Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote a paper on “Liberation: An Inter-religious Project” for a book Leave the Temple: Indian Paths to Human Liberation (1992), edited by Dr. Felix Wilfred and originally published in German (1988). Both the situation and our perspectives have been changing over the last twenty years. The multi-religious situation, both in India and in the world, has become more visible and conflictual. Conflicts could tend to widen the gap between the religions, each one affirming its identity and difference. But the quest for peace in a conflictual situation calls for dialogue and collaboration between them. As it has been said: There can be no peace in the world without peace between religions. I shall start my paper with a summary statement of ideas which I propose to develop.
Public theology is done in the public space. It reflects on the challenges of public life. It refers to civic rather than the political sphere, though the latter cannot be totally excluded. However a strict separation between the religions and the state must be maintained. Since theology is faith seeking transformation of life in the world through understanding and empowerment, public theology seeks the transformation of public life. Theology finds its sources in religion and revelation. But in a multi-religious situation, public theology, while rooted in one’s own faith tradition, needs to dialogue with the theologies arising out of other faith traditions and to move towards a consensus regarding human, social and spiritual values, which the believers of various religions living together can defend and promote in view of building a community of freedom and equality, fellowship and justice.
I do not intend to offer a philosophical explanation and defence of the possibility of public theology in a multi-religious society. I shall rather offer a practical demonstration. But before doing so I will need to clear the ground of ideologies that may deny the very possibility of such a public theology.
The Obstacles
Some would deny that in a secular society religions should have any place in the public space. They can play a role only in the private sphere. Some would hold to this negative secularism almost religiously, as, for example, in France. This betrays a deep misunderstanding or negation of religion. No true believer would imagine or accept that his faith should affect only his private life and should have nothing to say about moral and spiritual values that should guide public life. Discourse about human and social rights and duties have a moral and religious basis. A public theology is therefore necessary and possible. I am not offering here a philosophical or apologetic argument. I am simply saying that such a negative secular ideology does not correspond to the religious convictions of most believers.
- Cf. Felix Wilfred (ed), Verlass den Tempel (Freiburg: 1988); Leave the Temple. Indian Paths to Human Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1992)
- For understanding the challenges of public theology see Felix Wilfred, “Asian Public Theology” in Vimal Tirimanna (ed), Harvesting from Asian Soil. Towards an Asian Theology. Bangalore:
- Asian Trading Corporation, 2011, pp. 138-149. Also Felix Wilfred, Asian Public Theology. Critical Concerns in Challenging Times. Delhi: ISPCK, 2010.
Others would maintain that religions concern themselves mostly about the ‘other’ world. They speak of spiritual rather than worldly or material things. They teach us rather to renounce the world than to live in it and build it up. These are the people criticised by Marx for proposing a religion that is an opium of the poor pointing to a pie in the sky. This may be true of some groups of people in all the religions. They look on the world, either as a burden that has to be renounced or as totally corrupt and beyond redemption. So the best is to withdraw from it to a forest or monastery and live a detached and holy life waiting for death. One cannot deny that one can find such groups even today. But such an attitude would not be true of the majority of the people. For most people the Sabbath is for the humans and not the humans for the Sabbath. Both social and religious reform movements have been characteristic of all religions. Prophets have never been lacking in history, though they may often get killed. Besides, religions have been used as political forces to attain very worldly goals.
A third group of people are the religious fundamentalists. They think that their religion is the only true one. It has, therefore, the right to control all spheres of life, economic and political, socio-cultural and religious. Other religious groups may or may not be tolerated. One cannot therefore speak of a multi-religious society. Such political use of religions is communalism. We find communalists in all religions. Fundamentalism can be strong or mild. In the Catholic Church today there are groups which assert that religious pluralism may be a fact, but not a right – de facto, not de jure. The other religions are meant to disappear eventually. For such people theology has to be public in a fundamentalistic sense. But it cannot be multi-religious. The other religions have no voice or, as they would say, ‘error has no rights’. Let us not be under the illusion that such groups are not present in the world today, though they may let things be for political reasons. People who belong to any of these three groups above cannot speak of a public theology in a multi-religious society. Let us ignore them for the moment and focus on the conditions for doing public theology.
