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FOCUS April 2019 Vol. 7 No: 2

Is the World Only a Market Place?

Dr. Zac Varghese, London – Page 14

Cover Photo: Painting (Source Internet,

Author Unknown): Jesus Christ Cleansing the Jerusalem Temple

A Publication of Diaspora FOCUS

A Letter to People of God, Pope Francis – Page
20

Editorial, God so loved the world . . . But Do

we? Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum - Page 3 Ask FOCUS Series - Responses by David Brand
and Revd. Dr. Valson Thampu – Page 22 & 23

Escaping the Market Culture- Lal Varghese, The Holy Books: Part-1, Dr. Ian Fry, University
Esq., Dallas – Page 7 of Divinity, Australia – Page 25

Book Review – ‘An Ecumenical Journey

Towards Transformation’, Philoxenos Thirumeni whom we never
Can Churches be Redeemed? Revd. Dr.
knew - Page 28
Valson Thampu, Trivandrum – Page 10

Why Christianity Reduced to Rituals Alone?

Seeking Spiritual Dimensions of Wealth, Rev. Revd. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum - Page 29
Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam – Page 12
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EDITORIAL
GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD . . . BUT DO WE?
I am glad that the focus of the April issue of the FOCUS is
the question, “Is the world only a market Place?” Its
scriptural matrix is the cleaning of the Temple by Jesus as
recorded in the second chapter of the Gospel according
to St. John (vs. 13-22). The mandate is ‘to explore the
significance of the Temple cleansing incident for us
today’. At the time of writing this editorial, I have before
me only the well-thought out, sturdily researched piece
by Zac Varghese. I am sure that the other contributions
included in this edition too are incisive. The mission of
FOCUS as an inter-denominational Christian forum for
thinking biblically and relevantly is to stay engaged with
the Word as a lantern to our feet and a light to our path.
The Word is to be understood existentially and
missionally.
The line of approach I propose for ourselves in this
context is one that emphasizes the spiritual connection
between Jesus embodying God’s love for the whole
world (Jn. 3:16) and his cleansing the Temple. Let me put
the principle as starkly as I can -cleansing is an act of
love. Or, love cleanses. Pollution results necessarily from
loveless-ness. Also, whatever is undertaken without love
does not cleanse. It only corrupts further. So, we are not
to resist evil, but to overcome evil with good. The
foremost expression of loveless-ness is not hatred
towards God, but love for Mammon, the money principle,
which is the principle of corruption.
How does this Satanic principle work? If God is light;
Mammon is darkness. The function of darkness is to
render us blind. Physical blindness is the inability to see
anything. Spiritual blindness is the ability to see only in
part – the part that profits me most. The inevitable
outcome of this sort of blind seeing – sorry for the
paradox – is the creation of a conflict between personal
profit and collective good. As Immanuel Kant argued,
following Rousseau, corruption results when individuals
see the given situation -opportunity, position, etc., - in
terms of what is good for them and at the expense of
what is good for the whole. (In our context, for the church
and its witness is the body of Christ.) The essence of
ethical behaviour – or ethical demand, as Kant would say
– is that we act according to universal – that is, spiritual-
maxims or principles.
Suppose I am a bishop and, in that capacity, I am the
chief office bearer of a Charitable Trust that manages the
landed properties of the church. How do I decided what
should be done, and what should not be done? In terms
of what would ensure the largest profit for me? Or, in
terms of ensuring the best advantage of the church,
especially its purity and integrity?
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The reason why scandals – including sex scandals – are
tumbling out of the cupboards of some of our churches in
Kerala and elsewhere should now be obvious. Their
remedy too should be obvious. The remedy is to ensure
that decisions are taken strictly under the discipline
implied in the two-fold commandments – to love God
absolutely and to love neighbours equally. For a bishop or
church office bearer, the immediate neighbours are
members of his diocese. If only a bishop would love his
people as he loves himself, there will be neither any
corruption nor any show of pomp, splendour or
arrogance. Only a bishop who loves God absolutely will
be able assuredly to live by this principle. In my
experience – which alas is quite extensive – this is fast
becoming the exception than the rule. And that’s the
heartbreak. It is against this sombre reality that the
following reflections are offered in fear and trembling.
Since I am writing a separate piece, focused on the
question, “Is the world only a market place?”– I choose to
be rather general and discursive in formulating this
editorial. It is requested that my readers read the two
pieces, if possible, as continuous with each other.
We are all experts in loving God. It is in loving the world
that we are deficient. But it so happens – and that’s
where the Way of Jesus is so radically unique – that we
cannot love God without loving the world. Or, our love for
the world is the best proof that we love God. It was to
express God’s love for the world that Jesus came into it.
From what little I know of the spiritual impulse immanent
in Creation, it is reasonably clear that God created the
world as an act of worship. Worship is, hence, not an
optional extra, but something encoded in the very being
of Creation itself. (The dictum, ‘to work is to worship’
makes sense only in this light; else it is a cope out.) For
the life of me, I cannot separate creativity from worship or
work. What is not creative is anything other than worship.
It is this core discipline that we have lost sight of almost
entirely. The alternative to worship as a creative
experience is worship as a mechanical exercise, an
obligation. It is basic that we understand this distinction
clearly; for herein lies the chink in our ecclesial armour. It
explains why our church-centred life becomes
progressively uninspiring, almost lifeless.
What is mechanical is dull and repetitive. What is
repetitive is merely habitual. I remember reading
somewhere years ago that, for most people, religion is
only ‘an indolent habit’. ‘Indolent’ means, ‘wanting to
avoid exertion, lazy’. Habits are formed to spare efforts,
to save oneself the bother. What is not formed into a
habit demands conscious attention and deliberation. Or,
in the words of Jesus, it involves ‘seeking . . . finding’ (Mt
7: 7). This is seen by most Christians as an avoidable
burden. It seems far more advantages to have ready-
made exercises, like junk food or instant coffee.
Now add ‘indolence’ – say, existential laziness – to such a
state of mere existence. Then you have the substance of
our habitual, or nominal, Christianity. I remember a fellow
Christian of the Orthodox persuasion telling me, “Achen,
my sole begins to itch on Sunday morning. It will subside
only after I receive qurbana.” (I am translating his words
word for word. You cannot miss the authentic Malayalam
flavour in the sentence.)
This made me think. It is the sole, not the soul that
matters in church life? My friend was only more candid
than most of us are. Frankly, our religious predicament is
hardly different. We are hard-wired Sabbatarians, second
only to Pharisees and Sadducees.
Let us fix this in our minds. We are not ‘indolent’ or lazy in
our churchmanship. The itching on our soles takes care
of that. We are indolent in our spiritual life. There is a
religious pattern immanent in laziness, which may
adequately be denoted as consumerism. Consumerism,
on the face of it, is unilateral. Spirituality is anything but
unilateral. Reciprocity, or mutuality, is the essence of
spirituality. That is why our sins will be forgiven – as the
Lord’s Prayer reminds us daily – only to the extent that
we forgive those who sin against us. The sort of
religiosity that our indolence has invented seems an
improvement on this. We are entitled to be forgiven, even
if we don’t forgive. Priestly authority comes to our help in
this regard. The priest tilts the balance wholly and
extravagantly in our favour, but for a small problem. The
problem is that it simply doesn’t work that way.
Let us return to the question of ‘habit’. Habit excludes the
need and burden to think. Whatever is done habitually –
as in attending church services or tying shoelaces or
driving – is done without thinking attentively to specifics.
Such activities are done un-thinkingly, ‘mechanically’. To
behave mechanically is to become, de facto, machines.
This is an insult at once to oneself and to the Creator.
God created us in his own image and likeness. He did not
design us as a piece of machine, like a mixer, a tractor, a
watch or a hatch. Doing anything mechanically, especially
worship is an insult to God.
If you examine the teachings of Jesus about religious
practices, you will be struck by the emphasis implied in all
of it on the duty to seek and understand the meaning of
what is being done and to do everything in a spirit proper
to it. Jesus’ teachings on the three pillars of Judaism –
alms giving, praying, and fasting – found in the 6th chapter
of the Gospel according to St. Matthew illustrate it.
You may well ask what all this has to do with our loving
the world as God continues to?
Well, the answer is implied in the biblical idea of love.
Love, as incarnated in Jesus, is not merely a nice, feel-
good sentiment. It is a transformative power. God loves
the world. What is its intent? It is that humankind as a
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whole ‘should not perish, but have everlasting life’ (Jn 3:
16). That is why the Cross stands at the nerve-centre of
that loving, redemptive engagement with the world.
There is nothing habitual, mechanical or indolent about
love! Spiritual love is an invigorating thing; new each day,
day after day. It cannot be reduced to a habit, as in the
lacklustre relationship of a long-married couple, who
haven’t understood the miracle of Jesus’ turning water
into wine at the wedding in Cana (Jn 2).
If you ask me what is missing from our church life, I would
readily say, “It’s love”. The Spirit of God anticipated this
at the outset of the historical existence of the church. The
church at Ephesus had many good qualities, many things
to be proud of. There was, however, a problem – “You
have lost your first love!” With that, all was lost. The
church that loses its first love for the Lord may have the
‘reputation of being alive’, but is indeed dead as a door
nail.
When the church dies, it is not buried as individuals are. A
dead church doesn’t become a corpse. It becomes only a
caricature. Jesus has a beautifully relevant metaphor for
this reality: ‘the salt that has lost its saltiness’ which is
good only to be ‘cast out and trampled underfoot by
men’.
We are so conditioned in our thinking, when it comes to
religious life that we fail to see what is obvious in
scriptural texts. When we come to the phrase ‘trampled
underfoot by men’, we think that these feet are hostile
nether limbs poised aggressively against us from anti-
Christian quarters. The text doesn’t say that, does it? I
cannot help the feeling that the feet that trample us
underfoot are also ecclesial in fact.
Our awareness of being trampled underfoot depends on
our aliveness. If we are alive in a material sense, we feel
the material outrages inflicted on us. Spiritually dead, we
remain unaware of the spiritual degradation heaped on
us. If I am insulted in a language that I do not understand,
I could even feel flattered that I am being taken note of!
Don’t we have a proverb to the effect, “A people get the
leader they deserve”? Don’t we know from history that
tyranny follows the moral and spiritual degradation of the
people? Doesn’t the Bible teach us that cities are
destroyed – as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah – in
the wake of human depravity? Didn’t Jesus warn the
Jews that their religious pride could activate forces of
history to bring down the Jerusalem Temple, leaving not
one stone standing on another?
Now we understand why ‘cleansing the Jerusalem
Temple’ was Jesus’ quintessential witness. He did not
cleanse the political structures of the time. He did not
denounce heathen worships and Gentile religions. To
him, the key to loving the world was cleaning the Temple.
Through this, Jesus has given us an insight and a pattern
that cannot become redundant till his Second Coming.
To lose our first love for the Lord Jesus Christ, the
foundation of the church, is to fall in love with the
principle contrary to what he embodied. Power was that
principle. The contrast, as we know through the Nativity
Narrative, is between Jesus and Herod. It is paradigmatic
contrast. Two principles – the polarities in the social and
historical predicament of humankind – are: love (the
Babe) and power (the king). To renounce love for Jesus
is, therefore, to be infected with lust for power. Since we
are human, we cannot but ‘love’. The choice is not
between loving or not loving; it is between loving and
lusting. To cease to love Jesus is to renounce love as the
shaping principle of our personal and ecclesial life. It is to
lust after ‘power’ as the ruling passion of our life.
Money is the demonic spirit of Power; just as ‘devotion’ is
the Holy Spirit of love. In the 7th chapter of St. Luke, this
core contrast is acted out. Jesus is at dinner in the house
of Simon the Pharisee. There comes a woman (a sinner,
as seen by men!) and expresses her devotion to Jesus.
The Pharisee, who has lost the joy of loving God, feels it
as a personal insult, which is psychologically consistent.
Envy is activated at the sight of a beauty in others for
which one feels oneself incapable. Simon has money. He
is rich enough ‘to throw a smashing party’. The woman
has devotion, no money. It is the woman’s devotion, not
the Pharisee’s opulence that shines through the ages.
That’s God’s justice. I cannot tell my readers adequately
how much encouragement and spiritual sustenance this
spiritual truth has afforded me all through my life.
This, friends, is the issue. Indeed, there is no other core
issue. Or, if it seems that there a million other issues,
don’t get confused. They are all variations of the simple
pattern: no love, all money; all money, no love! I
remember reading in one of the novels by Paul S. Scott
that only the poor of the world stand in any chance of
being loved for who they are. The rich are ‘loved’ for what
they have. Wonder why it is still called love!
Now, please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that
money is inherently evil. How can it be? Money is like
your chappal. It is a useful thing, provided it is used for its
rightful purpose. What if you begin to think that your
chappal is your heart!? Or, an ample substitute for
personal dignity? If my love for money makes me like a
piece of stone, or blind to God and my fellow human
beings, even to my own personal dignity, then the advice
that Jesus gave to the ‘rich, young man’ becomes
critically relevant to me: “Go, sell all you have, give to the
poor and follow me.” This bad news is the essence of the
Good News for all humankind. I believe that is why there
are the three vows associated with ordination, on which I
shall conclude this editorial -of poverty, chastity and
obedience.
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First of all, isn’t it surprising that the respect, even
reverence, that a bishop or thirumeni commands today is
directly proportionate to his manifest, sustained violation
of at least the vow of poverty? Which Christian leader,
pray tell me, lives in material poverty? What surprises me
