Answer to a Skeptic

There are numerous questions one would answer to skeptics when one holds to a conviction in a Faith. Some of them are asked again and again. Of all questions posed to Christians, none as I have found are so common and so sensitively juxtaposed as the question of a long history of evil by religious people. I have answered this to inquiring friends by way of logic, history, reasoning from the Bible and pointing to human nature as a root cause rather than religion. Still the questions keep coming and the answerer is weak from answering.

The older I get the more confident I am about God's faithfulness and the more cynical I am about human nature- the grand claims of nobility that lies within the human heart. In a way I'm a skeptic too. I'm a skeptic as to the motivations of the questioner after religion. Ten years of Christian life and detecting insincerity in questioners as well as in my own heart has compelled me to question our very intentions. Often we desire that God's will be not done- though as Christians we would not admit it to even ourselves. When answering unbelievers, I remind myself that regardless of the intention my answer must be consistent, logical, sensitive, compelling and interested. Secondly I must remind myself that it is the Holy Spirit who accomplishes a contrite spirit and a believing heart, not my words.

Here is journalist Dilip D'Souza's article on this subject, titled 'Why I am disillusioned with religion'. As I read this I thought to myself, 'Aren't the answers clear enough? Hasn't the world heard the apologetic of years past, in fact of over 2000 years why this happens?' Then I think to myself the many articles that this journalist has written, many of them noted for their sensitivity to the subject and sincerity of the cause. In fact even this article acknowledges the good that Christianity has displayed; and that the evil spawned has been from a minority of people.

To satisfy my urge to answer D'Souza, I decided to summarize my answer in 5 parts:

1. The dynamics of exclusive beliefs
2. Religion over irreligion
3. The dangers of being simply lukewarm
4. The nature of the human heart and alternate theories such as Maya.
5. The 4 questions each worldview needs to answer

1. The dynamics of exclusive beliefs

D'Souza's argument is not that Christianity's doctrine leads one to violence. Perhaps a case could made by more insincere inquirers that the Jewish people built their nation through war, but the sincere inquirer would note that Christianity forbids murder and Christ's example forbids conversion by force. D'Souza's point is that while there is good that Christianity has done there is also evil that Christians have committed. As he writes, "What else were those Crusades but a resort to the sword in the name of Christianity?" and "Richard (King Richard I) was a cruel man who ordered Jews killed in London, presided over a massacre in Cyprus while journeying to fight his Third Crusade, and had thousands of Muslim prisoners killed at Acre (then Akko) during the war. Such was his Christian kingliness."

If we Christians claim that he was not of the faithful, we have no way of proving we are right. After all God judges our hearts, and though our faith may be manifest in our works, we are not without sin. The Bible acknowledges the believer's fight against the world, the flesh and the devil. All we can say is that he wasn't acting from Christian character. But who among us is flawless? We need a better explanation for this contradiction if we believe that Christianity is indeed the Truth that joins us in communion with God.

Implicit in Dilip's question may be the question of exclusivity, why Christians exclude non-adherents in God's plan for salvation. This is in my view a make or break question. Unlike many other philosophies, Christianity is not an evolving religion. It may bear new interpretations for our day but it cannot be treated as a faith that can be added to. For instance when Christ says 'I'm the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Fther except by Me,' we cannot expand the criteria to accomodate our difficulties with exclusivity. This would make it something other than Christianity. The skeptic questions whether holding on to an exclusive faith is a good thing for us in the here and now. If it engenders prejudice and hatred toward others, then how could it possibly by a religion of Love? The Christian may answer that there are exclusivists who have loved sinners and hated their sin; that Christ's character and example point to the correct thinking in Christianity. But the skeptic remains unconvinced even when the Christian points to credible examples of Christian virtue among exclusivists. For insincere skeptic the good examples don't matter- they will find fault with any of these. For the sincere ones the scandals stand out more than the noble deeds. For them the crusades are the biggest stumbling block. Here we hit a roadblock. A sincere (I believe) skeptic like Dilip asks us why there should be evil at all, despite the prevalence of good among Christians. The presence of evil stands out glaringly. We need to move on to the next section.

2. Religion over irreligion

Let's take a step back and assess what evil each major world religion has done, and then what irreligion has done. By irreligion I mean people who advocate or instituted atheism as state policy.

Christianity, Judaism and Islam are exclusivist religions, all Semitic. The evil perpetrated by their adherents have been well-documented through history. Dilip's article is pretty descriptive of some of them. The Dharmic religions- Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism- are not without their history of violence either: the wars of the Guptas, the Mauryas, et al look good in glorified national history texts, but in reality this must have been a horrendous shedding of blood: Asoka's disillusionment over the world surfaced after a violent battle, and the Hindu epics describe wars fought by warriors who were often favoured by the gods not for their moral incorruptibility but other factors such as their valour in battle and their devotional tapas toward these gods. We don't have much written history prior to the establishment of the Islamic sultanates in India (themselves often violent and predatory), but heroes such as Sivaji were no saints either, regardless of what popular opinion in India might have to say about it.