An Ideal Political Framework: A Secular Society
The ideal political framework in which public theology can be done is a secular society which is not negative to religion, but is open and equally positive to all religions. India is such a country constitutionally. It is positive to all religions, allowing them freedom to practice and propagate their faith. The minority religions are carefully protected from possible domination by the majority. They are free to follow their own legal systems governing civil life, though there is a desire – a directive principle – to move towards a common civil code, which has not happened for sixty years. The reason is that the link between religion on the one hand and society and culture on the other is not equally supple in all religions. There is also the fear that ‘common’, in a majoritarian democratic order, may mean effectively the majority. With all its drawbacks, India is a multi-religious secular society in which a pubic theology is possible. This may not be the case in many multi-religious societies in Asia and the world.
A Pluralistic Theology of Religions
We cannot have a public theology in a multi-religious society if the religions do not take each other seriously and positively. Religious pluralism does not mean simplistic affirmations like “All religions are the same” or “All religions are equal”. What it means is that a religion recognizes the legitimacy of other religions as ways to the Absolute, even if it may give itself a special status – as all of them, as a matter of fact, do. If we leave aside the fundamentalists and look at the religions themselves it seems that all of them make space for other religions, each in its own way, making dialogue and collaboration possible. Let us look at the religions then.
Hinduism is probably the most open to other religions, because it is a kind of umbrella that has brought together a variety of cosmic and metacosmic religious traditions. The Rig Veda text is well known: “Being is one; the sages call it by many names”. The Upanishadic search leads the sages to transcend, without denying, all diversity, including religious, in the unity of the Atman-Brahman. In the Bhagavad Gita, aware of being the one supreme divinity, Krishna says: “In whatever way men approach me, in the same way they receive their reward.” (4:11) The South Indian Siddhas, by declaring “Love is Siva,” offer a principle around which different religions can come together. Basavanna sings: “God is but one, but many his names. The faithful wife knows but one Lord.” (613) Surprisingly, Gandhi will use the same image later. Ramakrishna says: “God can be realized through all paths. All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope.” The Ramakrishna tradition, through Vivekananda, is also behind the popular saying: “All religions lead to God as all rivers lead to the sea.”
Buddhism distinguishes between two levels of reality. At the transcendent level, one has to follow the eight-fold path to reach Nirvana. At the worldly level, the religions can be ways – upaya – to reach the transcendent level. This is the reason that Buddhism has very easily inculturated itself in the different cultural and religious traditions of Asia, more than any other religion.
Christianity’s God is inclusive, whatever be the exclusive attitude of some of Christ’s disciples. As Wisdom, God reaches out to all peoples from creation. (Prov 8:24-32; Gen 1:1-31). Jesus finds more faith in non-Jews: the Centurion (Mt 8:10), the Samaritan woman (Jn 4:23-24) and the Canaanite woman. ( Mt 15:28) Speaking of the Jews and Gentiles, Paul is very clear. “God will reward every person according to what he has done… For God judges every one by the same standard.” (Rom 2:6, 11) “God shows no partiality”. (Rom 2:11) “Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one.” (Rom 3:29) According to John the Word of God is “the true light, which enlightens everyone.” (Jn 1:9) The final flattening image that brings down all religious walls is the image that Jesus presents of the final judgment in which people will be judged not in terms of their religious belongingness and praxis, but because of their service to the poor and the needy. (cf. Mt 25:31-46)
3. In the following pages I am using material already presented in two of my earlier books because one cannot be very original in this area. See M. Amaladoss, Making Harmony. Living in a Pluralistic World. Chennai: IDCR, 2003 and Life in Freedom. Liberation Theologies from Asia. Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1997.
4. Rig Veda, 1.164.46.
With regard to Islam, an often quoted verse in the Koran says: “There must be no coercion in matters of faith.” (2.256) Another verse attributes religious differences to God’s will. “If it had been thy Lord’s will they would have all believed, all who are on earth! Wilt thou then compel mankind against their will to believe!” (10:99) Faced with the dissenting ‘people of the book’ (Jews and Christians) in Medina, the Prophet said: “Unto you your moral law, and unto me, mine.” (109:6) These few verses, which every one quotes, may not be much. But they witness to a spirit of tolerance, however hesitant. Some later Muslims were much more open. The Sufi saint Jalal ad-Din Rumi sang: “Ways of worshiping are not to be ranked as better or worse than one another. Hindus do Hindu things. The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do. It’s all praise, and it is all right.” He said again: “Though the ways are various, the goal is one. Do you not see that there are many roads to the Kaaba?”
So we see that the religions make space for others. The reason behind such openness is the unity of God. Such openness can lead, not only to a sort of negative tolerance, but to positive appreciation and mutual enrichment. This provides an ideal framework for dialogue and collaboration in the public space where they are interacting, the field of interaction being not strictly religious, but secular. It is at the secular level that public theologizing can happen. This supposes that the religions are turned, not only toward God, but also to the world and its problems. We have to show therefore that the religions have a liberative orientation. I shall proceed to do it now.