is not that those who are in positions of power lose sight
of their vows. What shocks me is that the rest of us, who
have no excuse for not seeing it for what it is, have no
problem with it. Not only that. We vie with each other in
heaping the wealth of the world upon our ‘spiritual
fathers’. We tempt and urge them to break their vows.
There is a logic to this, which needs to be grasped. We
know only one expression for our piety – money. We
express our ‘commitment’ to our churches by giving more
and more money. (The comfort this affords is the
reassuring lie that nothing more is required.) We are
recognized and lauded for the volumes of money we
contribute. The weight we command in our congregations
is proportionate to that. Episcopal eyes fall upon us with
greater affection, which makes us feel so nice, nearly
perfect! But we don’t realize the contradiction immanent
in this. We are financing God with the resources of
Mammon. The sacrifices acceptable to God, says King
David, are a contrite heart, which is nowhere in sight.
So, we will feel ill-at-ease if we find a holy father living in
faithfulness to his vows – especially the vow of poverty.
(The trick is that with a slight twist of the pen, it could be
read as the ‘vow of property’!) Can you imagine a bishop
visiting your parish, arriving there by a Maruti Alto? You
will be sorely disappointed, if the episcopal vehicle is less
than a ‘luxury’ sedan, in perfect fidelity to his vow of
poverty.
Now the all-important truth is this: there is an organic
connection between the three vows. You cannot keep, in
spirit and in truth, only one or two of the three vows.
Either you keep all the three or you break them all. The
vow of chastity may not be broken in fact or in act, but it
stays broken in spirit. Not breaking a vow for want of
opportunities to violate it with impunity is no proof for
keeping it, except by feeling bound and oppressed by
that vow, like being bound in chains. Only what is a
genuine, spontaneous expression of the truth of one’s
being has any spiritual value in the sight of God; for God
searches the secrets of our hearts. He knows our inmost
thoughts.
You may think I am being cynical. No, Sir! This is the
simple truth. The time is come for us to dare to look
reality in the face. Religious leaders are human beings,
like you and I. It is in fairness to them that we need to
recognize this to be the case. A sure way of corrupting
individuals is by putting them under assumptions and
expectations altogether beyond their capability. I want to
bear witness that the vows of poverty, chastity and
obedience are beyond the unaided capacities of human
beings. If we refuse to recognize this it is because, if
recognized, it will dispel our illusions and yoke us to
burdensome responsibilities. As Jesus said, only the truth
will set you free. If the truth is not acknowledged, the
outcome will be hypocrisy, which has been the perennial
curse, as Jesus said, in the sphere of religion. He said
prostitutes were, in principle, spiritually better off than
Pharisees.
I remember visiting Bishop Parmar, the Methodist bishop in
Delhi, on the eve of his retirement. “Now that I am retiring,”
he said to me rather lost in thoughtful melancholy, “I want to
serve Jesus Christ.” He said it in such a matter-of-fact tone
that his words scared me.
As followers of Jesus, we must stop outsourcing our spiritual
responsibilities to others, no matter who they are. No one
can carry our crosses. No one else can undertake our
spiritual pilgrimages through history. No functionary can win
us special favours from God, lead us to heaven, or atone for
our sins. Our spiritual wholeness is strictly between Jesus
and us. Those who pretend to be agents, retailers and
wholesale dealers are hypocrites. There is no truth in them.
Worse, they are hindrances to our spiritual growth. This is
what four decades of spiritual struggles and suffering has
taught me. I know no truth to the contrary.
Let me end on what I consider to be a necessary corrective
to our disembodied, church-exclusive (as against church-
centred) piety. Love the world. God did it! If our ‘separation’
from (in effect, ‘indifference’ to) the world results only in our
soulless worldliness – as symbolized by the
commercialization of the Jerusalem Temple at the time of
Jesus Christ – then the logic holds good that we shall be
cleansed more by being in responsible solidarity with the
world than by being escapist about the world. The irony
should not be lost on us: it is the ‘pattern of the world’ (Rom
12: 2) – the pattern of its fallen state – that makes us
indifferent to the world.
Here is what I passionately believe – the need and the urge
to cleanse the Temple will not be clear or felt if we do not
love the world as Jesus did. What safeguards the purity of
the Temple – don’t be shocked – is our love for the world. To
love the church in irresponsible indifference to the giant
agony of the world is to be a party to degrading ‘the house
of prayer for all nations’ into a den of thieves. That is the
stark, irreducible spiritual truth. If you dare to heed to Jesus,
you will believe it.
The lesson that history teaches is stark and simple. You will
be overcome by what you deny. You deny the world today?
In the sense of wanting to have nothing to do with the world
out there? Rest assured: that very world will spring up in the
sanctuary of your life someday, if not tomorrow. It will spring
upon you like a tiger from the forest of the superstitions you
mistook for faith. When that happens, you will be utterly
bewildered and lost; for you wouldn’t have developed,
because of your escapist indifference, any resource or
strength for overcoming that crisis. The world that thus
springs upon you is fiercer and more frightening for your not
having ministered to its spiritual needs. This is the truth
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about the emerging national scenario in India, as it will
become increasingly clear in the days ahead.
So it make sense that Jesus said, you are the salt of the
earth and the light of the world. It is the bounden duty of
your church to help you to be truly so. If, instead, your
church educates you with willful parochial selfishness that
your responsibilities are to be confined strictly to the
expectations of the church, those who do this fatal
disservice to you are no better than ‘the blind leading the
blind’.
A Proposal
Given the gravity of the issues comprehended in the theme
of this issue of the FOCUS I propose that we start a dialogue
on it, and sustain it over time. Readers are requested,
therefore, to send in their responses, concerns and insights.
They shall be responded to. To make this a worthwhile
undertaking, it is necessary that we hold ourselves
scrupulously responsible for what we write or advocate.
Formulate your concerns as precisely and candidly as you
can. Think deeply and biblically. Keep the big picture in
mind. Think long-term. It is possible that our continued,
shared reflections could generate enough spiritual insights
and resources to constitute a book over a period of time! It
may serve, who knows, as a resource book for the Christian
community worldwide. And why not?
Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
Member, FOCUS Editorial Board
http://www.issuu.com/diasporafocus
http://www.scribd.com/diasporafocus
Disclaimer: Diaspora FOCUS is a non-profit organization
registered in United States, originally formed in late Nineties
in London for the Diaspora Marthomites. Now it is an
independent lay-movement of the Diaspora laity of the Syrian
Christians; and as such Focus is not an official publication of
any denominations. It is an ecumenical journal to focus
attention more sharply on issues to help churches and other
faith communities to examine their own commitment to
loving their neighbors and God, justice, and peace. Opinions
expressed in any article or statements are of the individuals
and are not to be deemed as an endorsement of the view
expressed therein by Diaspora FOCUS. Thanks.
Web Site: www.facebook.com/groups/mtfocus
E-Mail: mtfousgroup@gmail.com
FOCUS EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS:
Dr. Zac Varghese, London
Dr. Titus Mathews, Calgary
Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam
Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas
Dr. Jesudas M. Athyal, Thiruvalla
Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
Escaping the Market Culture:
Lal Varghese, Esq., Dallas
“Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and
bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the
money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons” (Matt
21:12–13).
Herod expanded the Jerusalem temple and none of his building
projects was greater than this. Only priests could enter the inner
temple and was surrounded by three courts: Israelite men could
enter the court closest to the temple. Israelite men and women
could occupy the next court. But the Court of the Gentiles,
which was the court farthest from the temple, was the closest
any non-Jew could get to the sanctuary. So, the temple is
divided among the faithful believers and set apart each portion
for group of people to worship the Lord, just like in the market
places items for sale are graded.
Jews from around the world came to the temple at Passover to
sacrifice to the Lord (Ex 12:1–28; Lev 23:4–8). It was not
practical for them to bring sacrificial animals from long
distances; so, they were made available in the temple for a
price. Most Jews also paid the temple tax at Passover, and
moneychangers were there to convert Roman coinage into
appropriate temple currency: pagan mottoes on Roman money
made it unacceptable for Yahweh’s house. Though not
inherently evil, these practices became occasions for sin.
Pilgrims paid exorbitant rates to change money, and sellers
exploited people in poverty, overcharging for the poor man’s
offering of pigeons and doves (Lev 5:7). To make things worse,
these merchants set up shops in the Court of the Gentiles,
making it useless as a place of prayer due to the hustle and
bustle the buying and selling created.
Therefore, Jesus drove out the sellers (Matt 21:12). These
merchants, and the priests who allowed their presence, cared
nothing for true worship as long as they could make money and
keep up the rituals. Our Savior hated this sacrilege, which kept
the nations from learning about the living God in His sanctuary.
We cannot underestimate the importance of this act. It showed
Jesus as having authority to purify and take charge of the
temple, a messianic task (Ezek 43:1–12) that only put Him more
at odds with the Sanhedrin. This is same thing happening in our
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parishes also as long as we can make money, it does not matter
the way in which it is accumulated.
Jesus’s cleansing of the temple at the very least illustrates how
concerned He is with the purity of worship. Our corporate praise
and prayer is something that is always in need of reformation,
for it is easy for anti-Christian practices to slip in unnoticed.
Consider the importance of pure worship from a devoted heart
and make it your aim to show reverence and awe when you
praise the Lord alongside His people. We tend to make our
worship a ritual and so many market place practices are
associated with our worship to please God, like offering
sacrifices, offering money, lighting candles, climbing the steps
reminding Jesus journey with cross to Golgotha etc. These
market place practices in our worship caused our worship to
lose its purity and divinity.
German sociologist Max Weber in his 1905 masterpiece, ‘The
Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, observed: “The
mighty cosmos of the modern economic order,” he warned,
“determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not
only of those directly involved in business but of every individual
who is born into this mechanism, and may well continue to do
so until the day that the last ton of fossil fuel has been
consumed.” We’re still burning that fuel, the fuel of market
culture in our spirituality well more than a century on, and we’re
still as trapped as ever. 1
Word of God revealed through the Holy Bible and given through
Jesus Christ is sacred and truthful and also unique and every
Christian believes it as true words of Jesus Christ. Hence, it is
the fundamental duty of everyone who believes the Word and
also believes that salvation is gained through faith has a
responsibility of spreading the Word; As Emil Brunner pointed:
“Mission work does not arise from any arrogance in the Christian
Church; mission is its cause and its life. The Church exists by
mission, just as a fire exists by burning. Where there is no
mission, there is no Church; and where there is neither Church
nor mission, there is no faith. It is a secondary question whether
by that we mean Foreign Missions, or simply the preaching of
the Gospel in the home Church. Mission, Gospel preaching is
the spreading out of the fire, which Christ has thrown upon the
earth. He who does not propagate this fire shows that he is not
burning. He who burns propagates the fire. This ‘must’ is both
things – an urge and a command. It is an urge, because living
faith feels God’s purpose as its own. ‘Woe is unto me, if I preach
not the gospel,’ says Paul.” Woe to our parishes if we do not
preach and practice the gospel in its pure and untainted form
instead of making it to attain our materialistic goals. 2
The real question is: Are we preaching the gospel or just mere a
worshipping community within the four walls of our secluded
sanctuary on Sundays? It appears that our parishes are in the
business of building multimillion-dollar sanctuaries and just
throwing couple of hundreds or thousands dollars for the
1
Max Weber in his 1905 masterpiece, ‘The Protestant Ethic and the
Spirit of Capitalism’, (Christianity Today, February 8, 2019 Article by
2
Emil Burnner, The Word and the World (London: Student Christian
Movement Press, 1931) p. 108
mission work. We believe that our responsibility and
commitment is only to worship on Sunday and to partake in the
Holy Communion and live our life as we like on all other days.
On Sunday we are the perfect faithful believers attending the
church regularly, sitting on the front raw pews, appearing to be
listening to the sermon from the pulpit. If a church does not
have mission whether it is foreign mission or local mission or
mission among its own people, it has no faith. Jesus never
established any religion or church or parish or served as a priest
or bishop of any church, but He did His mission entrusted to
Him by His Father in Heaven during His short life in this world
and lived by His faith. He wanted us also to do the same
mission, which He has entrusted to us.
The famous theologian Kathryn Tanner’s contention in her
sophisticated and carefully aimed treatise, ‘Christianity and the
New Spirit of Capitalism’, affirms that which Weber famously
imagined: moderns imprisoned within an “iron cage”. Tanner
sees our present confinement as, if anything, yet more
tantalizing. A more recent translation of Weber’s metaphor
renders it as ‘a shell as hard as steel’, and this image with its
acute sense of enclosure seems closer to the way Tanner
imagines our lives as capitalism’s revolutionary course surges
on. She believes, in fact, that we are experiencing the
restructuring of “human subjectivity” itself. Beneath all of the
obvious material changes of our age—symbolized and effected
by the digital revolution—what is going on? Is our traditional
market place giving up to the digital market place, which may
affect our spirituality more than ever as it done in the past? Yes,
we are giving way to our traditional market place to digital
market place now.
The disciples who followed Jesus did the same by propagating
the mission of Jesus Christ. All the disciples were martyred
except John. The first thirteen Bishops of the early Church in