Animistic traditions, primitive religions, American Indian spirit-worship, nature worship- they are all replete with records of violent acts. So is religion something irredeemably violent, after all?

This brings us to the point to which atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, et al object vehemently- that the moral failure that irreligion brings is not simply a coincidence but a systemic flaw inherent in trading religion for humanism. The statistics are overwhelming. Josef Stalin, no friend to religion, has been held accountable for 20 million deaths by conservative estimates. Wikipedia states that the actual number could be anywhere between 3 and 60 million. Millions died of privation, the Ukranian famine, execution, torture and deportation to Siberia. In addition, much of his ire was directed against Jewish people, making this a 'religious' crime to some, but in reality part of a purge against all religion.

Mao Zedong's roster of such killings range between 2 and 5 million, with another 1.5 million sent to 'reform through labour' camps. Pol Pot, considered one of the worst mass murderers in modern history was supported by Mao in his extermination of one-fifth of his country's population (1.7 million). These were all influenced by Marxist theory and were activist atheists. Hitler's religion has been the subject of considerable debate. But consider these facts: he was raised Roman Catholic but as a schoolboy left the religion and never again attended Mass. He was critical of Chrstianity as he knew it but wanted to reinvent it instead of throwing it away- particularly as a way to reinforce anti-Semitic ideology. However he also made statements like "National Socialism and religion cannot exist together" and "The heaviest blow that ever struck humanity was the coming of Christianity. Bolshevism is Christianity's illegitimate child. Both are inventions of the Jew. The deliberate lie in the matter of religion was introduced into the world by Christianity" and "Let it not be said that Christianity brought man the life of the soul, for that evolution was in the natural order of things."

This article gives his pro and anti-Christian statements. The impression one get is that one cannot read his mind from his public statements. For him these statements were only the means to his end: that of establishing the supremacy of the Third Reich over the world. So what did he really believe? I can' say for sure, but one thing as the article states, is clear: Hitler was a materialist and rationalist. He worshipped himself. In other words he believed that Man was the measure of God, specifically one man- himself. I believe that this ideology is at the heart of atheism. This article says: "Frederick Nietzsche, the atheist philosopher who coined the phrase "God is dead" had a big effect on the worldview of Adolf Hitler, who took some of Nietzsche's more strident writings as his philosophical road map when he launched World War II (Hitler even gave copies of Nietzsche's books to Mussolini). "

Together these tyrants have been responsible for more deaths than other killings in the last 20 centuries put together. Could one could that irreligion is by nature violent? I would say that most atheists by and large are not violent people. But my point is that the difference in these individuals is in scale, not in kind. Irreligion does engender indifference to certain values: in history this has manifested most commonly as erotomania (the love of pleasure) or megalomani (the love of power), both eschewed or held in balance by most religions.

3. The danger of being lukewarm

My grandma was always suspicious of committed believers. Her dad was one, and though his character has been considered Christ-like and beautiful, the time he spent on witnessing the Good News took time away from his very profitable business, landing his family in very dire straits. This and other such experiences lead well-meaning people to consider having a strong opinion as being dangerous. Theirs only to live and die normally. If that is all we think matters, then we are really not very different from the irreligious. A 'normal' indifferent way of living is hardly normal in practice- the petty squabbles, jealousies, narrow-mindedness and prejudice are all part of this seemingly idyllic existence. As I said the difference in immorality is in scale, not in kind. Besides, I don't believe anyone could truly be indifferent to truth. Each one has a worldview- in fact Indifference itself is one. Also I think the pursuite of Truth about ourselves and our Creator are the desires of each heart, though this may be a latent realization, often in times of trouble.

4. The Nature of the human heart and alternative theories such as Maya

Dilip concludes his essay this way: "And given all the bloodshed that lack of understanding has caused, all through history, I wonder if that impossibility is intrinsic to religion itself.Maybe to humanity itself." Christianity holds that the human heart is a heart of darkness, of evil. The inherent, original sin manifests itself quickly- it's present in a child stealing a cookies as it is in as despot who commits genocide against his own people. Other religions consider this to be a contradiction. The Advaita stream of Hindu thought posits that evil and good are illusory, in fact the human condition with its contradictions of nobility and evil are all Maya, an illusion. The only way out of this is Moksha, a moment when one realizes that his inner self the Atman is part of the universal reality, the Brahman; and nothing else matters. This thought in several interpretations is at the heart of all Dharmic faiths. The 'cloud of unknowing' that these faiths talk about is a concept that fails to strike a chord in me, because I acutely feel the problem in myself- that snare of sin which compels me to do what I hate to do.

