings is valid universally and not restricted to followers of the Jewish tradition. For Paul, "faith in Jesus" has also the implication that before the time of Jesus, Jews did not have a right idea of the universality of salvation.

IV. CHRISTIANNESS ACCORDING TO PAUL

 To understand more positively what really Paul taught and fought for, we have to go to the vision he had of Christianity. For him, Christianity was Christianness, a way of sublime living. From his numerous epistles there is one that he has dedicated very specially to teach what Christianness is. It is his Epistle to the Romans written around 56-58 AD to a community of Christians in Rome composed of both Jews and non-Jews. It is the teaching of that Epistle that we want to examine here to find out what Paul took to be true Christianness. The explanation he gave in it is so profound that except for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, Romans could be considered the most authentic explanation available today on what Christian spirituality is.

Two levels of Life

 Basic to Paul's thought in this matter is the distinction he makes about the two levels at which an individual can lead his or her life. He calls one the "level of lower nature" and the other the "level of the spirit".

 Those who live on the level of our lower nature have their outlook formed by it, and that spells death; but those who live on the level of the spirit have the spiritual outlook, and that is life and peace. For the outlook of the lower nature is enmity with God; it is not subject to the law of God: indeed it cannot be: those who live on such a level cannot possibly please God (Rom 8:5-8).

 Paul upholds the level of the spirit. He looks at the life of the spirit (written with a simple "s") as one lived under the power of the Spirit (written with a capital "S") of God or the Holy Spirit. That Spirit is a reality that is easier experienced than explained. The concept of Spirit could be as foreign to people today as it was to people of Ephesus who, when asked by Paul if they received the Spirit of God at baptism replied, "No, we were never even told that there was such a thing as a Spirit" (Acts 19:1-4). According to Paul, Christianity is the life of the Spirit.

Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ

 In different places of the Epistle to the Romans, Paul refers to Christ in different ways. When he wants to establish his thesis about the universality of salvation, Christ is the Eternal Son of God, the very emblem of universal Salvation. But when he wants to explain Christian spirituality, he is the Spirit that animates human beings. The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ are one and the same.

 You are on the spiritual level if only God's Spirit dwells within you; and if a man does not possess the spirit of Christ, he is no Christian. But if Christ is dwelling within you, then although the body is a dead thing because you sinned, yet the spirit is life itself because you have been justified.

Moreover if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells within you, then the God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give new life to your mortal bodies through his indwelling Spirit. (Rom 8:9-11) .

 Divine Sonship

 According to Paul, the aim of Christianity is to make human beings children of God. "Children" are different from slaves and servants even if they live in the same house. The latter do what they are told out of fear. But children do things spontaneously. They know that they are cared for, wanted and loved. Truly holy people live their life in a natural spontaneous way. Internally they are happy and in peace.

 For all who are moved by the Spirit of God are sons of God. The spirit you have received is not a spirit of slavery leading you back into a life of fear, but a Spirit that makes us sons, enabling us to cry "Abba, father"! In that cry the Spirit of God joins with our spirit in testifying that we are God's children; and if children then heirs. We are God's heirs and Christ's fellow heirs, if we share his sufferings now in order to share his splendor hereafter" (Rom 8:14-17).

 When talking of spirituality, or the pattern of living we call Christianness, what matters for Paul is the Spirit. Just as Jesus was the Son of God because God's spirit was in him, all human beings of whatever clan and culture will be children of God if the Spirit of God is in them. They are Christ's fellow heirs and so his brothers and sisters. With him, they can call God "abba" the Aramaic for "dad" or "papa".

Right attitude of mind

 For Paul, Christianness is not in the performance of rites but in right living. Worship and sacrifice have to be lived. They are not rites to be performed at shrines. Religion is an attitude of mind ("Let your minds be re-made").

 Therefore my brothers, I implore you by God's mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his acceptance, the worship offered by mind and heart. Adapt yourself no longer to the pattern of this present world but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God and know what is good, acceptable and perfect (Rom 12:1-2).

 Sense of Responsibility

 According to Paul, to be Christian is also to understand one's role in society and execute that role with a sense of responsibility. The profession carried out or the position held is not of much consequence. What is important is that it be fulfilled correctly with a sense of humility and responsibility. For Paul religion is not primarily in asceticism and monasticism but in executing secular duties in a spirit of enlightened dedication.

 The gifts we possess differ as they are allotted to us by God's grace, and must be exercised accordingly: the gift of inspired utterance, for example in proportion to a man's faith; or the gift of administration, in administration. A teacher should employ his gift in teaching, and one who has the gift of stirring speech should use it to stir his hearers. If you give to charity, give with all your heart. If you are a leader, exert yourself to lead; if you are helping others in distress, do it cheerfully (Rom 12:6-8).

 Political duties

Human beings live in a political society. Society needs a governing authority. Citizens of a nation have the obligation to fulfill their duties by the nation with due submission to the governing authority. Correct fulfillment of political duties is a Christian responsibility.

 There is no authority but by act of God, and the existing authorities are instituted by him......That is why you are obliged to submit. It is an obligation imposed not merely by fear of retribution, but by conscience. That is also why you pay taxes. The authorities are in God's service and to these duties they devote their energies (Rom 13:1-6).

When Paul wrote this letter, Christianity was still a forbidden religion. Being a Christian was a criminal offense for which execution was the penalty. As a matter of fact Paul ended his life as a martyr four or five years later around 62 AD during the reign of Emperor Nero. For Paul to have reminded Christians to fulfill their obligations to their countries even under persecution shows the importance he attached to civic obligations.

Respect for other cultures

When Paul wrote his letter to the Romans, controversies had cropped up in the Roman community that could have created irreparable splits in it. One was the question of vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism in food habits. Jews ate meat. But there were converts from other nationalities and religions who practiced abstinence from meat. Then there was also the difference of the weekly rest-day. The Jews celebrated the Saturday, the Sabbath. Converts from other religions didn't care for the Saturday.

 The stand Paul takes here is decisive. His solution is the right selection of priorities. In primary matters all must conform. In matters of secondary importance differences should be permitted and the very differences should be made use of for deepening love and respect for each other.

 If a man is weak in faith, you must accept him without attempting to settle doubtful points. For instance one man may have faith enough to eat all kinds of food, while a weaker man eats only vegetables. The man who eats must not hold in contempt the man who does not, and he who does not eat must not pass judgment on the one who does...

Again this man regards one day more highly than another, while another man regards all days alike. On such a point everyone should have reached conviction in his own mind. He who respects the day has the Lord in mind in doing so, and he who eats meat has the Lord in mind when he eats, since he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains has the Lord in mind no less, since he too gives thanks to God...

Let us therefore cease judging one another, but rather make this simple judgment: that no stumbling block be placed in a brother's way...for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but justice, peace and joy inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Let us then pursue the things that make for peace and build up the common life (Rom 14:1-19) .

 The situation that necessitated such counsel is not difficult to imagine. Paul's Christian communities consisted of people from different cultures and traditions. But he did not demand uniformity to safeguard unity. He allowed them to keep their ways as long as the life of the Spirit was safeguarded.

 Love above all

The points mentioned above should give some idea of what Paul understood by Christianity. For him Christianity stood for Christianness. To conclude our analysis of Paul's insights into Christianness there is no better text in the Epistle to the Romans that we could choose than the following which points to the place that charity should have in the life of a Christian --charity even for persecutors.

Call down blessings on your persecutors,--blessings not curses. With the joyful be joyful and mourn with the mourners. Care as much about each other as about yourselves. Do not be haughty, but go with humble folk. Do not keep thinking how wise you are.

Never pay back evil for evil. Let your aims be such as all men count honorable. If possible, so far as it lies with you, live at peace with all men. My dear friends, do not seek revenge, but leave a place for divine retribution; for there is a text which reads "Justice is mine, says the Lord, I will repay". But there is another text "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty give him a drink; by doing this you will heap live coals on his head. Do not let evil conquer you, but use good to defeat evil. ...

He who loves his neighbor has satisfied every claim of the law. For the commandments, "Thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal, thou shall not covet" and any other commandment there may be, are all summed up in the one rule, "Love your neighbor as yourself. "Love cannot wrong a neighbor. Therefore the whole law is summed up in love (Rom 12: 14-21; 13: 8-10).

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PART IV. CHRISTIANITY TODAY

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 Chapter Ten

 CHRISTIANITY: ITS DIVERSE FORMS

In our study so far, we have examined the origin of Christianity and the value-system it represents in the way recorded in the two parts of the Bible referred to among Christians as the Old Testament and the New Testament. But for a fuller understanding of Christianity we cannot stop with that. We have also to examine the community of Christians or the "Church" in the form in which it is found today.

 The Church or the Christian community as found today is a very complex matter and is not easy to examine. There is no one institution or organization that one could point to and say "This is the Christian Church." There are a number of Church-institutions that are designated by the term "Christian". The situation is such that outsiders are led to ask, and that without any malice: Is there one Christianity or are there many Christianities?

 The fragmentation of religion is not a feature specific to Christianity. There is not a single religion that has just one form. One could equally well speak of Buddhism as Buddhisms, Hinduism as Hinduisms, and Islam as Islams. But this fragmentation has affected Christianity more drastically than any other religion. As statistics show,1 there are today over 20,780 independent Church denominations. With such a diversity of forms, not just outsiders but Christians themselves would be at a loss to find out what Christianity is.

 The different denominations did not exist from the beginning. Nor have they all sprouted out at once. They started at different stages during a history of 20 centuries. Some arose as a result of rifts and ruptures that took place within the Christian institution. Some arose from new ideologies originated by one or another individual. Whatever the origin of the denominations be, one thing is clear. As a general rule, they are all reducible to one of the four following categories:

1) Roman Catholic Church

2) Eastern Orthodox Churches

3) Protestant Churches

4) New or Post-Protestant Churches

 The easiest way to understand the shape of Christianity in the modern world is to look at it in the light of this fourfold division. The division helps us also to get an idea of the historical evolution of Christianity. Of the four branches, the last is relatively of recent origin. It starts in the 19th century. The first three which are older are generally referred to as "Mainline Churches". We will here deal mainly with the mainline churches and restrict our treatment of the last to just a listing of the better known ones among them.

 I. MAINLINE CHURCHES

 In the way it is generally explained, Christianity as a "Church" started soon after the death of Jesus Christ. According to "Acts of the Apostles", the followers of Jesus first organized themselves into a Church-community on the Jewish festival of Pentecost which took place fifty days after the death of Jesus. From that time, according to "Acts" the new religion began to spread in different parts of the Roman Empire particularly in those areas where small bands of Jews had established themselves.

 The start of Christianity as a religion, as also its early expansion was far from easy. From the time it began, and for three hundred years thereafter, Christianity was outlawed in the Roman Empire. During that time it was practiced and propagated in secret.

 From a very early date, Christians used the word "catholic" (Greek for "universal" or "multi-racial") when speaking of their religion. They did so mainly to underline an aspect in which Christianity differed from Judaism a religion restricted to one race. Christianity was open to all races. It was multi-racial or "catholic". Because of the contextual implication, the word "catholic" became so widely used that Christianity eventually came to be referred to, by preference, as "Catholicism".

 The emperor Constantine lifted the legal ban on Christianity in 313 AD; and in 383 AD, one of his successors declared it the state religion of the Roman Empire. With this declaration, the doors opened to its worldwide expansion, and also to its internal divisions. After it became the state religion, Christianity as much as the empire itself, consisted of two culturally different groups. The two groups used two different languages. The Christians of the Eastern part, with its center in Constantinople (now Istanbul) spoke Greek. Those of the Western part, with its center in Rome, used Latin. The two groups adhered to a set of beliefs practically uniform even though they retained a certain independence with regard to forms of worship and administration. This pristine Church which could be called the "Ancient Catholic Church" carried on in that undivided form till the end of the 10th century.

 First Division: Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox

 The first major rupture in Christianity came in 1054 AD when the Greek-speaking Eastern part broke away from the Latin-speaking Western part. The main issue in question was the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The bishop of Rome, called also the Pope (from "papa" the Latin for "father") claimed a supremacy of authority that the Patriarch (Greek for "chief father") of Constantinople was also requested to submit to. The Patriarch refused to do so declaring it to be contrary to the tradition of the past thousand years.

 When the two parts separated, the Latin group retained the old name "Catholic" and because its center was in Rome, came to be called the "Roman Catholic Church". The Eastern group chose the new term "orthodox" (Greek for "correct teaching" or "original tradition") and came to be called the "Eastern Orthodox Church".

 Second Division: Roman Catholic, Protestant

 Christianity continued in that dual form till the end of the 15th century when some Roman Catholics started protesting against malpractices that had crept into the Church and called for an internal reform. The most prominent person of that group was the Augustinian monk, Martin Luther (1483-1546 AD). Due possibly to a lack of sensitivity on the part of the reform enthusiasts and a lack of vision on the part of the Roman authorities, what could have ended up as an internal reform developed finally into the second biggest rupture within Christianity.

Lutheran, Presbyterian, Anabaptist Churches: Under Martin Luther and a number of other leaders, a large number of Roman Catholics broke away from the authority of the Pope of Rome. This break away, along with the creation of new Church-forms for the ex-Catholics, is what is today known as the Protestant Reformation. The two words "Protestant" and "Reformation" express the two most vital elements that the movement represented. One was a "protest" against the controlling authority of Rome. Second was a "reform" of the Church structures. The "protest" was uniform among all those who opted out of Roman Catholicism; but the reform varied; it was executed in different degrees by the dissident groups. Whatever the degrees of reform they adhered to, without discrimination, all the Ex-Catholics came eventually to be called Protestants or Protestant Christians.

 Due to the different ideas that the Protestant reformers had about the organizational shape that their Churches should take, the Protestant groups splintered into a large number of non-uniform Church bodies. In the early stages three types called (a) Lutheran, (b) Presbyterian and (c) Anabaptist were predominant.

 Lutherans were mainly concerned with becoming independent of Rome. Some Lutheran Churches of today are the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the German Lutheran Church, the American Lutheran Church, and the Finland Lutheran Church.

 Presbyterians were not satisfied with independence. They wanted a reform in the institutional structure of the Church. Some Presbyterian Churches of today are the Reformed Church of Scotland, the French Protestant Church, the Dutch Reformed Church and the German Reformed Church

 Anabaptists were more radical in the reform they envisaged. They restricted Baptism exclusively to adults and introduced in their communities socio-economic life-styles of a very simple form. Some Anabaptist Churches of today are the Hutterites and the Mennonites

 Anglican Church: When talking of Protestants, the problem arises as to where to situate the Anglican Church. The Anglican Church is not, strictly speaking, an outcome of the Protestant Reformation. The breakaway of the English Church from Rome was not instigated by any idea of reform. It was the result of a disagreement between the King of England and the Bishop of Rome over a question of the former's divorce. But since the breakaway of England from Rome came in the wake of the Protestant Reformation, and was facilitated by it, the Anglican Church too is classified under the Protestant group.