Jerusalem were also martyred as well as the first three Bishops
of the Church in Rome. The church faced persecution both from
Jews and also from the Roman Empire until Constantine, in the
4 century AD, recognized Christianity as the official religion of
th
Rome. The early Church had its purpose and mission and it is
evident from its belief and faith of its members. When they were
persecuted they did not abandon their faith, but closely adhered
to it and gave their life as a sacrifice for their faith. When their
leaders were martyred they did not abandon their faith, but they
joined together and worshipped the risen Lord, while they are
burned or beaten at the stakes. They did not have multimillion
sanctuaries adorned with stained glasses to worship, but they
3
Kathryn Tanner, Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism, 2017
Gifford Lectures. (Christianity Today, February 8, 2019 Article by Eric
Miller ‘Submit to God and Not to the Market’)
8 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
assembled in homes and caves, and listened to the Word of
God. Everything was common to them and they shared it
together. There were faithful believers and followers of Jesus
Christ and they spread the mission of Christ and never took the
name Christians for the namesake. They lived their faith and
continued their faith journey as faithful believers of Christ. Our
faith seems to be self-centered (want to save only oneself) like
in a market place, where seller’s intention is to make profit only
for them.
We live in a comfortable zone now and we have multimillion
sanctuaries and we worship with all comforts. But it appears
that our faith does not overflow the four walls of our sanctuaries
in to the streets outside by witnessing through our deeds. We
do not visit the Samaritan wells and tread the unknown roads or
spread the gospel to our friends or neighbors. We are confined
ourselves as a worshipping community and not doing the
mission of Jesus Christ by spreading the Word of God.
Listening to preaching and worshipping has become our only
goals and not practicing what we heard. We forget to build the
people or the relationship between us and ultimately the
relationship with the Lord. We have turned our parishes as a
market place and our faith is a commodity now.
Recently both in Kerala and outside we see trend of dismantling
old church buildings and building new sanctuaries with all
comforts to worship the Lord. We forget the poor widow at the
roadside or the orphan or the one who does not have a place to
sleep. We live in multimillion dollar houses, travel on the high-
end cars and we wear the most expensive clothes while
attending church. We all fail to see the poor, the less fortunate
and marginalized at the street corner. We fail to see the
Samaritan lady, the prostitute, the leper, and the blind living
around us. Jesus never told that if we worship regularly and
partake on the Holy Communion, we would be faithful believers
entitled for eternal life. He will definitely judge each of us
according to our actions and not on our superficial faith. St.
James wrote: “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to
have faith but have no deeds? Can such faith save him?”(James
2: 14)
3
On the other hand, Jesus asked to continue His mission by
living the faith and not as a fake worshiping community. In
reality in our life, there is little space for “mission” in the average
week of work, family obligations, and events that demand the
time, attention and hearts of most church members. We have
become only Sunday Christians and worship in our comfortable
zones of our own secular community. Our parishes find that
their mission commitments are like a messy bulletin board. The
signs of activity are represented by pieces of paper tacked to
the board in a random manner. A poster, an annual report,
picnic photos, mission trip photos, an organization’s newsletter,
an appeal to join mission trips, a reminder to bring canned
vegetables and food for the food bank, summer camp
registration forms, social media postings etc. have become
commodities.
“It is our acquiescence, our succumbing—perhaps above all,
our disfiguring—that has compelled Tanner to write to
Christians on how to escape the cage. She does so primarily
out of pastoral concern and with pastoral intent, in an effort to
reorient Christians toward a truer spirit and a higher vision.
Christian faith exists, she insists, to effect “revolutionary
alteration” even in this unprecedented circumstance. In every
chapter of her book, she details the contours of the new spirit of
capitalism, she also, chapter-by-chapter, illumines a Christian
response, one that she hopes will add up to a counter-surge in
real time and space. She continues that, rather than being
chained to the past, Christians have unlimited treasure in Christ
and the promise of enlarging freedom as his kingdom comes. If
Christ requires total commitment, it’s not commitment to the
market—it’s devotion to a God who relativizes and subjugates
all other would-be lords. Christianity may be present-driven, but
the present it proffers is filled with grace that is, blessedly, in no
short supply. “Instead of being here today and gone tomorrow,”
writes Tanner, “what allows one to turn one’s life around in the
present—the grace of Christ—is permanently on offer.” 4
The gospels, themselves, present the mission of God as Jesus
accomplished his part of the mission: Matthew presents him as
the King on mission, Mark presents him as the Servant on
mission, Luke presents him as the Perfect Man on mission, and
John presents him as God on mission. In the Gospel of John;
Jesus said, “as the father has sent me [on mission], so I send
you [on mission]" (John 20:21). The book of Acts is
overwhelmed by the evangelistic emphasis, the book of
Romans is the message of the mission, 1st and 2nd Corinthians
deal with conflicts and church discipline on mission, the book of
Galatians defends the gospel mission from religion, the book of
Ephesians emphasizes the church on mission, the pastoral
Epistles describes the leaders of the mission, and the book of
Revelation describes to us the completion and goal of the
mission.
The church and its members need to be involved actively in the
local, regional and global ministries to spread the Word of God.
The annual budget of the church may have a variety of line
items including amounts sent to Diocese, parent church, Vicars
salary and allowances, and various missions supported by the
church. But it will be difficult to find a strategy behind the
financial investment other than those for mission works. The
organizations and people may seem detached from the life of
the congregation when the church moves away from its basic
purpose and mission. The relationship and love between the
faithful is lost and they view the other as an enemy when the
church involves in urging materialistic things. We hear only
solicitation for funds for the building projects from the pulpit and
no more words of wisdom for building the relationship between
the people and ultimately our relationship with the Lord. As Emil
Burner summarized “The Church exists by mission, just as a fire
exists by burning. Where there is no mission, there is no Church;
and where there is neither Church nor mission, there is no faith.”
We need to build the people and their relationship between
each other and ultimately our relationship with our Lord, instead
of building the structures. We need to reform our parishes
where faithful believers can find love and peace.
Unfortunately, our parishes have become market places for
selling different commodities to people like the selling of
indulgences. We see people selling different items for collecting
money in the name of mission work. My question is why people
do not contribute a portion of their income to the mission of the
church instead of selling items and making our parishes a
market place. Some wanted the priests to bless their new luxury
4 Kathryn
Tanner, Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism, 2017
Gifford Lectures. (Christianity Today, February 8, 2019 Article by Eric
Miller ‘Submit to God and Not to the Market’)
9 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
car, bless the foundation of their new home to be built and
priests are interested in doing so also for their gain. What a
tragedy it is when the mission of the church becomes a
business enterprise of the people and the priests. This is the
same situation in which Jesus intervened and cleansed the
temple at Jerusalem, when the sellers and the so-called
priesthood turned the temple in to a market place. Our
sanctuaries must become a market place to sell and share the
experience of faith and witnessing to others. It should not
remain as a place where people can simply obtain Qurbana, but
it should be place where people can change themselves
(metanoia) and transform in to a new being, witnessing the life
and death of Jesus Christ. Markets are where commodities are
sold and bought, but sanctuaries should be places where
people should be brought in to faith and commitment to the
gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Anything less than this is to be
cleansed at the coast of losing the profit made in the name of
the Jesus Christ.
The question is how to escape the market culture crept into our
faith life. Let me quote, Willem H. Vanderburg: “When Jesus 5
was pursued by large crowds, he made no attempts to
consolidate his ministry, as our churches did and continue to
do. He did not invite people in the crowds to come forward to
become members. He did not organize his disciples into a kind
of management committee, nor did he attempt to create a
physical infrastructure to house all the necessary activities that
would have been involved. Instead, just prior to his betrayal,
Jesus instructed his disciples to love one another as he loved
them and to open themselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
Hence, we need to look carefully at what Jesus taught them
regarding the Spirit, while keeping in mind everything our Bible
teaches regarding the Christian life. This life is to be based on
loving one another because it will reveal to others who Jesus
Christ is and how to love one another without any limits. This
love is the fruit held out towards the world.” Thus the only way
to escape market culture in our faith life is to love one another
without limits.
To conclude let me quote Eric Miller: “With the God of grace in
6
view we come, finally, to see that, rather than living in a world
dominated by capital, we live in a world dominated by a God
who is surely pulling the world in his direction, directing it to
purposes that we—with joy—are only beginning to glimpse.”
Tanner argues that this theological vision adds up to a
revolutionary way of life. Let us invest in God and in His
mission for expanding God's love-domain and for doing His will
for bringing heaven on earth. This would remove the finance-
centred capitalism and its disruptive dehumanising effects and
replace it with God's unconditional love. We are the people of
God and our life should reflect the life of Jesus Christ, the one
who cleansed the Temple and gave His life for our Salvation.
5 Willem H. Vanderburg, Secular Nations Under New Gods –
Christianity’s subversion by technology and politics, University of
Toronto Press, 2018
6 Eric Miller is professor of history and the humanities at Geneva
College, where he directs the honors program. He is the co-editor
of Brazilian Evangelicalism in the Twenty-First Century: An Inside and
Outside Look (Palgrave Macmillan).
CAN CHURCHES BE REDEEMED?
Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
Of late, I have heard far too many of my fellow Christians
saying that churches have decayed so hopelessly that it is
futile to even think of their regeneration.
I don’t agree. Let me tell you why. To that end, I propose the
following maxims or principles. Please think about them.
And, if possible, discuss them in small groups.
Principle No. 1
Simple logic has it that if an institution -church, in this
context- deteriorates, it can also improve. What goes up can
come down and what comes down can go up. History has
produced within itself regenerative forces. As people of faith
we believe that God intervenes. Man has no final authority.
Principle No. 2
Nothing happens by itself. We are placed in a position of
responsibility. Of course, God intervenes; as he did in the
case of the Jews suffering in Egypt to set them free. But for
God to respond, we have to do what we can and become
what we ought to be. Our laziness and indifference are a
serious hindrance. It was because of our disinclination to be
vigilant that we got into the present mess in the first place.
Principle No. 3
Solutions to the problem, or means of healing, have to come
from sources other than what caused the disease. If Jesus
were born in the palace of Herod, he would have been part
of the problem! The problem is that we are conditioned,
through church life, to think that all solutions must come
from priests and bishops. Rest assure; it is in their interests
to protect and perpetuate the present rot. It is wholly to their
advantage. It is in our interest - the interest of ordinary
Christians- to have the church cleaned up and to put in
place preventive provisions.
Principle No. 4
The problem may look huge and unmanageable, but the
10 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
solution, often, is simple. We must not get obsessed with the
magnitude of the problem. Magnitude relates to the period of
neglect. Any problem, including corruption in the church,
neglected over time steadily grows in size and finally looks
too huge to be managed.
Principle No. 5
What makes the problem look too difficult to manage is lack
of relevant knowledge and understanding, which was also
the reason why people failed to respond correctively when
the rot began. Understanding issues and afflictions aright is,
therefore, basic to rectifying a situation. External realities
change only when our thinking changes. We must not under-
estimate our power to change, provided we act out of pure
and godly intentions.
Principle No. 6
Clarity of understanding involves being precise about the
principles involved. It is also crucial for our morale. One of
the principles critically relevant to the present situation is
transparency, as set out in Acts of the Apostles. If the
principle of transparency can be implemented in church
administration at all levels, 95% of the problems will be
solved.
Principle No. 7
The rot is systemic, solutions too need to be systemic. The
system of church administration is prehistoric and anti-
democratic in practice. Its instrumentalities and outlook are
borrowed from 5th century Rome, when accountability was
offset by authority. This explains why our bishops -and
priests too, at their levels- are so authoritarian. We are so
used to this that we don’t feel the offence of it.
Principle No. 8
Agents of corruption are, by nature, oppressive and
intolerant of criticism and free-thinking. They are at home
only with de facto slaves. They insist on faith-life being a
one-way traffic, which is to their advantage. They will never
accept Jesus’ teaching “Do to others what you would that
they should do to you.” They treat you as they would never
tolerate your treating them. Try, if you are not convinced!
Principle No. 9
Fear is the weapon of choice that the corrupt use against
their fellow human beings. It is also the means of disability
the people inflict on themselves. Most people keep quiet,
even when they know the gravity of the problem, because of
fear. They don’t realize that the fear of man is rebellion
against God’s authority. We have only one Lord, one Master.
Anyone who pretends to be our earthly master mocks the
authority of God. Jesus says, “Fear not!” Simon of Cyrene: A Symbol of the Cross
Principle No.10 (A spiritual dialogue)