Religions and Liberation
It would be interesting to trace through history what role religions have played in public life. Such a survey is not necessary for my purpose. My focus is the present. All that I want to show is that religions today are not merely otherworldly but are interested in the defence and promotion of ethical values in society. It is this orientation that will make public theology possible. I shall illustrate this, not by analysing the doctrinal and institutional systems of religions, but by presenting leaders and movements who/which have played a liberative role in public life. My presentation will be illustrative and evocative rather than exhaustive.
5. Quoted in Karen Armstrong, A History of God. London: Vintage, 1999, pp. 278-279.
6. Quoted in Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Sufi Essays. New York: Schocken, 1977, p. 149.
Hinduism
Among the many Hindu leaders who have played a significant role in public life in India in the 20th century I shall point to Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) and Shree Narayana Guru (1855-1928). Gandhi stands out in the modern world as the proponent of non-violent satyagraha as a strategy to bring about socio-political change. The source of this method was inter-religious and can be traced back to the influence on Gandhi of Jainism and Christianity besides Hinduism. He tried his best to reach out also to the Muslims. He has inspired other world leaders like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Gandhi insisted that it was his religious belief that led him to politics. The goal of all his exertions was Truth, which was his name for God. He felt that Truth can be attained only through ahimsa or non-violence, which is only the other side of love. He says: “The best and the most understandable place where He (God) can be worshipped is the living creature. The service of the distressed, the crippled and the helpless among living things constitutes worship of God.” He explains his strategy of ahimsa in the following way.
The principle of ahimsa is hurt by every evil thought, by undue haste, by lying, by hatred, by wishing ill to anybody… It is not merely a negative state of harmlessness but it is a positive state of love; of doing good even to the evil-doer. But it does not mean helping the evil-doer to continue the wrong or tolerating it by passive acquiescence. On the contrary, love, the active state of ahimsa, requires you to resist the wrong-doer by dissociating yourself from him even though it may offend him or injure him personally.
Shree Narayana Guru was born in a subaltern caste in Kerala. He organized and liberated his caste group and helped to build it into and economic and political force, not by abandoning Hinduism as Ambedkar did, but by reinterpreting advaitic Hinduism from within. He insisted that the principle of non-duality affirmed the oneness and equality of all beings.
One jati (caste), one religion, one God, for man of the same blood and form, there is no difference… God is the universal father of all and all life is His life, all activity is His; to realise this basic unity is true religion, and in the eyes of God all are His children and so we are brothers and sisters. Shree Narayana Guru also built temples around cosmic symbols for the divine like fire and light.
Buddhism
Buddhism is often seen as a world-renouncing creed. Yet, contemporary Buddhist leaders have developed a socially liberative face of Buddhism. Bhikku Buddhadasa (1906-1993) of Thailand proclaimed that the Buddhist Dharma is socialistic and sets it against the capitalism of the United States of America and the communism of the Soviet Union. He bases this affirmation on the doctrine of universal inter-dependence of all beings and the spiritual need to become egoless. He spells out his Dhammic socialism:
Solving social problems is dependent on living in a socially moral way; acting in the best interest of the entire community by living according to nature’s laws; avoiding the consumption of goods beyond our simple needs; sharing all that is not essential for us to have with others, even if we consider ourselves poor; giving generously of our wealth if we are well-to-do. Buddhadasa was the inspiration behind the International Society for Engaged Buddhism and the Thai Interreligous Commission for Development. These organizations show his wider interest. The movement that he started is still being carried on by lay disciples like Sulak Sivaraksha.
7. Ignatius Jesudasan, A Gandhian Theology of Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1984), p.70.
8. Mahatma Gandhi, From Yerawada Mandir: Ashram Observances. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Press, 1959), p. 8.
9. V.Thomas Samuel, One Caste, One Religion, One God. A Study of Shree Narayana Guru. New Delhi: Sterling Pubishers, 1977, pp. 98, 123.
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926-) is a Vietnamese Buddhist leader who had to leave his country during the Vietnam war because of his peacemaking efforts. He has developed a doctrine of inter-being. All reality is mutually inter-dependent. He founded an Order of Interbeing to further the interests of peace and universal harmony. He advises the practice of mindfulness. He offers us a summary of his teaching:
Practicing Buddhist meditation is not a way of avoiding society or family life. The correct practice of mindfulness can help us bring peace, joy, and release both to ourselves and to our family and friends as well. Those who practice mindful living will inevitably transform themselves and their way of life. They will live a more simple life and will have more time to enjoy themselves, their friends, and their mutual environment. They will have more time to offer joy to others and to alleviate their suffering. And when the time comes, they will die in peace.