 Today the Anglican Church has branches outside England, and these are referred to either as Anglican or Episcopalian. Some Anglican Churches of today are the American Episcopalian Church, the Church of Wales, the Episcopalian Church of Scotland, the Church of Ireland, the Church of Canada and the Church of Sri Lanka

 Puritanist and Revivalist Churches: One would have expected the Protestant Reformation to end when the Protestant Reformers finished formulating definitive patterns for their new Churches. But that did not happen. Reform movements started within the Reformed Churches multiplying further the number of Church bodies. Some of those reform movements were called "Puritanist", others "Revivalist".

 Puritanists insisted on going back to the simpler forms of Christianity of the New Testament era. Some Puritanist Churches of today are the Disciples, the Congregationalists, the Baptists and the Quakers. The Revivalists called for warmer and reviving forms of Christian worship. Some Revivalist Churches of today are the Methodists, the Salvation Army, and the Moravian Brothers.

 Churches within Churches

 The story of the splintering of Christianity does not stop there. The problem of the multiplicity of Church-forms is still more aggravated by the phenomenon that has to be described as "ideologies within Churches". There are today a number of ideological trends that divide up members of the same Church into sub-groups. Such divisive trends are visible in all the three Mainline Churches.

 If we restrict ourselves to just three of those ideologies, they are a) the Conservative, b) the Progressive and c) the Fundamentalist or Evangelical. The Conservatives want to safeguard old traditions in the same form in which these were handed down. The Progressives insist that religion should adapt itself to the needs of the time and the place.

 The Fundamentalists or the Evangelicals uphold strongly that the Church is of divine origin and consider certain beliefs as fundamental for membership in it. Seven beliefs are generally considered fundamental: a) inerrant verbal inspiration of the Bible, b) Virgin Birth, c) miracles of Christ, d) Resurrection of Jesus, e) total depravity of man, f) substitutionary atonement and g) premillenial Second Coming. Fundamentalists oppose strongly modern interpretations of the Bible as also ecumenism; but they firmly insist on personal commitment to religion and attach great importance to the experience of conversion or new birth.

The fact that the members of the same Church could adhere to a variety of ideological trends is in no way a help to the unity of the individual Churches. Often it leads to a situation that one could describe as "Churches within Churches". On the good side however, such groupings have the power to cut through denominational barriers and unite members of otherwise unrelated Churches. It is not rare, for instance, to find today a progressive Anglican more closely linked with a progressive Roman Catholic than with a conservative member of his own Anglican denomination.

II. CATHOLIC, ORTHODOX, PROTESTANT

--Their characteristics

 For a clearer understanding of the mainline Churches, beside the history of their division, we need to know something of their characteristics. Here we restrict ourselves to those characteristics which distinguish the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant from one another.

 I. Eastern Orthodox Churches

 Although the least known among the three branches, the Orthodox Churches go back to the earliest days of Christianity. In fact it was in Antioch which is a patriarchate of the Orthodox Churches that, according to the New Testament the followers of Christ were first called Christians (Acts 11:26). Orthodox Christianity is administered on a regional basis. Each region called a patriarchate has its own head, the Patriarch. Each patriarchate is independent though there is a subordination of reverence of the younger patriarchates to the older. It is due to this regional form of administration that Orthodox Christianity is generally referred to in the plural as "Orthodox Churches".

 A noteworthy characteristic of the Orthodox Churches is their form of worship which has a character all its own. Using ancient languages or the vernacular, they follow a form of worship that is elaborate and ceremonial. The elaborateness is also noticeable in the way the churches are adorned and decorated, the vestments worn by the clergy, the singing performed, the diverse tools and utensils used, and the ritualistic gestures, all of which promote in the participants a sense of mystery and awe in the presence of God.

 Their calendar of festivals is also special. Epiphany or "the Manifestation of Christ" celebrated on the 6th of January replaces Christmas. Easter is celebrated a week to ten days later than in Catholic and Protestant Churches.

In their attitude to religious images too, the Orthodox are different from both the Catholic and the Protestant. Since they do not use any three dimensional images or statues, they are different from Roman Catholics who use them profusely. Since they use two dimensional images or pictures which they call "icons" they differ from Protestants who do not use even pictures, or do so only in a very limited manner.

 Regarding priests and monks too, they have a tradition of their own. Monastic life is well respected, and there are large numbers of monks. In this aspect, they are close to the Catholic Church and different from the Protestant Churches where, probably due to the prominence given to the married or the lay life, the number of monks is relatively small. With regard to the priesthood, however, it is the other way round. They are closer to the Protestant Churches than to the Catholic Church. Celibacy is not required for priests except for the bishops. Their priests, as a rule, are married.

 The membership of the Orthodox Churches is much smaller today than in the past. They lost all their Middle Eastern countries to Islam. Then in Russia, which is the largest single region of Orthodox Christianity today, the Church has been, at least till very recently, practically imprisoned. From the religious side however, its numerical smallness may not be a sign of weakness. It is generally admitted that the low population of the Orthodox Churches is due to the fact that they have always followed a religious policy of non-violence or non-resistance before invasion and oppression.

 Roman Catholic Church

 Of the three main branches, the Roman Catholic Church is numerically the largest and administrationally the strongest. Its strength comes mainly from the fact that its administration is centralized. The Pope, who is traditionally the bishop of Rome, is the religious governor of the entire Catholic Church. The Bishops, diffused around the world, share the power of administration with the Pope, but they have in all matters of teaching to be in full conformity with the Bishop of Rome. In all decisive matters of faith and morality, the Pope is believed by the traditional Catholics to be absolutely unmistakable or in their own terminology "infallible".

 The value and validity of concentrating the teaching power of the Church in the hands of one individual is every now and then questioned by people both within the Church and without. At times, it has been challenged, and as seen above, even splits and schisms have taken place as a result. It is not impossible that the Roman Catholic Church's centralized system of government, has its roots in the era when the Pope was not just the religious teacher of the Church but also the political head of the papal states.

 A second source of the strength of the Catholic organization may well be in the fact that its management is in the hands of men who are all celibate. In the Roman Catholic Church, not only the Pope and the bishops, but also all priests, that is, those entrusted with the authority to preside over religious worship, are not married. Besides the priests, the Catholic Church has a large band of monks and nuns too. In recent times their number has somewhat dwindled, but still in the beginning of the nineteen nineties there were as many as 230,000 monks and 710,000 nuns. Even though they may not be directly involved in the supervision of worship or in administration of the local communities called parishes, they assist in many activities particularly in the fields of missionary work, social work and educational work.

 Granted the fact that the nuns by far outnumber the monks, and that they hold heavy responsibilities in all the educational and social service activities of the Church, we can say that women play a major role in the RC Church. Unfortunately however, the same opportunity for service is not available to those who are not celibate. In the Catholic Church, the laity has very little say in Church affairs. In recent times, a strong effort has been made to reverse this tradition, and to allow married men and women some responsibility in the administrational matters of the Church. But the change is not very noticeable. The importance attached to celibacy in the Catholic Church is almost without parallel except possibly in Theravada Buddhism.

 The Roman Catholic Church has been criticized as being too self-enclosed and not open enough to new patterns of thought. It has been criticized by other denominations and other religions as being too self-protective and so, totally unconcerned about any religious thought other than what is traditionally its own. Those criticisms have a basis of truth if we look at the not too distant history of the Catholic Church. To the credit of the Catholic Church of the modern era, we have also to say that those trends have begun to change.

 The most striking testimony of that change is to be found in the documents produced by the latest Council of the Roman Catholic Church, the one called the "Second Vatican Council" and held from 1962 to 1965. The Council has shown that the Catholic Church is growing conscious of the need and value of rethinking its traditional attitudes to other cultures, other religions, and other Christian denominations and, in brief, of its need to be concerned with the contemporary problems of society.

 Protestant Churches

 The first characteristic that strikes anybody who looks at Protestantism is its multiformity. The denominationalism of the Protestant Church-system has no parallel either in the Orthodox Churches or in the Catholic Church. The Protestant Church when taken as a separate unit, is only an agglomeration of a large number of independent Christian communities.

 Because of its divisions and subdivisions Protestantism could appear weak. But institutional multiformity belongs to the very nature of Protestantism. It is what it opted for when it upheld liberalism in religious thought as an intrinsic element of Christianity. Protestantism adheres to the principle that individuals should be free under the guidance of the Spirit, to interpret and understand religion. That principle replaced the one followed in the Catholic Church which demanded that believers should submit to one teaching authority.

 When looked at from that angle, Protestantism is not weak. It makes a vital contribution to the forward movement of Christianity. In fact, it was Protestantism that made Christianity enter the modern scientific era. To understand the role of Protestantism objectively and contextually, it is better not to look at it as a branch of Christianity separate from Catholicism and Orthodoxism. What it contributed to Christianity becomes more intelligible when it is taken as a phenomenon pervading the whole of Christianity, the phenomenon namely of self-criticism and self-examination.

 Protestantism helped Christianity to ask itself to what extent Christianity was truly Christian, and whether it was relevant to the contemporary world. Whether the answer Protestantism gave is entirely flawless, is another matter. But the fact that Christianity in its global form was awakened to the need for self-criticism by Protestantism can never be denied, and that will always remain to its credit.

 Protestantism awakened traditional Christianity to its shortcomings in a number of areas. Two of them deserve to be specifically mentioned. First, it showed the place that the laity and specially married people should have within the Church. Western Christianity up to the 16th century was generally managed by people who had withdrawn from family life, namely bishops, priests, monks and nuns who had all taken the vow of celibacy.

 Second, it showed that religion, to be worthwhile to people had to be intelligible and so available to them in their own languages. It was Protestantism that introduced liturgical services in the language of the people and made the Bible available to people in their mother tongue. What Protestantism did was nothing new. What was introduced had already existed in early Christianity. Married people played a great part in early Christianity and religion was expressed in the language of the people. It was Christianity of a later era which suppressed those aspects.

 The lessons taught by Protestantism were for a long time resented by the Catholic Church and even totally ignored. That may well be because of the aggressive way they were initially put forward. But those lessons have not failed to have their effect. Even though as much as four hundred years later, the Catholic Church has learnt the lesson and adopted the practice of holding liturgical services in the language of the people. The Protestants not only saw the shortcomings of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Reformation. In course of time, they saw their own shortcomings too. Some 400 years after the Reformation, they discovered the harm that disunity and dissension among their organizations inflicted on their very cause. They saw the importance of bringing about a spirit of collaboration and a program of joint activity among the denominations.

 The movement that was to bring this about is called the "Ecumenical Movement" and could be rendered in a simpler language as the "one-Church movement". The central organization called the "World Council of Churches" which originated in 1948 stands as the biggest first achievement of that movement. This organization has brought under its auspices over 300 Church bodies and provides them with a plan to work together while retaining their individual identities. The Orthodox Churches have accepted membership in it. The Roman Catholic Church, for a long time very antagonistic to anything Protestant, works in association with the World Council of Churches.

 III. NEW CHURCHES AND MOVEMENTS

 The liberal spirit unleashed by the Protestant Reformation did not stop even with the reformed movements within the Reformed Churches. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it led to the rise of a large number of New Churches sometimes referred to also as "Sects" or "New Movements".

 Most of them were initiated by individuals who hailed from Protestant circles. Still, in form and purpose these Churches are so untraditional and so original that it is difficult to classify them as Protestant Churches. For easier identification, they are better referred to as "Post-Protestant Churches" or simply "New Churches". According to the trends they represent, these New Churches can be subdivided into four groups (a) Adventist, (b) Pentecostal, (c) Rationalist and (d) miscellaneous.

 Adventists give importance to the second coming of Christ as judge at the end of the world which they consider is nearby. Some Adventist Churches of today are the Seventh Day Adventists, the Adventist Christian Church, the Abrahamic Faith, the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Primitive Adventist Christian Church. Pentecostals focus attention on the action of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of individuals. Some Pentecostal Churches of today are the Assemblies of God, the Church of God in Christ, the United Pentecostal Church, and the (Non-White)Indigenous Christians.

 Rationalists stress the need to respect the rational mind when talking of religion. Some Rationalist Churches of today are the Unitarians, the Disciples of Christ, Christian Science and the Church of Scientology. Those who cannot be included under those categories have to be put under "Miscellaneous". Two that could be mentioned are the Church of Christ of the Latter Day Saints (or Mormons) and the Unification Church of the Holy Spirit

 The number of Christian Churches that have arisen in the post-Protestant era and are continuing to arise still today is so large that it is not possible for anyone to keep even just their names in mind. Some Churches are of such recent origin that their Founders are still alive. There is not the least doubt that newer and newer Churches will continue to be founded in the future.

 However untraditional these new Churches be, there is one characteristic common to practically all of them. They are very popular. They have an appeal particularly to youth that most traditional Churches do not seem to have. The reason for the popularity may well be that they fill a gap created by traditional Churches. For that reason, we have to say that the New Movements have an important role to play in contemporary society.

IV. SOLUTION TO DISUNITY

 That in brief is the story of Christianity's evolution into its 20th century multi-denominational multi-ideological form. The picture of a disunited, splintered Christianity that it creates is not an enticing one. The disturbing side of this disunity has probably not been brought out anywhere so sharply as in a cartoon strip published in the World Christian Encyclopedia 2. That cartoon strip --the only one in the whole Encyclopedia--has four boxes to it. In each of them one old man with little hair on his head, probably as a sign of age and wisdom, is shown making a statement. All his four statements are about a "guy" called Jesus and the Church he founded. The statements are as follows: (a) About 2000 years ago they asked this guy what he felt was his most important message. (b) He said "Love one another". (c) Out of his message evolved 20,780 distinct religious denominations. (d) And they all hate each other!

 What is important, however, is not to be disturbed or depressed at what has happened, but to be realistic and see where the solution for it lies. The problem of division that we are facing is a problem that pertains to Christianity taken in its institutional form and not to Christianity in its Christianness or spirituality form.

 If, in the way upheld throughout this book, Christianity is taken as a form of spirituality or as what gives people a vision to live rightly, then we can rest assured that members of different denominations will spontaneously feel united together and that the barriers which separate denominations will automatically break down. What we should never forget is that Christianity of the Christianness form has within it the spiritual dynamism to bring about a deep unity of heart between Christians of all denominations and what is no less important, between Christians and non-Christians.

 .............................

1. Barrett David B, World Christian Encyclopedia: A Compa-

rative Study of Churches and Religions in the Modern World

AD 1900 - 2000 (Oxford, Oxford university Press, 1982) p.3.