Mere resistance to the agents of evil will not do. Reformative Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph, Kottayam
agenda is out and out positive. There is no use in opposing
anyone as an end in itself. Opposition is not our hobby! I lost my way at Nilackal and asked for the landmark
Opposition is spiritually valid only as integral to heralding what is The Good Samaritan, Thomas, told me:
good and godly. The agenda is not to resist evil; it is to come “Go straight,
home to Jesus, who is our Lord and our Master. You will see a statue of Mary with a cross and turn left”
I found the way.
Now Think!
I lost my way at Devanahalli
Even politicians are accountable at least once in five years to
the people. Shouldn’t church functionaries also be?
The Good Samaritan Balakrishan told me:
Shouldn’t members of the church be entitled to know how it is “Go straight,
being administered? We are urged, Sunday after Sunday, to You will see a temple with an OM sign and turn left”.
donate and to contribute; but we have no right to know. Is that I found the way.
not strange?
I lost my way at Chetpet
Church assets are community assets. How can they be sold or The Good Samaritan Murali told me:
alienated without the knowledge and approval of believers? “Go straight,
You will see a Cinema Theater and turn left
Shouldn’t there be effective provisions for ensuring discipline in I found the way.
respect of priests and bishops? (Why should church matters
sink so low that law enforcing agencies have to crack the whip I lost my way at Muscat
on us?) The ecclesiastical court is so structured as to render it The Good Samaritan Sadic told me:
wholly ineffective in dealing with the depravities of bishops. How
“Go straight,
can the accused, or those in solidarity with him, sit in judgment
You will see a mosque with a Crescent-star and turn left
of the offender? When it comes to protecting bishops, all of
them gang up. It is a chain of corruption. Every link has to be in I found the way.
place. They ensure that it is.
I found a religious man with a golden cross around his
Most importantly, are we aware and mindful of the glory and neck at Jerusalem
greatness are missing on account of the shallowness and He told me:
venality of these monarchs of mediocrity? They are fouling our “Go straight to the church gate and
nests. They are tarnishing our image. They are ruining the Turn left”.
material and spiritual assets of the community. They are I did
infecting us with despair. But I could not find the way.

They don’t have to bear the stain of it. You, your children and I found another man with a wooden cross around his neck
their children will have to. Is that fair? in the same street
Already, it is an embarrassment to be identified as a Christian in He told me:
India, thanks to these termites of covetousness. Do we have the
right or spiritual authority, any more, to preach the gospel to our
“Go straight to the market gate and turn left.”
fellow Indians?
I found the way.
The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) is, reportedly,
beginning investigation of the frauds practised over the last ten I see the Cross everywhere
years. Just think of that! From now onwards the public will On all the Good Samaritans without any religious divide
associate the church with SERIOUS FRAUDS. That is what They are the Simons of Cyrene, the father of Alexander
these holy fathers have gained for us. and Rufus.

The least that we can do, as the Psalmist says, is to count the I see the cross in places of gossip
wicked as repugnant. And to refuse to accord them the respect Where people carry the towel of service
they do not deserve. Jesus gave the example. He called the Where people talk about the sharing of food,
corrupt clergy of his times, “whited sepulchres”. Where people ask us to forgive one another.

To accord respect to men of depravity is to patronize their I heard a VOICE from above:
corruption and promote our own degradation. Those who do so
are as much to blame as those who sell the church for
The wood of the cross is easy to be nailed
truckloads of silver, as a vast improvement on the track record
If the cross is made of gold, it resists it’s nailing!
of Judas Iscariot, who was satisfied with thirty pieces, which is
small change for his present-day disciples.

