Faith, Superstition and Credulity

Recently I read an article about the arrest of a Pentecostal Christian preacher in Coimbatore. The preacher in question had not committed any theft, murder or any of the crimes that one might imagine. Rather he was found praying. Praying with his wife and four children by his side. Nothing unusual there, one would think. Except that this man and his family were praying next to the highly decomposed body of Charles’ brother Selvakumar read of the Pentecostal Christian preacher Charles, in Coimbatore who was arrested by the police as he, his wife and four children knelt in prayer by the highly decomposed body of his brother Selvakumar, who had committed suicide more than two months ago. They were praying fervently for his “resurrection” oblivious of the fact that the body was rapidly and steadily decomposing and the neighbors, unable to bear the stink called in the police.

Now if one is a atheist, and there is no place for the supernatural in one’s life, the actions of Charles are those of some one in serious need of a psychiatric evaluation at worst and a big joke at the best. But what of those who believe? What of those who have faith in God and believe that He is active in day to day life, that prayers and intercession do make a difference and that the spiritual dimension of life is an important piece in the mosaic of life? When Charles the preacher and his family was praying for his brother who had been dead 55 days to be raised from the dead when the police broke in, was he demonstrating faith or was he being superstitious ? What is faith and what is superstition? Where do one end and the other begin?

Faith is often described as the sum of things that are unseen. Given this definition, it becomes difficult to draw lines within the realm of the unseen as to what is faith and what is blind, obscurantist faith. If prayers can heal a person who is sick and make him well and that is the sum and substance of a lot of the prayers that are offered in countless temples, mosques, churches and shrines, then who is to say that prayers offered on behalf of a dead person will not raise him from the dead ? where do we get our bearings regarding what kind of prayers have some underpinning and which ones are mere exercises in delusion and the pursuit of them will only lead to disillusionment and disappointment ? That is a tough call indeed.

Of one thing I am convinced though. That while faith rejuvenates and provides direction in life, superstitions’ only purpose is to hold you back in shackles and toss you back into the embrace of fear and uncertainty. Faith may not be seen but it can be felt and experienced and its end product is hope – of a kind that does not disappoint. Superstition leaves you clinging wide eyes with fear and a sense of dejected hesitancy that leaves you with more doubts than assurance and more problems than solutions and in the eyes of the watching world, more credulous than credible. As with preacher Charles’s case—he set out to set his dead brother “free” but finds himself in jail instead. an unfortunate object of ridicule no rather than reverence

The Power of Religious Figures

When recently a denominational Bishop as the chairman of the governing body of a prestigious college, decided practically overnight the manner in which the college should be run and who should and should not be admitted it got me thinking about the power that religious leaders wield. It made me think and reflect a lot more on how religious leaders function and govern and how they ought to be chosen. It is surprising that in such a sensitive subject as this, where in even fully state funded institutions, like the IITs and IIMs, the government has been treading cautiously, a decision was made practically overnight with out any visible effort to build consensus or consult any one. Not so much the decision, but the manner it was arrived at too led to a volley of criticism that is hardly likely to add any allure to the name of the institution.

The position of religious leaders in a secular state is ambiguous. At one level, they are no more than private citizens; at another level , as the recent controversy surrounding the head of the Dera Saccha Sauda indicates, religious leaders have a lot of clout and influence … possibly in many instances they have more authority than political leaders. In most instances, the leaders are unelected. In case of the older institutions like the various mutts, the leadership is inherited but more common these days are the god men who seem to have sprung up and acquired a following almost overnight. Many of the religious heads in the country head huge empires worth cores, many of them by virtue of their office alone and not because of any management merit they might possess. Most religious leaders in India hold office at the tip of a very narrow support base and yet their decisions and actions be it Baba Ram Rahim Singh dressing up and aping Guru Gobind Singh or A Bishop suddenly dispensing wisdom on reservation and quotas.

Mahants and Bishops and Imams and the like may preside over the fortunes of prestigious institutions set up by religious trusts only because of the religious office they hold. In case of the educational institutions, the religious clergy may preside over the fortunes of institutions into which they might themselves be unfit to gain admission had they been in the positions of students in these institutions. The clergy preside over several institutions and their valuable properties and make key policy decisions, often without any demonstrable skills or training to do so Unelected leaders, be it in religion or politics are a bane. But typically political despots are more easily overthrown than religious leaders who wield a more mystic and other worldly grip on their followers.