2. Ibid. p.17

Chapter Eleven

 BELIEFS ABOUT JESUS CHRIST

 However divided Christianity may be in organization and administration, still we have to say that there are several beliefs that all the denominations have in common. Of these the one about Jesus Christ could be considered the most important and also the most complex. In the history of Christianity the issue of the person of Jesus has led to endless controversies. As a result, in the Christianity of today there are not only teachings by Jesus but also about Jesus.

 To find out the beliefs of Christians is easy. They are contained in lists of doctrinal affirmations called "Creeds". The word comes from Latin "credere" for "believe". Of these, the one considered the oldest is the "Apostles' Creed". The ideas contained in it are assumed to have originated in the time of the apostles, even though the text has been composed only in the fourth century. From that time it has been the formula most commonly used by Christians for the profession of their faith. The Apostles' Creed consists of six themes :

 I believe,

a) in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth,

b) and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell,

the third day he rose again from the dead,

He ascended into heaven

and sitteth there at the right hand of the Father,

From thence he shall come to judge the living and the dead.

c) I believe in the Holy Spirit

d) the Holy Catholic Church,

the communion of Saints,

e) the forgiveness of sins,

f) the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.

Out of the six themes the one on Jesus is the longest which shows the importance attached to it. Further, while all the others are mentioned in topic-form, this is presented as an abridged biography. In it, Jesus' whole life is recounted from the moment he was conceived in the womb of his mother to things that happened --or even are still to happen-- after his death.

 Of the numerous affirmations Christians make about Jesus, there are two that are paramount. One is that he is the Son of God, and the other that he rose from the dead. Those attributions are also generally made use of to indicate the uniqueness of Jesus as a teacher of religion. The tendency to consider the founder of one's religion unique is not exclusive to Christians. The impulse is natural to all believers. The Buddhists and Muslims, for example, uphold that no religion-teacher either before or after can equal theirs. For the Buddhists, the Buddha is the only "all-knowing" the only "fully enlightened" individual. For the Muslims, Mohammed is the "last prophet" and "the greatest".

 In Christianity, both notions, namely that Jesus is the Son of God and that he rose from the dead are expressed in the New Testament. We will here examine them one after the other.

 I. JESUS, SON OF GOD

 The practice among Christians of referring to Jesus their master as "Son of God" goes back to the earliest times. The Gospels provide ample proof for the origin of that practice. A good example is the narrative of Jesus' birth. The Gospel of Luke reads as follows:

 The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, with a message for a girl betrothed to a man named Joseph, a descendent of David; the girl's name was Mary. The angel went in and said to her, "Greetings most favored one! The Lord is with you. "But she was deeply troubled by what he said and wondered what this greeting might mean. Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for God has been gracious to you; you shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall give him the name Jesus. He will be great; He will bear the title "Son of the Most High"; the Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David, and he will be king over Israel for ever; his reign shall never end". "How can this be" said Mary; "I am still a virgin." The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for the reason, the holy child to be born will be called "Son of God". "Here am I" said Mary; "I am the Lord's servant; as you have spoken, so be it." Then the angel left her...

 The story goes on. Jesus is born at Bethlehem where Joseph had to go with Mary to get their names registered at a national census. The baby was born in a stable.

 She wrapped him in his swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them to lodge in the house. Now in this same district there were shepherds in the fields, keeping watch through the night over their flock, when suddenly there stood before them an angel of the Lord, and the splendor of the Lord shone round them;..the angel said, "Do not be afraid; I have good news for you: there is a great joy coming to the whole people. Today in the city of David, a deliverer has been born to you,--the Messiah, the Lord....All at once there was with the angel a great company of the heavenly host, singing the praises of God: "Glory to God in highest heaven, and on earth his peace for men on whom his favor rests" (Lk 1:26-38; 2:1-14).

 A story such as this could affect readers diversely. It can lead some to a deep veneration for Jesus. The quasi-celestial narrative-form helps them to see the sublimity of his life and work. But it makes others discard the Gospels as books with incredible stories. They conclude that there is no historic value whatsoever in the report. When reading such stories, therefore, it is important to understand what their composers wanted to convey.

 Evaluation of Life: Stories that bring angels (or devils) into the scene are not intended by their authors to be taken literally. But they have something important to tell. What the angels say at the beginning of Jesus' life reflects the convictions that the Jewish followers of Jesus had after his death. In him they saw their dream of the expected redeemer, the Messiah, fulfilled. The angels tell the shepherds, "Today a deliverer has been born to you, the Messiah, the Lord". To make the shepherds understand who the Messiah is, he is shown in his connection to David: "Joseph, a descendent of David", "throne of his ancestor David", "in the city of David".

 The Messiah was popularly thought of as a liberator of the caliber of David, the greatest king in the history of the Jews, who would restore political autonomy to them with a throne of their own. In actual fact Jesus did not establish such a kingdom. The followers of Jesus nevertheless, recognized him as the Messiah because Jesus had convinced them that his was not an earthly kingdom. That perception comes out of the song that the heavenly host sang: "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth his peace for men on whom his favor rests". The angels sum up what Jesus is going to do, and also what ultimately he is to mean to the people among whom he worked. So what we are given here as the story of Jesus' birth is actually an evaluation of his life made after his death.

 Son of God: According to the annunciation made to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, Jesus was to be called by the people "Son of the Most High" or "Son of God". The title possibly was first introduced to the Christian community by non-Jewish converts who were acquainted with gods and goddesses. Within the monotheistic frame of Jewish thought, the expression "Son of God" fitted better than just "God". Had Jesus been born in India instead of in Palestine, he would simply have been called "God". In India today one finds a number of "gurus" or teachers of religious philosophies addressed as "Bhagavan" a word not different in meaning from "Lord God".

 The custom of using the title "god" when designating great human beings has nothing unusual about it. Monarchs, saints and founders of religions have been "gods". This tradition has faded in Western society. But reminiscences are not absent. Honorific titles such as "Your Highness", "Your Majesty", "Your Holiness", "Your Excellency" are still in use. Like such terms that of "god" or "Son of God" expresses profound respect and reverence towards a person who is endowed with an extra-ordinary stature.

 Virgin-birth: To anyone who has read a few biographies of holy individuals from different religious traditions, Luke's introduction to the biography of Jesus does not come as a surprise. In religious biographies of most cultures, the virgin-birth is a traditional overture. Hindu "Puranas" for example, contain numerous stories of virgins who were mothers of godly human beings.

 In the Gospels, the Christian significance of virgin-birth is spotlighted in the words of the Angel to Mary: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason, the holy child to be born will be called the "Son of God'". Jesus is the "Son of God" because he is of the "Holy Spirit". That little statement of the angel sums up the secret of the inner life of Jesus and of the dignity of Mary as the mother of a person guided by the Spirit. Virgin-birth is a belief that can be interpreted both rightly and wrongly. Wrongly interpreted, it becomes an insult to womankind as also manhood as it insinuates that giving birth in the natural way is an action which is bad and impure.

 Virgin-birth as a prerogative of all God's children: If the virgin-birth of Jesus is to be understood in the way intended by the Gospels, then it is implied that virgin-birth is not a prerogative exclusive to Jesus but one which he has in common with all those who arrive at the stature of life at which they can be called "Children of God" The fact that all "God's children" are ones who are "not born...by the fleshly desire of a human father" is unambiguously affirmed by the author of the fourth Gospel when he described the appearance of Jesus on earth.

 He (i.e. Jesus) entered his own realm (i.e. the Jewish community) and his own would not receive him. But to all who did receive him, to those who have yielded him their allegiance, he gave the right to become children of God, not born of any human stock, or by the fleshly desire of a human father, but the offspring of God himself (Jn 1: 10-13).

 It is a little unfortunate that those who insist that Jesus is the only one to be born of a virgin do not pay much attention to Biblical texts such as this. From this text it is clear that all those who give allegiance to Jesus are themselves "not born of human stock or by the fleshly desire of a human father". They too are an "off-spring of God himself". If so, "virgin-birth" is a privilege that all true followers of Jesus can claim for themselves.

II. RESURRECTION OF JESUS

 According to the Gospel story, the life of Jesus did not end with death. He rose from the dead. As presented in the Gospels, the resurrection of Jesus is not an accessory detail but the central element of the life-story of Jesus. In the Gospel of Mark it is given as follows:

 When the Sabbath was over, Mary of Magdala, Mary, the mother of James and Salome bought aromatic oils intending to go and anoint him; and very early on the Sunday morning, just after sunrise, they came to the tomb. They were wondering among themselves who would roll away the stone for them from the entrance to the tomb when they looked up and saw that the stone, huge as it was, had been rolled back already. They went to the tomb where they saw a youth sitting on the right-hand side, wearing a white robe; and they were dumbfounded. But he said to them, "Fear nothing; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised again; he is not here; look there is the place where they laid him...."

Later he appeared in a different guise to two of them as they were walking, on their way into the country....Afterwards while the Eleven were at table he appeared to them and reproached them for their incredulity and their dullness, because they had not believed those who had seen him after he was raised from the dead. Then he said to them, "Go forth to every part of the world, and proclaim the Good News to the whole creation. Those who believe it and receive baptism will find salvation; those who do not believe will be condemned..." So after talking with them the Lord Jesus was taken up to heaven, and he took his seat at the right hand of God (Mk 16:1-20).

 Jewish belief in the bodily resurrection: The affirmation of the New Testament that Jesus rose bodily from the dead is one which people of other religions --and even many Christians-- find difficult to accept. The reason is simple. In the history of the human race, there has not been so far a single attested case of one having risen from the dead. Therefore if what is stated in the New Testament is to be meaningful, it must be taken in the light of the belief in the resurrection which prevailed among the Jews of Jesus' era

 In that era --in a way almost inconceivable today-- the Jews believed that the end of the world was on the verge of taking place, if not actually taking place. The end of the present world was to be immediately followed by the dawn of the new peaceful world referred to as the "Kingdom of God". As the new era dawned, all the past generations of Jews would rise from their graves to share the joys of the Kingdom.

 The idea that this world would undergo total destruction is not one special to the Jews of Jesus' time. It existed among the Jews from the time they lost definitively their political independence. For long they believed that this world in which they as a people were constantly harassed and tortured by enemy nations would end and a new era of relief and joy begin. This belief in an end of the world is referred to as "eschatology". The eschatology of the Jews consisted of five elements: a) Coming of a liberator (referred to as "Messiah" or "Christ"), b) Destruction of the present evil world, c) Dawn of the Kingdom of God or the era of peace and joy on earth d) Descent of the Divine Spirit on people for enlightenment of their minds and e) The resurrection of the past generations from their graves to share the joys of the Kingdom.

 Though this end-of-the-world or eschatological perspective had characterized Jewish thought for long, we do not know if the preoccupation with its imminence had been ever so strong as in Jesus' time. The New Testament clearly indicates this preoccupation. Both John the Baptist and Jesus drew attention to it in their preaching ministry. They announced publicly: "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Mt 3:2; 4:17). Paul, the first great diffuser of Christianity, held the view that the end would come before his death and that he and those living with him would not even have to die but would be bodily transformed to be able to enter the new Kingdom (1 Thess. 4:14-17).

 Peter, the chief apostle, in his inaugural sermon on Pentecost day declared that the bestowal of the Holy Spirit was an event prophesied to happen in the last days (Acts 2:17). Finally, the Gospels insinuate that the new era started at the moment of Jesus' death. It had to be so since Jesus was seen by his followers as the Messiah to come and as the inaugurator of the era in which people will rise from their graves. That is how as Jesus breathed his last on the cross, dead Jews were reportedly seen coming out of their graves.

 Jesus again gave a loud cry and breathed his last. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. There was an earthquake, the rocks split and the graves opened, and many of God's servants were raised from sleep; and coming out of their graves after his resurrection they entered the Holy City where many saw them (Mt 27:50-53).

 So, in the way the resurrection was talked of at the very beginning, Jesus is not the only one who rose from the dead. Many others too rose and, as Matthew affirms "they entered the Holy City where many saw them". And, in fact, everybody else too would have risen from the dead if the end of the world, and with it the Kingdom, had come in the way imagined by the Jews at that time. That eschatological thought-pattern of the Jews should not be lost sight of if we are to understand at its roots the belief of contemporary Christians in both the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of humankind.

 Resurrection-Language: There is a great difference in the Gospels between the way in which the trial, the condemnation and the death of Jesus, called in short the "Passion" is reported and the way in which the resurrection is narrated. The former is close to that of reporting news. In fact, the Passion narrative is the part that comes closest to a factual report in the whole Gospel text. The resurrection narrative, on the contrary, follows a religiously pictorial style. It begins with the angels. Their number is given as one in Matthew and Mark (Mt 28:2; Mk 16:5) and two in Luke (Lk 24:4). The end is no less pictorial. Jesus is seen by the disciples being taken up to heaven. Pictures of persons going "up" to heaven or "down" to hell belong to this religious style.

 What is more intriguing about the apparition stories is that Jesus is unrecognizable even by those who knew him best. The first apparition of Jesus (Jo 20:11-18) is to Mary Magdala, a woman who associated with Jesus closely and loved him dearly. Early on Sunday morning, she goes to the tomb where the body had been laid on Friday evening. Seeing the tomb empty she is disturbed, and as she turns to rush back, she sees Jesus but she cannot recognize him. She thinks that he is the gardener. She recognizes him only when he calls her by her name.

 The unrecognizability of Jesus is still more striking in Christ's apparition to his two disciples from Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35). The two disciples were on their way to Emmaus, a place seven miles from Jerusalem. On their journey, they are joined by an unknown but friendly companion. He travels the whole way with them. That companion turns out to be Jesus. The two disciples discover this only at the end of the journey from the way he broke bread when taking the meal together. This story is very strange. Ordinarily speaking, disciples who moved with him closely should have been able to recognize him at once from his facial features.

 A story even more revealing in this regard is the oft-repeated story of Jesus' apparition to Thomas. Thomas one of the chosen twelve, refused to believe that Jesus had risen until he got the chance to put his finger into the place of his wounds. There is something astonishing in this remark of Thomas. Why should a disciple have to look at Jesus' wounds to recognize him? Could his facial features, his accent, his gait have changed so much in just one day, or at most 3-4 days, after their last meal together? Whatever it be, according to the Gospel story, Jesus appears to Thomas and invites him to make the test he wanted. Then Jesus goes on to make a statement which clearly indicates that the reality of the resurrection is better reached by insight than by physical sight. "Because you have seen me, you have believed me, but blessed are those who have not seen and believed "(Jo 20:28).

 This statement which affirms the blessedness of those who believe in Jesus without having ever seen him bodily resurrected has a valuable lesson to offer to those who fancifully imagine that a happening such as the bodily resurrection has by itself the power to induce people to faith in Jesus. Jesus himself didn't think so.

