BIRD: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES, who's who?

BANGALORE INITIATIVE FOR RELIGIOUS DIALOGUE (BIRD)


E-mail: benjaminpn@hotmail.com





BIRD: AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue (BIRD) is a little lamp, lit and kept burning, by a group of kindred souls and fellow pilgrims. Theirs is an inter-faith voyage of discovery, sailing on the winds of near-identical views on people and events signifying that whatever the darkness, however profound the sense of loss, the light of God’s love – be it Ram, Allah or Jesus - will continue to shine, for those who have the eyes to see, a heart to love and a soul to believe. BIRD’s premise is simplicity itself -striking a match in a dark immense cavern, to dispel the surrounding gloom.



We believe that the religious attitude is a thing of permanent value to mankind, individually and collectively; and consider it, wherever it is found, deserving of reverent recognition. Amidst the conflicting claims made on behalf of different religions, all of which have sprung from this common attitude, we believe there is an urgent need for a full and free exchange of our differing religious experiences, in a spirit of mutual respect, appreciation and sympathy and approximation to Truth.

We realize that any attempt to weaken the hold of the truth of any religion upon mankind is to weaken religion itself. Therefore we strive not to weaken but to strengthen each other by mutual respect, trust and co-operation. We seek to help one another more fully to understand and live up to the best in all religions.

The Initiative invites people of all faiths to share through it the richness of their various religious traditions and experiences in this adventure of spirit and support of one another in the struggle for social justice, identifying themselves as closely as they are able with the oppressed and the disinherited, and treating all human beings as brothers and sisters.

In order that each may bring into this Initiative the very best that he/she can, we desire to explore fully the value of our religious traditions and disciplines and present them for the benefit of all. But we do not desire to persuade any one within the Initiative to our own religious belief and practice.

We believe that such an interchange of experiences will lead to an enrichment of one another’s religious life; mutual respect, understanding and tolerance and co-operation in purifying and strengthening the religious attitude of mind as against the irreligious or materialistic attitude from which our personal, social and national problems have to be tackled.

We also believe in sharing our deepest convictions with one another, but sharing them on a basis of equality, of genuine respect for and acceptance of the validity of each other’s faith. Such a sharing demands earnestness, both in holding one’s own faith and in seeking to understand another’s. For we get nowhere if we meet on a basis of indifference to all faiths.

The Initiative provides an element of newness in the relationship between religions when it openly and unreservedly asserts that there is no monopoly in religious truth, that the followers of the different religions can help each other best by each being true to one’s understanding of the Truth, and that we can all grow together into an ever-deepening and widening understanding

We are convinced that only through Inter- Religious dialogue can we diffuse the recurring tension between religious groups and communities in our country and that the Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue will be able to provide a platform for addressing those issues which are the causes for tension and resentment.






BIRD office-bearers and Patrons


The Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue (BIRD) is a registered Trust. Its membership is drawn from different religious backgrounds- Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and others. Some of the prominent persons associated with the BIRD are:



Office bearers and Patrons



P.N.BENJAMIN

Founder Trustee

Chairman & Coordinator.



EMERSON SAMUEL

Founder Trustee & Secretary



GEORGY C. GEORGE

Trustee & Treasurer



PATRONS



DR. A. RAVINDRA (I.A.S & former Chief Secretary)

DR. C.T. KURIEN

DR. M.V.NADKARNI

PROF. N.S.RAMASWAMY

PROF. DR. MUMTAZ ALI KHAN (former Minister for Minorities &Wakfs)

BRIG.(Retd) CHACKO ABRAHAM

Mrs. MOLLY VARGHESE

REV. DR. THOMAS NINAN

Rev. Dr. MANI CHACKO

SIDDARTHA, Fireflies Ashram

DR. KEN GNAKAN

SUHAS JEEDE

E.P.MENON

Dr. THOMAS GEORGE

NOEL NORONHA

RAM SUNDER

DR. C. ALEX ALEXANDER (USA)

Bishop GEORGE NINAN (USA)

PHILIP MATHEW

DR. K.C.SAMUEL

REV. DR. KIRAN SEBASTAN

Dr. (Mrs) USHA BENJAMIN SAMARTHA

DANIEL THOMAS

Major ALEXANDER JOHN

Aditya Mohan

AN APPEAL TO INDIAN CHRISTIANS

LET YOUR LIGHT SO SHINE BEFORE MEN….