The Christian reformation in Europe happened for similar reasons. In most situations, there is little that can be done. It is indeed a pity that Institutions and ashrams and establishments that most professionally managed set ups would hire experienced managers to run are managed by religious figure heads that may be well versed in rites and rituals but know little else. In India often , politics and religion seem to be the last refuge of the scoundrel and the ones who fit nowhere are the ones often the most blinded like in Hans Christian Anderson’s “ The Emperor’s new Clothes” be it cloaked in dummy robes of a Guru or a Bishop carrying a miter and cassock. However the role of church leaders and other religious figures is not ambiguous in the bible, even though a secular state may feel constrained in prescribing roles for the clergy. In biblical literature, the role of a leader Vis a Vis his flock is often likened to that of a shepherd and his sheep.

In Psalm 23, David is likening God to a shepherd. Indeed, he is saying that God is his shepherd. He also leads him beside the still waters. So, here the shepherd is supplying the basic needs of the sheep. Of all the images in the Bible, the story of the Good Shepherd is one of the most popular. In this story, Jesus draws a sharp distinction between his way of being a shepherd, and the way 'the hired help' exercises his responsibility. The Good Shepherd is constantly on the alert, but more than that, in the face of danger he is ready to give his life for the sake of the sheep. The hired hand has no real care for the sheep, and in the face of danger takes the easy way out, and the leaves the sheep in peril. Those who would follow the Good Shepherd are prepared to risk all, in order to fulfill their calling.

Throughout their history the people of Israel had been shepherded by various weak or faithless kings and religious leaders, and Jesus words would have struck a heavy chord in the leaders of his own day whom he openly challenged and criticized.It is rather hard for many people today to relate to the shepherd comparison, so what does the metaphor shepherd mean to us today? We hear a lot about the word servant leadership these days. This is more than just semantics, words have power. What we call each other says a great deal about how we view each other. Recognizing the things we do as ministries - however great or small-invites us to see them in a new way. When we begin to think about our lives in devotion to ministry, then we can begin to understand this shepherd Jesus who calls us to follow him.

We claim to be followers that means to follow is to know the Jesus who welcomed children, read in the synagogue, provided wine at a wedding, washed people’s feet, presided at table, told stories, cooked breakfast, practiced first aid and took advantage of numerous opportunities to do whatever would make someone feel a little better about life. That’s is the call we answer when we hear the shepherd calling us to green pastures, by still waters, restoring our souls, this is the life we are called to follow, ministry. Let is the kind of leader we need to be leading the sheep. And that is also the kind of shepherds we need to be if we happen to be leaders.

Minority Institutions in India

Over the last months, there has been a lot of debate about the role and rights of minority institutions, particularly the Christian institutions. But in all of this debate, I have read seen or read little that has helped to unpack the concept of the minority institution and why they exist in the constitutional framework. When the constitution guaranteed the minorities the right to start and manage their own institutions, they were not handing out freebies. The liberal climate that prevailed when the constitution was being drafted had the vision of a welfare state. They wanted the constitution to lay the foundation of a secular state where all sections of society would live with their identity and culture intact. It was such a benevolent gesture that made them reserve two seats in parliament for members of the Anglo Indian community, a practice that continues to this day, though the population of Anglo Indians might number in their thousands. Probably the two Anglo Indian members of Parliament represent their constituency more effectively than the elected members if the ratios and the representation formulae are taken into consideration.

The Minority institutions that were typically envisaged to enjoy the state’s protection were those which would actually serve to preserve minority languages, customs and traditions. The feeling was that minorities could get overwhelmed by the sheer mass of the majority community surrounding them and their culture and unique identity could just get subsumed into one large anonymous melting pot. So they needed a helping hand and the benign protection of the state. In this understanding of the concept, if a minority institution is not doing its job of preserving the ethos and culture and traditions and identity of a community, it is not really doing its job. A bunch of Muslims or Christians or Sikhs could get together and run a secretarial institute or a typing college or even a degree college running conventional BA and B.com courses. Would such institutes qualify to be a minority institute? Not really in the spirit of the constitution.

The ChristianMedicalCollege, Vellore has put it well. When asked to explain why it should reserve so many seats for Christians when it was just another medical college, it replied that it wasn’t just another medical college. It put forward the very correct argument that running hospitals and clinics and providing affordable health care to the poor was an important function of the church from its earliest history in India and Vellore was training doctors to continue and preserve that tradition of the church. It was not another commercial minded, doctor generating machine but an instrument to preserve the identity of the Christian community in India which has always been associated with a spirit of service and especially so in the fields of health and education.

