This year’s resources for the week of prayer for
Christian unity have been prepared by the Dalit Christians of India. ‘What does
the Lord require of those called to walk with Jesus and his friends?’, they
ask. ‘In India it is a call to the churches to embrace all men as equal friends
of their common friend. Such a call to be friends with the friends of Jesus is
another way of understanding the unity of Christians for which we pray this
week. Christians around the world are called to be friends with all those who
are our brothers in Christ. The walk towards Christian unity requires that we
walk humbly with God with – and as – the friends of Jesus.’ Or as someone else has said: ‘if people are successfully drawing on Christ’s power, doing good deeds in
his name, and the Jesus they profess is the Jesus of the Bible, then we are
usually on safe ground assuming such people are true believers even if not a
part of our denomination, fellowship, theological tradition, and the like’: ‘whoever
is not against us
is for us”
(Mark 9:40).
Yet
in India, there is a deep paradox. There is growing influence of Christian Dalit
theology as a form of contextual theology, yet there remains a ‘glaring discrimination
of Dalits within Christianity as well as the continued passivity of the Church to engage in issues of Dalit liberation…’ Casteism continues among the Indian
churches through the non-acceptance of a Dalit priest by a caste congregation;
reluctance of ‘upper caste’ priests to pay pastoral visits to Dalit homes; use
of a separate chalice during the ‘sharing’ of the Eucharist; preference to
caste communities to partake in the Eucharist ahead of the Dalits in order to
avoid pollution; denial of access through the main door for the Dalits;
separate seating and separate burial grounds. These, along with the strong
discouragement of inter-caste marriages, help us to recognise how notions of
purity and pollution are strongly entrenched in the ‘caste-Christian’ psyche.
In Tamil Nadu only upper-caste Christians have their feet washed by priests on Maundy
Thursday. During the parish festival the decorated car is not permitted to pass
through the streets of Dalit Christians. None of this is the Christian
liberation which Jesus preached and whose words St Paul echoed to the young
Christian churches of Asia minor. To use Jesus’ words against the Pharisees in
Mark 7:1-8, the hierarchy of the Christian
churches are ‘leaving the commandment of God and holding to the tradition of
man’.
One of the leading proponents of Dalit theology, James Massey, proclaims that ‘the time for theological debates is over and now the
time has come for inter-religious dialogue to be based on issues of common
social concern. If at all dialogue has any meaning for us Dalits, you have to
tell us how much your faith can contribute in improving the lives of the
millions of our people who are living in conditions worse than slavery. If
religion cannot do so, then of what use is it? So, for us religion has worth
only if it helps us in our struggle for liberation.’ Speaking of his own faith, James Massey states: ‘now,
Jesus, who was born in a desperately poor family, spent the whole of his life
working for the liberation of the poor and the oppressed. That is why for me,
as a Christian, it is a natural expression of my faith commitment to be
involved in the movement for Dalit liberation, because Jesus, the person in
whom I have put my faith, became for me what I am today – Dalit, oppressed and
despised, in order that I and millions of others like me could be liberated... it is
very interesting to note that the word ‘Dalit’ is found in Sanskrit, Persian,
Arabic as well as Hebrew, and in all these languages it means roughly the same
thing: oppressed or weak. In the Bible the word ‘Dalit’ is used 52 times. In
the Old Testament, the prophets are described as chiding traders and priests
for their mistreatment of people whom they call ‘Dalits’. Likewise, the prophet
Isaiah foretells the arrival of a messiah who will come to deliver the ‘Dalits’
from oppression. So, this theme of God and His prophets working for the cause
of the Dalits is one that runs right through the Bible.’
Following Jesus in his confrontation with the Pharisees in Mark 7:1-8, Massey asserts the divinely established principle of equality against the caste-based division of communities, which is the handiwork of human beings. ‘Dalit theology also has to raise [Dalit] conscious to the fact that their assigned inferior status is neither of their own creation, nor a divinely created reality, but is imposed on them by a humanly created system. Therefore the Dalit theology has to prepare the Dalits to reject the old caste-based religious order which ha[s] perpetuated their captivity, because this will pave a way toward their full liberation.’ The underlying principle is one of love for one’s neighbour, because ‘the oppressors of the Dalits have... lost their original divinely-created humanity’. The aim is ‘to achieve … salvation for the whole people of God including the [Dalits’] oppressors.’ Only then will the Christians of different denominations in India be walking together as the Friends of Jesus. Only then, truly will Christianity stand for the faith into which Kumar Swamy converted. He says: ‘I couldn't believe that I was less than human – in fact, less than an animal – because I was a Dalit. I questioned this discrimination and my suffering. My solution came when I came to know Jesus Christ. That liberated me. The Word of God shows me that I am created equal and God loves me the same as anyone else. Every Dalit longs for dignity. Only the Gospel can free him and give him new hope and new life.’
Following Jesus in his confrontation with the Pharisees in Mark 7:1-8, Massey asserts the divinely established principle of equality against the caste-based division of communities, which is the handiwork of human beings. ‘Dalit theology also has to raise [Dalit] conscious to the fact that their assigned inferior status is neither of their own creation, nor a divinely created reality, but is imposed on them by a humanly created system. Therefore the Dalit theology has to prepare the Dalits to reject the old caste-based religious order which ha[s] perpetuated their captivity, because this will pave a way toward their full liberation.’ The underlying principle is one of love for one’s neighbour, because ‘the oppressors of the Dalits have... lost their original divinely-created humanity’. The aim is ‘to achieve … salvation for the whole people of God including the [Dalits’] oppressors.’ Only then will the Christians of different denominations in India be walking together as the Friends of Jesus. Only then, truly will Christianity stand for the faith into which Kumar Swamy converted. He says: ‘I couldn't believe that I was less than human – in fact, less than an animal – because I was a Dalit. I questioned this discrimination and my suffering. My solution came when I came to know Jesus Christ. That liberated me. The Word of God shows me that I am created equal and God loves me the same as anyone else. Every Dalit longs for dignity. Only the Gospel can free him and give him new hope and new life.’