 This is clear from his parable on the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man burning in the fires of hell asked Abraham to send Lazarus into the world to warn the other members of his family. The rich man's argument was "if someone from the dead visits them they will repent." The answer of Abraham was "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets they will pay no heed even if someone should rise from the dead" (Lk 16: 27-31).

 It is further not out of place to mention here that Jesus himself may not have thought of his life after death in terms of a resurrection on the third day. His words to the repentant criminal executed with him on Calvary indicates the contrary. When he pleaded "Jesus, remember me when you come to your throne" Jesus' gracious answer was "I tell you, today you shall be with me in Paradise" (Lk 23:42-43). The Gospel idea of the resurrection has much more in it than can be expressed purely through the image of a bodily resurrection.

 Main Apparition: The apparition-story that could be considered the most revealing is the one in which the resurrected Jesus is seen giving the injunction to the disciples to preach the Gospel to "all nations". In Matthew it is given as follows:

 The eleven disciples made their way to Galilee to the mountain where Jesus had told them to meet him. When they saw him, they fell prostrate before him...Jesus then came up and spoke to them. He said, "Full authority in heaven and on earth has been committed to me. Go forth therefore and make all nations my disciples; baptize men everywhere in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of time" (Mt 28:16-20).

 The apparition is recounted in the three other Gospels too. The accounts, however, are not uniform. According to Matthew (quoted above) Jesus meets the apostles in Galilee on a mountain. According to the others, Jesus meets them in Jerusalem. In Mark it is "while the Eleven were at table" (Mk 16:14). In John, it is "when the disciples were behind locked doors for fear of the Jews" (Jn 20: 23). In John the Spirit is given to the disciples at the end of the apparition itself. "Then he breathed on them saying "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jo 20: 22-23). According to Luke, the descent of the Spirit on Pentecost day is only announced: "I am sending upon you my Father's promised gift. So stay in this city until you are armed with the power from above" (Lk 24: 44). Such variations could make one query if what is described is an authentically historical event.

 All the Gospels agree about the principal aim of the apparition. The four accounts include explicitly or implicitly the injunction to the disciples to preach to "all nations". The injunction that he gives the apostles here to preach the Gospel to the whole world stands in clear contrast to the one he gave when he sent them out to preach during his lifetime. There he strictly forbade them to preach to anybody outside the Jewish community.

 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instruction: Do not take the road to gentile lands and do not enter any Samaritan town. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go proclaim the message "The Kingdom of Heaven is upon you." (Mt 10:5-8)

 The new injunction of Jesus becomes particularly relevant when taken in the context of the problems that the new Church went through in its earliest era. Unlike the Jewish community within which Jesus had worked up to his death, the Christian Church was multi-racial. The apostles had started admitting into it individuals who were not Jews, and that even without demanding adherence to Jewish practices such as circumcision. This naturally led to a certain commotion in the early Church.

 We have seen earlier the controversy that raged between the "Judaizers" and the "anti-Judaizers" regarding the manner of admitting new members. The conflict was so serious that an Ecumenical Council, the "Council of Jerusalem" had to be called in 50 AD to solve it. If the new practice of preaching to non-Jews and of admitting them without circumcision, was to become valid, the old injunction had to be withdrawn and a new one given in its place. If circumcision had to be done away with, then an alternative rite had to be given official approval. This is what Jesus is shown doing in this post-resurrectional apparition. As the leader of the new Church, he tells the apostles to convert all nations using Baptism as the initiation rite.

 This apparition of Jesus which was meant to put right misconceptions about the world-wide mission started by the Church fulfilled a great need of the early Christian era. Nevertheless there are many reasons to doubt whether the apparition in the way given in the Gospel could be historical. There are many elements in the injunction attributed to Jesus that become intelligible only if taken in relation to situations of a much later date.

 One is the allusion to the Baptismal formula. Historians are of the opinion that the use of the contemporary formula "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit" when conferring Baptism is of late origin. The same is true of statements attributed to Jesus such as "Those who believe and receive Baptism will find salvation and those who do not believe will be condemned" (Mk 16:16) and " If you forgive anyone's sins they are forgiven; if you pronounce them unforgiven, unforgiven they are" (Jo 20:23).

 Such statements can be understood only if taken as arising in the era when the Church became institutionalized and Church leaders were seen as endowed with power to decide on the after-death destiny of the members. When seen in that background, the post-resurrectional injunction of Jesus becomes meaningful only if taken as a deep insight of the first Christians into the missionary mind of Jesus and into the universality of his message.

 Resurrection as an affirmation of the value of Jesus death: To see one special significance of the belief of the first Christians in the resurrection of Jesus it must be looked at in the light of the tragic psychological situation the first Christians had fallen into after Jesus' death on the cross. It is impossible for us today to imagine the shock that the death of Jesus would have created in his followers. The cross is the equivalent of our gallows. Jesus died condemned as a criminal. His death, quite naturally, raised questions in their minds for which they had to find adequate answers. How could a good person suffer? Was the cross an indication that the values Jesus upheld was a failure?

 They started reflecting on what Jesus had taught them. They contemplated on his attitude to death. In Jesus' attitude to death they found the answer. According to the Gospels, he had spoken of his forthcoming death at least three times. One instance is reported thus:

...he began to teach them that the Son of Man [i.e. he] had to undergo great sufferings, and to be rejected by the elders, chief priests and the doctors of the law; to be put to death.... He spoke about it plainly. At this Peter took him by the hand and began to rebuke him. But Jesus turned round and looking at his disciples, rebuked Peter 'Away with you Satan' he said 'You think as men think and not as God thinks' (Mk 8:31-32).

 [To avoid a possible confusion it is useful to mention that in this text of Mark, after the words "to be put to death" is included the phrase "to rise again three days afterwards". Scholars are of the opinion that this is a later interpolation, for if Jesus had referred to his resurrection at this moment, the reaction of Peter would have been one of approval and not of resistance as here. Further, the words that follow "He spoke of it plainly" becomes textually relevant only if Jesus spoke here exclusively of his suffering and death. ]

 Reflecting on references such as these that Jesus made about his forthcoming death, his followers realized that they should not look at his death on the cross "as men think" but as "God thinks". They realized that if, like Peter, they had been shocked at the happenings initially, it was because they were thinking "as men think". In the light of God's plan, Jesus had looked at his suffering and death as an essential step for the establishment in society of the values of truth and justice that he had lived for. He knew that, in the way God had ordained things, individuals who fight for truth and justice have to sacrifice everything, -- even their lives-- for the cause. It was that idea that he had alluded to when, in his sermon on the mount, he said "How blest are those who have suffered persecution for the cause of right; the kingdom of Heaven is theirs" (Mt 5:10). And so, he looked at the forthcoming passion and death as the "hour" which would bring both God and him "glorification".

 (When Judas had gone out) Jesus said 'Now the Son of Man is glorified, and in him God is glorified' (Jn 13: 31).

After these words Jesus looked up to heaven and said: Father the hour has come. Glorify thy Son that thy son may glorify thee (Jn 17:1)

 The first Christians clearly saw that Jesus' death on the cross was not something abominable to be deplored but a "glorification" to rejoice at. The cross was not a failure for Jesus but a sign of his victory. The conviction that Jesus' death when taken "as God thinks" is really a glorification is one important element that the first Christians affirmed by their belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

 Resurrection of Human beings: Not only the resurrection of Jesus, but also the resurrection of all human beings is a basic doctrine of Christianity. As a matter of fact the two are intrinsically and inseparably linked. In the mind of the very first Christians who were Jews the more basic belief was in the resurrection of all human beings. This was to take place at the advent of the Kingdom of God or the era in which God was truly King. Jesus resurrection was just the starting point of that universal resurrection.

 But if we are to understand that resurrection of the whole of humanity realistically, we must keep in mind that there is a level of human life that is above the purely physical. That level of life is unassailable by physical death. When seen in the right perspective, the doctrine of the Resurrection is not a doctrine of life's survival, but of life's fullness. It is not a teaching on after-life but on higher-life. Resurrection is not the outcome of just dying but of dying to oneself.

 Such a sublime level of life is affirmed by all religions when taken in the Life-vision form. The Hindu ideal of "Moksha" (self-liberation) and the Buddhist ideal of "Nirvana" (self-abnegation) have much in common with the Christian resurrection.

 When seen in that light, the belief in the resurrection could also be taken as a corollary to the belief in the fallen state of human beings affirmed in the Bible story of creation. According to that story, all children of Adam and Eve are born in the sad state of sin or propensity to sin. But happily for them they are not destined to live in that "fallen" state all their life. They have also the inner potency to resurrect themselves from that plight

 Resurrection refers therefore to a sublime level of life that is achievable already in one's present existence. It was while Jesus was alive that he said, "I am the resurrection and the life" (Jn 11:25). That is the type of resurrected life that he envisaged also for those who followed him. As he said,

 In very truth, I tell you anyone who gives heed to what I say and puts his trust in him who sent me has hold of eternal life, and does not come up for judgment, but has already passed from death to life. In truth, in very truth I tell you, a time is coming, indeed it is already here, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and all who hear shall come to life (Jn 5:24-25).

 According to that statement of Jesus to be resurrected is to have "already passed from death to life". The "time" for rising from the dead is "already here". This is clear even from Jesus' story of the Prodigal Son. When the elder son objected to the celebrations held on the younger brother's return, the father said: "How could we help celebrating this happy day? Your brother here was dead and has come back to life? (Lk 15:32).

 The two beliefs about Jesus discussed above pertain to the essence of Christian faith. No one can claim to be truly Christian without professing that Jesus is Son of God and that he rose from the dead. But the profession required by the Bible is of such an existential nature that it cannot be appropriately done by just the public recitation of statements on the divinity and the resurrection given in a creed. The proper way to profess belief in the divine Sonship of Jesus is to act in one's day to day life as a true "son (or daughter) of God". The correct way to affirm belief in the resurrection of Jesus is to live one's life now as a person resurrected from the spiritually dead state that self-centered human beings always find themelves in.

Chapter Twelve

 RITES AND CELEBRATIONS

If we are to understand any religion in its actually practiced form, there are two basic elements that we have to get well acquainted with. They are beliefs and rites. But of the two, the second is more difficult to understand than the first. In the last chapter we have examined the beliefs of the Christians. Now we have to examine their rites and celebrations.

 If rites are more difficult to understand than beliefs, the reason is not difficult to find. The sentiments of religion to express which rites are used belong to a level of the human mind that is more sub-conscious than conscious. What is felt at the subconscious level cannot be expressed in words as those that pertain to the conscious level. They can be expressed only through body gestures. To be perceivable they have to be acted out. Gestures are naturally more difficult to descipher than words. That is why rites are more difficult to discuss than beliefs.

 Even though much cannot be said analytically about rites it is only appropriate that , before we go to rites proper to Christianity, we try to have a glimpse of the general role of rites in religions. In this chapter, we will first look at rites in the form found in all religions and then at the rites and celebrations of the Christians along with their festivals and personal devotions.

 I. RITES IN RELIGIONS

 It is difficult for us to say what all the sentiments are which are rooted in the subconscious and get expressed through religious rites. But when we look at the more understandable rites in different religions, we can safely conclude that there are two sentiments which are basic. One is the sentiment that we could refer to as the sense of the Sacred or the Sublime and which leads to the rite of "worship". The other is the sense of affinity that members of a community feel towards each other and which leads to the rite of "communion". The two deserve to be examined separately.

Worship

 However verbally inexpressible it be, human beings seem to have deep within them a conviction that they are not totally autonomous. With regard to the very life they have received they are dependent. This subconscious conviction creates in them a sense of the Sublime. What is felt as the Sublime in the hearts of individuals is, in different religious traditions, translated into pictures in diverse ways to satisfy the natural curiosity of the imagination.

 Monotheistic religions express it in terms of an Almighty God, polytheistic religions as a pantheon of gods and goddesses. In whatever way the reality is imagined, from time immemorial people of all different cultures have used gestures and actions to express their acknowledgment of it as well as their personal response to it. We mention just a few of those gestures which we feel are found practically in every religion .

First, people leave their homes and go to shrines, churches and temples to pray. They feel that such places because they are considered sacred are more appropriate for giving expression to their sense of the Sublime. The need they feel to get out of home for that purpose may be an outcome of the inner need they feel to get out of themselves,--their selfish selves, to come in contact with the Sublime.

 Second, in most traditions people feel the need to purify themselves before they go to a shrine to pray. They bathe before going to the shrine or wash themselves at the entrance to the shrine. In certain religions "holy water" is sprinkled on the participants at the inception of services. The behavior is based on the sub-conscious conviction that before the Sublime they are unclean. Devotees know the nature of the purification they need. It is from the dirt of selfishness in their minds.

 The third is the gesture that is most symbolic of veneration. In shrines people prostrate themselves or fall on their knees. The former is more common in Asian countries and the latter in Western countries. Other gestures such as joint palms, closed eyes, raised arms accompany them. Veneration seems to express the understanding that people have of their creatureliness. Human beings seem to recognize that in themselves and without link with the Sublime, they are nothing.

 A fourth which we could consider the gesture typical of "worship" is that of "offering". Devotees offer to the unknown Sacred Power something they own or have made their own. What is offered could be flowers, foodstuff, animals (killed for the purpose) or more commonly today money. Whatever be the material offered, devotees offer it with the subconscious conviction that what is owned is only seemingly so. Nothing is really owned, not even life.

 A final factor we can mention is that people feel the need to be in union with the Sublime at the more important moments of life and very particularly when they start new stages in their lives. Thus almost every religion has rites to be performed when individuals are born, read letters for the first time, come to the age of puberty or adolescence, get married, start a new profession, go into a new residence, get sick and finally die. Individuals feel at these moments that there is more to life than is under their control.

Communion

 That sense of the Sublime is however not the only subconscious sentiment that is given expression to through rites. Rites are used also to express the affinity that members of a community have with each other. The "community" as understood here is more generally of the racially, regionally or institutionally homogeneous type. If followers of a religion assemble together periodically, often weekly, at services it is to give expression to their sense of community and experience the warmth of communion or oneness with each other. Such services are generally woven around a common meal. Because of the numbers participating, the meal is more often than not a symbolic one. What is often partaken of together is only a bit of something eatable and a sip of something drinkable.

 Here we must also not fail to take note of the fact that when taken in its communion form, rites are not exclusive to religion. Even though not called "rites" the reality implied is found in secular society too. In secular society they are generally referred to simply as "functions" or "celebrations". Nations have their rites; army parades, the hoisting of the national flag are such. National ceremonies commemorating the gaining of independence in government or of victories in wars are the same.

 Families have theirs. Tea ceremonies, birthday parties are examples. Even the daily supper taken by a family seated at a table is a rite. There is more to a meal taken by a family seated around a well-laid table than the satiation of hunger, for which one could, equally well, go to the kitchen and eat straight from the pots and pans. It has also to be observed that secular rites seem to have a greater attraction to many modern people than religious ones. The reason could be that the symbols and gestures used in them are less archaic and so more meaningful and easier to accommodate to.