But not every institution is CMC Velour’s know of many several church run institutions- (and this is very likely true in the in instances of other communities as well) where there is very little of Christ or His teaching to be seen or heard. What makes it a minority institution is that the Board of Management is headed by some Bishop or Priest or church official. The Bible is seldom referred to or opened, students go to tepid moral science classes and the morning assembly is anemic. When the church is persecuted from time to time, it is common to hear that many eminent people attended such and such Christian school.

Well they might have done so but the moot question is whether they were exposed to the teachings of Jesus in their student days or it just happened that the school happened to be run by some religious order or denomination but beyond these legal niceties, it ran as any secular institution would do. The plumb line to determine if any institution is a minority institution – be it linguistic or religious or ethnic is to examine what minority values and cultures are being imparted there. If after studying in a Christian school for ten years or more, a child comes out with negligible knowledge of the church, its contribution to nation building and the Bible then in what way is the establishment representative of the Christians They are no more than secular institutes which just happen to be run by a group of people who speak a particular language or profess a particular religion. This is what the Bible has to say:

“Give ear, O my people, to my law; Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old, Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments” Psalm 78:1-7

The role of minority institutions, particularly Christian Minority Institutions is not to not to provide a safe haven for Christian students to get into institutions through sanitized seats reserved for them where they have less competition to deal with. That if any thing is a minor role. The role that the Bible lays down is that Christian institutions fundamentally exist to transmit the word and teaching of the Lord Jesus and His example to the next generation. Some where in this debate, this aspect has been forgotten and needs to be revived

An Upside Down Power

Too many people spend all of their allotted time on this earth trying to become rich and famous or rich and powerful or maybe just rich or maybe just influential. Reality says that only a few people get to any of these slots. The lot for all the rest might be to envy them. But Jesus tells us not to envy because God will judge by different rules. One’s possessions or position do not count.

What matters is what we give of ourselves. God encourages people to give the most of themselves. God’s plan does not honor the people who wield power, but people who love their neighbors and help those in need. It is how we use that power. God won't reward the people with great talent only, but He will remember the people with great hearts. It is how we use that talent. How does God defines greatness ? His definition has nothing to do with points on a scoreboard. It is all about how we live our lives. Perhaps we think we have never lived near human greatness—but maybe we just haven’t thought of it in this light.James and John ask Jesus for permission to sit with him at the head table when he comes into his kingdom…one at Jesus right hand and the other at his left hand. In most meetings, the boss sits at the end or like the Prime Minister in a Cabinet meeting—he sits in the middle.

In any event, the most trusted or senior members of the team are closest to the head person and this allows them to prompt the boss discreetly as needed. People of lesser rank perhaps do not sit at the table but are placed around the outside wall. The boss is front and center in any arrangement and the trick for everyone else is to get as close as possible.James and John thought that Jesus would become king once they reached Jerusalem…and they wanted the two most honored seats. Jesus, you will recall, had already chosen three disciples as favorites and the three included James and John.

Peter was the third. Since James and John were brothers, it was easy for them to bond. In this case Peter was the outsider and he was being pushed to the side. "Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?" Translated, he was asking James and John if they were able to share his fate. Imagining Jesus at the head of the table, they assured him they were able. Jesus then told them that they would share his fate, but he couldn't promise them the seats at his right and left.But when Jesus was actually lifted up it was on a cross and there was a thief at his right hand and a thief at his left hand. That was one of God's ways of warning us to expect some surprises in his kingdom. In God's kingdom, the old rules –– the world's rules –– won't apply. We will have to learn a whole new set of rules. God gives all of us a glimpse into His kingdom. Jesus explains the new rules. He begins by talking about the rulers with whom James and John are familiar.

Those rulers lord it over people. The ones whom people usually count as great are really only tyrants –– oppressors –– people who exercise power cruelly and unjustly. Jesus tells James and John –– and us –– that the kingdom of God isn't like that. So who will be the great people in God’s kingdom? There are people here on earth whom most of us might not consider as great and most importantly, they don't think of themselves as great. Not many people know their names, but God knows their names. These people show all of us the way. They give themselves in quiet service to our church or our children. They are here at church whenever there is a need at here or in the community. There will be a look of surprise on their face when Jesus says, "Come and sit with me.""Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant,and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all."