5. Four questions a worldview needs to answer

These are 4 essential questions each worldview needs to answer:

1. Who is God? (or what is God's nature?)
2. What is the human condition?
3. The problem of sin and transcendence
4. What is our destiny?

These are the pivotal questions on which hang concepts of salvation, forgiveness, love, wisdom, purpose, eternity and so on. These are the points at which each worldview differs and we are compelled to choose. If faith were simply about do's and dont's then I'm not so sure we need a religion. After do's and don'ts (whether they are actually based on righteousness or not) exist in every society- atheistic, animistic, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Shinto and so on. To focus on moralizing alone would be to just set up basic rules for social conduct, not very different from etiquette. Besides, the legislative systems in each country further quantifies offenses based on their perceived gravity. Such a concept of religion leaves us empty- we don't need blind rules. We need, most of all, a relationship on which the pillars of life and living rest. But more about that later. Let's go over each of these 4 questions.

Who is God? My mom used to tell me that God was an impersonal form of energy that pervaded the universe. This was surprising. I don't know if she would say the same thing now, but she's always been a Catholic and apparently found nothing wrong in reconciling faith in the person of Jesus with this idea of God as an 'oblong blur' in the universe. The fact is, Christianity ascribes personhood to God. God is a person with a personal nature and character. Other religions posit his having an impersonal character, some posit him just being the reality of all there is. Which brings us to the other point- God is not the universe or the matter, nor is he present in the matter. He created the matter as something other than Himself. He pervades space and time and is not bound by it. The picture is that of a Creator holding all creation in the palm of his hand. His presence is around it, but creation itself is separate from the hand.

What is the human condition? All religions need to explain this. Atheism simply states that the human condition is amoral, evolved and unnecessary. Not that all atheists believe that humans themselves are to be eradicated as a race, but that their significance to the earth is none- they could well be non-existent and the universe will go on. Many pantheistic religions believe that the human condition is a cloud of unknowing. They posit that the human being is in a trap of illusion, some posit that Man is caught up in desire and this desire itself is false; therefore to achieve a break from this he needs to let go of desire or break from the cloud of unknowing. The state to which he then arrives is the place of liberation wherein he 'realizes' union with reality. Here we must pause to ask the question: why do religions need to explain the human condition at all? Isn't religion more about God than man? Surely more theology and less anthropology is what we need, isn't it? Thre reason is this: whatever we do to deny it, we feel the tug of contraditction within ourselves. We do things which we don't feel comfortable doing; somehow we feel we shouldn't be doing them; we see beauty and order and love in the natural world around us, but we see it marred by cruelty and danger and loss and death. We cherish our relationships, but we see all relationships end in either dispute or death. We love to see new born babies and cherish their innocence, but they grow older and often less lovable, and they eventually die. We are unable to reconcile with the passage of time. We are continually surprised by how a person has grown older or taller or stronger or wiser, although this is to be only expected. We long for a better tomorrow, a better place, a better situation... a remedy. That begs the question, a remedy to what? Christianity calls it: Sin. All that follows after it- death, dispute, evil, trouble, as well as our longing for a better place and time point to this reality that is undeniable. Christianity believes that human beings are born into sin and we have a propensity to sin. Our nature longs to sin. After our first parents sinned against God's loving provision for them and breaking His plan for their lives, the human race fell headlong into the terror of rebellion against God. The propensity of our race changed from being responsive and submissive to God to being separated from God and naturally rebellious. We chafe at His authority, fear and distrust His sovereignity, doubt His love. We have also been deceived by earthly philosophy that bears a resemblance of His truth but is not quite it. That is the human condition. It's also the closest explanation I can identify with. I feel the tug of sin more than the cloud of unknowing. I sense temptation within my bones. It's right here within me and it's undeniably, irrevocably true. That brings us to point 3.