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SEEKING SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS OF WEALTH
Revd Dr. M. J. Joseph*, Kottayam
Is the world a market place? The wedding finale of the daughter
of the Money Giant, Ambani, was raised umpteen questions
before us. For several of us today, money matters. Yes. But it
should not rule the religious kingdoms and their caretakers. “In
an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”
(George Orwell). Money is the fulcrum on which market moves
around. ‘Mammon’ is so powerful today and it has extended its
tentacles to every sector of human life including the religious
sanctuaries. What Jesus said in Mt 6:24: “No one can be a
slave of two masters; or otherwise he will hate the one and love
the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the
other”. The age old saying of Jesus, “You cannot serve God
and Mammon “has now become a religious myth. In the
creation of the market friendly-people rather than people-
friendly markets around the globe, the advertisement for a
product sometimes ends with a market slogan: “Yours
temptingly”. The number of oniomaniacs (people who are
obsessed with the purchase of things) has increased
tremendously even in the religious sectors. Market has now
become a New Deity:
Raising questions of authentic existence:
Lord,
I see a New Deity in the world around
His name is MARKET.
His hands are long like the tentacles of an octopus;
His feet are made of gold and silver;
He is being decorated with costly pearls;
He is being worshipped with incense by the devotees of all
religions;
He enjoys the music of religious elites;
And he likes only the company of the rich.
His caretakers ward off the poor.
He asks only one question:
How much do you have?
He sings songs of praise to Profit.
For him, “having” rather than “being” is the prime question.
The words like, ‘sisterhood’ and ‘brotherhood’ have no place in
his dictionary.
Lord,
I am poor and I live on the margins,
I am unskilled,
I knock at the closed doors of the globalized world,
But have no reply.
Lord, how long? How long? How long?
I want you to tell the market giants:
Not to hoard, but to share
And exhort them with the words of eternal life.
“It is in giving that you save yourself for a better tomorrow.”
I want you, Lord, to ask them to join the pilgrimage of life.
It is the movement of the self from “me to us”.
I want you, dear Lord, to raise prophets in our midst
And empower them to shout without fear
“Temple is mine, not the market.”
Life is meant to be lived with godliness. “For we brought nothing
into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it. For the love
of money is the root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to
be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced
12 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
themselves with many pains"(1 Tim 6:10). One may find various
economic combinations of internalization and externalizations of
society in certain personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Mao Tse
Tung and Karl Marx. Gandhiji’s view of a free India and its
economics is worth recalling. He wrote: “I am not interested in
freeing India merely from the English yoke. I am bent upon
freeing India from any yoke whatsoever. I shall work for an India
in which the poorest shall feel that it is their country in whose
making they have an effective voice, an India in which all
communities shall live in perfect harmony.” This economic
vision is the social philosophy of Jaya Prakash Narayan, who
said: “The India of my dreams is a community in which every
individual, every resource is dedicated to serving the weak—a
community dedicated to the well-being of the least and the
weakest.”
Philosophy of ‘having’, not ‘being’:
Wealth should be treated as one's servant, not as a master. The
question touches upon the bottom line when the market
paradigms are uncritically accepted. The economic division of
the globe as the North and the South has widened our
corporate existence in terms of wealth. In the global community
with the market paradigms, there arose a new value system,
which simply asks the question: How much do you have?
"Having" rather than "being" is given an exalted position in
relationships. The ebb of violence is also associated with the
philosophy of ‘having’. The needs of the humans have been
replaced by their wants. In the parable of the Rich farmer as told
by Jesus in Luke 12: 13-21, the issue is not about the
possession of wealth; but of his attitude of hoarding wealth in
total disregard for others’ needs. The wealth as such does not
make us fools. Wealth is only a servant in the hands of the
people. "Becoming rich toward God" is not a negation of
wealth, but a call to search for the proper placement of wealth in
God's order of relationships. In the global village of today, the
market paradigms through the media has virtually invaded us.
The introduction of a monoculture and homogenization of ‘taste’
have become the basics of the philosophy of Mammon. This
has contributed to the marginalization of several millions in the
world.
Remember the poor:
The instruction given to St. Paul by the pillar apostles of
Jerusalem when he-set out for his missionary journey among
the non-Jewish communities is worth recalling: "Remember the
poor" (Gal 2:10). Market giants are exhorting us, "Forget the
poor"! The poor is deprived of the privilege to make use of
usable knowledge, which has the potential to generate wealth.
In the service of the market one is likely to be led to ‘debt trap’,
which is also qualified as ‘death trap’. In the service of God,
there is always an attitude of care for others. Concern for the
weak and the defenseless is a sign of the maturity of the heart.
“A great city is that which handles its art and garbage equally
well.” The challenge is to ensure a globalization in solidarity and
a globalization without marginalization, as Pope John Paul II
said in his message for the World day of Peace in 1998. The
ethical call demands us “not to sit on a man's back, chocking
him and making him carry us, and yet assure ourselves and
others that we are very sorry"! Joseph Stiglitz, the winner of the
Nobel Prize for Economics, is quite frank when he said, "Life is
difficult enough for developing countries, and you shouldn't
make it more difficult by having unfair rules of the game."
Wealth meant to be shared:
The Lazarus at the gate of the Rich man (Lk 16:19-31) is not a
liability, but a divine agent for the liberation of the rich man. By
caring for the marginalized, the rich and the strong attain their
true divinity. The spirituality of the global community is made
clear when Kofi Annan, former the Secretary General of the UN,
said in a speech with the following words: "Either we help the
outsiders in a globalized world out of a sense of moral
obligation, and enlightened self-internalization, or we find
ourselves compelled to do so tomorrow when their problems
become our problems in a world without walls." This is indeed a
religious truth. The Gita in IX, vs. 27 is quite vocal when it says:
"Whatever you do, or eat, or offer as sacrifice, whatever you
give or practise as austerity, do it as an offering to me." In the
same rein, St. Paul writes: "Render service with enthusiasm as
to the Lord and not to men and women." (Eph 6:7). Here is a call
to forsake, to share and to discover the meaning of life. The
market philosophy of the consumerist culture demands people
to repeat: "What is mine is mine; what is yours is also mine"
(Mar Osthathios). Men of wisdom have told us about the limits
of money. It concludes: "I can buy bed not sleep; books but not
brains; food but not appetite; a house but not a home; medicine
but not health; luxuries but not culture; amusement but not
happiness; a Church pew but not heaven." Yes, the
impossibility of money should make us humble.
Debt forgiveness –Need of the hour
In the global economic scenario, giving and taking loans
through the Financial Institutions such as IMF, WTO and World
Bank have become a daily style of living. The credit cards play a
significant role in the life of the people all over the world. In such
transactions, there is an element of trust and stewardship.
When the loans are given to a country or to a person, it is good
to make their terms clear. But in due course, the relationship
between the parties become bad if the terms are not honoured
due to various reasons: either due to man-made or natural
calamities or political upheavals or corruptions from the bottom
to the top. The sense of brotherhood/sisterhood disappears.
This could be remedied through several measures particularly
‘debt forgiveness/cancellation’. The Jubilee Year mandated in
the book of Leviticus 25 is a clear guidance for the rich nations
to follow as a spiritual manual. It speaks of a new beginning,
which leads to the restoration of wholeness of the community.
In the Incarnation of Jesus, there is a call to think of the world in
not in a worldly way but in a godly way. The spirituality of the
secular is a matter of relationship, which is indeed a search for
truth and justice as social norms.
Jubilee vision-Survival of all living beings
The Jubilee vision in the Old Testament times (Lev 25:10) is a
call to rejoice in the Divine mandate. The purpose is to bring
about Shalom (Shanti) all over the world. The year of Jobel
(Jubilee) “is a year of release of slaves; cancellation of debts
and return of property to its former owners.” This was
proclaimed in the olden times by the blowing of a cornet, the
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horn of a ram. The sound of Jobel proclaims the inauguration of
the Jobel year (Lev 25:9ff), the year of freedom and release, the
year of rejoicing and thanksgiving. It is an invitation to return to
the future. All the key concepts of restoration begins with "re"-
repentance, remission, restitution, reparation, restoration,
regeneration, recreation, reconstruction, rebuilding,
reconciliation, etc. Cosmos (order) is to be created in the midst
of chaos. What is required today is affirmation of human dignity,
freedom and sustainable development. In this respect, human
rights issues are integral to all sectors of life. The land also has
inherent freedom to enjoy the Sabbath, i.e. to lie fallow without
being cultivated (Lev 25:1-7; 20-22). No sowing or harvesting is
allowed. (Lev 23:11).The Sabbath rest for the land is not meant
for keeping it idle but to equip it refreshed and rejuvenated for
better service to the rich and the poor. Really speaking the
Jobel year, when it speaks of a bio-centric attitude to life, there
is a search for a global ethic for community life. The debts are
cancelled, the slaves are made free and the marginals are
brought to the core of the community: This is meant to make a
new beginning for the weak. What matters is to release the
potentials of the poor and the marginalized. ‘Debt forgiveness or
remission’ is now being advocated in the global economic
scenario. This could be done with a human face. It is desirable
to consider the matter with a good planning and strategy. No
doubt that the liberating ideal of Jobel is a sign of hope for
humanity. The incidents of Farmer’s suicide in the recent past in
India could be attributed to crop failure and inability for the re-
payment of soft loans taken from the banks. Such a situation
could happen to a few countries in the globalized world today.
Even a country could be taken as ransom by the rich
multinational companies of the world!! What is required today is
a new mode of ethics and morals for a better tomorrow. The
ecumenical dictum of old is indeed prophetic when it says:
“Poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere.”
Solidarity with the less privileged is the measure of a nation's
greatness. The Canberra Assembly of the WCC has made it
clear to the world that ‘a new ethic of economy and ecology by
upholding the values of sustainability and human freedom’ is the
need of the hour. This is the message of the Nazareth Manifesto
of Jesus (Lk 4: 16-21), which challenges the economic
philosophy of today and pleads for a just and participatory
society. For the Christian church Jobel vision and the Nazareth
Manifesto enacted in the Magnificat (Lk 1: 46-55) are not
optional issues of mission to the world. Consumer values lead
us to temptations of various kinds, e.g. conversion of
agricultural lands to cash crops and destruction of the natural
habitat of birds and animals. In an anthropocentric attitude to
life, other creatures are denied of their basic right to eat and to
drink and even to have their shelter. As the trees are being cut
down, the birds of the air have no place to make their nests! The
nations of the world are encouraged to convert food-money into
the arms race! As market has never developed brotherhood or
sisterhood, we should be quite aware of the designs of “the
evil one." "Lead us not to temptation in the Lord's prayer" has
its social implications. “Every gun that is made, every warship
launched and every rocket fired signifies in a final sense a theft
from those who are cold and are not clothed" (Eisenhower).
*Formerly, Revd Dr. J. Joseph was the Professor of New
Testament and the Principal, Mar Thoma Theological
Seminary, Kottayam; he was also the Director Ecumenical
Christian Centre, Bangalore, and a member of the Faith and
Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, Geneva.
Is the World Only a Market Place?
“How Dare You Turn My Father’s House into a Market”(Jn 2: 16)!
Dr. Zac Varghese, London
This is an important question, and could find its answers
from different perspectives. A wide range of people
assemble at market places and there are even markets
within markets. A market is an old system for the
exchange of goods and services. Markets existed even
before money was invented. People exchanged services
and materials for other kind of services and goods
through a system known as bartering. Physicians
provided healing services for chicken and eggs in farming
communities. In the 21st century, we are finding new ways
of creating a market economy through digital technology,
which is challenging whole sets and patterns of
townships, shopping enclaves, and trading techniques.
Markets have dynamics of its own for changing our
attitudes and lifestyles. Globalisation is a new face of the
market economy with its own specialised dimensions and
impacts. A market place is also an arena where people
meet for all sorts of transactions including exchanging
ideas, as St. Paul came across in Athens; Paul used this
forum for exchanging ideas and for introducing the story
of Jesus. “So he reasoned in the synagogue with the
Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the
market-place day by day with those who happened to be
there” (Acts17: 17). The world is more than a market
place; it is a place where we could see the love of God
and the face of God in human interactions.
Revd Dr. Konrad Raiser, a former Secretary General of
the WCC, in his foreword to ‘Mission in the Market Place’
wrote: “Metropolitan Chrysostom is a passionate
advocate of ‘mission in the market place’, i. e., a form of
mission and evangelism which is people-centred rather
than church-centred.” This to me implies a hidden
criticism in some areas of church-centred mission and an
appreciation for the possibilities of presenting Christ in
the market place. Soon after his election, Pope Francis
expressed the following vision for the Church: “We need
a Church unafraid of going into their night. We need a
Church capable of meeting them on their way. We need a
Church entering into their conversation. We need a
Church able to dialogue with those disciples who, having
left Jerusalem behind, are wandering aimlessly, alone,
with their disappointment, disillusioned by a Christianity
now considered barren, fruitless soil, incapable of
generating meaning.” There are now so many
disillusioned Christians who left their churches and
moved to the market places for economic reasons, or
found attractive markets of spirituality catering for body,
mind and spirit; it could also be that churches themselves
have become market places, for different reasons, as
Jesus observed during his temple visits, as described in
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the gospels (Mt 21: 12-16; Mk 11: 15-18: Lk 19: 45-48; Jn
2: 13-17). I have written before about the need for the
‘church of the people’ for addressing the day today needs
of the local faith communities in places where they meet
for conducting daily business7. Therefore, in this article, I
would be developing two thoughts: firstly of the need to
use the ‘temple cleansing’ processes of Jesus in our
churches today, as some of them have become markets
of fake-spirituality; selling indulgences for sending people
to heaven; secondly, to use the opportunities available in
the market place, as indicated earlier, for God’s mission
as guided by the Holy Spirit and use markets as mission
fields.
In one of Shakespeare’s frequently quoted passages in
‘As you like it’ we read about seven ages of man: “All the
world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
they have their exits and their entrances,
and one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant . . .”
According to Shakespeare people are playing the roles of
infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantalon, old
age, and finally death. The unusual word ‘pantalon’ refers
to the sixth stage of life; the character of pantalon or
pantaloon is a weak old man from Italian comedy who is
an abject slave to money and markets. Sometime people
also think of the world only as a market place. The world
has its ups and downs as markets; markets have shifting
or floating values and in that sense it has no permanency.
Similarly the world that we inhabit is not a permanent
place; we are sojourners in this transient world. But
thinking of the world as a simple market or a stage is
meaningless as Ecclesiastes reminds us over and over
again. The writer of Ecclesiastes, probably an old man,
concludes that much of his life has been meaningless
because he has sought to do things by himself and for
himself. But everything is meaningless is not a fancy
notion, but these expressions are tightly packed with
meanings when we look at them under the light that God
has given us. It is the life away from God, which is
meaningless. God gave us meaning and truth in the life
and the ministry of Jesus, for he said, “I am the way, the
truth and the life” (Jn.14: 6).
7
Zac Varghese, ‘A Church of the people rather than Church for
the People’, ‘Expanses of Grace’, CSS Publications, Tiruvalla,
ISBN 978-81-7821-766-6; 2017; page 110-115.
We have a tendency to look at the world, man and God
separately as disconnected entities, but these are three
dimension of a single reality. Raimundo Panikkar
explained this reality as perichoresis, meaning dwelling
within one another. Carl Sagan, a great philosopher,
argued that ‘Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will
be.’ Such arguments are for factoring God out of the
equation of tri-unity. There is indeed a God-shaped hole
in such philosophies and living styles. The Indian mystic,
Sri Aurobindo’s,8 assertion is of interest in this context: “A
yoga which requires me to give up the world is not for
me; a solitary salvation leaving the world to its fate was
felt almost distasteful;” he further added, “nothing can be
saved until everything is saved. . . . There can be no
paradise so long as a single man is in hell!” Pope Francis
in his ‘Letter to God’s people’, published in the Vatican
News of 20th August 2018, wrote: “It is always helpful to
remember that in salvation history, the Lord saved one
people. We are never completely ourselves unless we
belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone,
as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to
himself, taking into account the complex fabric of
interpersonal relationships present in the human
community.” In Jesus we see these three dimensions,
divinity, humanity and the world coming together in the
life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. This
indwelling is the key to Jesus’ ministry, the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit. The purpose of creation was for
the intimate fellowship with the creator and the creation,
unity in diversity. We are no longer isolated individuals in
conflict with each other or our surroundings; we are parts
of a whole, elements in a universal harmony. Religions
create differences and disunity, fellowship becomes mere
transactions and power play.
Religions became market places for selling spirituality.
Such markets provide ‘I-me-myself’ individualistic
personalised attitudes for salvation and securing a safe
journey to heaven of one’s dreams. Markets have existed
in various forms from the earliest of times, from bartering
system to auction houses, stock markets, money
markets, digital bit coins and so on and on. The world is
at present dominated and guided by markets and market
economy, the present crisis is all about movement of
capital, tariffs, trade wars and embargoes, movement of
labour, acquisition of technology and such. It is finally a
game for dominance of one section of people over
another through the juggling tricks of marketers.
Globalisation and globalised-markets are creating new
sets of problems.
In the Abrahamic tradition, it was at the temple that the
three realities of God, man and the world came together
in glorifying God’s name through worship. Psalm 19 tells
8 Satprem, in ‘Aurobindo’, published by Mother’s Institute of 9 Mark Scarlata, ‘The Abiding Presence’ ISBN 978 0 334
Research, Delhi, 2003; page 41 and 226. 055044, SCM Press, London, 2018; Page 24.
15 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
how the whole cosmos declares the glory of God and
God’s words in the Scripture guide us to give Him Glory
in all aspects of our living. At the age of 12 when Jesus
visited the temple in Jerusalem with his parents for the
Feast of the Passover, he called the temple as his
Father’s house (Lk 2: 50). Jesus found at home in the
temple because at that time it was a place of worship and
study, but twenty years later when he visited the temple,
as we read in John’s gospel, it became a market place as
Jesus asked: “How dare you turn my Father’s house into
a market” ( Jn 2: 16)!
The Temple Traditions and its Cleansing:
When the Abrahamic people wandered through the
desert for their freedom from Pharaoh, God instructed
Moses to build a ‘tent of the meeting or a tabernacle’,
within the tabernacle there was a sanctuary with the Ark
of the Covenant. “Let them make me a sanctuary, I may
dwell with them” (Ex 25:8). This sanctuary was shrouded
with a holy cloud, indicating the presence and the glory of
God. Thus, “The weight of his glory descends and abides
in the tabernacle. The barren soil of the desert becomes
transformed into a new Eden as YHWH returns to dwell
among his people.”9 Many years later, Solomon built a
most beautiful permanent temple for God, a dwelling
place for God. The priests relocated the Ark of the
Covenant in the new temple and again, the cloud
indicated the presence of God in the temple. Years later a
second and a third temple was built at the same site. The
temple was the place where they worshipped God and it
was a constant reminder of their identity as God’s chosen