Christianity
Sebastian Kappen (1924-1993) worked with groups of people who called themselves ‘unattached socialists’ since he was disillusioned with the doctrinaire Marxist parties. He saw Jesus as a prophet of a counter-culture. Jesus opted for the poor and the weak in a society drunk with power, associated freely with women in a male-dominated world, and challenged ritualism, advocating purity of heart and intention. In his later years Kappen promoted a counter culture, opposed both to traditional and modern cultures.
Traditional culture is centred upon the notion of ritual purity, hierarchical organization of society, the importance of kinship relations, the prevalence of group loyalty, respect for authority, and the magico-religious view of the world. In contrast, bourgeois culture stresses rationality, private interest, individualism, competition, consumerism, monetization of human relations, the rule of quantity over quality, and the cult of efficiency.
Kappen proposes a cultural revolution which integrates the positive values of tradition and modernity in a socialist society: a commitment to history which the people themselves are making creatively; a concern for ethics that gives value to human initiative and effort animated by love and compassion; a sense of community beyond individualism; freedom in the Spirit that casts away every fear; an experience of God energizing us from within; a fully integrated human person rooted in the inner self. Such values can become transformative only if they are embodied in communities which are open to all believers and people of good will, immersed in the poor and following the law of love.
10. Bhikku Buddhadasa, Dhammic Socialism. Bangkok: Thai Inter-religious Commision for Development, 1986.
11. Donald K. Swearer, Me and Mine: Selected Essays of Buddhadasa. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989, p. 180.
12. Thich Nhat Hanh, Transformation and Healing. London: Rider Books, 1993, p. 147.
13. Sebastian Kappen, Jesus and Freedom. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1977.
M. M. Thomas (1916-1996) was one of the founders of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society at Bangalore. He was associated with the World Council of Churches. He was the governor of Nagaland for a period. He saw the presence and action of Christ, not only in other religions, but also in secular movements. He spelt this out in his book The Acknowledged Christ of the Indian Renaissance. He saw salvation as humanization. One of his books is The Secular Ideologies of India and the Secular Meaning of Christ. He said: “Man’s transcendence over the structures of society makes restructuring of social institutions a moral responsibility given to him by God. Social dharma or justice is a dynamic ever-growing concept because of the creativeness of human freedom.” He saw the mission of the Church as prophetic dialogue. He could be called a pioneer of public theology. He says:
Common humanity and the self-transcendence within it, more especially the common response to the problems of humanization of existence in the modern world, rather than any common religiosity, or a common sense of the Divine, is the most fruitful point of entry for a meeting of faiths at spiritual depths in our time.
Islam
Ali Shariati (1933-1975) was a revolutionary leader in Iran when it was dominated by the Shah. With a double doctorate in sociology and the history of religions he saw Islam as an alternative to the existing dominant political systems – liberalism and communism – as well as other cultures, showing us a new way.
Islam will play a major role in this new life and movement. In the first place, with its pure tauhid (oneness of God), it offers a profound spiritual interpretation of the universe, one that is as noble and idealistic as it is logical and intelligible. In the second place, through the philosophy of the creation of Adam, Islam reveals in its humanism the conception of a free, independent, noble essence, but one that is as fully attuned to earthly reality as it is divine and idealistic … (Its) elements are based on constant striving (jihad) and justice (‘adalat). Islam pays attention to bread, its eschatology is based on active life in the world, its God respects human dignity and its messenger is armed.
14. Sebastian Kappen, Jesus and Cultural Revolution: An Asian Perpective. Bombay: BUILD, 1983, p. 46.
15. Cf. Sebastian Kappen, Tradition, Modernity and Counterculture: An Asian Perspective. Bangalore: Visthar, 1994.
16. Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1970.
17. Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1976.
18. M.M.Thomas, Salvation and Humanization. Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1971, p.10
19. M.M.Thomas, Man and the Universe of Faiths. Madras: The Christian Literature Society, 1975, p. Vi.
He affirms that Islamic culture is neither totally spiritual (Indian) nor mystical (Chinese) nor philosophical (Greek) nor materialistic and technological (Western). It “is a mixture of faith, idealism and spirituality, and yet full of life and energy with a dominant spirit of equality and justice.”
