FAITHS IN CONFLICT?
Christian Integrity in a Multicultural World

Vinoth Ramachandra InterVarsity Press, 1999, 191 pp.   ISBN 0-8308-1558-9

Ramachandra is the regional secretary for the International Fellowship of
Evangelical Students of South Asia, living in Sri Lanka.  He is the author
of two previous books.  This book stems from a series of London Lectures in
Contemporary Christianity.  It is "heavier" than most books I read.
Ramachandra is an intellectual and it has been a bit more difficult to pull
out "sound bites" that represent the depth of the work.

Ramachandra "explores the complex nature of conflict among the major world
religions of Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, and also between them and the
rising tide of secularism." (from the back cover)

"The encounter between cultures can be exhilarating, but it can also be
fraught with tension." (9)  "Religion, long banished to the margins of
political discussion, has now seized the centre stage." (11)

This book is meant to respond to such challenging issues as: "Does tolerance
require the abandonment of belief in universal truths? What is the
distinctiveness of the Christian message in a world of many faiths? And what
can Christians in the West learn from Non-Western Christians....? (11)

Chapter I - Global Islamic resurgence. "As the dominance of the West
declines, other ancient civilizations assert their global influence."  
"...religion is a central characteristic of all civilizations." (11)

Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order)
"identifies six major contemporary civilizations that have increasing
political influence in this new 'multipolar' world order: Western..., Sinic,
Japanese, Hindu, Islamic, and Orthodox." (13-14)

"Cultural communities are replacing Cold War blocs, and the fault lines
between civilizations are becoming central lines of conflict in global
politics." (quoting Huntington)  Conflicts are likely to occur in 'cleft
countries' - states which contain people from two or more different
civilizations.  "Both China and Islam represent what he calls 'challenger
civilizations' to the West." "The dangerous clashes of the future, he
maintains, are likely to arise from the interaction of Western arrogance,
Islamic intolerance, and Sinic assertiveness." (14)

"Whether in Iran or Algeria, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, the rise of religious
nationalisms has been directed less against direct foreign domination than
against the post-colonial state that has failed to resolve the problems of
the society it rules."  [This] "is the context in which Islamist movements
have emerged." (17)  Islamist movements have arisen more in response to
internal problems than from Qu'ranic texts.  (18)

"The myth of the 'Islamic threat' fails to distinguish between the militant
stridency of the few and the legitimate aspirations of the many."  (19) [But
perhaps the author underestimated the disruptive capability and resolve of
the few! dlm]

Many in both the West and the Muslim world have drawn broad generalizations
and "engaged in a process of 'mutual satanization.'" (19)

"...for all their assertiveness the Muslim communities in Western Europe
feel themselves to be under threat: it is the fear of loss of social control
that animates the activities of their leaders,...the loss of belief and of
submission emerging from within." (21)  "The Muslims of Western Europe, who
appear a homogeneous culture to the outside world, are also fragmented into
various religious sects in addition to ethnic, linguistic and political
groupings...." (22)

Orientalism - the creation (or exaggeration) by some Western scholars of
'the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, "us") and the
strange (the Orient, the East, "them")' and justifying the denigration or
suppression of the latter by the former." (24)

"If 'fundamentalism' is taken to mean a sola Scriptura position when it
comes to political and legal arrangements, Islamists and regimes committed
to programmes of 'Islamization' are far from fundamentalists." The author
shows that many of their demands or requirements, such as the blasphemy law,
are influenced by recent movements rather than coming directly from the Qur'
an. (29)

"Seventy per cent of the world's Muslims live in about fifty countries,
where Muslims are the majority and the law of the stat is based either on
shari'a alone, or on a combination of shari'a and Western law of some kind.
Almost all these states have been systematic violators of human rights, even
by their own limited definitions." (30)

"A major issue facing Islamic movements is their ability, if in power, to
tolerate religious diversity and political dissent."  "Surely one of the
most significant tests of human rights is the freedom of religious
conversion.  Conversion to Christianity (or to any other religion) is
generally regarded as a betrayal of family and community, and as apostasy
which deserves the severest punishment." (31)

"The Middle East is a region where political statements are couched in
religious or quasi-religious language, much stronger than that used by
Washington.  Baghdad and Tehran both want to control the Gulf region and so
does the USA.  All three have enough economic, political and strategic
reasons without needing a religious one.  Nevertheless, none of these states
would openly admit to this.  Significantly, both Saddam Hussein and George
Bush formulated their battle for supremacy in the Gulf in religious terms:
jihad versus moral crusade." (39)