The problem with sin is that it is a vicious circle, a quagmire, a storm that cannot be tamed by discipline, devotion, love or by knowledge of law. Our best efforts may have kept us from being depraved enough as our fellow man, but deep inside we know it's just not enough. We have this urge to satisfy something or someone with our deeds and our lives. We live for certain people often- our kids, our spouses, or parents and other loved ones. We find significance in fighting causes for our nations, animals, the oppressed... But it just doesn't go away. Every worldview accounts for this or copes with it- Buddhism struggles to break free of desire through meditation, Hinduism meditates on union with the Ultimate reality and through the doctrine of karma, brings in consequences to our. Atheism denies sin, but loudly proclaims that we must build our own heaven on earth, as typified in Nietzsche's Superman. All of this fails because it fails to define the problem correctly. Desire in itself is not sin. Sinful desire is a corruption of godly desire. Meditation becomes escapism when it ignores the reality of our own sin. The doctrine of karma which promises rebirth after rebirth as karmic penalties is a pretty good picture of the remorseless victimization of sin, but gives us no solution to the dilemma. Atheism by denying sin cuts itself off from logic and reason, and fails to explain satisfactorily this fundamental contradiction we live with. What does Christianity say? The Judeo-Christian worldview defines sin as unrighteousness, meaning not being right with God. God is the moral law-giver and all good flows from him. Our understanding of good also follows from our understanding of his very nature. This worldview also says that we cannot be right with God by our merits or penance. Nothing we do forms a sufficient penalty. The only acceptable payment for sin is Christ's sacrifice- the price paid by the blamess for the sake of the sinful. When we cannot transcend into His kingdom he transcends into our world and reaches out to us to accept his invitation. When we could not ascend he descended and carries us with Him on his ascent.

Our destiny- as Christians we know that we will enter heaven- the very presence of God. The Christian life also clarifies for us our earthly purpose. In some mysterious way, as CS Lewis also notes, our earthly good works add up for us heavenly rewards so that when we look back on our life we know that all this was so from the beginning of the ages. The plan unfurls and we see better. A few months ago my friend remarked to me about an unbelieving friend of his who held that the only motive Christians could have for wanting to convert him was the prospect of 'riches' in heaven. What these riches are, we do not know. Would these e power, material well-being or other pleasure? The Bible speaks in figurative terms because Heaven is unlike nything else we have seen. I think every believer knows that whatever else heaven may be, it is the place where the Lord will be adored and worshipped and we will known Him as He knows us. Perhaps the reward is just that- the knowledge of God; and the more we conform to His image here on earth the more we grow closer to Him, the better glimpse we have of His heart. His desire is to have more of his people know Him, and this desire is what compels the believer to take His message out. When a new believer is born again, the Bible says that the agels rejoice, and so do we. It's more akin to the joy new parents experience than anything else. Such joy is not because now they have power over someone elseor even completely because of the joy a baby brings to themselves, but they are joyful for the birth itself, for the baby's own sake, for the fact that this baby has so much to learn and know and accomplish. Thus they rejoice at her wonder at seeing a sunset ro a firefly and love to impart what little they know. They long to be better parents than their own parents were and to make sure that the baby does better in life than they ever did. Their purpose for her is her character and wisdom and knowledge. Such gift-love is unknown in any other relationship. While in most cases the believer's joy in another believer does not compare to this, the unselfishness and freedom to rejoice in another's excellence of character has close parallels. The unbeliever cannot grasp it just as she cannot grasp the presence of God in the most mundane things. As poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it:

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

But only he who sees, takes off his shoes -

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries

A Kinder, Gentler Calvinism

This is beloved of all Calvin and Hobbes fans. Maybe a good capion would be "He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"

Hindu Prayer in the Senate

I have not seen too many op-eds from Christian news papers on the three Christian activists who shouted down a Hindu prayer in the Senate recently. On July 12th a Hindu chaplain prayed a Hindu prayer in English, albeit it was worded very generally, to make it acceptable and relatable to all. Three protesters shouted out protests before this began saying, "there is no God but Jesus Christ", and "this is an abomination."Organizations like American Family Association deemed this prayer unconstitutional because the Constitution says we are one nation under God, not "gods". Messages on an online news site were filled with believers protesting this prayer. Similarly sometime ago there were protests about Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison taking oath of office with his hand on the Koran and not the Bible. The Christian community was aghast at this. On WMBI (Moody Radio), anchors that I respect spoke against this.
While I largely agree with the opinions of the Christian conservative community here is my opinion on all this:

1. A Hindu prayer offered on the senate floor is not unconstitutional. The founding fathers may roll in their graves if this news reached them, as one protester put it. But given the spirit of the constitution, which is one of letting the definition for God remain as was known, the prayer is not unconstitutional. Islamic and Jewish prayers have been offered before, so this is not unprecedented. Some Hindus claim Hinduism is monotheistic as well. Perhaps it could be considered monistic, but that is neither here nor there.

2. Protesters compare this event to Biblical Judah and Israel losing their way after the reign of Solomon, when kings offered sacrifices to foreign gods and idols. While as a Christian I believe that Hinduism is not the Truth, I do not see this parallel between ancient Israel and modern day America. Israel was specifically founded as a nation set apart by God for his chosen people. America had its roots in pilgrims crossing the ocean to practice their faith in liberty but the nation itself was not founded for Christians only. There were freemasons and atheists among the founding fathers, but in general the United States was birthed during a period of religious fervour which deepened with the Great Awakening, and many prominent thinkers and leaders were Christian. Some were Mormon. But the US is not a theocratic state.