On Eagle's Wings

Two of my favorite modern Christian songs are sung by the artiste Josh Groban. One of the is titled” On Eagle's Wings” and another is titled” You lift me up”. Both these songs have lifted up my spirits on many a depressing day. The old prophet Isiah's lines promising that "they shall mount up with wings like eagles" (v. 31) are so memorable.... Sorting through my various memories I remembered first a time when I sat on top of a cliff and watched a motionless raven riding an unseen wind, occasionally folding up his wings and dropping breathlessly before extending them again to soar.

Then I thought of a time when I took a s short holiday in Goa , watching seabirds get waddling starts before a breeze would lift them gently above my head. Finally I considered a family of sparrows that once nested outside my window of my 8th floor office in Delhi's Nehru Place, occasionally breaking into the silence of my room with a salutary song. None of these light and dreamy images worked with me, however. Not this week.As a pacifist, I have struggled a great deal with my own feelings about the violent turns being taken in our country , some more graphic than others. One illustration that I recently read about and that horrified me was the thought of Phulpur in Uttar Pradesh that once returned Jawaharlal Nehru to Parliament , now being represented by a mafia don. . Sometimes I am quite guilty of reading the morning newspaper and taking it to heart, making it personal.

As I read all that I do , I also sad realize that I have very little power to counter the ominous movements around me. Some times, I feel tired and angry and sad and confused, I walk on the frightening border of hopelessness at times.So some airy notions of birds taking flight are sometimes hard to embrace as I feel more the albatross of cynicism growing heavier around my neck, worrying less about my own ability to fly and fretting more honestly that I might instead just sink like a stone. And in a rather uncommon way as I read Josh Groban's songs based on Isaiah , I felt that someone from a very long time ago was saying something to me, pleading desperately that I not lose heart. All I can say is that I want very much to hear those words and to believe in them.

The words that seem to be speaking so deeply are drawn from Isaiah 40, an entire chapter that is made of the dialog between hope and doubt before it ends on a note that asks us each to remain engaged in the struggle. It was written ages ago to a people that had been living in exile and, during that time, found themselves in the tension between their own hopes and doubts, the promises of their faith and the sad social context in which they lived. This is the audience that the author of Isaiah 40 is addressing, and it is to a tired and skeptical people that he offers his word. Some of his chapters intended to comfort a weary people by reminding them of an old vision and singing of a new empowerment. There are some hopeful words here, if not any easy words, and perhaps that is why they can still speak as strongly in the present as they did in that long ago past.

So to an exiled people the prophet begins to speak or maybe even to anybody who has ever felt like a wanderer, caught in the troubles of this world and its sorrows, feeling the bitterness between what we dream and what we have got.It seems to me that the prophet knows the feeling all too well, because his opening lines, which read very much like poetry, acknowledge under their surface that things are not yet as they should be. "A voice cries out," he writes, "In the wilderness prepare the way, make straight in the desert a highway [so] every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain." (v. 3-4) The voice crying out is really the voice of the old writer, who is beginning to offer an image of a time just around some corner when things might be transformed.

While the author understands that the current context is oftentimes a painful one, he wants to say and so he does say that the future is open. Using his words to invite us into this beautiful vision, the author paints what is uncertain in the colors of a thousand possibilities.Unafraid to voice his dreams the prophet writes, "Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together," (v. 5) which is another way of saying that the manifestation of the divine shall be everywhere and the love of God shall be shared by everyone. This is a very beautiful sentiment and, as it imagines what the world might become, it is directed rather pointedly at everyone who has, for one reason or another, stopped imagining their own hopes for the future.

The Book of Isaiah has perhaps the highest hopes of all, for its pages tell that lions and lambs could one day find rest together, swords might be refashioned into ploughshares, and hospitality shall be shown to the stranger and the outcast. And the comfort that the prophet means to offer here can be found in the universality of his statement. Not only will the people wither and fade but so will the nations and the rulers, all who act oppressively on the earth and live in violence towards it, they¹ll go too, for they are no more than "dust on the scales" (v. 15). While this may strike some as the most morbid form of encouragement, the old writer is trying to affirm that there is something more transcendent than the power structures currently in place and the systems that seem to surround us.

While surely we are participants in those systems, the prophet wants to remind us that we might also become participants in something much greater, something that he would call a divine purpose. Because what won¹t fade, the old book tells, is the very word from God. And it is that word that has always issued an invitation for us to make justice and love through our living, in the hope that we are joining in something sacred as we do it. Isaiah 40 goes on to tell of the wonder of the divine, conjuring up majestic images of God, but throughout it is still possible to hear that there is a dispirited audience listening in.