"We should try to avoid using religious categories such as 'Muslim,'
'Christian,' 'Buddhist' or 'Hindu' to describe an ethnic or cultural group."
"None of the major world faiths can be encapsulated within any particular
culture."  "Invoking sweeping generalizations about religion or culture can
often be not only inaccurate, but also dangerously misleading." (41)

Ramachandra points out that much of the research of ancient Muslim writings
has been done by Christian missionaries and scholars.  If Islamic apologists
simply assume they already know what Jesus taught and did (without seriously
investigating), then there is little room for listening, humility and
respect - all the qualities necessary for genuine dialogue in a pluralist
world.  "This is all the more tragic given the copious references to Jesus
in the Qur'an itself.  There are references to Jesus in fifteen different
surahs of the Qur'an, and he is mentioned ninety-seven times in ninety-three
verses, as compared with Muhammad who is mentioned only twenty-five times."
(45)

Chap 2.  Hinduism and the search for identity "Hindu nationalism is as
modern as Nehru's secular idea of India.  Its ideological roots are usually
traced to the 1920s...." (49)  "...the political assertion of 'Hinduness,'
carries its own mythic historiography." "The pre-Muslim period of Indian
history is represented as a golden age of progress, of high cultural,
intellectual and economic achievement." (50)

"Hindu nationalists mimicked the symbols of British power...." (51)

"Nehru's secular idea of India prevailed for at least thirty years after
Independence." (52)

"The Hinduvta argument, which rapidly gathered momentum from the mid-1980s,
was simple: secularism has led to a civilizational crisis in India....
Hindutva alone can provide the possibility of the nation's survival.
Secularism, so runs the charge, 'is draining away the nation's élan vital of
Hindu spirit.'  Secularists are 'Trojan horses' who 'weaken Hindu strength
from within.'  These 'traitors' have to be attacked to defend the Hindu
nation." (53)

A particular reading of the Ramayana was serialized into a mega-TV
production and shown all over.  "It is the culmination of what one writer
has called the 'adoption of militant devotionalism by a middle-class laity -
one generated by modern media rather than by traditional instruction in
beliefs and practices.  What this represents, then, is an organized,
systematic effort to erase the diversity and conflict within Indian
tradition." (54)

"This project of reconstructing Hinduism...tends to define 'Hinduness'
geographically and genealogically, rather than through a shared creed or
texts."  "Its major feat has been to bring a large number of competitive
ascetic orders and religious leaders (gurus) under the banner of Hindu
nationalism." (55)

"Muslims constitute about 12% of the Indian population, and for the most
part form a poor, despised, and politically insignificant, religious
minority.  The VHP, however, required a worthy adversary to justify its
strategy of confrontation...." (55)

"Religious nationalisms represent the creation of a homogeneous religion
which is projected as the revival of an ancient tradition, adapted to the
needs of the modern age." (56)

"Hindu India was first defined not by the religious traditions of the
subcontinent, but by modern state institutions."  "'Hindu' became an
official term for counting people, and this gave the statistical impression
that India was a majority Hindu country."  (56)

"One striking feature of Hindusim is that practice takes precedence over
belief.  What a Hindu does is more important than what a Hindu believes.
Hinduism is not creedal."  "A Hindu 'may be a theist, pantheist, atheist,
communist and believe whatever he lies, but what makes him into a Hindu are
the ritual practices he performs and the rules to which he adheres, in
short, what he does.' (65, quoting Frits Stall)

"Although 'untouchability' is now legally prohibited in India, Untouchable
groups constitute about a fifth of Indian's population."  "Such a caste
society has proved remarkably resilient, but its ongoing stability requires
the suppression by violence of all dissent from below." (68)

Many modern Hindus, especially the Western-educated, see their religion as
the 'eternal religion,' the umbrella under which all religions can find
shade.  (73)

[But] Hinduism 'insists on our working steadily upwards and improving our
knowledge of God.  The worshippers of the Absolute are the highest in rank,
second to them are the worshippers of the personal God, then come the
worshippers of the incarnations like Rama, Krishna, Buddha, below them are
thwoe who worship ancestors, deities and sages, and lowest of all are the
worshippers of the petty spirits.' (quoting Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, former
Professor Eastern Religions at Oxford University)  (74)

"This is simply religious imperialism masquerading as tolerance. Pluralism
is ultimately undermined, because the 'Other' is never taken seriously as a
challenge to the entire framework of discourse."  "Thus the boundary-markers
are already pre-defined."  "...all who participate in dialogue must give up
the convictions of their own faiths and embrace this particular worldview as
the condition for dialogue." (74-75)

