Rev Dr Valson Thampu
A couple of years ago, I ventured to travel by road from Imphal to Kohima. It is a journey that I shall remember for long. Traveling with me was a fellow Christian and a Stephanian, John Dayal. Half an hour into our bumpy journey, he began to feel nauseated. In another ten minutes he began to throw up. John, I knew, had a history of cardiac disease. I was worried that we might not complete the journey.
The highway, upon which John, nearly died, is of supreme importance as the main link between the two capital cities of states dominated by the Christian community. Hailing from the South and having lived, for the most part, in the North it is a special experience for me to visit the North East, where one is surrounded by fellow Christians, who are not ashamed to confess their faith, much less allow themselves to be inhibited in this respect in the public sphere. But between the effervescence of spontaneous verbal enthusiasm and the condition of the roads and other civic amenities including schools and colleges, there is a disturbing disconnect.
It is as though Jesus’ insistence that there be an integration of words and deeds (St. Matthew 7: 24-27) did not reach many parts of the NE. Or, to be specifically biblical, it is as though the Word had not become flesh and dwelt in the midst of human beings! The worst form of anti-witness is this divorce between the Word of God and the deeds of men, who profess the Word.
Now, if the NBCC wants to call the people of Nagaland to be part, frankly, of its own repentance (a reason, as Jesus would say, for heaven itself to rejoice! See, St. Luke 15) it is a good enough occasion for celebration!
Compartmentalization -the secular split between religion and politics- is the genius of the world. It is a strategy for paralyzing spirituality and of fortifying the world against the will of God. It is a de facto rejection of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is given. . .” It is a rejection of the mandate given to us, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world” (St. Matthew 5: 13-16). It is an implied flight from our missional mandate and the sent-ness it implies. We are to go and be in engagement with the world, even if it entails being “sheep among wolves”.
The alternative to being sheep among wolves, is being wolves among sheep. In secular terminology this is called ‘corruption’.
Corruption (of which the most powerful metaphor in the whole of world literature is “whited sepulcher”) is nothing in itself. It denotes an absence, not a presence. Corruption is like a shadow, which denotes the absence of light, which pretends to be a presence. Where the shadow is, is the absence of light. But from where the shadow is, the entity the shadow of which is seen, is utterly absent. Also, there would not be a shadow if light were to be wholly absent. Corruption among Christians would not be as serious a spiritual issue as it is now, if Jesus were not the “light of the world” (St. John 9:5). The profound paradox is this: the very idea of corruption cannot exist except in a society or consciousness that is illumined, one way or another, by the light of God. Animals know no corruption.
To “know” corruption, in a biblical sense, is to go far, far beyond a mere factual and quantitative recognition that dishonesty chokes our collective life. To recognize corruption is also to remember the height from which we have fallen. For the prodigal son, remembering who he was meant to be is the heart of his “repentance”. “In my father’s house. . .”
Return, now, to contemporary politics. The appalling gulf between our profession of faith on Sundays (as well as the display of religious fervor in faith meetings) and our doings on week days is facilitated by the vivisection of our life into two compartments: the religious and the secular. The life God has made is indivisible! Hypocrisy, the evil that Jesus denounced most uncompromisingly, issues from this divided existence.
Of course, there is this argument -advanced mostly by those who fear a shrinking of their scope for evil-doing in public life- that the biblical faith is apolitical. The text, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…” is quoted in support of this convenient argument. The point is that we have to “give to God, what is God’s”. What is it, indeed, that we have to give to God? Is not our loyalty in respect of our life as a whole? Or, it is only its one-half? Is not the sovereign God, who wields all authority in heaven and on earth, also sovereign above man-made politics? What is it that we, as a people of faith, are to give to Caesar, or to secular political authority? Is it not also, “the fear of God that makes people wise?” Is not the statement, “Where there is no vision, people and nations perish” a political statement? Doesn’t it highlight our mission in the sphere of politics as well?
The fact is that the biblical faith is a redemptively political faith. The difference is that it understands “politics” not as the world understands it. Take the case of “peace,” as an instance. I don’t have to argue that peace holds religion and politics together. Jesus gives peace, but not “as the world gives”. Enunciating this difference and bearing witness to it, in season and out of season, is the primary duty we owe to Caesar. This is not, alas, understood. It is on this ignorance that the allergy to authentic Christian participation in politics rests. Seen aright, participating in politics, but as “light of the world,” is a Christian duty.
For me, the core text on the political character of the “way of Jesus” is St. John 10:10. Jesus came that all may have life, and life in its fullness. It is not clear as to how Christians can pursue this mission, without participating in politics as the disciples of Jesus. Church as church has little to do with this agenda. As of now, it is politics that impinges the life of the people in a radical way. It affects the life of the people very substantially. Pretending to pursue the mission to secure “life in all its fullness” for all people (and not merely those within our fold), dodging the challenges and opportunities afforded by politics, is like trying to catch fish by staying away from all water bodies.
It is appropriate that the NBCC has cast mission this in the format of “Clean India”.
A profound insight underlies this formulation. “Cleanliness” or “uncleanness” is a matter of “choice”. Democratic election puts the spotlight on choice in the world at large. The spiritual profundity of “choice” resonates in Crucifixion. Pontius Pilate did call upon the people to exercise their franchise, as it were. Did they want Jesus? Or, would they choose Barabbas? How can Christians stay away from the dynamics of this choice and abandon it wholly to the logic of the world, which makes it no choice at all.
Keep the light of Jesus out of our politics, you can rest assured that we shall be ruled only by Barabbases. Why should it surprise anyone that our politics is mortally criminalized and a large proportion of our law-makers are hardened law-breakers? Is that not, really, a problem for us to address?
The core issue is not whether NBCC should spearhead this very timely movement, which, if managed properly and in unwavering obedience to Jesus, can be a powerful witness to the nation. The only issue is if the Church has the credibility to “preach to the nations”. The NBCC is, I am glad to notice, human enough to confess it inadequacy, which, I’d like to believe, augurs well.
May the launching of the clean India campaign in politics prove an opportunity for the Church to repent and, like the Church at Ephesus, to regain its “first love” for the Lord.
There are cynics everywhere. Nehemiah, who went to repair and restore the broken walls of Jerusalem, had to encounter opposition and ridicule. He pursued his mission, typically, with working tools in the right hand and a sword in the left! It is a touchingly modern image! Something that the NBCC can derive some inspiration from.
Gandhi’s words hold good in this context. The NBCC must become the change it advocates in politics. The “hidden treasure” of the Church is its purity. If there is a power, an authority, higher that of Caesar’s, it is that of purity. It is the refiner’s fire, in which the dross shall burn away.
Purity must be grammar that lends coherence to the words of its advocacy of cleanliness in the public, political domain. The worst the NBCC can do is to get into this spiritual battle (for it is not against principalities and powers that we fight but against corruption in high places) under-prepared.
Nothing can demoralize a community more than becoming a public display of the feebleness and inadequacy of its faith solely through its alienation from the Lord. As Jesus would say, “Physician, heal thyself.” Or, “first remove the beam from your eyes, that you may see clearly” and be able to “remove the mote” from the eye politics.
Rev Dr Valson Thampu Trivandrum Kerela Former Principal St Stephens College Delhi University.