An appeal to Indian Christian conscience



By P.N.Benjamin



Christians in India are unique: not only did the first Christian community in the world establish itself in India – the Syrian Christians of Kerala in the 1st century AD – but before the arrival of the Jesuits with Vasco de Gama in the 16th century, they developed an extraordinary religious pluralism, adopting some of the local customs, while retaining their faith in Christ and accepting the existence of other religious practices. It should also be said that Christians are amongst the most educated Indians and even though they constitute only less than 3% of the population, they wield an enormous influence in India through education mainly, as many of India’s top educational institutions are managed by Christians and also because of the quality care in Christian hospitals and nursing homes. Finally, Indian Christians are often gentle, soft-spoken, friendly and God-fearing.



Very often Christians in India have to depend not so much on their rights as on the goodwill and generosity of the powerful majority Hindu community. Christians in India are dependent in a double sense, on the goodwill of the Hindus and on the Churches in the West whose fellowship sustains them and whose affluence often supports them. Judging from numbers there is hardly any equality in relationship. But Christians in India can play a creative and critical role in the life of our nation. What matters most is the quality of their life as Christians and the courage of their faith.



In a religiously plural India the mission of the Church is not to make other people Christian but to invite people to enter the Kingdom of God. If the Christian churches recongnise that real conversion is not from one religion to another but from unbelief to God, and that “mission” is not the Church’s work but God’s, then the implications of this in the context of religious pluralism must be more openly acknowledged.



The Kingdom is present wherever people are being transformed by Jesus Christ, showing ‘the marks of love and self-sacrifice in their commitment of human liberation’, even if for many in countries such as India, such transformation does not lead to baptised membership of the institutional Church. “Christ’s call to conversion as a turning towards God stands; what it need not imply is conversion to Christianity”



The Commission to preach the gospel is usually quoted by all Christian groups. But, they conveniently ignore the fact that there are other very important elements in the teachings of Christ. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth where moth and rust do corrupt but lay up your treasures in heaven…You cannot serve God and Mammon. Forgive your brother not seven times but seventy times seven…Love one another as I have loved you…”



Such teachings should have led to the formation of a distinctive lifestyle based on simplicity and integrity and total non-acquisitiveness. But, we do not find Christians any different from others. They go to law over property disputes. They sell their sons and daughters for specific sums of money in the marriage market. They accept bribes and play the game of money and power, as assiduously as anyone else.



Unless Christians in this country share the sufferings of the people they have no word of the gospel to them, whatever true things they might say. Revival songs they sing, long prayers they pray and long sermons they preach amount to lip religion and at the same time they swallow widow’s houses. This is how Jesus Christ characterises hypocrisy.



This is an old phenomenon where integrity of life and the truth of words don’t conform to one another. Life does not confirm the words that Christians speak.



If Christians as a community took the teachings of Christ seriously, then they would be justified in preaching. To preach what they do not practise is to put the cart before the horse. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven.”



Raimon Panikkar averred that "if the Church wishes to live, it should not be afraid of assimilating elements that come from other religious traditions, whose existence it can today no longer ignore".



Almost in the same vein, a brilliant Danish Professor, Dr. Kaaj Baago, in the United Theological College, Bangalore, made history when he said in the 1960s: “Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists should never give up their religion to join the Christian Church”. On the other hand the Church should humble itself and find ways of identifying itself with other groups, taking Christ with them. Christ, he said, was not the chairman of the Christian party. If God is the Lord of the universe he will work through every culture and religion. We must give up the crusading spirit of the colonial era and stop singing weird hymns like “Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war”. This will lead to Hindu Christianity or Buddhist Christianity.



It must involve the disappearance of the Indian Christian community, but he reminded us: “a grain of wheat remains a solitary grain unless it falls to the ground and dies”. Needless to say, the Indian Christians were furious. He left the College, the Church and the mission and took refuge with the Danish Foreign Service!!



He later returned to India as his country’s Ambassador and died in harness in 1988.