3. Secularists abuse the concept of the separation of the church and the state. They want to purge all religion from the public arena. Thus they do not want Jesus' name to be mentioned in a Senate prayer because that would mean identifying a particular religion. Going by Ravi Zacharias' definition, secularism is when "religious ideas, expressions and institutions have no right to influence society." In that sense, the US was not formed as a secularist state. The separation of the church and state does not prohibit Christians or any other religious group to practice their faith in the public square or in Government buildings, offices and so on. Claiming that it does goes against the spirit of the Constitution.

4. Protesters claim that allowing the Hindu prayer would ensure the downfall of the US. This is a tricky argument. The converse of this is that if this prayer were not allowed on the Senate floor the US wouldn't fall. This borders on the ridiculous. Whether this prayer is allowed or not, the US will be dealt with according to its faith. As of now I do not believe the US is a Christian nation. This is not due to immigration or foreign missionaries from other faiths being allowed to preach here. This is because Americans have lost their faith as well as their morality. Hedonism, materialism and indifference to the faith of their fathers have made this country (albeit not to the extend to which Europe has fallen) a pagan country. Each person will stand before Christ to give an account and the collective effect of fallen and unredeemed lives will be felt on national life as well. The Hindu prayer in the Senate was simply an expression of the social milieu- that of a pluralistic society. In the past, when the US was mostly Christian (truly or nominally; we won't debate that), such a prayer would be out of the question because the social milieu did not warrant it. Today there are Hindus in the US, and there are also people who don't care whether a prayer is said on the Senate floor or not. In that social milieu such prayers will be said; and nothing in the Constitution argues against it.

5. Respondents in this online blog mentioned that India wouldn't allow Christian prayers in the Lok Sabha, the Caste System is evil, how Hinduism has bred so many social evils, and so on. None of this is germane to the issue. Regardless of how badly some of its adherents behave, the religion as such is practices by around a billion people, 2 million of whom live in the US. Many of them behave quite normally. This is the kind of argument which uninformed opponents usuallu use against Christianity, and I've often reminded them that a religion cannot be judged by its abuse. Even if you point to Hindu writings that point to sanctioning of the said evils, modern Hindus practise a different religion that what was written by obscurantist writers of the past. Some are violent, some are nationalists, some are inclusivists, some exclusivists, some simply peace-loving and interested in being left alone to go on with their lives. Just like us.

6. One respondent mentioned that we need to make sure that people who come to this country are Christians. That's interesting. Besides the fact that such a policy would make this little different from Saudi Arabia, I was wondering how one could ensure that only Christians remained in this country. If someone doesn't accept Jesus as their Lord by, say the age of 20, what happens? Does he/she get cast out? Christianity is about taking the message of salvation to the unreached, not shutting them out!

After all of this is said and done, am I happy that this prayer was recited? It's a tricky question. Let me put it this way. I'm happy the Senate upheld religious freedom by allowing the prayer. But I'm unhappy about the social milieu that led to this being a practice in the US. I'm unhappy about the shift in American culture.

The Rise of the Rupee and What It Means to Us

The Indian Rupee has been going up against the US Dollar for a couple of months now and the Reserve Bank is following a laissez faire policy in administering this rise. This is in keeping with its goal of letting market forces dictate the fate of the Rupee and let India ease into the global economy naturally. Unlike in China where their fiscal policy is hidebound to keep the currency low vis-a-vis the dollar, we are following the IMF guideline to let it be.

How does this play out in terms of our economy? As an employee of a Big Three IT export organization in India I can say that this has very quickly percolated down to every level, especially the roles based in the US. Spending in dollars has been cut, several bureaucratic hoops now need to be jumped for travel to India for accompanying a client on a site visit, there is a drive to increase billing rates and shorten bills outstanding. Add to this the 2009 deadline for the tax holiday we have been enjoying thus far, and you see the IT industry preparing for lower margins and perhaps a slightly less competitive situation due to increasing billing rates.

Factoring in all of this as well as the perceived threat of competition (more on this in the next paragraph) the industry should still earn net margins above 20 percent of the revenue. Besides the market is already shifting significantly away from traditional outsourcing to selective outsourcing, meaning it is moving from the model of 'we do our core business best, you do the IT' to 'we retain the strategic applications and infrastructure, you do the selected other services'. Thus the big bang approach of infrastructure hosting, rebadging employees and outsourcing entire departments is now outdated and with many such previous engagements coming to an end, $100 billion worth of business locked up in those large deals is now being reconsidered as to what can be outsourced and what retained.