 Inter-religious harmony

 There is however one last point that we feel should not be left unmentioned in a study on religion like this. In the way rites are actually performed today, there is one consequence that does not seem to contribute to the welfare of humanity taken as a whole. This happens because the community that every religion brings together and tries to keep united is always its own. Members of other communities are generally not welcome at religious services of one community. In some religions, participation by outsiders is totally forbidden .

 The situation that ensues makes an impartial observer ask if religions while unifying their own communities are not dividing and compartmentalizing humanity. It would be more in keeping with the true spirit of religion if religions, while using their traditional rites to keep their community together, created anew other rites at which people of other communities too could join. Such rites would promote inter-religious harmony and bring about the unity of humanity. There is in the modern world a blatant need for rites that are inter-religious.

II. MAIN CHRISTIAN CELEBRATIONS

 Christians have a large number of rites and they are generally different from denomination to denomination and even from locality to locality. But they have a few which, are considered more important than others and these are common to, if not all, at least to most denominations. The method of performing them is laid down in detail. They have also to be presided over by an official representative of the Church. In the mainline Churches they are referred to as "Sacraments". The number of Sacraments is not uniform in all the different denominations. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches recognize seven. They are:

 (a) Baptism, the ceremony by which a new member is admitted to the Church. The ritual consists of an immersion in water, or more simply, of a pouring of water on just the forehead. The rite is performed on infants or adults.

 (b) Confirmation which is meant to confirm an individual's membership in the Church. It is usually performed by a higher dignitary such as a bishop on those who have received Baptism in their infancy and now have attained the age of reason.

 (c) Eucharist, the ritual community-meal that brings Christians together mainly on Sundays.

 (d) Penance at which Christians confess their sins and receive absolution or pardon.

 (e) Extreme Unction, a ritual of anointing sick Christians, particularly those at the door of death.

 (f) Holy Orders, the rite performed by bishops when raising a candidate to the office of deacon, priest or bishop.

 (g) Matrimony, the rite performed by the bride and the bridegroom in the presence of a priest in view of accepting each other as husband and wife.

 The Protestant Churches, except the Anglican Church, do not recognize all the above seven rites as sacraments. The Council of Trent, (1545 AD) at which they were fixed, took place after the Protestants had broken away from the Catholic Church. They accept as sacraments only Baptism and the Eucharist. Those two are, in fact, the only ones mentioned in the New Testament. There are a few Protestant Churches, such as the Salvation Army and the Society of Friends, called also Quakers, that do not recognize even those two sacraments. They have other observances.

 The Eucharist

 Of all the rites or sacraments, the one that is most revered by the Christians is the Eucharist. The word "Eucharist" derives from the Greek for "thanksgiving". Today it is a weekly celebrated --and in certain denominations, even a daily celebrated-- ritual meal. As a community ceremony, the Eucharist or the "Thanksgiving-meal" goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.

 The meal, as observed in Catholic, Orthodox, and some Protestant Churches, consists of unleavened bread and wine. Because of the large numbers taking part, bread is served in the form of very small circular wafers. With regard to the distribution of wine, the customs are more varied. In the Catholic Church, except at special occasions, wine is partaken of only by the priest. In Churches like the Anglican and the Lutheran, participants are given a sip of wine from a cup called the chalice, or the wafer is given dipped in the wine. In denominations of later origin, non-alcoholic drinks and ordinary bread have replaced wine and unleavened bread.

 Many non-Christians are a little taken aback to see an alcoholic drink consumed at the Christian ritual meal. But the custom has to be judged in the context of the region in which Christianity originated. In Palestine, as in other Middle Eastern countries, where grapes are a home-grown food crop, wine is part of the normal meal just as milk, tea, coffee or water are in other countries.

 Christians trace the rite of the Eucharist to the last meal that Jesus took with the apostles. All Jewish families had to take part in a special ritual meal on the occasion of their greatest festival, the Pasch. At the Pasch the Jews recalled their liberation from slavery in Egypt and their emergence into an independent race. The meal was called the Paschal meal. It was at one festival of the Pasch that Jesus was arrested and put to death by his opponents. A few hours before the arrest, he celebrated the Paschal meal along with his disciples. Since he was aware of the danger to his life, he made use of the Paschal meal to clarify to his disciples the spirit with which he was facing death. He showed them that if death was inevitable, he would accept it in trust on God and in a spirit of self-sacrifice. In the sharing of the bread and wine with his disciples, he used words that made his decision clear.

 During supper, Jesus took bread, and having said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples with the words, "Take this and eat, this is my body". Then he took the cup, and having offered thanks to God he gave it to them with the words: "Drink from it all of you. For this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, shed for many for the forgiveness of sins" (Mt 26:26-29).

 Christians have always looked at this text not only as an account of Christ's last Paschal meal, but also as a text describing the institution of the rite of the Eucharist. Because of that understanding, this text is repeated in the same words today by the priest who presides at the Eucharist. The recitation of the text by the celebrant is considered the most sacred part of the Eucharist ritual.

 Christians further, from earliest times, have believed that whenever this ritual meal is held, Jesus is there in a special manner, to preside over it and partake of it. This presence has been explained, in various ways by different groups of Christians. Those of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions for example, take the words of Jesus, "This is my body", "This is my blood" in a literal sense, and affirm that he is present physically, though invisibly, in the very bread and wine shared at the meal.

 Quite understandably, the Eucharist is called "Communion" or "Holy Communion". The name points to one of the principal functions of the ritual meal which is to bring about union or unity among the participants. Another popular name for the Eucharist is that of the "Lord's Supper". The Christians have always looked at the last supper of Jesus as an event that deserves to be constantly commemorated and meditated on. There is no other event that shows the spirituality of Jesus so clearly as this. What he said and did at that meal had many great lessons to teach. It showed Jesus' spirit of self-sacrifice, which animated him all through his life. It pointed equally to Jesus' deep spirit of love. According to John, Jesus' longest and greatest sermon on love was given on this occasion (Jo 14:1-17:29). It was here that he said, "This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you".

 Among the Roman Catholics, the Eucharist is referred to as the "Mass" from the Latin word "missa" with which the celebration ends. The Mass is celebrated in churches every day, but the Sunday Mass is obligatory. From the 1960s the Mass is celebrated in the Catholic Church too in the language of the participants. Till then, it was in Latin.

 Since the celebration of the Eucharist is woven round a meal, one should not get the impression that it consists of nothing but the ritual meal. The Communion Service consists actually of two parts of which the communion meal is the second. The first is arranged as a class or meditational exercise. In that part, participants are presented with selected texts from the Old and the New Testament to meditate on. This is followed by a sermon given by a preacher on the read-out texts or on any other aspect of Christian belief. The contribution this first part has made to the education of Christians is enormous. The Sunday Service could well be considered the biggest religious instruction institution of Christianity.

Festivals

 As in all religions, in Christianity as well, there are not only religious ceremonies that are performed throughout the year but also religious festivals that are celebrated once a year. Of the Christian festivals, the Pasch and Christmas can be considered the two most important.

 The Pasch is a festival that Christians have observed from the very beginning. They adopted it from the Jews just as the Jews had earlier adopted it from the inhabitants of Palestine. When adopting the Jewish festival, the Christians gave it a new meaning just as the Jews had done earlier when adopting the harvest festival of the inhabitants of Palestine. Christians commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 In English, Pasch is called Easter. "Easter" comes from the word "Eastre" an old English term for the goddess of spring. Easter can be looked at also as a Christian version of the Spring Festival. Spring, in cold climates, brings new life to dead Nature. So does the festival of Pasch or Easter to the dead spirit of the individual. Though celebrated on a Sunday, the date of Easter, being calculated according to the Lunar calendar, varies from year to year. Ordinarily it falls in April. It is preceded by a week of preparatory rites called Holy Week. The Jewish Pasch itself was preceded by such a week of preparation.

 The festival of Christmas, on which Christians commemorate the birthday of Jesus, is of much later origin. It was created in the fourth century to replace a popular non-Christian festival held in honor of the sun-god. Among Catholics and Protestants, Christmas is celebrated on the 25th of December. Among Orthodox Christians it is celebrated two weeks later on the 6th of January under the name of Epiphany or the Manifestation of Jesus to the world.

 These two festivals of Easter and Christmas which are celebrated with more gaiety and cheer than most other festivals are traditionally preceded by lengthy periods of fasting and penance. The period that precedes Easter consists of forty days and is called "Lent", another old English term for Spring. The opening day of Lent is called "Ash Wednesday". On that day ash made from burnt palm leaves is smeared on the foreheads of Christians by the priest as a reminder of the transience of life. The rite today reminds people of death which reduces human beings to dust and ashes.

 The period of four weeks which precedes Christmas is called "Advent" which in its Latin root means "coming," a reference to the coming of Christ into the life of believers. The seasons of Lent and Advent serve as a reminder to Christians that gaiety and cheer should never be detached from self-control and right life-values.

Devotional Observances

 Other religious practices and customs are followed by Christians in their homes or in private life. In many families, for example, the custom is practiced of saying a prayer before meals or before retiring to bed at night. In Roman Catholic homes a meditative form of prayer called the Rosary or the Beads is used as the family night prayer. The use of a chain of beads as an aid to meditation is common to many religions. The Roman Catholics have adopted the same practice giving it a Christian form.

 Christian homes are often adorned with crosses and crucifixes. In Catholic homes, images of the Virgin Mary and other saints also are used for the purpose. Some Christians wear crosses or images of the Virgin and the saints around their neck. Practices such as these are generally referred to in Theology books as "sacramentals" so as to distinguish them from those rites officially recognized as sacraments.

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Part V. CHRISTIANNESS: A VISION TO LIVE BY

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 Chapter Thirteen

 A VISION OF THE FULLER SELF

Having seen what the Old and New Testaments say about Christianity in its earliest form and having seen what the Church or the community of Christians is as found today, we have now to go to the final part of our study, namely, the vision that Christianity offers to people of any creed or caste about the state of nobility that human beings can achieve and the path to it.

 If religion taken in its proper sense stands for a vision of life, then it is its task to make it possible for people to see the answer to the questions they constantly ask themselves: "What is it to live rightly and fully?" "How could I live the human life I am endowed with at its highest and noblest level?" These are, of course, questions to answer which a deep insight into life is necessary. That is because it is not easy for anybody to say categorically what it is to be perfectly human. It is easier to describe what it is to be inhuman or non-human than what it is to be human.

 But on the other hand, we have also to admit that no new or unusual effort is necessary for human beings to become fully and truly human. If they can get rid of the internal and external pressures that keep their minds blind, human beings are sublimely human naturally. The humanness of human beings is in that sense like eye-sight. The very nature of the eyes is to be able to see what is around. But if the eyes are blind-folded, as in games children play, even in sunlight the eyes cannot see. So to make the eyes actually see, nothing has to be done anew except remove the folding that covers the eye.

 Religion itself hasn't to create a vision. Human beings have in their very nature a potency for it. Religion has only to help individuals dispel the distortions that have crept in through unenlightened external influences and one's own misguided desires. It is by pointing to life in its right form that religion makes people spiritual, holy or saintly. In this chapter we will examine two vital aspects of that vision, namely, the higher life and the fuller self. We will conclude with a note on personal prayer, the exercise which enables a person to maintain and foster that higher and fuller level of life.

 I. THE HIGHER LIFE

 As pointed out by practically all religions, human beings have always before them two levels to chose from for their pattern of life on earth. Each level has its attractions and the choice is laden with its own consequences. Jesus clearly distinguished between the two levels and identified true religion with the higher level of behavior.

 It is this aspect of Jesus' insight into life that forms the basis, particularly, of John's Gospel. It is a pity that many do not feel as much at ease with the Gospel of John as with the other three Gospels. This is because it is full of symbols and images. But the purpose of the symbols is simple. It is to depict the two levels of life. When the symbols are seen in their purpose, the Gospel of John becomes a very illuminative book on Christian spirituality or of the Christian form of mental maturity.

 Jesus used a number of symbols. The most common is that of "life" and " death". He referred to the higher life as "everlasting life" or "eternal life". The joys of this life are not short-lived and transitory as the pleasures achieved through sense-gratification. In comparison to that higher life, the lower life is death. People without the right type of life are like walking corpses.

 In very truth, anyone who gives heed to what I say and puts his trust on him who sent me has hold of eternal life, and does not come up for judgment, but has already passed from death to life (Jn 5:24).  

When speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he used the image of water. The "living water" as opposed to just well water represented the higher level of life. "The water I shall give him will be an inner spring always welling up for eternal life" (Jn 4:13-14). A third image was that of food. The higher level was sustained by the "food of eternal life". "You must work not for this perishable food, but for the food that lasts, the food of eternal life" (Jn 6:26-27). Still another image and the one that could be considered the most revealing is that of "flesh" and "spirit". When Nicodemus asked if he had to be reborn physically to enter the Kingdom, Jesus' answer was, "Flesh can give birth only to flesh; it is the Spirit that gives birth to spirit" (Jn 3:3-7). For Jesus life of the spirit as opposed to that of the flesh involved also life in the "Spirit".

Life in the Spirit

 Paul who understood well Jesus' distinction between the two levels of life particularly as expressed in the image of "flesh" and "spirit" explained without ambiguity what life in the Spirit meant in his letter to the Galatians.

 If you are guided by the Spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of your lower nature. That nature sets its desires against the Spirit, while the Spirit fights against it. They are in conflict with one another....Anyone can see the kind of behavior that belongs to the lower nature: fornication, impurity, and indecency; idolatry and sorcery; quarrels, a contentious temper, envy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions, party intrigues and jealousies; drinking bouts, orgies and the like. I warn you as I warned you before that those who behave in such ways will never inherit the Kingdom of God.

 But the harvest of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness fidelity, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law dealing with such things as these. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the lower nature with its passions and desires. If the Spirit is the source of our life, let the Spirit also direct our course (Gal 5:16-25).

II. THE FULLER SELF

 What could be the reality that Jesus as also Paul understood by the word "Spirit"? The Spirit referred to could not be just the psyche of the individual, in which case the Spirit will be different from person to person. The reference is to a universal Spirit of an unfathomable dimension animating all human beings of a particular mental state. The idea of a quasi-cosmic Spirit animating individuals implies that the human individual is part of a bigger whole. Is there any sensible foundation for such a belief? To see that we have to get at least a rough idea of the unseen dimensions of individual existence.