It seems to me that the writer never really loses sight of this, since he concludes his magnificent descriptions by saying rather plainly that God "does not faint or grow weary." (v. 28) At the end of it the prophet will say something like, "Every one of you is tired, I know. But maybe one day we¹ll reach the end of all our waiting, maybe one day we¹ll see that our efforts have made at least a part of this dream into reality. And maybe on a day like that we really might feel light as eagles carried by the wind's current. Who knows?" So as Isiah understands and acknowledges the reservations of his hearers, he still speaks strongly against the cynicism of inaction and asks us each to take the risks of responding in faith. Perhaps the aforementioned eagles might serve as an interesting example. In our lives we may not always be able to soar gracefully but we can take the first small steps and leave the nest to trust in what cannot always be seen but can be hoped in and worked for and maybe even lived out if we feel as risky as the young bird who paces and yearns for the sky.

Orphans of Our Time

Caring for orphans has been a time-honored work of the voluntary sector, especially religious institutions. The Christian church itself runs number of children’s homes and orphanages in the country. Orphans brought up in these institutions have been brought up to live fruitful and productive lives. But a new strain of orphans is emerging that may challenge all the established paradigms and processes of orphan care. Caring for widows and orphans is not an option; it is a duty The Old Testament often witnesses to the fact that children in need, most especially orphans, are the subjects of God's special, loving care. This is why his covenant with Israel required that families and the whole society take care of widows and orphans.Jesus himself held children dear to his heart. Think for a moment of the time he reprimanded those who were keeping children away from him, and said, "Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." The Gospel of Mark says that, "he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them." (Mk 10:14b, 16).

So important were children to Jesus that he said, "Whoever receives one child...in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the one who sent me" (Mk 9:36-37). Jesus is very clear. We love God through our love for children. By caring for these little ones, we show our faith in the risen Lord.The ministry of health and family welfare says that 1, 67,078 cases of AIDS have been reported from 1986 to March 31st this year. However, this is considered to be an estimate on the lower side as probably only about 10 per cent of the infected are aware of their status. Many of the children born to these HIV positive people are themselves infected and at some point many of them become orphans as one or more of their parents possibly are chronically sick or die.

In what ways are India’s AIDS orphans challenging the traditional norms of orphan care? Well for one, firstly consider the sheer numbers. India today is home to the largest number of AIDS orphans in the world. The odds against AIDS-orphaned children are staggering. These children are vulnerable to a number of risks ranging from social exclusion and economic deprivation to illiteracy, malnutrition and exploitation. They are also at increased risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and drug use, with many young girls turning to prostitution in order to survive. AIDS orphans are often shunned by their communities; many are denied property rights and rights to inheritance. Those who cannot be taken in by their relatives end up living on the streets.With numbers such as these, typical responses will not work. An AIDS orphan apart from being an orphan has all the attendant disadvantages described above and then is at the receiving end of discrimination in society for no fault of his own. Now orphan children can be both simply affected or infected as well, in that case, they will need additional skills in coping and self care.

The knee jerk response of society to pack these children into orphanages will not work because of two reasons—a typical child care worker often will not have the skills to handle children who need this level of intense care and support. Secondly we will not have enough institutions to admit all of these children and then maintain them, as the cost of that will be huge. This will necessitate some form of prioritization regarding who goes into institutions and what happens to those who don’t get in. Now in India, while the institutionalization set-up is well established and the adoption mechanism is also well established, there is nothing in between these two options.With orphanages and institutions untenable for such large numbers of children and adoption too not viable for legal or social reasons (for instance in India, as of now only Hindus can legally adopt), foster care, which is widely used elsewhere but rarely practiced in India is worth exploring and trying.

Unlike adoption, which is irrevocable and permanent, in foster care, a child goes and stays with another family which wants him and cares for him, but stays in touch with his natural family and the stay for foster care is temporary and for a fixed number of years. With many of the AIDS orphans staying in single parent households headed possibly by grand parents or a widowed mother, the emotional bonds in such families is strong even though economic constraints often make it difficult or impossible for the child to be given the care, support and education that one needs.However, what will delay or hinder the foster parent concept idea from taking root in India apart from cultural prejudices and stigma is the absence of a legal framework. With child protection increasingly becoming an issue and child abuse now a proven fact even in a supposedly conservative society like India, some guidelines are a must. However, with all the red tape associated with law making and policy formulation in India – foster care is an idea whose time has surely come