This is the reason why IBM is confident enough to commit $6billion to investment in India and 100,000 net employees in India in the next 3 years. They need to retain most of their large deals to remain competitive and they are eager to get in the game. This brings us to the next question: what is India's competition? Let's skip the perfunctory look at Russia, Eastern Europe, Northern Africa, the Phillipines and so on. The perceived threat to the head that wears the crown is China. It's too early to comment, but since 2000 I've seen doomsday predictions for India's IT industry because of Chinese advancements. In 2000 we were given until 2002. In 2002 we were given until 2006. Today we are given until 2010. I don't know if they will catch up that soon. Regardless of that, we need to be careful because some companies are ramping up services out of China- HP for instance published a report to the effect that it expects to gain from China what it may lose from India due to attrition, increased salaries and so on. This remains to be seen.

Our company has operations in China and we have until now seen it as a supporting location for India-based services and not as a credible competitive business unit. We have also found it tough to hire local professionals for our projects. The Chinese government is trying to remedy things on a grand scale at a rapid pace as they are wont to do. Training a staggering mass of people in the English language, flying out people to our Bangalore campuses, et al. It took us over 20 years to get our processes and quality assurance in order, to build infrastructure and develop a rich hinterland of people who are qualified enough. AMR reports on the other hand that China needs to be at least 20 percent cheaper than India to even be a competitor at all, despite all the flaws India has and any further infrastructure build-up China may make. As I said we need to wait and watch. It will be an interesting fight.

Aside from this, I'm bothered about our currency rise. This is because the IT industry, telecom and certain other sectors are doing well. But this is not a uniform development for all sectors of the economy. While the star performers drive up the currency the laggards find themselves unable to export competitively or compete against imports in the light of the stronger Rupee. The predictions by independent agencies peg the Rupee at Rs. 36 to a dollar by the end of the year. Wonder, if the RBI will still let it be.

Indian Christian Identity

I've had this thought for about a week now. I speak English about 90 percent of the time, and 9 percent Malayalam. Hindi speaking is very less but it's there, especially as my coworkers speak mostly Hindi, regardless of which part of India they are from. But the more I think of my Southern Indian friends who do speak Hindi the more they seem Northern Indian than Southern. You know, they are more comfortable eating bhel puri than a vada, more comfortable wearing a kurta than a mundu, and often more comfortable speaking Hindi than Tamil or any other Southern language. I guess Northerners may consider this to be progress, and certainly it is progress to have a common language to speak across India. It binds the nation together and helps us bridge our differences. The brouhaha in 60s' Tamil Nadu against Hindi teaching in schools was very sad and pitiable.

That said, I have not seen a Southerner who is comfortable enough with his/her regional tongue while being fluent at Hindi. I don't think it's because of limited linguistic ability. So many Southerners are excellent speakers of English and their regional language. The larger question is, why is it that our national identity has to necessary erase some of our smaller identity as people of a region or small community?

I grew up in Cochin where we have the Southern Naval Command. The Navy officers that I have spoken to hardly interact with the locals, the involvement of the Navy in the community is minimal. Some can't stand the typically rural, unsophisticated attitude of the Keralite. The locals always refer to the officers as 'those Navy guys' and not with any real identification with them as our armed forces. The Keralites in the Navy or other branches of the armed forces usually adopt a more Northern attitude in terms of food, language, habits (movies, clothes..) and so on. Their involvement with Kerala is quite less, perhaps limited to their immediate family. A Keralite Naval officer in Cochin stepping into a grocery store would stand out like a sore thumb by his very presence.

This is true of Keralites raised outside Kerala and some Keralites raised within Kerala in a more sophisticated manner- in elite schools and colleges. Many of the schools (one of which I attended) restrict students from speaking in Malayalam and encourage them to speak English. When I went to Madras to attend college, our interaction with locals was considerable but we did it on our own terms, mostly by speaking English and occasionally Tamil. We didn't make much effort to learn the language well- we just learned a few necessary words and sentences without really understanding the grammar or syntax. Elite residential schools let kids have a well rounded education, teaching them academics with sports, swimming, school pride and so on. Even so I haven't see or heard of s school in India that teaches kids allegiance to a local community. Their world revolves around the culture that the school has built up. Put them outside that circle or likeminded other circles, and you will notice either disinterest or discomfort. Either way you disctinctly see a lack of courtesy. I can say this without getting on a moral high horse because I too have similar problems.

When I became a born-again Christian in the final year of college, I learned to pray in English, but even today I have not tried praying in Malayalam much- the words do not come naturally and appear contrived. I've often wondered if our Gospel has been compromised culturally. I don't mean that we need to incorporate bhajans in our worship or consider Hindu deities as objects of our worship, I just feel that there is a large divide between myself and so many Indians who are culturally a world away.