people. But over the centuries, traditions have changed
Jesus saw his Father’s house as a ‘den of robbers’. Jesus
quoted from Scripture: “‘It is written.’ he said to them,
‘My house will be a house of prayer’; but you have made
it ‘a den of robbers” (Lk 19: 46). How did this happen?
When Jesus went there as a child, he found it a good
place to have a discussion and study with the teachers,
but at the beginning (Jn 2: 13-17) and towards the end of
his ministry (Mt 21: 12-16; Mk 11: 15-18: Lk 19: 45-48),
he found it necessary to clean up the temple. The
business transactions in the temple and the money
exchanges for profit making destroyed the rhythm and
the beauty of the temple worship; it absolutely destroyed
the very purpose of the temple. The chief priests and his
family were seen to be crooks and hypocrites. The
commercialism in religion and the cultivation of
personality-cults and guru-cults in religions create a wall
between dedicated worshippers and God. Sounds of the
salesmen and stallholders drowned the payer of the
worshippers: “God be merciful to me a sinner.” The
temple was intended for such confessional prayers,
blessings and for giving glory to God.
Do we need a ‘temple cleansing’ in our churches and
also in our daily living?
Cleaning temples and their precincts every morning is a
holy and important ritual in many religious traditions of
Asia. It is also part of one’s monastic discipline and
training. The temple cleansing incidence in John’s gospel
is also the beginning of the revelation of the inauguration
of a new temple in the person of Jesus (Jn 2: 21) Jesus
told us and finally demonstrated that his own body is the
temple of God through his resurrection. It is Jesus’ love
for his Father, which makes it a permanent dwelling
place, a temple of God. We in turn have the opportunity
to become dwelling places of God through our love for
God. “If anyone loves me, and he will obey my teaching.
My Father will love him, and we will come to him and
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make our home with him” (Jn 14: 23). St. Paul in his letter
to the Corinthians says: “Don’t you know that you
yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells
in you? . . . God’s temple is sacred, and you are that
temple” (1Cor 3: 16, 17). This is a radically new
understanding. We, each one of us, are dwelling places of
God, and as a result the Church is also a dwelling place,
a temple of God. What does it mean to clean the temple
within us under this new insight? The temple-cleansing
incidence reminds us to be aware of the struggle
between, Mammon, money and God. God is reminding us
to understand the burden of becoming a place where
God dwells. We are called to be the temples of God.
Individually and collectively we are the temple of God.
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is
part of it” (1Cor 12:27). So we have an individual and
corporate responsibility to keep the temple clean.
From the apostolic times we have noticed the growth of
the Church and St. Paul and other apostles wrote
pastoral letters for introducing corrective measures. We
have witnessed the influence of Wycliffe, Tyndale, Knox,
Martin Luther and John Calvin in this cleaning up. In the
Mar Thoma Church we saw the influence of Abraham
Malpan, Sadhu Kochukunju Upadesi, Mammen Upadesi
and such people bringing changes to our worship, liturgy,
daily living, and spiritual growth. What happened in the
Jerusalem temple has happened in our churches and in
our personal lives. However, today many people feel that
the Church has failed them by not engaging with their
needs. The practice of faith often appears too intellectual,
far too other worldly and detached from everyday needs;
it is often adhered to doctrines and rituals; clergy often
fail to see the spiritual life as such beyond the strict
practice of a few well-worn daily rituals; they are often
resistant to change or learn communicating skills to reach
out to people, and have become managers and
administrators, primarily to maintain themselves. Making
churches into markets of superficial spirituality in various
disguises is an easy way out and evading responsibilities.
It is time to be aware of this tragedy and take measures
with utter humility. It is so easy to point the finger at
others and become experts in ‘virtual signalling’. It takes
lots of courage and absolute humility to kneel down and
accept our roles or our indifference in allowing such
things to happen in our personal lives and our faith
communities. This malady is spreading in all religions and
we need to be aware of this and confess that each one of
us is responsible in various degrees. Yes, indeed we need
cleansing, commitment, meditation, and transformation.
Mission in the Market Place:
The world is indeed a market place and hence we are
called upon to do God’s mission in this market place.
Market is at the cutting edge of life today. There is
church-oriented, market-directed mission, and also a
God’s mission (missio Dei) based on loving our
neighbours as ourselves. Understanding and sensing the
difference between the two would help us to direct the
mission in the right way. Church is more than a collection
of members, dogmas and liturgical worship. Church is a
missionary community and a community with a mandate
to live the gospel in the market place because it is where
most people are. This is the place of everyday activity.
The characteristic of the missionary community is to meet
people where they are and accept them for what they are.
If the mission of the Church is the salvation of the world
to establish kingdom values, then the concern of the
Church cannot be her self-preservation or market ratings
or her desire to cling to rigid traditions and languages
which younger people cannot appreciate or understand.
The church needs to use a rhythm, style and language,
which could attract young people. Communication is the
heartbeat of a community and there is an urgent need to
communicate the love of God through her actions.
The Church as a missionary community should be the
sign and sacrament of God’s kingdom, expressing its
core values through social transactions. The Church
should be the moral consciousness of society, always
working for the elimination of unjust structures and for the
rendering of justice and to give emphasis for establishing
new social awareness and practices. The formation of
this new social order through God’s mission is firmly
founded on the theological foundations expressed in
Mary’s song (Lk 1: 46-55) of bringing down aristocracy
from their thrones, including ecclesial aristocracy, and
lifting up the humble. This visionary agenda is expected
to scatter even those who are proud in their inner most
thoughts and extend mercy to those who fear the Lord
from generation to generation.
A critical attitude towards institutionalised religion,
religious establishments, and their vested interests,
hereditary and hierarchical manipulations is unavoidable.
As long as the clergy continue to dominate the agenda of
the Church, there will be clashes between their
institutional interests and actions in the secular/civil
society. Challenging power structures and challenging
religious awareness are part of the prophetic heritage of
Nathan who rebuked King David (2 Sam 11 and 12), and
John the Baptist who bore the brunt of Herodias’ anger
(Mt 14: 1-12). By healing the hand of the paralysed man
(Mt 12: 9-13) and the crippled woman on the Sabbath (Lk
13: 10-17), Jesus taught a new socio-spiritual interface
and understanding of the Sabbath of helping people and
not leaving them helpless. Jesus taught us that the
Sabbath is for the mankind and not the mankind for the
Sabbath. It is a movement to fullness; it is a kick at their
hard-nosed religion; it is a stand against all existing unjust
structures of society. It is a challenge for the
transformation of society. It is searching for order.
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Dependence on past achievements is symbolic of this
degeneration and decadence. We have become a
decrepit ancient monument with inability to respond
meaningfully to today’s issues, challenges and realities.
As a result, nobody is taking the church seriously; church
has become irrelevant and decadent. Those who are
called out to be different, those who are called out to
reform the world through them being different have been
transformed into nothingness or meaninglessness, they
have lost their savour. In order to respond meaningfully
to contemporary challenges, to develop new styles of
action and awareness through which to create an agenda
based on core kingdom values, the church needs to
develop an in depth self-analysis and seeks dynamics for
becoming promoters of justice and social reformation. We
need to develop a longing for justice, relationships, truth
and spirituality. In all these, we see the consummation of
all ideas of the kingdom of God. The creation of this new
society is only possible though repentance, regeneration
and reformation for becoming a new being in Christ. This
realisation may be very painful; it is like going through a
kind of death or birth pangs. But it is the one thing, which
makes life worth living. Mission in the market place is very
difficult when selfishness and self-interests become the
hallmarks of the new social order.
Pope Francis said, “The mission of the Church is not
building walls, but breaking them down.” Revd Dr.
Valson Thampu recently compared walls to darkness, but
we are the children of ‘Light’ and we are ‘lighted to
lighten’. This would help members of the Church to
welcome strangers without any reservation. We need to
learn to welcome others who are different from ourselves.
A missionary Church is a ‘Church of the people and not
church for the people’. Lay people do not need spoon-
feeding at all times, they should be allowed to walk and
learn everyday realities in the market place. Bede Griffiths
wrote: “To discover God is not discover an idea but to
discover oneself.” Give them space for this discovery. A
hierarchical Church often fails to notice the spiritual gifts
of laity because it is more concerned with generating
catch phrases, sound bites, and the acceptability of the
media. It is often very common that people who always
emphasise religious rituals forget that the spirit of love
and mercy is at the heart of the Christian gospel. Karl
Barth advocated the following ancient saying for the
continuing cleansing of the Church: “ecclesia reformata
semper reformanda.” This means that the reformed
Church must always be reformed; the continued
reformation is essential for our spiritual and emotional
health.
Let me conclude this article with a quote from prophet
Amos: “I hate, and despise your solemn feasts . . . I will
not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on
like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream”
(Amos 5; 21-24)!
Pearls of Wisdom Series: No.10
The Whole Body of the Church must be cleansed from all Defilement.
[A reading from a sermon of Pope St. Leo the Great]
Of all the days celebrated in varying degrees of solemnity
by the Christian liturgy, beloved brethren, none ranks
higher than the Paschal feast, by which the whole series
of festivals is consecrated and confirmed in honour in the
Church of God. If it is true that the very birth of our Lord
from his mother looked forward to its culmination in this
mystery, then it is clear that the sole purpose of God’s
son in being born was to make his crucifixion possible.
For in the virgin’s womb he assumed mortal flesh the
unfolding of his passion was accomplished. Thus the
mercy of God fulfilled a plan too deep for words: Christ’s
humanity became for us a redemptive sacrifice,
annulment of sin, and the first-fruit of resurrection to
eternal life.
When we consider what the entire world owes to our
Lord’s cross, we realise our need to prepare for the
celebration of Easter by a fast of forty days if we are to
take part worthily in these sacred mysteries. Not only
every defilement to be purged away from bishops who
have received the fullness of the sacrament order, from
priests who hold second place, and from deacons who
administer the sacraments, but the whole body of the
Church and entire company of the faithful must be
purified, so that in the temple of God, whose foundation
is the founder himself, every stone may be beautiful and
every section radiant. If it is reasonable to embellish a
king’s palace or governor’s residence with every
ornamental art, so that the greater a man’s importance
the more splendid his dwelling, what zeal ought to be
expended in building the house of God himself, and how
distinguished should be its furnishing! No doubt such a
task can be neither undertaken nor completed without the
architect; nevertheless the builder of the house has given
it the power to grow in stature through its own efforts. For
in the erection of this temple of living and intelligent
materials are being used, which of their own free will
assemble themselves into a single structure at the
prompting of the Spirit of grace. There was a time when
they neither loved God nor sought him; but he loved them
and sought them so that they might begin to love and
seek him in return. This is what the blessed apostle John
speaks of when he says: Let us love God, for he first loves
us.
Since therefore the entire company of the faithful and
each believer in particular form and the same temple of
God, there must be the same perfection in each individual
as there is in the whole; for even if all are not alike in
beauty nor is there equal merit in such a diversity of
membership, yet the bond of love ensures communion of
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beauty between them all. While those who are united in
holy love may not all have received the same gift of grace,
they rejoice nonetheless in their mutual blessings.
Nothing that they love can be wanting to them, for by
finding happiness in the progress of others they increase
their own store of riches.
• Taken from “A Word in Season’ edited by Henry
Ashworth O. S.B; The Talbot Press, Dublin, 1974.
FOCUS
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THE NEED FOR A NEW VISION IS REAL AND PRESSING - Part 3
Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
[Part-2 of this article was published in the 2019, January,
issue of the FOCUS; FOCUS2018, Vol7 (1), p 19-20]
A new vision is not born of the will of man; but the
repentance of man is a pre-condition for openness to that
vision. Regeneration, or being born again, is the outcome of
that acceptance in spirit and in truth, as against pietistic
pretenses.
This new vision will embrace all aspects of human existence.
Nothing, including politics and commerce, will be out of
bounds for it. It will not distance itself from the world but
relate to the world in love; love not as the world knows it.
Love is the authentic expression of the Spirit. The fruit of the
Spirit begins with love. It is the essence of all
Commandments. To love the world in a godly manner is to
be different from the ways of the world. The world is in
trouble because of its ways! And we deem it a virtue, or tact,
to be well-schooled in it; and that too for the sake of the
Kingdom of God!
The difference between Jesus and the religious leaders of
the time was one of vision. His vision embraced the whole of
humanity, which is the hallmark of the spiritual. The Spirit,
Jesus clarified, is like the wind. It blows where it pleases. No
one knows where it comes from and where it goes. That is to
say, it allows no divisive labels and restrictions. It holds no
exclusivist loyalties. It was precisely this that rattled the
Jews. It went right contrary to the misdirection in which they
were conditioned.
What we tend to forget at the present time is that no one
can, in honesty, be a caring person so long as he remains
parochial. A priest with a parochial mindset may do all he
can to seem to be caring towards his ‘sheep’. (The value of a
lamb is situated between the milk and meat it is meant to
yield.) But it is rarely a sign of a caring spirit. It is driven, in
most cases, by considerations of income for the church and
popularity for the priest. This is not being cynical! This is the
point that Jesus makes through the parable of the Good
Samaritan. The priest and the Levite would have cared for
the wounded victim if he were a subscribing member of their
congregation. Between the thieves who attack the man
because he is not one of them, and the priest and the Levite
who turn their faces away from his pain and helplessness,
the difference is notional. The Samaritan, on the other hand,
was not a Samaritan in his outlook. That’s the profound
paradox on which the parable is structured. He was, as
Jesus says, a neighbour to the man in need. And that’s the
revolution the world is waiting for. In the new vision, the
Samaritan and the Jew, the Christian and the non-Christian
would all be neighbours. Their wounds and bloods will carry
no alienating labels.
Today the caring culture of the church is at its lowest ebb.
The show goes on, no doubt. But no one bothers about how
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the people are faring. It is assumed, as Robert Browning
says, “God is in his heavens and all is right with the world.”
Subscriptions, special donations, birth and wedding
anniversary offerings. . . And prayers based on membership .
. . That’s called pastoral ministry. It was looking at a similar
situation that Jesus said, ‘the people are like sheep without a
shepherd.’
This reminds us of the church in Laodicea: the lukewarm
church, a church in accommodation with the ways of the
world. It is a church, hardly distinguishable from the world. It
is like the change from the Congress to the BJP. The BJP
justifies its misdeeds by citing those of the Congress. Yet it
claims to be a party with a difference. Wonder how different
we are from this pattern. We claim to be different from the
world by replicating its patterns and adopting its ways.
Except, perhaps, that the world has less need of hypocrisy
than we have.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not arguing that there
is no hope or that the gates of hell have prevailed over the
church. If Jesus has said that such a thing won’t happen
ever, I believe in it firmly and passionately; else I won’t have
bothered to write this piece, advocating a new vision for a
magazine of that title.
My point is that the more these signs of contradiction and
hypocrisy multiply the closer we are to a new vision; for
these evident and distressing signs of disarray prove that the
old is wearing itself out. Its shelf-life is expiring. But we
should not be so naïve as to expect that a new vision will be
born and ascendant irrespective of us. We have to, like the
blessed Mother of the Lord, be willing to be the medium
through which that vision is born according to the sovereign
will of God. The good news is that we don’t have to be
distinguished and well-plumed people, individuals of
distinction and gravity, to serve in this capacity. What is
required of us is quite simple, which is the justice of God. Be
the salt of the earth and the light of the world; which we can
so because Jesus lives today. Our hope is well-founded
because ours is a living faith.
This is not to say that birthing a new vision is a walk in the
park. No! It is a pilgrimage over which the shadow of the
cross rests perennially. The prerequisite for being the
medium through which the new vision will come into the
world is well stated by Jesus himself, “He who wishes to
come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and
follow me.” (Mtt.16:24). Jesus himself was distinguished by
this kenotic strength (Phil.2:5-11). Only he who denies
himself will be filled by God. Hence it is that the first will be
the last; and the last, first. The new vision is like light. It is
coming continuously into the world. The problem is that our
face is turned away from it. That is the hallmark of a living
faith. Hence it is that there is an inevitable connection
between vision and sight. Like Bartimaeus on the Jericho
road, we too need to cry out, “Lord, I want to see.”
A Letter to the People of God
Pope Francis
[Pope Francis has responded to new reports of clerical
sexual abuse and the ecclesial cover-up of abuse. On 20
August, 2018, in an impassioned letter, addressed to the
whole People of God, the Holy Father calls on the Church to
be close to victims in solidarity, and to join in the acts of
prayer and fasting in penance for such "atrocities". We owe it
and are grateful to Vatican City news for this report.
Following this, Pope called the bishops from across the
world for four days of consultation in Rome from 21-24 ,
February, 2019.]
“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1Cor
12:26). These words of Saint Paul forcefully echo in my
heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by
many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and
the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number
of clerics and consecrated persons. Crimes inflict deep
wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the
victims, but also in their family members and in the larger
community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking
back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to
repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead
to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture
able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to
prevent the possibility of their being covered up and
perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is
also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm
our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of
vulnerable adults.
1. If one member suffers…
In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the
experiences of at least a thousand survivors, victims of
sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the
hands of priests over a period of approximately seventy
years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases
belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have
come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have
realized that these wounds never disappear and that they
require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join
forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never
go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which
cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or
silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the
measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by
decisions that increased its gravity by falling into
complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed
us on which side he stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken
and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For
the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers:
“he has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast
down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the
lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the
rich he has sent away empty” (Lk 1:51-53). We feel shame
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when we realize that our style of life has denied, and
continues to deny, the words we recite.
th
With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an
ecclesial community that we were not where we should have
