Introduction
Stanley Jedidiah Samartha was born in 1920 at karnal,
Karnataka and was an ordained minister of the Church of South India. While at
seminary, Samartha came under the influence of his professors, particularly Marcus
Ward and P.D. Devanandan. He also worked under some prominent western scholars
of his time like Paul Tillich, Reinhold Neibuhr, C.H. Dodd, Oscar Cullmann and
Karl Barth. In the 1940s and 1950s, S J Samartha endorsed a Christocentric
position: Christ is normative and unique, he was a Christocentric exclusivist,
but in the early 1960s there was a change in his approach to other faiths, he
developed inclusive attitude.[1]
Samartha believes that Jesus Christ is “the same
yesterday, today and tomorrow” (Heb. 13:8), but christologies need to change,
redefine and revise themselves constantly if they should make sense to the
Church and the world at different times and in different cultural situations.
So he proposes a new method of theology to construct Christology, which
compares helicopter and bullock-cart. In this paper the details of this
Christology will be dealt in detail.
Need
for New Christology in Indian Context
Jesus Christ is the substance of all christologies. In
subsequent developments over the centuries, including recent decades, several
attempts have been made to redefine Christology in order to resolve the
conflict between traditional christologies and modern realities.
A consultation on Christology organised by the Christian
Conference of Asia (CCA) pointed out that in all Christological reflections
today there should be “a recognition of the ties that link the communities of
Christians across the manifold differences of time, space and culture.”[2]
This statement urge towards the revised Christology in the religiously plural
world of Asia. In other words, without taking into theological account the
responses of neighbours of other faiths to Jesus Christ, no revised Christology
can become truly ecumenical. He also believes that dialogue play role in the
Christian faith. He expounds that dialogue us not a matter of discussing
religious ideas with neighbours of other faiths. It includes working together
in society. So the need for revising the Christology according to the need of
the Asian and in particular Indian context was the main reason for S.J.
Samartha to innovate his method of Christology.
Helicopter
Christology vs Bullock-cart Christology
A helicopter Christology, in its attempts to land on the religiously
plural terrain of Asia, makes such a lot of missiological noise and kicks up so
much of theological dust that people around are prevented from hearing the
voice and seeing the vision of the descending divinity. A bullock-cart
Christology, on the other hand, has its wheels always touching the unpaved
roads of Asia, for without the continual friction with the ground, the cart
cannot move forward at all. Moreover, a bullock-cart Christology has the
advantage of having its bullocks move on with a steady pace even when the
driver sometimes falls asleep.[3]
With this basic difference between the two ideologies Samartha moves on to
differentiate the two in detail.
Samartha lists the
difficulties that are faced due to a Christology from above, especially in a
religiously plural world and justifies the authenticity of the Christology from
below.
1. Helicopter
Christology (HC) compromises the very basis of all monotheistic faiths. In all
theistic faiths Ultimate Reality or Sat or
Truth or the Transcendent is designated by the term God or Theos. Jesus, as a Jew, was very much part of the Jewish religious
life and practice of his time. In emphasising the particularity of Jesus of
Nazareth as a Jew this fact has to be taken into account seriously. In the
original setting of the time of Jesus and his disciples it would have been
perhaps possible to say that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been
revealed in the person and work of Jesus the Nazareth, confessed as the Christ,
the Son of the living God but it would have been quite another thing to say
that Jesus of Nazareth is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He claims that
the Bullock-cart Christology (BC) did not deny the divinity of Jesus Christ
confessed by the believing community but to reject the notion that Jesus of
Nazareth is ontologically the same as God. The God present in Jesus is God
himself. It is not that Jesus in his own being is identical with the God who is
present in him.
2. The
deductive interpretation of Christology of HC does not so justice to the
humanity of Jesus of Nazareth as attested to by the synoptic gospels. At a time
when there is so much of degrading dehumanising in the world and when there is
such a great need to bring out what it is to be human in such a world, to
minimise the humanity of Jesus is to diminish seriously the resources for
supporting the struggles for human freedom, dignity and self-respect.
Furthermore, not only did he himself pray to Gof, he also taught his disciples
to pray to God as “Our Father”, without any mediation through the Son. How can
God pray to God? He constantly pointed not to himself but to Reign of God. Even
when his disciples tended to be christo-centric Jesus was always theocentric.