CS Lewis who fought in the British army during WWII mentions in his writings that patriotism is felt when one fights for one's people. For Lewis that may have been Belfast, Northern Ireland or places like Hertfordshire and Worcestershire where grew up. The idea of 'Great Britain' or the 'British Empire' are ideas of lawmakers. Similarly the idea of America is strong in the minds of most Americans but they see no dichotomy between their idea of America as a little Iowa town they were raised in and that of the United States. The transition is seamless. For me, the idea of India is filled with the familiar and beloved places I've experienced in India- Kerala, Chennai, Bangalore and Delhi. For the armed forces, it is the idea of 'Bharatmata', something which I simply cannot conceive. I suspect Lewis would call this concept a politician's term. When the army fights it fights for Bharatmata, but many of the officers do not identify with the neighbourhoods of their state, but rather they identify with the military culture to which they now belong. It probably does not matter to Bharatmata, because they fight either way. But I think it matters to the Bharat that they grew up in, to their city or village, or their school. Their kids are usually not comfortable speaking a regional language but they are quite good Hindi speakers. The exceptions I have seen to this are the Sikhs. They seem to have bridged the gap between the identity of Punjab and that of India, or more preceisely that of their India, the military or corporate or elite India, whichever. But it beats me how they manage this. An army officer from rural Punjab can still be one of the boys back home while effortlessly being an army officer with all the ramifications the post brings, the etiquette, the lifestyle, and so on. I'd be very interested in understanding how a Sikh who became a Christian would view his Indian-ness. (Sadhu Sundar Singh, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you!)

Perhaps this is a good reason they are good soldiers- their patriotism is very sincere, not a nebulous concept, but it can be pointed to. They can trace it back to the wheatfields they were raised in. They don't lose it when they are in Delhi at a parade or in Bombay in a mall. Sometime back Praful Bidwai the journalist wrote of Sania Mirza that she is Indian first and Muslim second. Margaret Alva once responded to a heckling critic that she is Indian first and Christian second. Both Bidwai and Alva are clearly wrong and misguided. That level of discomfort with faith and conviction is sad. Perhaps it shows that their conviction is pretty shallow (I hope I'm not being judgmental). Perhaps it also goes to prove how divided we are as a people. We are unable to embrace the tension between exclusivistic convictions and retain our identity. If ever we can achieve 'national integration', that elusive red herring the Government chases after, it's when we can learn to embrace this tension and rejoice in it.

My Dad told me this story about a former president of the Madras Stock Exchange (we'll leave him unnamed). He was a Tamil Brahmin and an alumnus of Loyola College. He narrated humourously to my Dad the story of how he and his pals as backbenchers made light of the Lord's Prayer recited daily at Loyola. The Tamil version begins 'Paramandalangalil irukkira engal pithave' ('Our Father who dwelleth in Heaven') which, to anyone who understand both languages, is a far more grand, majestic and intimate way to address Father God. Our friends the backbenchers used to quietly mutter 'Panaimarangalil irukkira Engal Pirave' ('My Dove which sits on palm trees'). He laughed heartily when he said this to Dad who he knew came from a Christian background. Much as I think this playful utterance was just childhood's naughty foible, I also think that this narration to my Dad while an adult lacked decency. If a Christian had similarly remarked about the 'Asathoma Jyotir Gamaya' he or she would be looked on as un-Indian. It is this difference that is difficult for a Christian, especially a conservative, exclusivist, born-again one such as myself, to understand. A Hindu or Sikh serving in the military is generally accepted as doing his duty and doesn't need to prove himself to be a true Indian. A Christian or Muslim serving in the armed forces is often in the position of proving his or her patriotism by his her valour or sincerity.

In that sense, the Sangh Parivar is right. India, while politically, legally and consitutionally secular, is essentially Hindu in character. While Hinduism too is exclusivist and has non-negotiable tenets, it also holds that the practitioners of other faiths should not evangelized as it is their dharma to believe what they do. But they are firm in their belief that they will be rebirthed again and again until they come to the stage where there is self-realization with the Brahman. Any opposing view is not met with approval. This is why many Indians can let us Christians be, and let us practise our faith, but when we evangelize our faith they feel some order is violated.

To me that is strange. If my dharma involves the witness of the Gospel, what is that to the others? But then to them, a piece of our Indian-ness is lost. That's the tension we feel when we attempt to combine these two facets of our identity. Islam loses it when it attempts to enculturate its faith with the customs and language of the Middle East. Its attempts to have a unique Indian identity is severely compromised, only because it attempts to supplant Indian-ness with Arab-ness. In contrast, Christianity lends itself to every tongue and tribe and nation, and still remains uncompromising in its convictions. A new believer in Christ may not feel any tension when she gives her life to Jesus. But eventually the tension surfaces, of remaining a part of our own people and living our life by the Spirit. This tension then is not something within Christianity but within India. Indians are so divided that we often strive to disinguish ourselves from other Indians. We have a Christian subculture, a Brahmin subculture, a Hindi heartland subculture, a 'Metro' subculture and so on, which are so different from one another.