been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the
magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many
lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned
them. I make my own the words of the then Cardinal
th
Ratzinger when, during the Way of the Cross composed for
Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so
many victims and exclaimed: “How much filth there is in the
Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood,
ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how
much self-complacency! Christ’s betrayal by his disciples,
their unworthy reception of his body and blood, is certainly
the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces
his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our
hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us! (cf. Mt 8:25)” (Ninth
Station).
2. … all suffer together with it
The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires
coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and
communal way. While it is important and necessary on
every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of
what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we
are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of
our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their
spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission,
today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most
challenging sense, to become our way of forging present
and future history. And this in an environment where
conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of
abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them
and rescue them from their pain (cf. Evangelii Gaudium,
228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn
whatever endangers the integrity of any person. Solidarity
summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially
spiritual corruption. The latter is “a comfortable and
self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears
acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle
forms of self-centeredness, for ‘even Satan disguises
himself as an angel of light’ (2 Cor 11:14)” (Gaudete et
Exsultate, 165). Saint Paul’s exhortation to suffer with those
who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to
repeat the words of Cain: “Am I my brother's keeper?” (Gen
4:9).
I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in
various parts of the world to come up with the necessary
means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of
children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing
zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate
or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in
applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary,
yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater
culture of care in the present and future.
Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should
feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so
greatly need. This change calls for a personal and
communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord
does. For as Saint John Paul II liked to say: “If we have truly
started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must
learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom
he wished to be identified” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49). To
see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us
to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his
presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite
the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential
exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord’s
command. [1] This can awaken our conscience and arouse
our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says
“never again” to every form of abuse.
It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a
Church that does not include the active participation of all
the members of God’s People. Indeed, whenever we have
tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of
God to small elites, we end up creating communities,
projects, theological approaches, spiritualties and structures
without roots, without memory, without faces, without
bodies and ultimately, without lives. [2] This is clearly seen in
a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one
common in many communities where sexual abuse and the
abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the
case with clericalism, an approach that “not only nullifies the
character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and
undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has
placed in the heart of our people”. [3] Clericalism, whether
fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons, leads
to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and
helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are
condemning today. To say “no” to abuse is to say an
emphatic “no” to all forms of clericalism.
It is always helpful to remember that “in salvation history, the
Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves
unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved
alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to
himself, taking into account the complex fabric of
interpersonal relationships present in the human
community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of
a people” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only
way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened
so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us
as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a
people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge
our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that
can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active
participation of all the Church’s members, everything being
done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will
not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for
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sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of
fasting and prayer will help us as God’s People to come
before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as
sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and
conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that
can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For
“whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to
recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues
arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of
expression, more eloquent signs and words with new
meaning for today’s world” (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).
It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge
and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities
perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those
entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for
those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own
sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to
acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused
in the past and allow us, in the present, to be more open and
committed along a journey of renewed conversion.
Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes
and our hearts to other people’s sufferings and to
overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are
so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer
open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young
people and the disabled. A fasting that can make us hunger
and thirst for justice should impel us to walk in the truth,
supporting all the judicial measures that may be
necessary. A fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be
committed in truth and charity with all men and women of
good will, and with society in general, to combatting all
forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of
conscience.
In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be “a sign and
instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the
entire human race” (Lumen Gentium, 1).
“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it”, said
Saint Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will
become attuned as individuals and as a community to this
exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion,
in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at
the foot of her Son’s cross. She did so unhesitatingly,
standing firmly by Jesus’ side. In this way, she reveals the
way she lived her entire life. When we experience the
desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do
well, with Mary, “to insist more upon prayer”, seeking to
grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (SAINT
IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the
first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we
are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without
excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the
model of a true follower of Christ. May the Holy Spirit grant
us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed
to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction
and our resolve courageously to combat them.
IN OFFENCE TO DAVID BRAND’S DEFENCE OF JUDAS (Ask FOCUS)
Revd. Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
[Did Judas have a choice, or was he predestined to betray
Jesus?(Re: Mt. 26: 25; Jn. 13: 27-30; Jn. 17: 11-12; Ps. 41: 9;
Acts 1: 16) The following response is based on an article, ‘In
Defence of Judas’ by David Brand, which appeared in the
October (2018) issue of the FOCUS (Vol. 6 (4), 2018, Page 17).]
I respect Mr. David Brand (In Defence of Judas) for saying what
he has. But I disagree with him. As Voltaire said, “I disagree with
what you say, but I shall defend with my life your right to say it.”
David’s idea of Judas would lend itself admirably to a Bollywood
or Hollywood treatment of this enigmatic individual. But art,
alas, is not quite the same as theology or the truth of
experience. Fact and fiction need not be congruous. Our
concern here is with the truth; at least with seeking it.
Without wanting to be uncharitable to David, I would refer to
Kierkegaard’s observation that one of the essential features of
the modern man is his penchant for ‘over-intellectualization’.
The outcome is that truth is lost like a needle in a haystack.
Soren Kierkegaard is not saying that nothing should be
subjected to rational scrutiny. He is suspicious only about ‘over-
intellectualisation’, which involves weaving webs of tautology
that resemble the sinews of truth, but aren’t what they purport
to be. Tautological constructs are alternatives to truth.
David’s first premise is that Jesus had to do what he did in
order to fulfil the scripture. This is perilously close to the truth;
because it is a ‘one-half truth’. Jesus said, ‘it is necessary that
offence comes; but
‘woe unto him through whom the offence comes’. The fact that
Jesus had to be betrayed and arrested doesn’t mean that Judas
had to do it. Or, that he was coerced even covertly to do it. If we
deviate from the logic Jesus himself provided with specific
reference to this instance, we create a situation in which
anything can be justified. The very foundation of moral
responsibility will be dismantled in the process. It is a path we
shall not walk. No human being has the right to decide that he
will be the agent for fulfilling a divine or historical purpose; or, to
put it in Eliot’s words, ‘to force the moment to its crisis’.
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment treats this theme
poignantly.
The fact that, as David says, “Judas threw the money away and
committed suicide – rather than live smartly ever thereafter –
doesn’t prove that he was not ‘a betrayer successfully earning
his reward and spending it’. Judas comes through, in the
Gospels, as one who hasn’t come to terms with himself. [See
the paragraph below] That is why he is akin to most of us and
why he appeals to our sentimental bias. Most of us are in the
same predicament. I suspect that is why he is there in the
Passion Narrative in the first place. We have an extreme
representation of this theme in Shakespeare’s Iago, described
by Coleridge as ‘the motiveless malignity of a motive-hunting
villain’. Judas, unlike Iago, is not a villain; he is human, all too
human. To that extent, David is right. And we are obliged to be
grateful to him for illumining this dim aspect of the narrative.
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There is a subtle and profound distinction between Peter and
Judas. Peter acts impulsively. Those who do so are supposed
to be -in common parlance – in poor control of themselves.
Judas, in contrast, acts deliberately, almost calculatingly.
Persons of this type – by “Aristotle’s analysis- are supposed to
be ‘virtuous’. They can be expected to avoid ‘extremes’ in
conduct. Yet – for all his deliberation – Judas is an alien to
himself. The significance of this, I’m sure, will not be lost on my
readers. The question that emerges from this scenario is, “How
are we to understand ourselves?” This is raised, as readers
would know, repeatedly in the Gospels. (I suggest that the
readers make a study of this biblical theme on their own.)
The anomaly in labouring to condone Judas’ role on the premise
that he was ‘ordained’ to do what he did, needs to be faced. If
this line of argument is pushed, we land up in a realm of mere
human instrumentality. Judas then becomes a less-than-fully-
human thing; a mere instrument. And I agree with Immanuel
Kant that treating a human being as an instrument is an
unforgivable insult to the human. Not even God has the right to
treat human beings in that fashion! The problem with the
instrumentalization of human being is that it excludes freedom
of choice and, with that, the notion of responsibility altogether.
Only what is done in freedom has spiritual value. To introduce
coercive instrumentality of the human agent of action is to go
right against the logic of spirituality.
David’s argument that Judas allowed himself to be carried away
by the rousing reception Jesus got on his way to Jerusalem and
that the same anaesthetized Judas into the complacency of
assuming that, irrespective of what he did, Jesus would remain
unharmed. (Smart bargain! He sold Jesus for 30 pieces of silver,
without selling Jesus! This is the only instance of a transaction
in history in which the seller keeps the money and without the
item being sold!) In arguing this, David overlooks what Jesus
said in unambiguous terms: that he would be ensure that the
Romans do not go berserk and take out their Jesus-induced ire
on the Jews. Jesus was a piece of red cloth to the Roman bulls.
True. But, if David had recalled Aesop’s Fables, he would have
seen that those who have power need no valid excuse, if they
are inclined to do something. How could Judas be, so suddenly,
such an astute reader of political undercurrents and yet, in
relation to Jesus’ ministry, so deficient in comprehension?
David’s theory weakens further when it comes to the
explanation for Judas’ casting away the blood money, the thirty
pieces of silver. If David is familiar with Shakespeare’s Macbeth,
he would know that the way a person experiences an act
prospectively – i.e., when it is only being contemplated – is
radically and dramatically different from how he experiences in
retrospect. The heart-rending pathos of Macbeth stems from
this contrast. This is a significant existential angst, and the Bard
of England could have learned it only from Jesus. Macbeth is
Shakespeare’s version – well, nearly – of Judas. The same
pattern is reflected in Crime and Punishment. Every human
being, who has crossed the ethical limit, would know this to be
true. It is irreducibly universal.
(Continued on Page 24)
In Response to Revd Valson Thampu’s Analysis (Ask FOCUS)
Dear Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
Your letter has been passed to me by my very good friend, Prof.
Zac Varghese, who is one of the editors of the Focus.
You may be surprised to learn that they have only ever received
two responses to all articles published so far and apparently
they were both from yours truly, which surprises me just as it
possibly surprises you considering the quality of the other
submissions.
Your first statement struck a chord in my memory banks and
reminded me of an incident circa 1979 at an event on the
grounds of Windsor Castle when a young man came up to me
very embarrassed and uncomfortable. I instantly knew he was
about to apologise for something he had said and had been
advised to make amends. I interrupted what he was about to
say with this statement. “I may not agree with what you say, but
I will defend your right to say it”, Dear Revd Dr. Valson Thampu,
His embarrassed expression immediately changed to that of
complete amazement and he replied; “Now I know why you are
the boss of M . . . Industries”. He had realised in an instant that
it did not matter to me what he said, I had forgiven him and did
not require him to humble himself in public, much to his relief.
I am honoured to know now that a giant like Aristotle beat me to
it centuries earlier!
There is another Giant I would like to bring to your attention and
that is Omar Khayyam, the Persian Mathematician, Astronomer
and Poet who wrote: “The moving Finger writes; and having
writ, moves on; nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back. To
cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
From the above you have probably gathered that I am not a
Theologian but an Engineer.
Theology is a minefield to me and like the law the brightest mind
wins. The only individual who confounded the Theologians in his
time was Jesus Christ who won the arguments but was
executed by them for his truths.
However the Editors very much appreciate you making the effort
to present your point of view, which I heartily applaud and
encourage. I, on my part am not qualified to make any decision
on what is right or wrong and must decline your offer but maybe
in the future we could meet and have a discussion to exchange
our viewpoints without a debate.
In order to understand where I am coming from you might
appreciate a little of my background. At the age of sixteen I
went through a life changing experience (when I was at an all-
time low) that produced a profound change in me that my
mother detected immediately, being the first to see me after the
event. I never told anybody about it until 2000 in case I ended
up in front of a child or possibly an adult psychiatrist! I wrote
about it in an earlier Focus that resulted in the only other letter
received by the editors.
I now know why Paul took several days to recover his eyesight,
but more importantly I was made aware of what I really was, a
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memory of where I had come from, why I was here and what
was expected of me. Unfortunately I cannot tell you where I
shall be going when I depart this life, but I can say I was
promised a good and long life and can confirm that was no idle
promise.
I have now reached my 83’rd year, having cheated death and
serious injury on several occasions and even been
photographed for a newspaper under the title “Miraculous
Escape”. Another result of this experience is that I tend to reflect
a pale image of what I received to sensitive people like Zac who
detect outward warmth of Spirit and respond accordingly. I
believe there is purpose, design and a learning curve in all our
lives but it can be changed if we voluntary decide to terminate
ourselves.
My writing is promoted by the Spirit not me, it keeps prompting
me with ideas all the time that are radical to conventional
theology and keeps making me wonder as a consequence, I
liken my writing to somebody that throws stones into a still
pond and observes the ripples.
I will never claim that I am right and that every critic is wrong,
because we must not Judge and are not privileged or mature
enough to know the absolute truth; all I ask is for the reader to
wonder.
When artificial intelligence learns to wonder that will be the end
of the human race.
The simple act of “I wonder how we could do that?” has got us
across oceans, into the air, in space and will eventually get us to
the stars given enough time. But never forget Jesus’ advice
“Seek the truth and it will set you free”, unfortunately those
seeking human truths will end up like Pontius Pilate asking
“what is truth?” Here is something for you to consider, why is
the Gospel of Saint Thomas, your patron Saint, and Mary
Magdalene’s not in the New Testament? I would be interested in
your comments as I am working on my next submission titled
“In defence of Mary Magdalene”.
Peter was forgiven his three counts of denial when Jesus asked
him three times “Do you love me?” He then became Peter the
Rock as Jesus had predicted, probably in complete opposition
to all human logic, which would have written him off as
unreliable.
I wonder about Judas and will not let myself be hidebound by
conventional thinking that traps the mind. For example, as Peter
was forgiven I firmly believe that if Judas had not terminated his
life – a pure fallible human intervention (not Bollywood,
Hollywood, Shakespeare or even a Greek Tragedy) – he would
have been forgiven also. A forgiven Judas would fully appreciate
that Jesus had washed and dried his feet knowing that he would
be betrayed by him, the full impact of the quality of his
forgiveness would surely have motivated him to become
possibly one of the most active and successful evangelical
disciples.
I firmly believe that the way to God cannot be through
intellectual argument as that would preclude many. Jesus made
that point when he chose fishermen and ordinary people to
follow him. The way to God is via your spirit and how it interacts
with the Divine Spirit. Your spirit is your eternal life, not the flesh
as it must remain here when you pass on. The link between
spirits is through divine love, worship and faith as demonstrated
by Jesus who is the divine human interface between God and
man and our role model. When you eventually face our Heavenly
Father do it with love and gratitude, remember he has heard all
the intellectual arguments and knows all the answers.
This brings me right back to the man in Windsor, a human
example of motivation through absolute forgiveness. We should
be more forgiving, less condemning, practise our faith and ask
ourselves if we had been Pontius Pilate would we have
condemned Jesus? Hindsight is a marvellous gift that we all
enjoy by being (against all the odds), allowed to exist at all.
provide spaces for interrogation. Why can’t we have interactive
sessions on the Word on Sundays, in lieu of the present
soliloquies by preachers; especially given the fact that there are
many in congregations who are better educated and familiar
with the Bible? Some of them remind me of Robert Browning.
When he was asked as to what a particular poem of his meant
he said, “In the beginning only two people knew it: God and me.
Now only the former does.”
Just think of this: but for David, I would not have shared my
thoughts with you on this issue. So, I am grateful to David. Let
me, in ending this argument, assure him that he is most
welcome to be as critical as he wishes to be with what I say
here timidly and tentatively. Let us sharpen each other, like iron
sharpening iron.
MARAMON CONVENTION 2019