P.N.BENJAMIN

Founder & Coordinator

Bangalore Initiative for Religious Dialogue

Sprawling Indian NGO sector

SPRAWLING INDIAN NGOs & FOREIGN FUNDING

An unedited /unfinished piece by P.N.BENJAMIN

27 June 2012

Foreign funding for the sprawling Indian NGOs has been growing at a compounded annual rate of 14 per cent every year .It received over Rs 49,968 crore as contributions from abroad during the last five years. In 2009-10, 21,508 organizations received Rs.10,337 crore for various activities. Besides rural development, child welfare, humanrights advocacy,education and protection, environmental programmes and AIDS awareness, foreign funds are also being used for setting up religious schools, education of priests/preachers, religious functions and publication and distribution of religious literature, among other activities. This mirrors the overall sharp increase in spending on 'community' services in the country .

Transparency, or rather the lack of it, has long been a problem with the NGO sector. One telling example of this is how few NGOs bother to make their annual accounts available for public scrutiny. It is compounded by the highly unorganized nature of these organizations that are often required to register under multiple laws without any uniform accounting policy or reporting framework.

One of the key complaints against Indian NGOs is their overspending on overheads. There are several alleged instances of unscrupulousness in the ever expanding NGOs sector. According to NGO watchdogs, almost half of the money received from abroad is misused, mostly to support high establishment expenses incurred: buying land, buildings, jeeps, setting up fancy offices, mobiles, laptops, expensive cameras, salaries, consultancy fees, honorarium, and importantly, foreign travel etc, which make up 35-70% of the expenses. This goes against the grain of service motto where the ultimate recipient is supposed to get the maximum.

There are other uncomfortable questions that undermine the credibility of a large number of Indian NGOs. Chief among them is the businesses using these organisations for money laundering. Ravi Nair, Director of South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre and India's best known human rights defender has been found guilty of fraud and embazzlement of funds by the European Union's anti-fraud busting agency European Anti-Fraud Offce (OLAF). The European Union has asked the government of India to take action against the NGO which received funds through banks accounts in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

Money has been flowing into the NGO sector, but very few of the “charitable” outfits allow public scrutiny of their accounts. There is very little financial regulation of NGOs as matters stand. The Foreign Contributions Regulation Act (FCRA), under which organisations that receive foreign funds have to report annually to the Home Ministry the sources and use of the money. It focuses only on ensuring internal security. It is not concerned with wastage or misuse of funds, but only with use of these funds for political, communal or other such activities.

In 2008 alone, out of the 34,803 registered associations receiving foreign funds , only 18,796 filed their reports. NGOs that do not file returns to the Home Ministry will lose the right to receive foreign funds for three years, which will, in many cases, effectively suspend their operations.

India's latest five-year plan also advocates a single comprehensive law with a single set of accountability procedures to encourage accountability and transparency within the NGO sector. NGOs are in the "credibility market" and they cannot afford to be above accountability”, a prominent NGO leader has said.

Despite their saintly image in the media, some NGOs have connections to dubious groups in India. More insidious are groups with deceptively appealing siren songs. Most of these organizations have become personal fiefdoms for self-glorification, or else unwitting tools in the hands of anti-nationals.

Similarly, annual submissions to the registrar of societies or to charity commissioners are for all practical purposes mere formalities, with little scrutiny if public money is being prudently spent by charities. This is in stark contrast to what exists in the government where the Comptroller and Auditor General's office investigates whether the physical achievements match the funds spent. The Kelkar Committee had recommended the creation of a National Charities Board to assist the government in regulating charities as is the case with the National Charities Commission in the UK.

It would be appropriate that all NGOs insist that they be covered under the Right to Information Act, even though as of now it is not applicable to those who do not receive funds from the government. This insistence will go a long way in establishing their credentials as real believers in transparency and right to information.