"The impact of Christians on Indian society, whether indigenous disciples of
Jesus or missionaries from Western lands, cannot be assessed by numbers
alone.  The radical and unprecedented social and religious changes witnessed
in nineteenth-century India were quite out of proportion to the number of
converts made or churches established."  "Christian missions in India are
routinely dismissed in contemporary Indian scholarship as simply an adjunct
to colonialism.  But, in fact, they were the soil from which both modern
Hindu reform movements and Indian nationalism sprang.  Most of the Indian
intellectual and political leadership of the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century emerged from Christian schools and colleges." (78)

"Christians in India have long been in the forefront of movements for the
emancipation of women....  Some of the finest medical hospitals and training
schools in India owe their existence to Christian missions."  "For many
years the entire nursing profession was filled with Anglo-Indians and Indian
Christians, as other communities regarded nursing as menial work fit only
for uneducated girls and widows.  It has been estimated that, as late as the
beginning of the Second World War, 90% of all the nurses in the country,
male and female, were Christians, and that about 80% of these had been
trained in mission hospitals." (79) [For more on this see The Legacy of
William Carey, Mangalwadi]

"The gospel acted as a catalyst in mobilizing Hindus, especially those
educated in Christian schools, to spearhead such changes within Hindu
society." (79)

"With Hindu militancy on the rise and the lower castes increasingly trying
to assert their rights, Christian congregations and missionaries are caught
in a political maelstrom.  'For priests and nuns striving to bring about
change in the lives of India's poor,' says Delhi's (Roman Catholic)
Auxiliary Bishop Vincent Concessao, 'the journey ahead may involve more than
the usual quota of sacrifices.'" (81)

A secular nationalism is no less religious than a Hindu or Buddhist one.
"Many Indian intellectuals see Hindu nationalism, not as a return to an
ancient 'tradition,' but a reconfiguration of Hinduism as a modern political
religion, bringing the complex religious and cultural groups under a common
system.  However, Hindu identity is multiple, by definition." (82)

"From being a society where the state played a marginal role, India has
today become 'the most intensely political society in the world.' Indians
have 'poured their faith into politics....'" (83, quoting Sunil Khilnani)

Chapter 3.  The Jesus enigma "Fundamental to every Israelite's identity was
the sense of belonging to a 'called out' people, called by the living God to
be a priestly nation that would mediate the purposes of God to the rest of
creation (cf. Exod. 19:4-6 Deut. 7:6; 4:6-8, 32ff.; Josh. 4:24)." (94)

"This interplay between the universal and the unique runs right through the
biblical narrative.  ..Yahweh is not Israel's private possession but the
sovereign God of the whole earth.  He is actively involved in the histories
of nations other than Israel...." (95)  "While Yahweh works in all nations,
in no nation other than Israel did he act for the sake of all nations." (96)

"Jesus saw that Israel had failed in its calling to be God's agent of
healing for the nations.  The temple had become an object of national
idolatry and religious power-mania." (104)

"What, then, are we to make of Jesus Christ? The one thing we cannot say is
that he was merely a wise religious teacher, for we have already seen that
it is impossible to separate the content of his moral instruction from the
self-conscious authority that is presupposed by that instruction - an
authority that surpasses that of any Jewish prophet or ancient sage.  If
what he believed about himself was not true, then he can hardly be a moral
exemplar for the rest of us." (109)

"Why is the charge of megalomania so difficult to stick on Jesus?  Simply
because the lifestyle of Jesus and the values he embodied strike even the
most hardened sceptic as eminently sane, indeed deeply attractive."  "No
contemporary of Jesus, or any serious thinker since, has accused Jesus of
being insincere or hypocritical in his relationships with either friend or
enemy." (110)

"There are those who say that to stress the uniqueness of Jesus generates
division in societies where there are multiple worldviews.   This is
perfectly true, but it seems to be based on the assumption that social
conflict must be avoided at all cost, an assumption that is itself part of a
particular worldview that Jesus and his early disciples call into question."
"The 'good news' of the death and resurrection of Jesus brings with it an
entirely new worldview." (115)

Chapter 4.  Conversion and cultures "Can we live in a pluralistic
environment and continue to make universal truth-claims, while still
respecting the diversity of human cultures and religious beliefs?"  (119)