A vision of life has always to start with a right perception of what we refer to as the "self". But to perceive the self in its completeness is not easy. Senses alone cannot disclose it. The concept of the "self" based on sense perception is very illusory as it makes people think that each of them is a separate "self". This is evidenced by words constantly used such as "myself" "yourself" "himself" "herself". An understanding of the "self" in its deeper and more comprehensive form can come only from insight. Insight's perception of the "self" is very different from that of the senses.

 Physical inter-link

 Human beings are, no doubt, the most independent units in the universe. Unlike mountains and trees, they can move about. Unlike animals they can think and decide on their own. But are they that independent? Are they really independent of the universe or of their natural environment? The real facts go against the illusion created by the senses.

 Human beings, for instance, cannot sit or stand properly if they are not held in position by the center of gravity that is underneath them. They cannot breathe if there is no air. They cannot survive if the heat around them is not at an appropriate temperature. Human beings are thus inextricably united with Nature. They are tied to Nature by an unseen magnetic force and connected to it by an intricate network.

 The independent individuality that human beings claim to possess is more an optical illusion than an objective reality. The actual fact is that human beings belong to a larger cosmic entity and are an integral part of it. Belonging thus becomes the very backbone of existence. Human beings could, therefore, honestly say to themselves: "I belong, therefore I exist"; or even better "I am part of a whole, therefore I exist". The universe or Nature is like a body of which the human beings are limbs.

 The hand and the foot do not have their own independent center. Their center is the center of the whole body. Human beings therefore cannot be self-centered. That is why for true self-fulfillment they have to become self-less. It is only when individuals feel one with the whole of Nature, and keep united with what Nature considers its center, that they become rightly oriented in their thoughts and actions.

 This link between the individual and Nature is upheld by physical sciences. But the physical sciences do not go further than to state the fact. They do not tell us how that link is to be sustained, developed and safeguarded. For that we have to turn to religion. And we can't ignore the fact that most religions have something very vital to say in that regard.

 In Hinduism, for example, the idea is strongly stressed. According to the Hindu Philosophy called Vedanta, the supreme being named Brahman is also the Atman or the animating soul of the visible universe. The tragedy of human existence according to this philosophy is that human beings are ignorant of this unity and oneness. Human beings have to give up their self-centeredness and recognize their oneness with the Brahman or Atman. In Hinduism the spiritual path that leads to the experience of this union is referred to as the "Wisdom-way" (Gnana Marga).

 The idea that the Bible expresses through its creation narrative is not very different. This narrative is at times wrongly understood as a historical account of the way God created the world. But in reality it is a poem about the goodness, unity and even the divineness of the universe as it is before our eyes. There is nothing that can manifest the face of God to human beings of all ages and of all places as the universe can. Nature is the commonest place where human beings meet God.

Mystical language

 In the New Testament some of the best insights in this matter are found in the Gospel of John. But, of course, to understand John one has to get in tune with his mystical language. The word "mystical" refers to a particular understanding of existence. According to that, a human being is not one who is limited to his or her body but lives in union with the supreme entity beyond himself or herself. John had such a view of life and this comes out clearly in the mystical language which he used to describe the character of Jesus. From what he says in the Gospel, Jesus was a person who was rightly oriented. He did not consider himself the center of his life.

 Jesus looked at God the source of all existence as an affectionate person who could be fondly addressed as "Father". He lived in the conviction that he and the Father were one. Because of his life of mystical union with God, he was in union with everything and everybody that was around him. He was at home with "the birds of the air" and "the lilies in the field" (Mt 6:26-28). He was united with all human beings and particularly with the needy and the helpless whom he considered his brothers and sisters. It was because of his life of mystical union that he saw love as the great law of life and as the great magnetic force that kept the whole universe and particularly humankind united.

 Jesus wanted his disciples too to rise up to that stature. He wanted them to be penetrated by the Spirit. That way they would be united with him and through him with the Father. Taken in its most concrete form, to live in the Spirit was the same as being faithful to right values. People living in the Spirit fulfilled their responsibilities as adults. They followed the "commands" of Jesus. And of these, one was supreme: the command to love one another.

 "If you love me, you will obey my commands; and I will ask the Father and he will give you another to be your Advocate, who will be with you for ever, the Spirit of truth. The world cannot receive him, because the world neither sees nor knows him; but you know him, because he dwells with you, and is in you...

The man who has received my commands and obeys them,--he is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father; and I will love him and disclose myself to him...Anyone who loves me will heed what I say; then my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him" (Jn 14:15-23).

 Many will find it difficult to be at ease with such language. There seem to be contradictions in some statements. For instance, Jesus says that he will ask the Father to send the Spirit on the disciples, and in the course of the same instruction he says that the Spirit is already in them. But mystical language is beyond the logical. The meaning cannot be understood; it can only be sensed. Mystical teachings are not for understanding but for living. Jesus talks of the Father, of himself and of the Spirit to make his listeners sense the divine level at which they too can live their lives.

 Rather unfortunately, mysticism has often been treated in institutional Christianity as the domain of monasticism. What is worse, the monasticism that has been shown to be the most conducive to it is that of the contemplative type for which cloistered life is obligatory. Such a conclusion can in no way be correct since human beings, by their very nature, are made to live in society and lead married lives. This misleading assumption is probably due to the fact that most writers on mysticism, being cloistered themselves, have not felt the need to distinguish between the "world" and "worldliness". For a saintly life, what has to be left behind is only worldliness and not the world.

Jesus was not a monk, nor did he live in a cloister. But he always presented himself as the model of a life lived in the Spirit, or a life lived at its divine level. In the way Jesus explained it, mystical union is within the reach of ordinary people who live in society and lead a family life. It is further not one that could be followed but should be followed by everybody.

 It may not be easy for human beings to grasp intellectually or explain logically what it is to live in the Spirit or be divine. But from the teachings of Jesus the way to it is beyond any doubt. It is the practice of love. Taken in its mystical sense, to love is primarily to keep united with the invisible source of one's existence. But the test and proof of this union with the invisible is the union with what is visible, namely with other human beings and with the universe as whole.

III. PERSONAL PRAYER

 If human beings have a vision of a higher and fuller level at which they can live their lives, then that level becomes one that they have to maintain carefully and foster continuously. There is a very effective way to do that. In Christianity it is referred to as "prayer".

 When taken as a personal exercise prayer has a healing and personality-uplifting power to it. Prayer helps individuals on one side to keep united with the center of their life, and on the other find strength to cope with their day to day problems. Because of this dual function, prayer is generally said to consist of two forms, namely prayer of contemplation or union and prayer of petition. Though distinct, the two forms are not mutually separable.

 Prayer was an integral part of the life of Jesus. According to Mark, during the period of his ministry he started his day with prayer. "Very early next morning, he got up and went out. He went to a lonely spot and remained there in prayer" (Mk 1:35). Often also after finishing some ministerial activity, he retired to prayer. Matthew describes what he did after his preaching to a crowd of five thousand whom he had also supplied with food. "Then he made the disciples embark and go on ahead to the other side; after doing that, he went up the hill-side to pray alone" (Mt 14:23).

 At moments of crisis he found guidance and courage in prayer. At Gethsemane, he prepared for his arrest by prayer. "Jesus then came with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane. He said to them, 'Sit here while I go over there to pray'" (Mt 26:36).

Jesus prayed to God like any other human being. It was in his prayerful humanness that he was divine. The apostles saw Jesus engaged in prayer so often that they requested him to teach them the art of praying. "He was praying in a certain place, and when he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray"(Lk 11:1). To train the disciples in the art of prayer, Jesus gave on that occasion a pattern for prayer. The formula he used is known today among Christians as the "Lord's Prayer". Because of the two words with which it begins it is also called the "Our Father". As a prayer it consists of two parts. The first part is contemplative; the second is a petition, or rather a series of petitions. The text of the "Our Father" with indications of that division, is as follows:

 i) Our Father who art in heaven

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come

Thy will be done on earth,

as it is in heaven.

 

ii) Give us this day our daily bread,

Forgive us our debts

as we forgive our debtors

And lead us not into temptation

But deliver us from evil (Mt 6:9-13).

 The first part of the "Our Father" is an opening greeting full of respect and reverence to God. But beneath it, is the inner yearning of the praying person to be united with the real center of one's life. If expressed in a simpler and less Jewish form, its meaning would be somewhat as follows:

 Almighty source of our life, our begetter and so our loving Father, may your plans and intentions prevail among us human beings too, as they prevail everywhere else in the universe. The sun, moon, stars (i.e. heaven) the rivers and mountains, the birds, fish and jungle beasts follow the laws of Nature which are your laws. They are all correctly focused. It is only we human beings who are not. We are focused on ourselves and so follow the inclinations of our senses rather than the dictates of our conscience. Help us to be rightly focused.

 The second part is a series of petitions. They concentrate on the right way in which a person should look at his or her aspirations, needs, problems and weaknesses. Human beings who are correctly oriented have the same needs and problems as anybody else, but they look at these without losing their sense of priorities, and also with a relaxed, reassured attitude. The first plea, "Give us this day our daily bread" frankly exposes the physical needs of human beings. Food, clothing, shelter, sex, family and friendships are not profane needs that should be kept out of prayer. They are divinely designed human needs. But there is a right way and a wrong way of seeking them. Higher values should never be sacrificed in their search.

 The other three pleas, "Forgive us our debts", "Lead us not into temptation" and "Deliver us from evil" turn the attention to another area of human needs, namely the need to be healed, protected and strengthened internally. The brief phrase "as we forgive our debtors" appended as a condition to the petition "Forgive us our debts", has a lesson all its own. Reunion with God is reunion with other human beings. To forgive others is to be re-united with those from whom we have broken off.

 It is unfortunate that the "Our Father" which was meant to be only a pattern for prayer has become the most used formula for prayer. Prayer formulas have two dangers. They lend themselves easily to a recitation that is mechanical. They also make people forget that, strictly speaking, prayer does not need words. Christ clearly warned his disciples of such dangers when he said:

 When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; they love to say their prayers standing up in synagogue and at the street corners, for everyone to see them.... when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place; and your Father who sees what is secret will reward you. In your prayers do not go babbling on like the heathen, who imagine that the more they say the more likely they are to be heard. Do not imitate then. Your Father knows your needs before you ask him (Mt 6:5-8).

 Prayer is so personal that no fixed formula for prayer could be given by anybody. The purpose of the "Lord's Prayer" is to spotlight some aspects of this silent prayer.

Prayer of Petition

 For Jesus, petition was as good a form of prayer as that of contemplation. Christ always advised his disciples to pray that way. He did so because he wanted to awaken them to the fact that they were always well protected and so had no reason to fall into despair before the threatening problems of life. He said for instance:

 "Ask, and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened... If you then...know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him!" (Mt 7:7-11)

 Petitionary prayer, if selflessly made, internally strengthens people to face their problems with self-confidence. But we must be very careful in our interpretation of the way in which prayer is answered. It is wrong to think that prayers are answered in the same way that the petition of one human being is answered by another human being. Nature or God does not decide to help individuals after their appeal has been received just as it happens among human beings.

 God or Nature does not do anything new under the instigation of the person who prays. Prayer operates in the same way as the opening of a window by a person who is in need of light. As the window is opened the sunlight comes in automatically. The sun does not do anything new to provide that room with light. The help of Nature or God, like the sunlight, is always there for people to benefit from. But many do not, as a matter of fact, profit from it, because they keep their hearts closed. Prayer is simply the opening of the window of the heart. Prayer involves a change on the side of the human being but not on the side of Nature or God. It is that change which enables human beings to maintain and safeguard their life at its higher and fuller level.

Chapter Fourteen

ADULT ATTITUDE TO LIFE

In the last chapter we saw one very vital aspect of the Christian vision of life. Human beings can, in spite of their physically individualized form of existence, enter in mind and heart into union with the universal source of their existence and thereby experience a deep awareness of one's higher and fuller self. But while affirming that sublime potentiality, Christianity does not overlook the earthly side of human existence. Genuine Christianness is realistic. The demands which realities such as birth, growth, social relationships and death make on the individual are taken seriously. In this chapter we will examine what the adult attitudes to life are that are capable of bringing a true sense of peace, joy and fulfillment.

 I. SUFFERING AND DEATH

 No human being can escape death; no one can escape suffering either. The fear, anxiety, pain they cause also belong to the reality of human existence.

 Suffering

 Suffering can be of the body or of the mind. A broken leg causes bodily suffering; a broken family mental suffering. Suffering can come from natural causes such as droughts and floods, or from voluntary causes such as war and terrorism. Suffering is surmountable or insurmountable. Through human ingenuity, either of one's own or of others, such as doctors, engineers, politicians and scientists, certain sufferings can be surmounted or lessened. Sicknesses can be cured and even prevented. Natural disasters can be controlled and averted. But certain sufferings, such as the death of a dear one, a fatal sickness, a physical deformity are insurmountable.

 Although suffering can be categorized, the reason for it is not easily explained. People of all ages and cultures have attempted explanations. According to one that is popular, suffering is caused by one's own sins. In the Hindu-Buddhist tradition, the law governing this process of remuneration for bad actions is called "Karma". In keeping with that law, people who suffer have sinned one way or another, either in this life or in previous lives. The explanation has some foundation. A suffering like lung cancer may be due to the "sin" of smoking.

 Among the Jews many believed that the sufferings of certain people were due to the sins of others, particularly their parents. There is some truth in that too. The drunkenness of a father could result in the penury of the children. The sufferings of the whole human race were explained the same way. They were attributed to the sin of the first parents, Adam and Eve. But sin, whether of the individuals themselves or of their parents and ancestors, cannot explain all suffering.

 Reason and science are mute before suffering and particularly that of the insurmountable form. The incapacity of the human mind to find the reason for suffering has nowhere been so forcefully brought out as in the Biblical short story of Job explained earlier. When Job inquired from God how he, a spotlessly clean and sinless character could be victim of such unbearable suffering, the answer he received was the counter-question "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?" (Job 38:1-4) That answer is no doubt humiliating to the human intelligence, for what it bluntly says is "Don't try to understand, you can't. You didn't plan the world, did you?". But on the other hand nothing could be more reassuring because the answer implies that God takes total responsibility for its existence in the world. If a good and powerful God is the cause of suffering, then suffering cannot be destructive or even futile. It cannot but have a good purpose.

 As a matter of fact, when we look at suffering impartially, we see that it has not only a distressing and disheartening side, but also a positive and constructive side. Nothing has contributed so much to the progress of society as the human determination to overcome suffering. Science would never have progressed if there had not been so much suffering in the world to overcome. In the same way nothing has helped individuals to grow into adulthood as the personal experience of suffering. It has awakened many to the deeper values of life. Suffering, in that sense, is something that one could even rejoice about. As Paul himself said:

 More than this: let us even exult in our present sufferings, because we know that suffering trains us to endure, and endurance brings proof that we have stood the test, and this proof is the ground of hope (Rom 5:3-4).