CYNICAL POLITICIANS

Cynical politicians submit to extremists: The strange case of ‘hosanna’ T.J.S.George Sunday Express, 29 Jan. 2012 Republican India’s pride at the time of its birth was that it was a country where religion was not a factor in policy making, in contrast to the breakaway country of Pakistan where everything was decided by religion. That distinction is fading. We may not become a theocratic state, but religion is steadily moving to centrestage in politics and public life. The newest witnesses are A R Rahman, Sri Ram Sene and of course Salman Rushdie. The reason for the rise of communalism is the rise of cynicism among politicians. If anything is more disastrous than corruption, it is cynicism. Remember Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic—a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Cynicism drives the rulers of the land to forget principles, forget their obligations to the country, and make compromises with evil for short-term gains. This becomes glaring at election time because selfish, shortsighted parties find it easiest to attract voters on the basis of religion and caste. People like Mayawati and Laloo Prasad, who would otherwise be blots on democracy, become rulers of the land on the strength of blind caste loyalties. Democracy itself has become a farce on account of these aberrations. But the aberrations continue, giving increasing momentum to religious reactionaries. Consider the strange case of ‘hosanna’. A R Rahman composed a song for a Hindi movie and the word ‘hosanna’ appeared in it. A gentleman named Joseph Dias, representing a Christian organisation, took objection. The use of the word in the song, he said, hurt the religious sentiments of the Christians and Jews around the world. How did he know? Who authorised him to speak for “the Christians and Jews of the world” who seldom agree on anything anyway? Why does the word hurt these communities only when it is used in a Hindi song? It was used in the original Tamil and Telugu versions of the movie a year earlier, and Shriman Dias had no problem with that. In any case, Christians and Jews might have used the word ‘hosanna’ in a devotional context, but that does not give them any copyright over it. It is a word that has become part of the English language and is widely used by even journalists who sing ‘hosannas’ to their pet protagonists. If Joseph Dias had asked for a ban on the movie, perhaps the Government would have obliged, with an eye on the presumed Christian vote. That is what the Government did when a Muslim cleric asked for a ban on Salman Rushdie coming to Jaipur. In one of the most stupidly handled issues of recent times, the Congress politicians in Delhi and Rajasthan played into the hands of a minority among the Muslim minority, to thwart Rushdie’s appearance at the Literary Festival. Many Muslim organisations had condemned the Muslim groups that threatened violence against Rushdie. So how may Muslim votes can the Congress win by appeasing only the extremists? Majority communalism also had its day, though it did not attract national attention. In Karnataka, Home Minister Ashok said there would be no ban on the Shri Ram Sene. He admitted, though, that this extremist Hindutva outfit was involved in the recent hoisting of the Pakistani flag in Bijapur; evidently the zealots had hoped to pin the blame on Muslims and thus create communal disturbances. When it comes to hate politics, majority communalism and minority communalism do not cancel each other out; they feed each other. And they are hugely counterproductive. The clerics and extremists who campaigned against Rushdie actually made him larger than he was, the glamour figure who dominated Jaipur. If they had ignored him, he would have come and gone with nothing more than a few Page 3 flutters. In the event, the extremists also introduced The Satanic Verses to a generation that had grown up without knowing about it. Now they will be curious to read it. How self-defeating. And how moronic of the Indian state to succumb to a fundamentalist viewpoint. The opinions expressed in this column are the author’s own.

Good Friday Thoughts and some responses

THOUGHTS ON GOOD FRIDAY
REMEMBERING THE “GLORIOUS REBEL”
(The revolutionary face of the God of nonviolence)

By P.N.BENJAMIN

A FRIDAY noon, almost two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified on Calvary, the hill outside the city of Jerusalem. (Calvary in its Latin origin means ‘the place of a skull’). Being nailed to two pieces of wood and abandoned to the torment of a lingering death was a particularly inhuman form of punishment reserved by the ancient Romans for the worst criminals. Christ’s real crime was simply that he spoke the truth, which is intolerable to all forms of authority – but especially ecclesiastical. By what he said and did, he exposed men who, in the name of institutional religion, wielded power without moral sanction. Christ had to be killed because the truth he said threatened the very foundation of their system of power, privilege and profit.

Jesus of Nazareth, born into a carpenter’s family, lived a sage and simple life and chose his disciples from a weaker section of society — indigent fishermen. The life of Jesus was absolute simplicity, matchless humility and compassionate humanity. He washed the feet of his disciples, he defined godist superstition. To share and care for your neighbour, even your enemy, were the fundamentals he taught. He was thus a pioneer of world brotherhood, who advocated freedom from dogmas and obscurantist cults. Such a universalism is the testament of Jesus.

Christ turned the world's accepted norms upside down. It was the poor, not the rich, who were blessed; the weak, not the strong, who were to be esteemed; the pure in heart, not the sophisticated and the worldly, who understood what life was all about. Righteousness, not power or money or sensual pleasure should be man's pursuit. We should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, in order that we may be worthy members of a human family. On the outskirts of the dying Roman civilisation, he spoke of dying in order to live. Today, when human civilisation is likewise dying, his words have the same awe-inspiring relevance as they had then.