Indians get mad when an evangelist talks about the evils of the caste system. They feel wronged because they think the caste system is not rightly presented or they think it's none of the evangelist's business to dissect their faith when he or she should be worrying about the problems in his or her own country or community of faith. I don't know how we got to this über sensitive state. But isn't it magnificent to know that Jesus teaches us to love our neighbour when he or she is unlovely? That's why I'm convinced that our divisions are not possible to conquer without His saving grace. It is He who has broken the ground of division between the Jew and the Gentile. As the hymn says, "Who will not fear, O Lord, And glorify Thy name? For Thou alone art holy, And all the nations will come before Thee." India needs Christ and anything less is a compromise.

Baby girl buried alive in AP

Thankfully this baby is still alive because a kinder hearted Indian found her. If there is any motivation we need for adoption it's stories like this coming out of India. I'm sure there are many such cases outside India but as Indians we feel the tragedy of a civilization that has been deceived and gone so awfully wrong. Economic difficulty is not an excuse for a crime like this. But then you would think nor is abortion ever justified- and yet this sanitized form of murder is carried on.

Indian society in general doesn't favour adoption, and the discarded babies are not few. Abortion, though illegal, flourishes. A sad state of affairs.

The Science and History of the Biblical Exodus

I watched Simcha Jacobovici's 'Exodus Decoded' yesterday. I'm reluctant to credit Jacobovici for a lot of conjectures in the documentary that remind one of his controversial 'Jesus Famly Tomb' which was a pretty laboured effort at crafting a story around poorly researched evidence. This documentary makes a similar effort using some evidence, especially surrounding what the Ark of the Covenant may have looked like, the equation of the Jewish tribe 'Dan' to the Hellenic tribe Danites mentioned by Homer, and so on.

However the film was well preented and contained material one should not write off wholesale. I have a 1971 publication 'Marvels and Mysteries of the World Around Us' which features an article on how the Exodus events may have happened. The ideas in the film are exactly the same. When the volcano Santorini erupted, it changed the world and especially Western civilization forever, ending the Minoan civilization and signaling the beginning of the end for the Egyptian civilization. In the place of these two great civil societies came up Greece, Persia and other Semitic, Hellenstic and Indo-Aryan groups. Egypt suffered from earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic ash and carbon dioxide poisoning which prompted the ten plagues mentioned in the Bible. The film cites a similar occurence in Cameroon in 1984 and 1986 when a lake turned blood red from trapped gas oxidizing and forming rust, and later releasing carbon dioxide to kill people sleeping close to the ground. The event also prompted plagues exactly similar to the Biblical plagues- frogs, pests, boils and rashes... Interestingly, the 1971 book also talks about similar events that have happened prior to the Cameroon events that bear an uncanny resemblance.

Jacobovici also talked about the possibility of the Exodus account being the same as the Hyksos' exodus from Egypt which bear close resemblance as well. The Egyptian records of the Hyksos claim that these were a foriegn group that was powerful and ruled parts of Egypt (Joseph?) and made a mass exodus around 1500-1600 BCE. This is worth noting and has been considered by many scholars to be so closely similar to the Biblical account of the Jews' temporary residence in Egypt that the supposed difference in the timeline (200 years) may have been an error by contemporary scholarship. Archaeologists and geologists disagree on the timeline and this shows the inconsistency in understanding when certain events may have happened. The film claims that Moses' Pharoah then was not Rameses II as we consider these days, but rather Ahmose I. Ahmose in Hebrew means 'brother of Moses'. Interestingly we get to see his mummified body as well as that of his son who had died young at 12 or 13 years of age. The film connects this early death with the Biblical account of God's judgment on Pharoah's male firstborn. Jacobovici brings together some newly discovered evidence such as a 3000 year old inscription by a slave in an Egyptiam mine dating to 1500 BC, saying "El (God), Help me!" This is where I get a little skeptical- all these newly discovered inscriptions that Jacobovici is so fond of were fodder for his 'Jesus Family Tomb' which many have criticized as unscholarly; the inscriptions themselves have been criticized as being fake. But if indeed they were 3000 years old, then it is remarkable and may hold a clue for us, because, as the filmmaker says, the Egyptians had several gods and hierogyphic writing, while this script was alphabetic like the early Hebrew script, and addresses God in the singular.

Regardless of the conclusions he draws from some pieces of evidence, the film as a whole has been made well and several of the segments are truly worthy of further study. If nothing else, a believer understands that many of these events are not part of a fairytale, but perfectly orchestrated through nature by a purposeful God. Some may object to the absence of an overt hand of God, but as Jacobovici says, God may not necessarily suspend nature to accomplish His will, rather he manipulates it.