Suffering may be unintelligible, but for one who looks at it thoughtfully it is not unbearable. To become bearable, suffering must first, be looked at in an adult way. People who look at suffering in a childish way, thinking that nobody else suffers except themselves, find it very difficult to bear. But as the Buddha pointed out, for those who recognize that the "eight positive-negative elements of life" such as gain and loss, pleasure and pain, success and failure, praise and blame are the common lot of everybody, the burden becomes easier to carry.

 We also must not forget that a large amount of suffering is caused by one's own self. That is another fact that the Buddha strongly insisted on. Many suffer because they are over-attached. Over-attachment is not necessarily a sign of love. It could be a sign of inner loneliness. If material possessions were less used for covering up one's own inner insecurity, people would suffer less at their loss. People who love truly, but without undue attachment, suffer little.

 Finally, suffering is not something that has only to be endured. There is suffering that may be freely chosen and voluntarily borne. Voluntary suffering, while helping to reduce the suffering of others, enriches and ennobles the personality of the sufferer. Those who share another's hunger by sharing their loaf of bread with him or her often discover that hunger voluntarily borne has a nourishing power to it, and pain a healing power.

Death

 However crushing suffering may be, human beings could still accommodate themselves to it if there was no death. There is nothing so disarming as the thought of death. It is the one thought we would like to keep buried underground so that we could live our few years of life psychologically undisturbed. In the modern world, people find it convenient to keep the thought of death out of their mind. There are a number of social forces that contribute to it. Commerce with its advertisements in the media presents life in terms of greater comfort, greater pleasure and greater luxury. From the side of commerce itself, that is quite understandable. The very saleability of the merchandise would be lost, if life was presented in its reality as something that ends with death.

 The attitude of religion is not very different. Preachers generally talk of death in terms of rewards and punishments in heaven, hell or (as in Catholicism) purgatory. Such language may have a tranquilizing effect on people who abhor the prospect of death, but, taken in general, such other-world talk does not appeal much today to grown-ups. They want to face their life and death realistically.

 In this regard, the approach of the Buddha is exemplary. In his teachings he never failed to focus attention on the reality of death. For him religious education that sidetracks the issue is false. A good example of his approach is the way he taught Kisagotami, the young woman who came to him with a dead baby in her arms. Because this was her first child, she could not accommodate herself to its loss, and so she pleaded with the Buddha to restore life to it.

 Recognizing the disturbed state of mind she was in, the Buddha responded to her prudently and tactfully. He agreed to give back life to the baby on the condition that she found an ingredient essential for the cure. The ingredient was mustard; but the mustard was not any mustard; it had to be from a house where nobody had died. With great hope she began running from house to house. But nowhere could she find such a house. When she came back her frenzy was gone. She had understood the lesson. She had become mature. She venerated the Buddha. And in a sense of resignation to the universal law of life, took the corpse of her little baby for burial.

 The best answer to the problem of death is a life lived in a mature way fulfilling all one's responsibilities. A mature life has a power over physical death that immature life does not have. Anybody can learn this from Nature. A grain which is mature has the power when buried to grow into a plant, whereas a grain which is not mature hasn't. When it falls into the ground it just corrupts and disintegrates. A life led at a mentally mature level has a similar life-preserving, life-generating power. It is such a mentally mature life that, in religion, is referred to as higher (or "Supernatural") life.

 In the present existence of individuals this higher life is linked with that of the body. But unlike bodily life, higher life is not dependent on the flimsy power of breath, nor does it follow the growth pattern of the body. It does not grow old and die. This is because it is sustained by the power of Truth and Goodness. As the Buddha said, "The body reaches old age, but the Dhamma (reality, truth) of the good grows not old" 1.

 It is normally not possible for anybody to imagine what higher life is in its post-bodily form. Human beings know of life only in the form restricted to time and space. They can understand the existence of quantitative entities, but not that of qualitative entities. But this ignorance is no reason for anybody to deny that a life rooted in qualities such as truth and goodness could survive at a level which transcends time-space categories.

 In Christianity, real life is life in the Spirit. Christians who are convinced of that fact take a very positive attitude to death. They do not fear death. They look forward to it with joy and even welcome it. This is because they know that the higher life they enjoy cannot die. The Spirit of God in them cannot be killed. To be able to await death in joy, one has naturally to be of the right caliber. The way to acquire the caliber is simple though not necessarily easy. It is to give up self-centeredness and allow the Spirit to take control of one's life.

II. SIN AND SINLESSNESS

 Human beings have to face responsibly not only physical suffering and death; they have also to face moral failures and overcome them. They succumb to moral sickness as to physical sickness and they aspire towards moral health as towards physical health. Overcoming moral failures or sin and developing inner goodness or sinlessness thus become matters related to the development of an adult mind.

 Sin or moral failure

 Being a word common to all religions, sin does not require lengthy explanation. But it is not equally easy to explain why people fall into sin. Bad will or bad intention is certainly one reason. But more generally sin is an outcome of an innate human weakness through which human beings tend to abuse the very instincts or healthy desires with which Nature has endowed them.

 Among these healthy natural desires, some predominate. There is the desire for food and drink. Human beings need food and drink for self-preservation and for community celebration. But when this desire is abused, it ends in gluttony and drunkenness. The desire for sexual pleasure is another. Sex is vital to ensure procreation as also the unity of marital partners. But when abused, it leads to a passion for self-indulgence that undermines mental equilibrium and family stability.

 A third is the desire for the possession of material goods. Material possessions are indispensable for the security of both the individual and the family. But that desire, if uncontrolled, leads to avarice and the tendency to exploit people. Then there is the desire for achievement and victory. Achievement is necessary for a sense of fulfillment as well as for efficiency of service to the community. But when abused it brings about a spirit of domination and despotism.

 Sin is thus basically an abuse or wrong use of natural human desires. In Christianity, such abuse is pictorially explained as acts of disobedience to God because it is God who has ordained the right way in which desires are to be fulfilled. If human beings are to use their desires in a way conducive to their inner health, they have to become mentally mature. In the immature state in which they are born, their emotions or sense feelings are not correctly subordinated to reason.

 The Christian attitude to sin and sinlessness has two facets to it. First, Christians can never look down on others because of sin. This is because sin is not so much a sign of badness as of immaturity. An immature person can grow up. Sinners of yesterday are often the saints of tomorrow. Jesus never looked down on sinners. To those who did so, Jesus taught a bitter lesson by the rebuke he gave to the group of Jews who brought before him a woman caught in adultery. According to the Jewish law such a woman had to be stoned to death. The curt reply of Jesus was, that "one of you who is faultless, shall throw the first stone" (Jo 8:7). The implication of the reply is that the woman's accusers were not less adulterous in heart than the woman was. In their immature state, all human beings are, if not in action at least in desire, adulterers, robbers, liars and murderers.

 Second, Christians should not despise themselves because of their own sinfulness either. It is one thing to accept that one has fallen into sin, but another to submit oneself to self-condemnation and self-rejection on that account. A wrong sense of guilt creates a pathological situation that hampers the normal working of the human mind. Christians have to accept that, as human beings, they have a natural propensity to sin, a propensity that reduces its voluntariness. A Christian can never think of sin except in terms of forgiveness. Any sin is forgivable.

Attentiveness to emotions

 While not despising themselves for their past failures, truly religious people take the necessary steps to avoid falling into them. One sure safeguard in this regard is to be attentive to the play of one's emotions. Many people fall into error not because their intentions are bad but because their emotions are disturbed. Jesus advised his disciples to be watchful and to keep their mind awake if they are not to fail the numerous tests they have to face in life. As he told them once: "Stay awake, and pray that you may be spared the test. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" (Mt 26:41). The "flesh" here alludes to the pressure of emotions on actions of individuals.

 The Buddha too spoke very insistently on the need for watchfulness. According to him the best technique to avoid wrong actions is alertness to the state of one's emotions at every moment. He called this technique "mindfulness" or "attentiveness to emotions" and included it as an important element of his Eightfold Path, which summed up his way to perfect humanness.

 There is a great truth behind the instructions of Jesus on "watchfulness" and the insistence of the Buddha on "mindfulness". In our behavior what appear to be voluntary actions are actually reactions based on the state of one's emotions. A husband hurts his wife's feelings by complaining all of a sudden that her cooking is bad and tasteless. But the complaint may not have anything to do with the food. The real reason could be that he saw his wife talking in a friendly manner to a person whom he dislikes. Alertness to subconscious motives is a help for acting rightly and with self-control. Overcoming emotional reactiveness is a positive help for overcoming moral failures.

 Grace and sinlessness

 The state of sinlessness or sanctity is by no means easy to achieve. Still with effort, one could achieve and should achieve it. Victory over sin is a great achievement. In the Christian view however, it is still not an achievement one could take pride in or boast of. Pride and holiness cannot go together. A truly adult person looks at his or her victory over sin in a spirit of humility. Christianity has always stressed the fact that sinlessness, which Christians also call "salvation," is a gift of God. When sinlessness is taken as a gift, it is also referred to as "grace" or "sanctifying grace"

 Some find the Christian notion of "grace" an arbitrary assumption. They feel that the nobility of character that human beings achieve is the outcome of their personal effort and, in no way, the result of an intervention of a distant God. The Christian notion of grace does not underplay in any way the indispensability of human effort. It however looks at the personal effort more comprehensively and in the context of the whole of Nature.

 If we can accept how, in any field, human effort is dependent on the support of other forces, we see that the Christian understanding of sinlessness as a gift of God is quite logical. What Christianity affirms is a simple fact observable in day-to-day life. We look at doctors, for instance, as people who by their own ingenuity and effort heal sick people. But if we understand how a sickness or a wound is healed, we have to grant that the real healer is Nature. The doctor only removes the obstacles to Nature's action.

 The case of the farmer could be taken as another example. When we see a tree full of fruit, we attribute the fruitfulness to the ingenuity and the labor of the farmer. But the farmer's role is to create the right conditions for Nature to act. The fruitfulness is more a work of Nature than of the farmer.

 We can say the same with regard to the inner health or the inner fruitfulness of human beings that we refer to as salvation, sinlessness, sanctity, or adulthood. The human development these terms imply can never be achieved without great personal effort but, like achievements of doctors and farmers, there is more behind it than just personal effort.

III. HUMAN RELATIONS

 One should be very careful not to think of moral goodness negatively as purely a state of sinlessness. Morality refers to a positive form of behavior and, from the teachings of Jesus, there cannot be any doubt as to what is most characteristic of it. It is care and concern for other human beings. If human beings are members of one family, concern for their welfare becomes a responsibility of everyone. Fulfillment of that responsibility is what is referred to by the term "love". In the sense proper to religion, love is not just an emotion that operates spontaneously or effortlessly. It is an obligation which calls for a great effort to fulfill adequately. To love rightly one has first to overcome one's selfishness. Love of that form is what makes any human being and, in consequence, humanity itself genuinely human.

 But when we look at the happenings in society today, it is seriously to be doubted if love between human beings is what governs it. The lack of right relations is what is more blatant. We live in a society where the imbalance of its economic system keeps large numbers deprived of the basic requirements for survival, where conflict between ethnically, politically or religiously distinct communities is considered normal, and where money and weapons have the power to justify the claim of despots and terrorists that might is right. The disorder is of such great proportions that, in the view of most thinking people, it is only a radical transformation of society or, in brief, a revolution that can rectify it. If the term is rightly understood, such a revolution is the only solution.

 Revolution, however, is a word that can be understood in a double way. First, like "religion" itself it can be taken in a clan-centric or clan-protective sense. For those who understand it so, the only solution for such crises is for a community whether racial, national or even religious to wage a war against those considered to be the creators of the unrest. In such wars, violence has invariably to be met with violence, and intolerance with intolerance. Many wars of that type have been waged in the past and they have been proclaimed by religious leaders as "just" or "holy" wars. But how "just" or "holy" their outcome has been is quite another matter.

 The second form of revolution or that of the Life-vision form is different. It is a revolution of that pattern that Jesus initiated in his day, and in recent times have been carried out by visionary revolutionaries such as Mahatma Ghandi or Martin Luther King. The weapon employed for the purpose is intended to destroy not lives or property but just the selfishness of individuals. This weapon, which has of course to be applied on one's own self first, is none other than that of mind-transformation. When minds are transformed, love begins to replace in the hearts of people the inclination to greed, hatred and folly which is at the root of all suffering and unrest in society.

 Love has within it a secret power to make passive people active and timid people bold. People so transformed will not remain unconcerned before situations and trends that undermine the well-being of society. They will, either by themselves or in conjunction with others, look for the right remedies to be adopted. The principle which ensures the workability and effectiveness of this form of revolution is just there. When the majority of people are mature enough to fulfill their responsibilities to other human beings, the plans of the immature few to achieve their selfish goals have little chance of being successful.

 When the problems of society are looked at from that perspective, we cannot hide ourselves from the fact that religions themselves are largely responsible for the ills of today's society. Religions have followed a clan-protective system of religious education the main aim of which is to make their members submissive to an institutional tradition. The Life-vision goal of religious education which is to make people independent enough to think, judge and act according to their conscience has been neglected.

The Life-vision form of education starts by investigating why people of today are in actual fact not mature enough to be rightly related to others. It works on the widely ignored but self-evident fact that for people in their initial immature state to love is not easy. What is easier is to hate and wish ill to the other. People are so much governed by jealousy that they cannot rejoice at any good happening to another. They are so unforgiving that they want any person who has done some harm to them to be totally exterminated. It is difficult to imagine how many people today are restless and sick because of the feelings of jealousy and revenge in their hearts.

 However unseemly it may sound, when two individuals, --at times even friends-- meet, the general tendency is for each to impress his or her superiority over the other and thereby subjugate the other. What ensues is not a warm-hearted give-and-take but a psychological battle. All this is because what looks like a meeting of two hearts is actually a meeting of two masks. That is why we have to say that in a world where mental maturity is not a common trait the need for training in love is by no means small.

The training to love

 To look at others in an open-hearted way as just fellow human beings is not easy. The mind must be carefully trained for it. One way to do this is by learning to pray for others. Jesus wanted his followers to pray for others and specially for those seen as enemies.

 What I tell you is this: Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors; only so can you be children of your heavenly Father (Mt 5:44).

 Jesus himself adopted that attitude of prayer. On the cross he prayed for his murderers saying: "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing" (Lk 23:34). This prayer shows how deeply Jesus understood human beings. Most human beings hurt others not because they are by nature cruel, but because they are ignorant.

 Buddhism adopts the technique of internal well-wishing to achieve what Christianity tries to arrive at through prayer. A well-wishing exercise used in Buddhism called "Maitri Bhavana" or "Friendliness-developing Meditation" can be very effective in this regard. It consists of the silent mental exercise of diffusing good wishes to others through the following formula:

 May all beings be in good health,

May all beings be happy,

May all beings fare well in life.