He symbolised a revolutionary change in the theological-temporal establishment and advocated social justice and divinity, dignity and equity in the social order. He proclaimed the reality of a universal moral order. He called it the kingdom of heaven and told the people that the kingdom of god was indeed within them. He outraged the hypocrites who did their commerce inside the temples and the shrines. He drove them out with rare daring.

When the “glorious Rebel” from Nazareth comes upon the woman to be stoned for adultery, he says, "Let the one without sin be the first to cast the stone. When Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back, he is making it clear that he expects the disciples not to give in to the culture of violence and the path of revenge. This unconventional man from Nazareth was "the revolutionary face of the God of nonviolence”.

Jesus resisted the commercialisation of god and the commoditisation of man. Big temples, great churches, god-men, bishops, mullahs and acharyas are anti-Jesus in spirit. What a marvel it was that Jesus preached ages ago — that God was equal in granting his favours to all, as was the sun!

Jesus advocated the unity and fraternity of humanity, like the doctrine of Advaita that Adi Sankara propagated as an Upanishadic fundamental. Not only did he strike at patriotism and the bonds of family loyalty in the name of God’s universal fatherhood and the brotherhood of all mankind, his teaching condemned all the gradations of the economic system, all private wealth, and personal advantage. He said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God

Jesus opposed the culture of violence in his time with an inner peace and a startling love of his enemies. He was a troublemaker for the religious elite, the rulers, the war-making Roman Empire, and the establishment. Jesus' command to love our enemies is a daring proposal that has radical implications. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said: "Love for our enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of the world”. Sadly enough, Christians have deigned to live by this ethic. Wars are waged in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and itching to wage in Iran and other places with fierce hatred for the “enemy’, and patriotism is invoked as we are ordered to follow the commander-in-chief of American Forces, instead of the command of Jesus.

Christ’s crucifixion serves as a reminder that saviours have to die for their faith and to pay for the sins of their own brethren. Jesus was such a man, and so were Mahavira and Buddha before him and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr almost two thousand years later. What binds them, despite the minor differences in their beliefs, is their fearlessness and their peace with those beliefs. Each was far, far ahead of his time. Each had to speak in parable, in allegory, if he hoped to be even understood.

P.N.BENJAMIN
501 Indira Residency
167 Hennur Road
Adjacent to Reliance Fresh
Bangalore 560 043
Cell: 9731182308
Good Friday, 2012


Responses to “Thoughts on Good Friday”

Thanks Benjamin for such exhilarating thought. It is simple and succinct, plain and profound. Hope you have plans to publish all such thoughts in the form of a book. I often think of you and ask for your help towards my dream project of writing something like With Theological Backbone: Stanly Samartha on Religious Plurality. WE can collect information about his boyhood days for the first biographical section. Have you been to his village/town? Are you in contact with Mrs Irish Samartha? In the meantime, I propagate Samartha's unique position of Commitment and Openness as acknowledged by his Dutch scholar who has done a PhD on him.
May you continue to prosper and your mind fertile. God Bless.
Israel
Rev Dr Israel Sevanayagam
Professor, Dept of Religions
Gurukul Theological College and Research Institute
94 Purasawalkam High Road
Kilpuak, Chennai - 600 010, INDIA
Mob. 09940316637

Dear PNB,

Thanks for this very meaningful reflection !

Warm Regards,
Achen


Rev.Dr.M.Mani Chacko, Ph.D( Lond.)
General Secretary
The Bible Society of India
'LOGOS', # 206, Mahatma Gandhi Road
Bangalore- 560 001

Tel : 080 - 4112 4714, 4112 4715, 4151 2580 ( O )
080 - 25599020 ( R )
E. Mail : modayilmanichacko

Dear Mr. Benjamin
Loving greetings to you
Thank you for the Good Friday Message.
May God bless you and your loved ones now and at Easter
fr adolf washington


Thanks Ben ...for the wonderful thoughts.

It is not as if people DON'T understand what Jesus taught the mankind.
it is just that man finds it extremely difficult to get out of the
layers and layers of the prison-walls of personal weaknesses and
awesome institutional challenges.

Personal weaknesses such as greed for material waelth, power and
eminence, selfishness, self-centred-ness, fear of the unknown, hatred,
contempt, anger, ignorance, lack of disicretion between what is good
and what is bad, lack of patience, tolerence and wisdom, lack of
consideration, compassion and understanding...the list is simply
endless..and getting rid of one's major weaknesses takes a whole life
time ( as we all know by our own self-experience ).