I hope this letter clarifies my point of view, please do not change

yours it would be a poor world and a life not worth experiencing
if we were all clones.

With great respect for your contributions to our beliefs.

David Brand C.Eng. M.I.E.T.

(Continued from Page 22 – Rev. Dr. Valson Thampu)

There are other threads in David’s argument that can be – and

need to be – countered. A desirable discipline in writing is to be
suggestive, and not to be exhaustive, lest the author exhaust
the reader. Even so, one last point may be made. When too
many arguments are advanced for a phenomenon, and each
thread in the argument is dyed in the eagerness to sound
polemically persuasive – as against offering a sequential
statement of facts, the theory advanced becomes suspect. The
problem gets worse when the strands of thought become,
unwittingly or otherwise, either mutually contradictory or
mutually unresponsive.

Notwithstanding what I have argued above, I thank David for

caring to stand up for what he believes. It is necessary that we
all do so. I value in particular David’s eagerness to break out of
the common rut and to venture off the beaten track. I am sure
that, this being David’s forte, he would welcome my dissenting
views which are submitted to David and his readers (as also
mine) in humility, in the hope that it would generate a free and
rational discussion amidst us.

It is necessary that we discuss. God is not insecure about our

expressing ourselves freely. It is not necessary that we state
only profoundest and most impregnable truths. What is
unacceptable is that one tries to wilfully mislead by distorting
texts and facts. Every attempt to seek the truth and to state
what is learned in the process freely and fearlessly must be
welcome.
This is an urgent need in our churches, where all the time it is
only a dull and deadening monologue. (In the Anglican lingo, the
preacher stands six feet above contradiction.) This ensures that
the occupants of pulpits don’t have to sharpen, or even to
apply, their minds. I believe very fervently that the ministry of the
Word becomes less than sincere and robust if it does not
24 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
The Maramon Convention, one of the largest
Christian convention in Asia, is held at Maramon. It is organised
by the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church. The origin and
growth of this annual convention can be traced to the great
revival movement, which gathered momentum during the
reformation period in the Syrian Churches of Kerala under the
pioneering leadership of Abraham Malpan in the latter part of the
19th century. This brought about the transformation in
resurgence of the ancient apostolic Churches in Kerala founded
[1]
by St. Thomas the Apostle approximately in AD 52.
Maramon Convention Photo courtesy: Gloria News
The Holy Books: Part-1
Authorship and interpretation: for better or worse?
Dr. Ian Fry, Honorary Postdoctoral Associate, University of Divinity, Australia
[This article is written for the 8th Holy Book Conference
held at Kuala Lumpur in April 2019 under the auspices of
the United Religious Initiative (URI).]
Introduction
Our conference theme, Holy Books and World Literature,
opens a Pandora’s Box. It is very sweeping and without
delineation. No holy book has ever been composed in
contextual isolation. They all flow in one stream or
another, and although each stream might appear to have
a separate physical source they all originate from the
search for an understanding of the relationship between
humanity and the Divine. x
If they think about it at all, most people assume that the
beliefs and traditions of the major faiths of their
communities are static, that they have always existed
together, and that they were established in similar
circumstances. They are surprised to find that the extant
faiths have actually evolved in sequence over about four
thousand years, in isolation from each other, and in
widely differing circumstances, and that they have a
common basic role: to provide a system of ethics and
morals to enable their communities to live in harmony in
the presence of, and responding to, the sole Divine Being.
In spite of that common role they have produced
contradictory doctrines and self-understandings that have
triggered a mass of literature, resulted in conflict, and
brought us to the point of global crisis that requires
urgent resolution.
That pattern is illustrated in two charts. The first chart,
sets out the sequence of their development. The second,
shows their interaction from the time humanity reached
the foothills of an unexpected cliff of exponential
expansion to the present, and the current critical crisis.
The context for this paper is that there are three main
streams of faith: pre-Abrahamic, Abrahamic and Axial
Age. They each have a number of sub-streams and a
range of holy books. In this paper all texts, whether
offered separately or in a cluster, that are regarded as
containing truths or guidelines for human conduct and
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relationships by the adherents of a recognized faith,
whether Abrahamic, Avatar, Saoshyant, Axial or a
community of non-theist philosophy, are considered as
‘holy books.’ They include some that are included in a
canon of authorized literature and others that are not.
Similarly, the entire range of published materials that are
written to explain, expand upon as teaching aids, or to
compare or explore the holy books, whether to
compliment or denigrate any of them, are considered as
‘literature’.
There is brief coverage of the origins of the main holy
books, their authorship, when, where and in what
circumstances they were composed and accepted for, or
rejected from, inclusion in a canon? Whether they
contain material that has provoked challenge, and what
we know about subsequent literature. Was it written to
challenge, to clarify, to illustrate or to teach a particular
holy book; to clarify or expand on it, to provide rules,
prohibitions or penalties for conduct; for comparison of
one text or faith and another, or for critical assessment to
complement, denigrate or condemn a particular faith,
belief or practice? It is evident from the myriad of faiths
and philosophies, criticisms, contradictions and
rejections, that not every statement or claim that is made
is correct, truthful and above challenge. This has resulted
in conflict within and between communities and has
contributed to global crises that threaten the stability and
the future of humanity.
According to George Lindbeck, religious understandings
shape the entirety of life, cause conflict because believers
find it impossible to surrender exclusivist claims,10 and
that “interreligious dialogue and cooperation (are) urgently
needed in a divided yet shrinking world.”11 The inevitable
conclusion is that if our descendants are to enjoy a
harmonious and stable human future we, and especially
our political and religious leaders, must have a better
10 George A. Lindbeck The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and
Theology in a Postliberal Age, First Ed. (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1984). P.55.
11
Ibid. p. 23.
understanding of these issues, how they developed, what
is being taught about them, and what materials are in
circulation. Traditionally people have waited to be told by
their religious leaders what to believe and how to behave
towards others, but that is no longer good enough.
It is clear that this will require a great deal of research and
discussion so that we can, together, reassess the
fundamental concepts around which our faiths and
philosophies divide and then act to offset them. It is also
clear that both discussion and action will be necessary at
several levels, and because each faith’s
understanding is deeply held, this will be difficult.
At community, congregational and early school level,
discussion and learning aids must be focussed on
practical matters of how we live and work together, and
understanding enough about the faiths of those around
us so that there is acceptance and cooperation that is not
disrupted by niggling press reports about differences. At
the regional level, where leaders are concerned with what
is taught at senior school levels, and training for
educators, police, and those who work with offenders or
in chaplaincy services and community administration, the
focus needs to be on the provision of background
materials that encourage a responsible approach to
dialogue and discussion of differences in culture religion
and ethnicity.
It is at the third level – the peak of institutional faith level –
that leaders have the most challenging tasks. They must
guide institutional leaders, administrators, heads of
universities and clergy training centres, missionaries and
evangelists, away from attitudes of exclusivity
superiority in their religious beliefs and practices which
lead to irritation, antagonism, disputes and conflict. They
must also encourage the study and recognition of faiths
other than their own and in doing so they should initiate
and engage in the identification and reassessment of
fundamental issues around which religious division
occurs, and engage in the purging of creeds, statements
of doctrine, worship materials, teaching materials, hymn
and prayer books, codes, newspapers and
publications that perpetuate self-understandings
exclusiveness, superiority, or intolerance and
denigration of other faiths – and conflict.
26 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
Yes. They must use all of the energy, literature and other
resources available to them to begin a universal religious
reformation. That is a tall order, but the situation is now
so critical that it can no longer be avoided. The process
of universal reform will not undermine their individual
existence. Nor will covenantal obligations and heritage be
written out of history. They must maintain those aspects
of their culture that are consistent with their covenantal
commitments while they discard those that might be
distractions from the biblical compilation processes of the
past and which might not be consistent with
self-
reconciliation and cooperation.
That is the critical point and shows another observation
by Lindbeck to be inconsistent with his statement that
religious understandings cause conflict because believers
find it impossible to surrender exclusivist claims. He
noted that a ground for interreligious dialogue should not
involve “what for many believers is the impossible
condition of surrendering exclusivist claims,”12 that there
is no common foundation for religions to come together,
that formulation of a single ground for dialogue applicable
to any and every religious encounter is not possible13, and
that it is a widely held view that because covenant is a
divisive and polarizing consideration it must be avoided in
interfaith discussion.
That view does not recognize that the three community-
specific divine covenants that were imposed on the
communities of Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths each
have different emphases, and that their community
leaderships each focus on one particular aspect or
component of the applicable covenant. This is discussed
or
in two later sections devoted to covenant, so it is
sufficient to note here that the process of reformation
through collaborative reassessment of beliefs and
attitudes must begin with the Holy Books, not with
subsequent literature, and that the concept of covenant is
the starting point. There is no other way.
The knowledge of the circumstances in which each faith
came into existence and how they are now being called
other together in a time of critical conflict should enable their
of
the
12
Ibid. p. 11.
13 Lindbeck, Nature of Doctrine. p. 55..
leaders to respond to the task that is common to each of
them – either as a condition of their community-specific
covenants or the universal covenant – to enable all
humanity to understand and to respond to their
relationship with the Divine – with God – and therefore
with each other. Unfortunately, world history, both ancient
and immediate, indicates that there is likely to be strong
resistance among the institutional leadership of world
faiths to take up that challenge. It therefore falls to
scholars of both faith and philosophical disposition to
work together to initiate that reformation, and when they
do the outcome will not be the result of a trickle-down
process. It will be an upward capillary movement.
The Holy Books: their origins and authorship
Pre-Abrahamic Period and its big question: the reality
of existence
First phase
Humans apparently had no interest in the idea of a power
greater than themselves until about forty thousand years
after migration from Africa to Europe began. A search for
a meaning for life, and for a greater power than
themselves to guide their existence then started. People
began to ponder the reality of existence, how it came
about, and whether they had a special role in it. The chart
following indicates when people began to care for their
companions as community, to bury their dead, and to
think that there might be a power greater than
themselves. Probably 35,000 years ago, they turned to
totems and sharman who exploited claims to have direct
access to such a power and to be able to influence the
welfare of others. In some regions a belief developed that
fertile women enjoyed special powers, and this led to
female-god worship about 6000 BCE.
Across China primitive village life involved belief in life
after death, burial rituals, worship of ancestors, things of
nature and cosmic spirits. In Egypt there was also belief
in life after death and a mix of myths, magic, medicines
and multiple gods that led to a pharaoh having a
classification of gods drawn up. However, people did not
come to an understanding that a supreme being, God, is
a reality to whom they are bound in a direct relationship.
Second phase
Recognition of the reality of a relationship with God.
27 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
Such matters continued to challenge people across Asia
and Europe, but in Australia about 4000 BCE its
indigenous communities became the first to recognize
and understand the reality of a direct covenantal
relationship between themselves and God, the divine
reality. Their belief was circumstantial and a clear
demonstration of rational deduction. In their harsh
environments they became aware that if they damaged
the land and their environment they suffered as a
consequence through floods, erosion, fire and the loss of
food sources. As they saw it, they were being punished
for irresponsible conduct, and rewarded by divine grace
for responsible conduct, flourishing when they cared for
their environment. They developed creation myths and
‘dreaming,’ taught how to maintain proper relations with
neighbouring tribes, and recorded their experience in the
oldest cave rock art yet discovered anywhere.
The next development was in the Indus region in the early
or pre-Vedic era, concurrent with the actions noted in
Egypt and Mesopotamia. People came to a similar
understanding as Australia’s Aborigines about their direct
relationship with the Divine, except that they saw the
divinity being a composite of Gods: Vishnu, the absolute
power; Krishna, the eighth Avatar of Vishnu, and creator;
Brahma, the manager of creation and spiritual mentor;
and Shiva, the judge, punisher and destroyer. Hindu
scholars place that development between 3500 BCE and
2500 BCE; the earliest Vedic hymns were probably
composed in that period, committed to memory, and
transmitted from generation to generation orally, but it
was not until between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE that they
were recorded in Sanskrit. The RgVeda Samhita was then
codified progressively from 1200 to 900 BCE,14
concurrent with early Hebrew prophecy.
Third phase
The reality of the Divine experienced
Compared with today’s population of 7.83 billion, the
world population was a miniscule one third of one percent
of that – about 27 million – 3,800 years ago when the
Hebrew Patriarch, Abraham, is thought to have been
14
Gavin Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism, (Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1966) p. 37.
born. It has grown by almost three hundred times since
then, and three quarters of that increase has taken place
in only one hundred years, from 1919 when the Great War
ended to 2019.15 However, in spite of the miniscule
population, governance in the region of Mesopotamia
was chaotic and despotic; whole cities were destroyed
and their people slaughtered in kingly battles for regional
superiority. There are very few records prior to the
Abrahamic era, but the situation is illustrated by the 9th
century BCE victory of an Eblaite king, Ashurnasirpal II,
over a challenger.
“I cut off their heads; I burned them with fire;
a pile of living men and of heads over against
the city gate I set up; men I impaled on
stakes; the city I destroyed … I turned it into
mounts and ruin heaps; the young men and
maidens … I burned.” 16
Life was traumatic, intervention was urgently needed to
guide humanity towards harmony and stability, and
nothing has changed – except the technology and scale
of warfare.
Book Review
“An Ecumenical Journey Towards
Transformation”
Philoxenos Thirumeni whom we never knew
[A Festschrift Volume in honour of the Episcopal Silver
Jubilee of Rt. Revd Dr. Isaac Mar Philoxenos, published
by the Diocese of North America and Europe and CSS
Tiruvalla, Kerala, India, Oct, 2018. Pp380, Rs300. ISBN
978-81-7821-814-4: Dr. Zac Varghese, London.]
The Silver Jubilee of His Grace, The Rt. Revd Dr. Isaac
Mar Philoxenos, was an occasion to thank the Lord for an
exceptional blessing to the Church through him, for in him
we have an amazing ’silent-servant leader’ with unique
gifts of compassion, endearing humanitarian attitudes,
intellectual abilities, spirt-led theological insights and
ecumenical endowment. Since the reformation in 1836,
God has blessed our Church with amazing bishops,
clergy and lay leaders; they are all very special in their
15
Historical data, McEvedy, Atlas of World Population History,
(Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1978); current data, UNDESA
ST/ESA/SER.A/417
16 Paolo Matthiae, Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered (New York, towards transformation’.
Doubleday, 1981)
28 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
own very important God-given circumstances, but when
you read this festschrift volume you will realise, for the
first time, various contours and dimensions of Philoxenos
Thirumeni’s life that most of us never knew. Therefore,
this volume presents to the Church and to the World a
Philoxenos Thirumeni whom we never knew.
Helen Keller, who gave hope to millions of deaf and blind
people, once said: “Alone we can do so little, but together
we can do so much.” This festschrift volume is an
example of this. Forty-eight authors from across the
world, the editorial board, the CSS Press, and the
Vettathu Digital came together to produce a very beautiful
book under the title, ‘An Ecumenical Journey Towards
Transformation’. It is adorned with a beautiful foreword
from our Metropolitan Thirumeni.
Philoxenos Thirumeni did little things day by day for the
glory of God, but when we look back over the last 25
years, we realise that they are indeed very big things; it is
like feeding the five thousands with five loaves and two
fish. St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians: “If I
speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am only resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
There are so many resounding gongs and clanging
cymbals, noisy persons, around us trumpeting and
advertising the work they do. There is a word for this in
English, which is ‘virtual signalling’. Jesus said, ‘. . . let
not your left hand know what your right hand is doing.’
Thirumeni does so many amazing things with love and
compassion without any kind of publicity and that is the
quality of his ‘silent-servant ministry’ for God and for
God’s glory.
I do not want to pre-empt anything in this amazing book.
The glittering stories in this book will challenge many of
the existing models of mission and ministry. Thirumeni is
creating fresh challenges to which readers are invited to
indulge in as co-travellers in this ‘ecumenical journey
WHY IS CHRISTIANITY REDUCED TO RITUALS ALONE?
Revd Dr. Valson Thampu, Trivandrum
Before we examine this crucial question, we must fix the
first principle clearly and firmly in our minds. For us, first
principles are derived from the teachings of Jesus Christ.
We know nothing except through him.
The first principle is: “I have come that they may have life
in all its fullness” (Jn 10:10).
So, ‘fullness’ is the first principle by which we are to judge
the spiritual worth and validity of all things Christian.
Now apply this principle to church life. Religion
comprises two aspects: rituals and doctrines. Rituals are
observances, repeated and maintained over time.
Doctrines, derived from the teachings of Jesus, are
mostly, if not wholly, ethical in character.
The first principle of “fullness” dictates that rituals and
doctrines -the two essential arms of religion- exist in
mutuality. One is incomplete without the other. Whatever
is incomplete is not only worthless but also dangerous,
like a moving car without brakes. Rituals derive their
relevance and power only from doctrines. Doctrines could
fade out if they are not continually renewed through
rituals.
The example of the Lord’s Supper - the Eucharist, or the
Mass - illustrates this. In its most obvious sense, it is a
sacrament of memory. Its essence is that we are to do all
that we do – and not merely celebrating or receiving the
sacrament – in memory of Jesus. That is to say, if I am
sacramental in my spiritual personality, I will do all that I
do ‘in remembrance of Jesus’; or, as if Jesus is with me.
That is when the ritual of ‘communion’, or being with (cf.
Jn 15: 4), becomes lived communion. Ritual, when it is
divorced from lived realities, becomes empty and lifeless.
This was the point Jesus raised with the woman of
Samaria. God must be worshipped, he told her, “in spirit
and in truth” (Jn 4: 24). That is to say, worship must
29 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
impact how we live. That happens through the sacrament
of memory. What the Samaritan religion did – as indeed
also the Jewish religion – was to polarize the two. Rituals
went on with mechanical solemnity in the temple on
Mount Gerizim. But life continued to rot for the devotees.
The plight of the woman is a condemnation of what the
temple worship had come to be. Put bluntly, priests
flourished, people perished.
Historically, the ascendancy of the priestly class in every
religion effected, without exception, the
compartmentalization between rituals and doctrines. The
priestly class will not renounce doctrines outrightly. They
will only build an invisible wall of separation between
them. They will be maintained as water-tight
compartments, each complete in itself. This means that
the meanings of rituals – which are necessarily derived
from doctrines – cease to matter and are forgotten.
Why does the priestly class configure church life with an
exclusive focus on rituals? And why do they obscure
doctrines?
These two all-important questions can be answered only
with reference to power. Rituals arm priests with power.
That is the reason priests have, across centuries, claimed
total control of rituals. (There is nothing in the teachings
of Jesus that justify priestly hegemony.) Through a
distorted teaching of the Bible, believers are made to
assume that rituals have the power to control and
manipulate God. By implication, those who have
exclusive power and authority to do this are at least as
powerful as God. At any rate, they are incomparably more
‘spiritually’ powerful than the laity. This entitles priests
and bishops to have unquestioned and unquestionable
power over believers.
Doctrines, on the other hand, have exactly the opposite
effect. If the people understand doctrines – or the
teachings of Jesus – aright, they will be ‘liberated’. To be
liberated is to be empowered. If empowered, they
become, as Peter puts it, ‘a royal priesthood and a holy
nation’. This is an unthinkable calamity for professional
and parasitical priests. They are at peril of becoming
redundant. At any rate, the irrational supremacy they
enjoy will be shattered.
This explains why the priestly class was, especially since
the 5th century AD, over-eager to prevent the laity from
reading and understanding the Bible. The history of
Christianity is darkened by the persecution of those who
tried to translate the Bible and bring it within reach of the
common man. From that alone, it is plain how brutally
monopolistic the priestly class in Christendom has been.
This continues to our times, though it has changed its
mode of operation somewhat. Now, nobody is burned at
stake. But anyone who refuses to slavishly endorse
irrational priestly and episcopal authority is stigmatized
and excluded from the fold.
It is high time believers realized that the shocking
scandals of priestly and episcopal crimes are a natural
and inevitable outcome of the polarization between rituals
and doctrines. This polarization is meant to keep Jesus
out of the church, for which the church in Laodicea is the
biblical fore-warning (Rev 3: 20).
The exclusive focus on rituals is a deliberate strategy to
keep Jesus excluded from the life of the church. The
tyrannical authority of priests is incompatible with the
teachings of Jesus who said that he who wishes to be the
leader must be the ‘servant of all’. Jesus came to serve
and not to be served (Mk 10: 45). All Christians - priests
and bishops - are to ‘seek first the Kingdom of God and
his righteousness’ (Mt 6: 33)
To get a clear idea of whither have been hijacked by the
priestly oligarchs of our times, consider the Franco
Mulakkal case. The victim, in this case, sought justice,
first, within the church. Every conceivable door was
knocked at. No door opened! The victim was forced,
hence, to seek help from the law enforcing agencies of
the state.
The priests and bishops of the church should have
‘sought the Kingdom God and his righteousness’ in this
case. Did they? No! They did all they could to suppress
the cry for justice. They stand in palpable solidarity with
the alleged aggressor. The nuns in solidarity with the
victim are targeted. All the while rites and rituals go on,
practised with solemn earnestness. But they have no
connection to lived realities.
This works flatteringly to the advantage of priests and
bishops. Rituals and rites enable them to keep the laity
subdued and morally anaesthetized. In effect, they help to
disable them from seeking the righteousness of God.
30 | P a g e F O C U S A p r i l 2 0 1 9 V o l . 7 , N o : 2
This most regrettable state of affairs needs to be seen for
what it is. If we think that Pope Francis can, using his
papal authority, wield a magic wand over the Catholic
Church, and other churches, and rid Christendom of this
moral darkness, we are laughably naïve. Nothing less
than a total regeneration of the spiritual roots of the
church -involving the restoration of the synergy between
rituals and doctrines - can redeem the situation.
This is something that cannot be imported from a
distance; though a forthright papal stand in this regard
could help. The spiritual regeneration of the church has to
happen locally. The role of the laity is the most crucial
factor in this. The priestly class is sure not only to neglect
this but also to resist this. The spiritual regeneration of the
laity, their godly empowerment, is bad news for priests
and bishops as they have come to be. The reason for it is
clear and it must be faced.
Priests and bishops have nothing to recommend
themselves in terms of their spiritual and moral superiority
to the laity. If anything, they are, on the average,
spiritually and intellectually inferior to believers. Yet, they
thrive on absolute and unquestioned control over them.
But the spiritual superiority they ought to maintain –
which alone can justify their supremacy – is an impossible
ideal for them. Currently they enjoy the best of both
worlds. And that is ensured for them by the present state
of affairs, in which Jesus is continually crucified and
pieces of silver accumulate in the hands of the Judases of
our times.
This is horrendously bad for believers. The good news is
that Jesus came to set the ‘captives’ free. Today the laity
is captives. They are captives of priestly pretensions,
aberrations and conspiracies. The Franco Mulakkal case
has come to us as an eye-opener. If this cannot open our
eyes, nothing else ever will.
But the signs are encouraging. Indignation is mounting
right across Kerala. People are beginning to think for
themselves. They are able now to recognize the wolf from
the sheep. It is only a matter of days before they begin to
call a wolf a wolf, and cause masks of hypocrisy to
crumble like cookies.