Kasesemann points out that it is not the Christ-kerygma of Paul and John that
constitutes the norm of Christology, but rather the Jesus-kerygma accessible
through the critical analysis of the synoptic gospels.
3. Over-emphasising
a HC, seriously under-estimates the significance of the historical at a time
when historical consciousness is becoming global. Throughout the Bible faith
emerges as the fruit of historical experience. Faith cannot ne imposed from
above. It is only doctrine and belief, dogma and ritual, which can be imposed
upon others by authority from above. Faith is not an answer seeking a question.
Faith is a question that receives the answer at the end of a process of living
and working together with Jesus of Nazareth, sharing his life in all its
humanness in the ambiguities, conflicts and tragedies of history.
This
emphasis on the humanity of Jesus, anchored in history, is particularly
important in a country like India where, unlike in China, there seems to be
less importance given to facts of historical life. Acceptance of eternal values
is often given greater importance than their actualisation in the dust and heat
of history. Therefore the name Jesus of Nazareth is necessary to prevent the
balloon of faith being cut away from its moorings in history and then quickly
soaring above and getting lost in the clouds. Unless the rope of Christian
faith in God through Christ constantly feels the tug of the anchor of the fact
of Jesus of Nazareth biting the soil of history at some point, it would lose its
historic significance, theological credibility and spiritual power for today.
4. HC
makes it impossible for Christians to relate themselves, their faith in God
through Jesus Christ and the liberated and liberating life in the Reign of God
to neighbours of other faiths. This is perhaps the major reason why the quest
for a revision of traditional Christology is so necessary and urgent in a
religiously plural world. Christians have nothing to lose but much to gain by
enquiring after the basis and source of the Christian movement in history which
still constitutes the distinctive reality of the life of the Church in the
world. Christian identity has been distorted by emphasising Christology from
above getting mixed up with so many dogmas about his person and doctrines about
his work. This Christianity must lose itself as a religion in order to gain
itself as a faith.[4]
These
are the tenets that Samartha looks as the lacuna in the Christology from above,
i.e. the helicopter Christology.
Christ
for India
The
gospel of Jesus Christ was preached in India for several centuries, but one
fact that stands out clearly is this, it was not the dogmas about Christ and
doctrines about the atonement that touched the heart and mind of India, but the
person of Jesus of Nazareth, his life and works and words, his suffering, death
and resurrection. To a person like Gandhi, the cross of Jesus Christ was not
‘foolishness’ or ‘scandal’ but provided the inspiration for non-violent action
against all kinds of oppression, not just political and economic but also
social and religious. The Christians claim that only in Jesus Christ God has revealed God’s self once-for-all to redeem all humanity.
This claim has isolated Christians from
their neighbours of other faiths in India, led to their theological alienation
and spiritual impoverishment and in a religiously plural society has made it
difficult, if not impossible for Christians to co-operate with their neighbours
for common purposes in society. So Samartha strongly believes that this
exclusive claim is not integral to the gospel or Christian faith in God through
Jesus Christ.
In
the incarnation of Jesus, Samartha suggests that it could be best understood
not solely in terms of “deity” but in terms of “divinity”. It is one thing to
say that Jesus of Nazareth is “divine” and quite another thing to say that
Jesus of Nazareth is “God”. Jesus Christ is divine is the testimony of the
gospels. Even the New Testament scholars acknowledge this fact but its theology
distorted in subsequent developments led to a narrow “Christo-monism” and in
popular Christian piety, even to an improverished “Jesusology”. So he
ascertains that “the God present in Jesus is God himself (sic). It is not that
Jesus in his own being is identical with the God who is present in him.”[5]
The theologians have to take the risk of formulating new christologies for the
Asian context, negating the traditional christologies handed over by the West.
The Christology for Indian context should give emphasis to the person of Jesus
if Nazareth and the multi-faith society.
Marks
of a Revised Christology
The historical portrait of Jesus Christ, his words and
deeds and example, his life and death and resurrection that contribute to the
making of a Christology that is spiritually satisfying, theologically credible
and ethically helpful to people in a religiously plural world. Certain elements
in the portrait of Jesus:
·
A total commitment to a
vocation accepted as having been entrusted to him by God, together with an
abiding trust in God as Father.