The only way out is ...keep talking and thinking about those great
minds and martyrs like Jesus all the time and keep comparing our own
petty deeds with their great lives...They are too great for such a
comparison...but still...compare we MUST..
If we all decide to write a a diary of all the good and bad deeds we
did during the course of our day and record it at night before going
to sleep..with a resolve not to repeat any of the bad deeds and not to
commit fresh misdeeds....Can we achieve a fraction of what God wants
us to be ? ...

The only way is to keep on trying..till the last breath.....to be
better human beings..than we have all along been..

This could be one magnifiscent obsession spanning our entire life
time...and May be some of us would achieve great success and all of
us too...though in varying degrees...If we DON'T God will send Jesus
a second time around...to try to redeem us...

so long humanity is destined to live on this planet...more than any of
us ...God will never give up ..He will keep on trying..so long as at
least some of us make the effort to try to improve one's own self as a
better human being than before.

Thanks Ben ! have a Great Friday !

Love and regards

Geeth

An Easter Message

AN EASTER MESSAGE

By P.N.BENJAMIN

Thus ostensibly it all ended in defeat and despair on the Cross on Calvary on that Black Friday two thousand years ago.. "Well, that's all over," the Roman governor and his friends must have thought. How wrong they were! It was only the beginning. Not defeat, but a fabulous new hope had been born; not despair, but an unexampled joy, had come into the world. Christ died on the cross as a man who had tried to show his fellow men what life was about; he rose from the dead to be available forever as an intermediary between man and God.

How, rose from the dead? After his death on the cross, we are told, he was seen by the disciples and others on numerous occasions; the stone in front of the tomb where he was laid was found to have been removed, and the tomb to be empty. These are matters of legitimate historical investigation; what is not open to question is that today, two thousand years later, Christ is alive. The words he spoke are living words, as relevant now as when they were first spoken.

Christ turned the world's accepted norms upside down. It was the poor, not the rich, who were blessed; the weak, not the strong, who were to be esteemed; the pure in heart, not the sophisticated and the worldly, who understood what life was all about. Righteousness, not power or money or sensual pleasure should be man's pursuit. We should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, in order that we may be worthy members of a human family.

No words ever uttered, it is safe to say, have had anything like the impact of these, first spoken to some scores, may be hundreds, of poor, and mostly illiterate people, by a teacher who in the eyes of the world, was of small account. Besides belonging to eternity Christ belonged to his times.

On the outskirts of the dying Roman civilisation, he spoke of dying in order to live. Today, when human civilisation is likewise dying, his words have the same awe-inspiring relevance as they had then.

What Christ had to say was too simple to be grasped, too truthful to be believed. So the great majority of Christians have never been able to believe when Christ said that the whole duty of man resolved itself into loving God and our neighbour, he meant just that. It seems so simple, so obvious. And, furthermore, there is the question of who is our neighbour. In Christ's estimation our neighbour is everyone – Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Jain and others. He said: Feed my sheep - all black, white and piebald.

The rest of the story of Christ belongs to history. Terrible things have been done in his name; the doctrine of unwordliness which he preached has been twisted to serve worldly purposes; the cross on which he died, besides inspiring some of the noblest lives which have ever been lived, and some of the noblest thoughts and actions of man, has also served as a cloak for some of the basest; his gospel of love has been enforced with the rack and the whip, and driven home with the sword.

Let others better qualified than I work out, if they can, the gain and the loss, in human terms. Here, in this world, where he was born, lived and died, we may remember how miraculously, nonetheless, his light continues to shine in the dark jungles of the human will, as I with a skeptical mind and a sensual disposition, most diffidently, unworthily, but with the utmost certainty testify.

Standing amid our personal Calvaries, confused and disillusioned, we need Easter to remind us that there is always "a third day" on its way. With that knowledge we can look at any evil in the face and say with confidence: "You can't win". Easter is the birthday of vibrant hope for every individual and for the entire world. It is also a warning to every evil power that preys on mankind, a warning that truth is again coming out of its tomb. Easter is a ringing reminder that the human spirit cannot be confined. "Eternal truth is eternal. It can be distorted but not destroyed. But after every black Friday there dawns an Easter morn”.

Wish you all a Blessed Easter.