"To tolerate a belief or practice surely implies that (a) we recognize that
belief or practice to be genuinely different from our own, (b) we disagree
with the belief (or disapprove of the practice), and (c) we do not coerce or
absorb the other into ourselves, but give social and legal space for the
other to flourish." (121)

Plausibility and truth misconception:  "How can you be right if so many
others think differently?"  This confuses the degree of social support with
indicators of truth or falsity.  (124-25)

Rationality and truth misconception  "Are you saying that all other
religious beliefs are irrational?"  Do not confuse rationality with truth.
Rationality is how the belief is justified, the reasons in support of it. A
belief may be rational without being true.  (125)

Religious language and truth misconception  "Aren't we all saying the same
thing but in different language?"  This question does not respect the
integrity of the different faith-traditions but dilute them to the lowest
common denominator.  It also rules out from the beginning "any possibility
that the ultimate Reality may be a personal God who seeks to make himself
known."  "It savages pluralism in the name of defending it."  It "turns into
a reductionist onslaught on the factual affirmations of those
traditions...." (127)

"The project of modernity is based on a universal vision.  History is seen
as the unfolding story of a universal immanent process....  Postmodernism
denies that history is in any sense story-shaped.  (It) rejects the
universal in the name of the local.  [For more on this see Bible and Mission
by Richard Bauckham.]

In the biblical scheme of things, the universal is always mediated through
the particular.  "This resonates with our experience of all artistic,
literary and scientific achievement.  It simply does not follow, as writers
such as [the American theologian, John] Driver seem to assume, that just
because all our thoughts, including our thoughts about God, are historically
shaped, none of our thoughts can be true for all time and all peoples."
"Universalism and historicism are thus not as polarized as is often
assumed." (129)

"It is not Christian men who shape the world with their ideas, but it is
Christ who shapes men in conformity with himself." (140, quoting Bonhoeffer)

Chapter 5.  Secularism and civility Secularization now means "a process
whereby 'religious' beliefs cease to be widely accepted and 'religious
institutions' cease to have social, economic or political influence.  This
process is assumed to be irreversible." However this assumption is false.  
Where 'secularism' seems to be most deeply entrenched, leading thinkers have
started talking again about transcendence, Spirit, etc.  (141)

In 1996, 68% of the people of Britain called themselves Christian and only
4.4% claimed to be committed atheists.  (141-2)

"In the modern liberal state, there arose a strict division between the
'secular' and 'religious' realms, whose boundaries blended neatly with that
between the 'public' and the 'private.'  "Religious beliefs and practices
are to be treated as we do art and music, that is as expressions of the
Beautiful."  "The public square is ruled by the rationality of science -
cool, neutral and universal."  (144)

T. N. Madan believes that "secularism in South Asia as a generally shared
credo of life is impossible...because the great majority of the people of
South Asia understand themselves to be followers of some religious faith."
He says, "Secularism is the dream of a minority which wants to shape the
majority in its own image, which wants to impose its will upon history..."
(144)

"The more radical Reformers and the later English Puritans insisted on a
strict institutional separation of church and state, but that separation was
not intended to mean that Christian faith was no longer to be applied to the
life of society.  The institutional separation of powers must be maintained
precisely in order that the church may not be corrupted and distracted from
is vocation by the exercise of coercive power, and so that the state may be
held accountable to divine judgment and prevented from encroachment upon
other social institutions." (145)

'Secularism' may be interpreted to mean, "the attempt on the part of the
state to deal impartially with all religious communities that constitute the
polis.  This is an issue that is particularly important in pluralist
societies such as in South Asia...." (147)

Some say, "Religious faiths are inevitably confrontational and prone to
violent conflict, ...and the only way we can ensure a peaceful social order
is to keep them out of the public square."  (149) However, "Far from ending
violent strife, the modern nation-state and its ideology of secular
nationalism has been the biggest single cause of warfare over the past two
hundred years."  "The cruelties perpetrated by religious conflicts in
Western history pale into relative insignificance when compared with the
global suffering unleashed by liberal Western nation-states in the
twentieth-century alone." (151-52)

"Deep in every human heart lies a propensity for worship.  And if men and
women do not worship their Creator, they end up worshipping the creature, in
the form of an idea, an artifact, an institution, a feeling, or an
individual."  "The displacement of the biblical God from the realm of truth
'merely unleashes the horsemen of the Apocalypse, leaves our propensity for
idolatry unchecked and unconstrained, with devastating consequences.'" (154)

"The doctrine of 'human rights' emerges from a particular theological
narrative, rooted in the biblical notion of humanity made in the image of
God...." (156)

