Yanchen Yanthan
Morung Express News
Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has come to be known globally as an organization devoted to thinking carefully through various issues of critical importance to life and society. As part of the life-focus itinerary LT Jeyachandran, Executive Director (Asia-Pacific), RZIM Singapore was here in Nagaland to address a series of consultation with Christians as well as people of different faiths.
LT Jeyachandran hails from Tamilnadu. He graduated from PGS College of Technology affiliated with the University of Madras and later received a Masters of Technology degree in Structural Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras (now Chennai). He worked in several parts of India for 28 years as a senior civil engineer with the Central government. The last position he held was that of Chief Engineer in-charge of 13 states of India in the eastern zone while based in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He took early retirement from the government in November 1993 to join RZIM in India.
I caught up with him on a Friday morning after much struggle of getting out of bed due to work late nights. The struggle was however worth the effort of having an absorbing engagement of the mind, on a number of issues pertaining to the Christian faith and society with LT Jeyachandran.
Here are some of the excerpts of the discussion:
In a Christian majority state like Nagaland, what do you think are some of the concerns that confront the Christian faith?
Being familiar with most of the northeast due to my previous work in this region, I think the Christian faith has become to us something more like a culture, (like the shawls we have), it has almost become like that, and we are not perceiving the Christian faith as challenging the values of the world system. What we have done is we have accepted Christianity as a kind of ‘cultural god’ and we are not using it to challenge the wrongs of the fallen world system.
What are the degrees of challenges in a Christian minority culture vis a vis. a Christian majority culture?
What happens with when Christians are in the minority, at least in terms of survival as a minority you have to constantly challenge what you are surrounded with. So it becomes an advantage in a sense, that because you immediately see what’s wrong, you want to stand against it. But when it becomes a majority Christian culture there is a danger that you don’t see something in the Christian faith, which militates against whatever is wrong with the outside world. There we have essentially failed either as part of the Christian majority state like Nagaland, or in a large Christian minority state for example, Manipur. My own reading is, of course a part of the problem is because of the fallen human nature. It is so tempting and so easy to compromise with the values of the world even in a Christian majority state.
Where does one draw the fine line between the tribal (cultural) identity and the Christian identity?
As an outsider I do not see this as really antithetical to each other.
Tribal identity is a good thing; Tribal-ism becomes a bad thing. When God dispersed the nations in Genesis 11 in one sense he was the agent, although he did it for a purpose giving us our different linguistic differences. Which is probably we moved away and set up our great civilizations and developed our different culture.
It is God who gave us our linguistic identity. And identities are important to God. But when I begin to fight for my identity by looking down upon others as inferior then I am crossing the boundaries and that is dangerous. But when I affirm my identity as what is given by God, I think that is a glorious thing. And because of that assurance of our God given identity one is able to even able to give up that identity because one is secure in ones own identity and is therefore able to identify with other cultures.
Your views on the core concerns of present day evangelistic messages…
Poor evangelistic messages of the present day are of great concern. By talking to a convert one can gauge the quality of evangelistic message he must have heard. Jesus never preached a message like that of today where people are told ‘simply believe and you will go to heaven’. Jesus always made the costliness of discipleship very clear to his followers. Whereas, today we have made it ‘cheapness’ as a point of attraction, not realizing that costliness also has an attraction.
LT then asked me a question as to how many churches in Nagaland are interested or working on intentional discipleship, to which I expressed my ignorance (or rather my doubts)
Could you elaborate more on discipleship, and how important discipleship is to the church?
You can go to a highly programme oriented discipleship which has its points. But if you carefully see, discipleship making is by example, by mentoring and not just finishing a curriculum. Curriculum has to be a part, but curriculum is not everything. You need to have a role model and probably this is one thing that is lacking. But it is not just being a role model. ‘How does - my being a follower of Christ - rub off on you?’ It is only when one makes himself approachable and there is an accountability partnership that is built, which is so much a part of discipleship.
Your thoughts on healing and transformation in society
Whenever we talk of the healing of society we need to relate it to social morality and justice. Because healing will sometimes tend to leave at individual repentance and coming to Christ. I think that (being born again) is the beginning of and not the end of the journey. We must live lives that which have a prophetic edge and which will challenge people around us to think differently about society, about corruption, about elections about various issues in life. ‘Within given imperfections, which one cannot avoid, how do we live a reasonably Christ-like life?’ It is our willingness to be corrected, to be open, to be forgiven and to be accepted. And this is to me is workable, practical and livable. If we start at this level I am sure there will be healing.
How do you respond to criticism that since RZIM focuses on reaching out to the cultural influencers of society with the credibility of the Gospel that there is a danger of it becoming an elitist movement?
Oh yes that is a real danger! And we are aware of it. We constantly remind ourselves that we should not let this movement deteriorate into an elitist kind of an organization. The church of Christ is everybody’s, rich and poor, educated or uneducated.
It is also not quite right although partially correct to say that cultural influences shape societies. If you see the early years of the Christian church the influence was from the bottom. When the gospel entered into Ceaser’s own palace it did not get there from the top but rather from the bottom. I totally agree with you of this danger and if the church feels that RZIM is being elitist please speak up, we will be happy if you bring to our notice.
A Second corrective that I want to mention is this. For example in Singapore my colleagues and I are focusing more on the student generation. The Students in one sense are not cultural influencers but in another sense they are the future citizens of the country who will later influence their cultures. If we give the right input to people at that stage of their life, they will be truly cultural influencers and they will be doing it without being elitist because that is when their opinions are being formed, and that is what the questions that RZIM addresses: questions of philosophy, questions of culture, has to be sorted out at that level.