P.N.BENJAMIN
501 Indira Residency
167 Hennur Road
Bangalore 560 043
India
E-mail: benjaminpn@hotmail.com
Easter 2012

The Glorious Rebel

REMEMBERING THE “GLORIOUS REBEL”
(The revolutionary face of the God of nonviolence)

By P.N.BENJAMIN

A FRIDAY noon, almost two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ was crucified on Calvary, the hill outside the city of Jerusalem. (Calvary in its Latin origin means ‘the place of a skull’). Being nailed to two pieces of wood and abandoned to the torment of a lingering death was a particularly inhuman form of punishment reserved by the ancient Romans for the worst criminals. Christ’s real crime was simply that he spoke the truth, which is intolerable to all forms of authority – but especially ecclesiastical. By what he said and did, he exposed men who, in the name of institutional religion, wielded power without moral sanction. Christ had to be killed because the truth he said threatened the very foundation of their system of power, privilege and profit.

Jesus of Nazareth, born into a carpenter’s family, lived a sage and simple life and chose his disciples from a weaker section of society — indigent fishermen. The life of Jesus was absolute simplicity, matchless humility and compassionate humanity. He washed the feet of his disciples, he defined godist superstition. To share and care for your neighbour, even your enemy, were the fundamentals he taught. He was thus a pioneer of world brotherhood, who advocated freedom from dogmas and obscurantist cults. Such a universalism is the testament of Jesus.

Christ turned the world's accepted norms upside down. It was the poor, not the rich, who were blessed; the weak, not the strong, who were to be esteemed; the pure in heart, not the sophisticated and the worldly, who understood what life was all about. Righteousness, not power or money or sensual pleasure should be man's pursuit. We should love our enemies, bless them that curse us, do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us, in order that we may be worthy members of a human family. On the outskirts of the dying Roman civilisation, he spoke of dying in order to live. Today, when human civilisation is likewise dying, his words have the same awe-inspiring relevance as they had then.

He symbolised a revolutionary change in the theological-temporal establishment and advocated social justice and divinity, dignity and equity in the social order. He proclaimed the reality of a universal moral order. He called it the kingdom of heaven and told the people that the kingdom of god was indeed within them. He outraged the hypocrites who did their commerce inside the temples and the shrines. He drove them out with rare daring.

When the “glorious Rebel” from Nazareth comes upon the woman to be stoned for adultery, he says, "Let the one without sin be the first to cast the stone. When Jesus tells Peter to put his sword back, he is making it clear that he expects the disciples not to give in to the culture of violence and the path of revenge. This unconventional man from Nazareth was "the revolutionary face of the God of nonviolence”.

Jesus resisted the commercialisation of god and the commoditisation of man. Big temples, great churches, god-men, bishops, mullahs and acharyas are anti-Jesus in spirit. What a marvel it was that Jesus preached ages ago — that God was equal in granting his favours to all, as was the sun!

Jesus advocated the unity and fraternity of humanity, like the doctrine of Advaita that Adi Sankara propagated as an Upanishadic fundamental. Not only did he strike at patriotism and the bonds of family loyalty in the name of God’s universal fatherhood and the brotherhood of all mankind, his teaching condemned all the gradations of the economic system, all private wealth, and personal advantage. He said: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God

Jesus opposed the culture of violence in his time with an inner peace and a startling love of his enemies. He was a troublemaker for the religious elite, the rulers, the war-making Roman Empire, and the establishment. Jesus' command to love our enemies is a daring proposal that has radical implications. As Martin Luther King, Jr., said: "Love for our enemies is the key to the solution of the problems of the world”. Sadly enough, Christians have deigned to live by this ethic. Wars are waged in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and itching to wage in Iran and other places with fierce hatred for the “enemy’, and patriotism is invoked as we are ordered to follow the commander-in-chief of American Forces, instead of the command of Jesus.

Christ’s crucifixion serves as a reminder that saviours have to die for their faith and to pay for the sins of their own brethren. Jesus was such a man, and so were Mahavira and Buddha before him and Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr almost two thousand years later. What binds them, despite the minor differences in their beliefs, is their fearlessness and their peace with those beliefs. Each was far, far ahead of his time. Each had to speak in parable, in allegory, if he hoped to be even understood.

P.N.BENJAMIN
501 Indira Residency
167 Hennur Road
Adjacent to Reliance Fresh
Bangalore 560 043
Cell: 9731182308
Good Friday 2012