"There is, finally, no intelligible secular version of the idea of human
rights, ... the conviction that human beings are sacred is inescapably
religious." (156 citing American law professor Michael Perry)

"Tocqueville perceived that democracy, revolution and republicanism in
America could not be understood simply as secular movements.  It was not
democracy that paved the way for the freedom of worship, but freedom of
worship that made democracy possible." (157)

"Liberty regards religion as its companion in all its battles and its
triumphs, as the cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its claims.
It considers religion as the safeguard of morality, and morality as the best
security of law and the surest pledge of the duration of freedom." (157,
quoting Tocqueville)

"Thus, the moral cohesion of a political community cannot rest on the force
of law alone, and the heatlh of any community will finally depend on the
moral character of its individual citizens.  Democracy does not arise in a
vacuum.  It requires disciplined citizens if it is to thrive; citizens
nurtured in a culture that prizes not only the love of freedom but voluntary
self-restraint."  (158)

"I begin to see that our generation ... owed a great deal to our fathers'
religion.  And the young ... who are brought up without it will never get
much out of life.  They're trivial: like dogs in their lusts."  (158,
quoting John Maynard Keynes)

"The goal of political secularism would then be a state which dealt
even-handedly with the different religious confessions, to prevent a state
which backed one confession rather than another, but not to make religious
commitments irrelevant to public life and policy." (159)

"In such a scenario, the state would refuse to identify itself with any
particular religious identity, and not permit any religious group to
manipulate the state apparatus for its own chauvinistic ends.  But, unlike
in most Western secular democracies, the state would also actively encourage
public dialogue and debate among the various faith-traditions, and also seek
their views on matters of state policy.  If open intellectual persuasion is
not fostered as a positive virtue in society, then coercion and manipulation
results." (161)

"The alleged neutrality of the 'secular state' raises the question: neutral
with regard to what?  A state that is 'neutral' with regard to traditional
religious loyalties may be ruthlessly active in promoting its own version of
religion." (163)

Epilogue "The Christian encounter with other faiths, 'religious' or
'secular,' brings both enrichment and conflict." (167)

"Persecution of Christians is more commonplace today than it has ever been
since the first few centuries of the Christian era." (167)

"Christians today are, in many countries, identified with a history which,
at several points, has served to obscure the gospel from the gaze of the
non-Christian: a history that includes bloody crusades and inquisitions,
social intolerance and intellectual bigotry, the selective use of biblical
texts to justify slavery, sexism, colonial expansionism and a host of other
evils."  "Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim thinkers, many of them emerging only
relatively recently from a world of Western colonialism, have seized upon
the anti-Christian polemic of some Western writers in order to make their
own faiths attractive to (post)modern men and women."  (167-68)

"We have also seen that there is another story about the Christian mission
that needs to be told.  Perhaps the greatest betrayal of the gospel by the
Western church would be the forgetting of that story in an over-reaction of
post-colonial guilt.  Positive aspects of that story have been brought to
light at various points in this book, and a few examples here by way of
recollection would suffice: · the contribution of Persian Christians to the
birth of Islamic as well as European civilization; · the renewal of
indigenous cultures all over the world by the courageous act of Bible
translation; · the defense of native peoples against colonial exploiters by
Christian missionaries; · the emancipation of women, slaves and children by
Christians in every continent; · the pioneering of modern health-care
systems and the impact on social reform by Christians in many non-Christian
societies, far out of proportion of their numerical size; · the study and
dissemination of the religious texts of non-Christian peoples by Christian
missionary-scholars; and · perhaps more than anything else, the selfless
devotion of men and women, often to the point of martyrdom or serious
debilitation through illness, to people of another faith and culture.  
[bullet points mine, dlm] This is a unique story that needs to be recounted
with humility and courage in a world that is losing touch with history."
(168)

"The resurgence of religious faiths in the Indian subcontinent owes much to
the example and impact of Christian missions....  Much of what is invoked by
religious nationalists as 'ancient tradition' is, on closer inspection, seen
to be of fairly recent origin." (169)

"Unless the quest for justice among the nations is guided by passion for the
glory of God, and is rooted in what God has done for the world in Jesus
Christ, it quickly becomes another form of domination.  God's gracious,
reconciling love in Jesus Christ towards us human beings is the ground and
pattern for our response to injustice and conflict." (171)

"The church, as the body of the risen Christ, is the agenda for the world.
It is the eschatological community, modeling a different understanding of
humanness, embodying both the indictment of the world and its eternal hope.
It is here that the redemption of our humanity is taking place." (171)