Asghar Ali Engineer (1939) is a Bohra Muslim in Mumbai who has written, among many other books, one on Islam and Liberation Theology. He is an ardent activist in liberation and inter-religious movements. His approach is textual. He sees the Prophet as a liberator of the people from ignorance, superstition and oppression, not only teaching but fighting if necessary. The Koran affirms the basic unity of all human beings based on the unity of God (tawhid). This unity also involves abolition of economic disparity. Justice is based on equal distribution assured by zakat, which was a sort of combined wealth and income tax, collected in a common treasury and distributed to the needy, the orphans and the widows, to pay off debts of the poor and to free slaves. The Koran affirms the equality of women (2:228) though the actual status of women in Islam may have been influenced by Arab culture. Engineer suggests that openness, tolerance and respect for other religions is an element of Islam. He certainly practices it.
This rapid survey of liberative elements in the various religions, as they have been highlighted by contemporary religious leaders in Asia, offers an indication of the possibility of a lively multi-religious public theology. How can this be practiced and what are the principal areas on which it could focus?
The Practice of Public Theology
Public theology is not an exercise of studies in comparative religions. It is not even comparative theology where a theologian is reaching out to another religious tradition through a serious reading of its texts respecting the faith perspective in which they had been written. Ideally it happens in a multi-religious group of theologians which is seeking to arrive at a consensus on values that govern peoples’ behaviour in the socio-economic and cultural sphere, with each one trying to root them in one’s own faith perspective. Each one is then engaged in a discourse which will be intelligible, not only to his co-believers, but also to the believers of other religions. As it is taking place in the public sphere, mutual understanding, challenge and even change are possible. In the process, every religion is becoming aware of and accepts its historical and socio-cultural limitations. Every religion is inserted in a particular society and culture. Its role tends to be both legitimating (for survival) and prophetic (in the name of God). The challenges of the multi-religious context may make a particular religion to become aware of its legitimating characteristics.
20. Ali Shariati, Marxism and Other Western Fallacies: An Islamic Critique. Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1980, p. 95.
21. Ali Shariati, What is to be Done?: The Enlightened Thinkers and an Islamic Renaissance. Houston: IRIS, 1986, pp. 23-24.
22. Ibid.
23. Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1990.
Very often the challenge from outside may trigger corresponding challenges from within. The example of Gandhi is illustrative. He had been exposed to the experience of non-violence through Jainism and through the example of his own father forgiving him as a child for a particular offence. When he goes to England he encounters Jesus and his Sermon on the Mount, sects like the Quakers and authors like Tolstoy. The occasion of a humiliation in South Africa triggers his non-violent resistance. Later he will root this in the Bhagavad Gita and the Hindu ashramic tradition. He not only practices it, but writes about it. Through his practice and reflection, he will inspire Christian leaders like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. Here we see public theology in action. The multi-religious group is not conditioned by space and time. What is crucial is the mutual influence.
Questions for Public Theology
What can be the questions today for a public theology in a multi-religious context? The foundational question is the role of religion in the public space. We have to find a place for it in the public civic space freeing it from the pressures of negative secularists and religious fundamentalists. Secondly, we have to understand the role of religion itself as a source of values and of inspiration and empowerment in upholding them. Thirdly, we have to free religion from its historical and socio-cultural conditionings. For example, is the caste system an integral element of Hinduism as a religion? How then can Hindus like Gandhi and Shree Narayana Guru and the majority in the Constituent Assembly of India reject untouchability as irreligious and illegal? How can a Hindu poet like Subramaniya Bharati quote an ancient Tamil poem to assert that there are only two castes: those who share their wealth and those who do not? If the religions are not free in this way, they cannot engage in public theology, especially in a multi-religious setting. Religions should be free for self-reform, sometimes under the challenge of other religions and ideologies.
Similar questions that emerge out of the religion-culture interface are the role of women in religion and society, the challenges of globalizing media and capitalism, the plight of economic and political migrants and the place of nature/creation in personal and social life. The inalienability of human and socio-economic rights and duties is also an issue that is threatened by religious and cultural structures in many parts of Asia. Many countries that subscribe to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights do not implement them, leave alone caring about socio-economic rights. I do not think that any religion is opposed to a broad sense of justice in society, as we have seen above. But many religious people may not be interested in public life, withdrawing themselves in the face of the onslaught of secularism. How does one conscientize them about their social responsibility may also be an urgent question for public theology.
24. See Francis X. Clooney, Comparative Theology. Deep Learning Across Religious Borders. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.
25. Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Ahemedabad: Navajivan, 1927.
Michael Amaladoss, S.J.
Institute of Dialogue with Cultures and Religions, Chennai.