 This formula is meant to be repeated several times recalling each time by name one individual or one group. At the beginning, those who are very intimate, such as family members and friends, are recalled, then those who are less close, such as co-students and co-workers, and finally those who are considered enemies because of some harm they have inflicted.

 Whatever the method employed, human beings have to break free of the shell of self-centeredness if they are to see the other as another human being. When one sees the other as a human being, a meeting of two individuals becomes a mutually enriching experience. They see the image of God in the face of the other.

 Love becomes particularly easy if the other is seen as a brother or sister. When human beings are seen as brothers and sisters, the other no longer becomes a burden. The story has often been told of the old man who was taken aback at the sight of one little boy carrying on his shoulders another boy of practically the same age and size. The old man stopped to ask: "Sonny, isn't he heavy for you? "No", the child effortlessly replied, "he is not heavy, he is my brother".

 Christianity has no other doctrine to teach than that of love; no other demand to make than that people practice love. This is clear from what Paul, -- the first and the greatest formulator of Christian doctrines and demands -- wrote to the Christians of Corinth:

 And now I will show you the best way of all.

I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging symbol. I may have the gift of prophecy, and know every hidden truth; I may have faith strong enough to move mountains; but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may dole out all I possess, or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better.

Love is patient, love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offense. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men's sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing that love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope, and its endurance (1 Cor 12:31-13:7).

 The adult attitude to life that we have attempted to depict in this chapter represents a level of behavior that is much higher than that which human beings generally tend to lead. It is this level of life that in Christianity is referred to as "Supernatural life", "Eternal Life", "the life of the Spirit" or the "life of the Children of God".

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1. Dhammapada, verse 151

Chapter Fifteen

THE MISSION OF CHRISTIANITY TODAY

If there is an aspect of Christianity that is of current interest to Christians and non-Christians alike, it is without doubt that of its mission in the contemporary world. What that mission is should normally have become clear from what we have said so far. But the fact is that, in recent times, the Christian mission and especially the work of missionaries has become a subject of much discussion and controversy. There are many today both within Christianity and without who ask if the methods adopted by Christianity to reach out to the world at large are what they should really be. A few observations therefore, on what Christianity's mission in contemporary society should be could serve as an appropriate conclusion to our examination here into Christianity of the adult form.

 Religion: the double sense

 If we are to find out in a concrete manner what the contemporary mission of Christianity is, we have to start by asking what a religion's mission, in general, is. The answer to that is somewhat complex because, as pointed out in the first part of this book, the word "religion" has two senses. Taken in each sense it has a different role to fulfill.

 One role is to protect the clan-community with which it is linked. Since all religions have originated within the culture of a particular community and have addressed themselves initially to just its members, it is only to be expected that they will have a special interest in the welfare of that particular group. Religion of the clan-protective form upholds a fixed tradition of beliefs, laws and practices which all members are obliged to adhere to. Conformity to that community-tradition is considered vital for the unity and solidarity of the community. Religion of the other or mind-enlightening form looks at individuals not as members of just a particular community but as members of the global human family. Its role is to build up in individuals a mentally mature attitude to life and living. This it does by providing a vision of the values that enable a person to understand life realistically and face its problems insightfully.

 Both functions are justifiable. They answer to two basic requirements of human beings, namely, the need to belong to a particular community and the need to achieve personally the highest stature as a human being. But for the two functions to be genuinely conducive to an individual's welfare, right balance has to be preserved in their execution. If religion is taken in its more proper sense of "religiousness" the role that should be given priority is evidently that of making people mentally mature. The clan-protective function has to remain subsidiary to it. But the unfortunate fact that history testifies to is that most religions, probably due to the struggle that clan-communities have had to wage for their survival, have disregarded the priorities and made clan-solidarity the predominant if not the exclusive aim of religion. Fidelity to clan-culture has, as a result, become a more fundamental requirement of religion than fidelity to right values.

 This fact becomes most obvious when we look at the way in which clan-communities have carried their religion to people of other clans and cultures. What has been carried more extensively is the culture in which the religion originated. The universal philosophy of life that the religion espoused has largely been relegated to the periphery. The spread of religion has thus followed the same pattern as that of political expansion.

 Views of Jesus and Paul

 This distinction between a religion's clan-protective and personality-ennobling functions could appear new to many. But it is in no way new. Already in their day, Jesus the founder of Christianity and Paul its first and greatest missionary were aware of it and considered it fundamental. That becomes obvious if we focus attention on the message they chose to preach and propagate. As pointed out earlier, they took their message from the religion they belonged to, namely Judaism, and from the sacred book of Judaism, the Bible. But it is not Judaism as such that they taught.

 They stuck to what was of value to the whole of humanity and left out what was of value to just the Jews. They were able to do that because they saw clearly that Judaism, and the Jewish Bible itself, contained both Life-vision insights and clan-protective traditions. They concentrated on the former. That is why Jesus protested strongly against the attempt of Jewish religious leaders to give more importance to their traditions than to universally valid spiritual values. It was to open their eyes that he told them, "You leave the commandment of God and hold fast to the traditions of men" (Mk 7:8)

 If Paul, on his side, fought so hard against those missionaries who wanted to impose Jewish traditions such as the circumcision on non-Jewish Christians, it was because he was convinced that what was of benefit to humanity at large was only the Life-vision message of the Bible and not the traditions of Judaism. It is because of that perspective of theirs that the fundamentals of Judaism eventually became the foundation for the inter-national religion we call "Christianity" today.

Christianity as a State Religion

 The distinction that Jesus and Paul were able to make with regard to Judaism is one that Christian missionaries have not been able to make about Christianity after it became the state religion of the Roman empire. Christianity which was originally outlawed became its state religion after the conversion of emperor Constantine in the third century. If we take the history of Christianity from that time onwards, there is not the least doubt that what provided the strongest impulse to missionary work is its understanding of Christianity as "Christendom". "Christendom" is an abbreviated combination of the two words "Christian" and "Kingdom" and is shown in dictionaries as equivalent of "Christian domain" or "Christian lands". Missionaries felt that lands which were now Christian had been divinely commissioned to spread their wings over the whole world. The spread of Christianity after Constantine mostly went hand in hand with political expansion.

 The link between missionary activity and political expansion becomes more evident when we look at the era after the sixteenth century when Christianity splintered into a number of denominations as a result of the Protestant reformation. After that each European nation claimed one brand of Christianity such as the Lutheran, the Anglican, the Roman Catholic or the Presbyterian. When European nations such as the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and English conquered other countries, missionaries diffused in those lands the brand of Christianity that their motherland upheld.

 What we have outlined here is, of course, the general trend. We do not exclude the numerous praiseworthy exceptions to it. But what we say is that, when taken as a whole, the path followed by European missionaries is far from that followed by Jesus and Paul. It would, of course, be unfair to put the blame for what happened on the actual missionaries alone. The theology of the time in which they were brought up was not insightful enough to distinguish between Christianity as Christendom and Christianity as Christianness. Further, no fault can be found in the endeavor of Westerners to diffuse their culture in non-Western lands. The culture of one country could have an enriching value to people of other cultures. What is wrong is the diffusion of culture under the guise of religion and the mixing up of religion with political power.

Attitude to other Religions

 This inability of Christians to distinguish between the cultural and spiritual elements of a religion could well be the reason for also the arrogance with which they regarded other religions. The attitude that Christianity has taken towards other religions ever after it became the established religion of Europe is far from being one of open-heartedness. For centuries, Christians have disdained other religions and referred to them in a very derogatory manner. Non-Christian religions were regarded as forms of paganism. The word "paganism" which comes from the Latin "paganus" for "villager", is the equivalent of "uncultured" or "uncivilized".

 It is a matter for great consolation however that this old attitude has started changing. The change that has come about is reflected in the word "dialogue" that is used by Christians when talking of other religions. The term indicates that Christians -- at least some of them-- are ready to enter into communication with people of other religions. "Dialogue" is a new term. Many Christians are still not conversant with it. Non-Christians who have heard of it still look at the encounter implied with a certain suspicion. The intransigent attitude displayed by Christians till recently is too fresh in their minds for them to feel at ease at a round-table "dialogue" with Christians. But the present readiness of Christians to enter into dialogue with other religions has in it the power to heal the wounds caused in the past. If persistently pursued, "dialogue" will be instrumental in reducing the strong antipathy many non-Christians have still today to Christianity.

 From Dialogue to Collaboration

 Dialogue thus has to be regarded as a great step forward. But still it cannot be considered the ultimate step that Christians could take. Dialogue has a side to it which makes it incomplete as a missionary formula. Its promoters don't seem to be aware that every religion has two dimensions to it. As a result, they don't pay sufficient attention to the fact that religions are different from each other only partly and not totally. Religions are different only when taken in their link to a particular culture and not when taken in their aspiration to spirituality. As Thomas Merton, a Roman Catholic monk, states:

 When one comes to a better understanding of these religions, and when one sees that the experiences which are the fulfillment of religious belief and practice are most clearly expressed in symbols, one may come to recognize that often the symbols of different religions have more in common than have the abstractly formulated official doctrines.1

 This of course does not imply that all religions are identical or that all religions one day will converge to form one universal religion. Religions have their differences. One reason for it is that they express themselves in the symbols particular to the culture in which they were born. Every religion, at first view, is different in its beliefs and practices. Those differences and with it the uniqueness of each religion has to be respected. But that uniqueness is not of such a nature as to invalidate the over-all mission that all religions at the Life-vision level are committed to. That mission is to redeem people from their inner immaturity and make them mentally adult.

 If we take up the sketchy picture that we used at the beginning to show the inner transformation of the individual that religion proper is concerned with and extend its application to humanity at large, we can get an idea of how every religion has to conceive its global mission.

 Picture left: (A) The human being in its externally visible physical form. (B) Inner personality of the human being in its self-centered, non-adult form. (C) Human being of the fully adult form, with a right vision of life and living .

Picture right : Human society in its "adult" form. In Christianity it is such a society that is referred to as the "Kingdom of God".

If all religions have thus one mission in common they will not need to compete with each other. Nor will they need to stop at just being partners in dialogue; they could venture to become partners in the execution of the common mission. Conversion to religion itself will then take a new shape. It will no longer be a crossing over from one camp to another but an ascent of the individual from immaturity to maturity. When mission and conversion are so conceived, missionaries will awaken to the urgency and the obligation of working together. The task of making mankind adult is so massive that it will never be achieved if religions do not join hands to work as one team.

 The differences in the way that each religion views the path to perfect humanness need in no way be an obstacle to collaboration. The approaches may be different, but they are not mutually exclusive. They could well be complementary and it could be to the advantage of religions to be aware of the approaches of other religions so that, where possible, elements from them could be integrated into their own system.

Mission of Christianity today

 Some of the observations that we have made about Christian missionary work and particularly about the understanding of Christianity as Christendom could sound to many as harsh and offensive. But those observations -- and we need to underline that strongly here -- should not be interpreted as an attempt on our part to find fault with Christianity's link with Western culture or to belittle the role that Christianity has played as an integral element of the culture of Western society. Nobody with a knowledge of European history can be blind to what Christianity has contributed to the shape and stability of European (and today also American) society. Christianity has been a determinative element of Western culture for the last twenty centuries.

 All that we want to affirm through the stand we have taken is that when presenting Christianity to people of all cultures and religions we have to be cautious not to identify Christianity of the universal form with Christianity of just its Western form. Christianity of the West demands of its followers, besides a fidelity to the Christian values of life, also a fidelity to its own traditions. Those traditions, further, are so binding that a person failing to conform is liable to be excommunicated or ostracized from the community.

 Now if we go back to the question that we started with, namely, that of Christianity's mission in contemporary society, there is no other place we could go to for the right answer than the example of Jesus himself. The way he fulfilled his mission is the way zealous Christians should fulfill theirs. Jesus' work was essentially one of healing. "He went round the whole of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing whatever illness or infirmity there was among the people (Mt: 4:23).

 It was to not humanity taken in the abstract that Jesus addressed himself, but human beings sick and deprived of inner vitality. People may have everything, wealth, health, learning and power; but deep within, they suffer from disorientations such as envy, hatred, pride, lust, dishonesty and hypocrisy, which take away inner vigor and prevent peace of mind. People further live in fear of misfortune, suffering and death. As a result even the wealthiest, the healthiest, the most learned and the most powerful keep yearning for a more satisfying life.

 This inner yearning of people for a satisfying life was what Jesus had in mind when he began spreading the Kingdom of God. His sole aim was to give "life" to people who lacked it. As he said: "I have come that men may have life, and have it in all its fullness" (Jo 10:10). This Kingdom was a society where individuals let God reign in their hearts and, in consequence, coming out of their selfish selves, kept rightly related to all the realities that they had to stay in link with. Keeping rightly related, as explained earlier, is what makes it possible for a person to enjoy life in its fullness.

 Mature individuals realize that their dealings have to be in order first, with their own individual self, second, with the clan they belong to, whether this be the family, the race, the nation or the religious group, third, with the entire human family, fourth, with the universe in all its extensiveness, and finally, however invisible and humanly incomprehensible, with the ultimate source of their existence. Being rightly related with so many realities is no doubt difficult, but doing so is what brings about the stature of life that, in the Bible, is referred to as living in the "Spirit" or as "a child of God".

 Granted the complexity of the relationship to be maintained, it is not easy to lay hands on an appropriate gauge to find out if one's life is correctly coordinated or not. But Jesus pointed to one yardstick which is down-to-earth and unmistakable. It is the concern of individuals for the needs of their fellow human beings particularly the poor and the suffering. It is to point to that determinative test of human maturity that he told the parable of the Last Judgment. In that parable the Supreme Judge is shown saying:

Come, enter and possess the kingdom that has been ready for you since the world was made... For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me into your home; when naked you clothed me; when I was ill you came to my help; when in prison you visited me." (Mt. 25:31-40)

 According to that parable, what makes a person arrive at the highest stature of nobility is simply the love that one displays towards those in need. It is shown as the sole quality required of people who are to enjoy eternal companionship with God.

 What is equally noteworthy in this stand of Jesus -- and which could seem challenging to those who preach that salvation is only through membership in their particular community,-- is that the Supreme Judge here is not shown inquiring whether the person is Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist. The criterion for divine fellowship is whether the person, whatever the institution brought up in, has been selfless enough to be rightly related.

 In the light of the Kingdom that Jesus wanted to establish, Christianity's mission in the contemporary world becomes self-evident . It is to make immature human beings mature enough to be rightly related. It is no doubt difficult to heal human beings from their natural proneness to selfishness. Nonetheless, that is the task which zealous Christians have to fulfill if they are to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

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1. Thomas Merton, Symbolism: Communication or Communion?

in New Directions, 20 (New York, New Directions, 1968) pp.

11-12)