·
His pointing to the
Reign of God as the very centre of his message.
·
A sense of freedom from
all kinds of attachment to things of this world, such as family, money and
security, an absence of worry and anxiety to such a degree that his whole
attitude was marked by the quality of abhaya
(fearlessness).
·
A deep compassion for
the anawin, the poor of Yahweh, a
concern for and an active participation in the life of the marginalised,
dispossessed and the oppressed people of his time.
·
An obedience to the
distilled essence of the Torah as
summarised in the twin commandments to love God wholly and the neighbour as
oneself.
·
A willingness to be
obedient to God even unto death in fulfilling his vocation as the ‘suffering
servant’.[6]
The
distinctiveness of Jesus is that he not fused these elements in his own person
in a creative synthesis but was also recognised as having actualised them in
his own life and work. These essential values of Jesus, gives the outline to
formulate their own christologies.
Theocentric
Christology
A theocentric Christology is not a new idea. The Bible continually
emphasised the priority of God and Jesus himself was theocentric. Throughout
the Bible the priority of God is taken for granted. The affirmation that God is
the creator of all life and of all humanity puts Christians and their
neighbours of other faiths together at the very source of life. God breathes
life into humanity (Gen. 2:7) and in doing so entrusts to it responsibility for
all created life (Gen. 2:15). God lets men and women share in the divine power
to create life (Gen. 4:1). Life is God’s gift and human beings have the duty
and responsibility to cherish and guard it.
New Testament writers emphasise God’s initiative over and
over again. “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son” (Jon.
3:16). “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself” (II Cor. 5:19).
This acknowledgement that God is the Creator and Redeemer of all life enables
the entire world, the whole of humanity to be included in the struggle for life
and to feel responsible for its preservation and its continuation. A
theocentric Christology provides more theological space for Christians to live
together with neighbours of other faiths. “Chistomonism” does not do full
justice to the total evidence of the New Testament nor does i give sufficient
emphasis to the Trinitarian dimension of the Christian faith. It tends to
minimise the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of others.
A theocentric Christology provides a basis for retaining
the Mystery of God while acknowledging the distinctiveness
of Jesus Christ. It makes commitment to God in Jesus Christ possible
without taking a negative attitude toward neighbours of other faiths and at the
same time it offers a more comprehensive conceptual framework for dialogue with
these neighbours. It makes dialogue a normal way of relationship between persons
of different faith instead of artificially contriving to make it a mode of
communication. it helps to shift the emphasis from a normative to a relational
attitude toward neighbours of other faiths. Theocentrism allows for an evolving
quest for the meaning of Jesus Christ in
which neighbours of other faiths can also participate, as in fact they already
do, thus opening for Christians undreamt of possibilities of enriching others
and being enriched by them. Further, theocentrism grounds co-operation not on
expediency but on theology, providing a vision of participating with all human
beings in God’s continuing mission in the world, seeking to heal the brokenness
of humanity, overcoming the fragmentation of life and bridging the rift between
nature, humanity and God.[7]
Conclusion
Once Samartha was asked to write about his own spiritual
journey, he defined his own identity as ‘unmistakably Indian’ and
‘distinctively Christian.’ ‘I am, a Christian by faith, Hindu by culture,
Indian by citizenship and ecumenical in the deepest and widest sense of the
term.’[8]
This reveals his multi-faced identities and conviction, which is very much
reflected in his writings as well. The bullock-cart Christology in the
multi-faith context of Asia leads to the idea of theocentric Christology. In
the present context of raising religious intolerance the proposal of Samartha
will certainly be helpful for the harmonious co-existence. The role of the
Church to have a people oriented dialogue is the pressing need of the hour.
[1] Samuel George, “An Appropriation and Critique of Stanley J.
Samartha’s Christology in a Religiously Pluralistic Context,” The Asian Journal of Theology 22/1
(April, 2008) 57.
[2] S.J. Samartha, One Christ – Many Religions : Toward a
Revised Christology (Maryknoll, New York : Orbis Books, 2000), 129.
[8] Israel Selvanayagam, 11th Samartha Memorial Lecture
@samvada.org/2012/articles/commitment-and-openess-in-a-multifaith-context-11th-samartha-memorial-lecture-by-dr-selvanmayagam/
retrieved on 22.08.2017.
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