Friends Circle in Madurai, based in the seminary, lasting for many years, involving Hindu, Muslim and Christian leaders, teachers and theological students. Also in Madurai there was a sustained dialogue on Saivism and Christianity, with Drs Gangatharan, Thomas Thangaraj and Israel Selvanayagam. They developed this, building on the work of Dayanandan Francis, who contributed much to the Christian understanding of Sikhism.
Scriptural dialogue has also taken place, if in a fitful way. There have been Christian commentaries on the Bhagavadgita (such as that by Bede Griffiths) and Hindu books focusing on Christian Scripture, such as Radhakrishnan’s major book Eastern Religion and Western Thought.6 Here there is a strong emphasis on John’s Gospel as the essence of Christianity and on the Synoptic Gospels as the Jewish takeover of the original Jesus. There have been many other initiatives, but sustained dialogue at a scriptural level is difficult between a faith centred on one book and one person, and a diffuse faith with countless scriptures and a whole range of systems and deities.
This interaction between two very different faiths and world views has also meant that sustained theological dialogue has not been easy. Similar terms are found to have very different meanings. For example, avatar seems a fitting concept to describe the Incarnation of Jesus. But, as Parrinder has shown in his classic work Avatar and Incarnation,7 the differences in use of the term are vast. Jesus can never be one among many avatars (incarnations) alongside Krishna, Rama and so on. His humanity was complete, his footprint on the earth was real, his suffering and death were real. The docetic Christ was heretical for good reasons.8 So also the theology of the cross. Gandhi loved the cross as a deep inspiration of self-giving love. His favourite hymn was ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’. He himself was to suffer in a similar way, at the hands of a Hindu extremist. But Gandhi had no truck with the historical uniqueness of Jesus and the cross, and its saving quality, beyond viewing Jesus as a special exemplar of love. The future principal of Madras Christian College, Alfred Hogg, brings out these sharp differences in considering the cross, in his book Karma and Redemption (first published in 1909).
A third area is dialogue of action. This is dialogue for liberation, development, social justice. Here it is a question of joining together across faiths to face issues locally, community-wise, within particular states, nationally and internationally. Action for the oppressed has included working together for the betterment of those with leprosy, for exploited women, against child labour, for Dalit liberation, and so on. There are examples of all of these taking place in association with others, particularly in recent years. My own involvement in work with prisoners and their families was another example, the prisoners mostly coming from the lowest social strata. Work with HIV/AIDS victims is another recent example. By far the majority of those helped in all these cases are Hindus. Action has included advocacy for excluded groups, alongside Christians, who have been the object of Rashtriya Seva Sangh (RSS)9 opposition. There have been specific campaigns related to reservation policy, or about anti-conversion bills. These have all been ecumenical from a Christian church perspective. There were massive interfaith relief works in the period after the 2004 tsunami.
The fourth category is that of religious experience. This has included acts of common solidarity involving prayer alongside each other, from the same platform, in the face of a common issue or disaster, or national celebration, and this seems natural within multi-religious India. Prayers are offered before meetings or formal dialogues. In ashrams, such as Shantivanam above, people from different faiths enter into the experience of the other. As Bede Griffiths said, ‘Hinduism and Christianity are poles apart in terms of doctrine; but they can meet in their spiritual depths, in the heart of the lotus – there is Christ.’ There are also the simple acts of prayer in a village or when someone is sick. A Christian pastor will be asked to pray in Hindu homes quite naturally. I remember visiting a group of villages where, every full-moon night, the pastor and his team visited all the homes in a village, mostly Hindu, and offered to pray in each house. They were accepted in most.
The bhakti devotional experience is common across all faiths, whatever it is called. It will be seen at the tombs of saints in Sufi Islam. It is seen in the major Sikh temples on their holy days. It will be found on new-moon days within Buddhism. It will be seen in popular Hindu festivals, when thousands of devotees are taken out of themselves in prayer and enthusiasm.
It is seen in a shrine such as Velanganni in Tamil Nadu, which now hosts the biggest annual religious festival. It is a shrine in honour of Mary, and her appearances there. Hindus are by far the majority of the devotees, but also Christians of all backgrounds come to this Catholic shrine by the Indian Ocean, at all times of year. The annual festival time in September has become an official holiday for those from the neighbouring districts of Tamil Nadu. Prayers are to fulfil vows, or for healing, and practices of popular religiosity are seen such as going towards the shrine on the knees, or walking there with a full pot of water on the head and avoiding spilling. Such can be seen also in the Tamil shrines to Murugan, the second son of Siva, and the most popular deity here, as he is worshipped in temples on six hills around the state. The Christmas festival is both a Christian celebration and a time for Hindus to attend churches, and to welcome the Christ child, born as an avatar.
An area of creative spiritual dialogue has been that of music and hymnody. Early hymns were those brought from Europe, translated into regional languages or Hindi. But as the decades went by, there grew up a rich tradition of bhajan singing, and lyrics. These were very much in the Hindu bhakti and poetic tradition, but clearly Christ-centred. They included a style of dialogue between the lead singer and the congregation, as they go back and forth in expressing their part. There also developed the kalachebbam, a style of narrating a story involving a dialogue with the audience. Indian instruments normally associated with temples were introduced, especially various forms of drums, combining with the harmonium adapted from Europe. Attempts to introduce the Indian flute largely failed, because it is the instrument traditionally associated with Krishna. Dance in worship was never widespread, because of the association of dancing with temples and ritual prostitution. But the Roman Catholic Church has encouraged the development of highly trained groups in Bangalore and in Tiruchi. They have very beautifully adapted classical dances, usually found in Hindu culture, to tell Gospel stories such as that of the Samaritan woman at the well, as shown at the World Mission Conference in Edinburgh in 2010. They are a direct way in which Indian Christianity, adapting Hindu-style art, has made an impact in the West, through regular tours, particularly to Germany and the UK. I was external examiner for a doctoral thesis on Indian Dance and the Catholic Church, by Jessica Sinniah, and she received this degree from Birmingham University in December 2013. She was the leading dancer and choreographer at Edinburgh.
A study of village Christians in Andhra Pradesh, by P. Luke and J. Carman, nearly all of them from one of two Dalit communities,10 shows how many of these villagers lived across two religions, in terms of religious practice. To differing degrees, they shared in the majority religious life of Hindus, particularly around festivals, and for marriages and funerals. They could technically be named ‘syncretists’, but they were clear about their Christian identity. They just did not see this as incompatible with sharing in the spiritual highs and lows of the lives of their neighbours. This is a kind of grass-roots inclusivism.
There is a long history of Indian Christian theology, and this has been at its most creative when it has been born out of deep interaction with Hinduism or another Indian faith. It has been largely from the work of converts from higher castes, or their descendants in such communities. Many examples are found in Robin Boyd’s much reprinted book, Introduction to Indian Christian Theology.11 These pioneers struggled with the great themes of Christian theology – God, Trinity, above all Christology, atonement, sacramental theology – and produced inspiring books of faith-centred theology, as they worked to find meeting points between their former religion and their new-found, salvific, Christ-centred faith. Some focused upon what has become thought of in the West as the highest forms of Hindu philosophy, known as Advaita, where God is essentially impersonal. This has as
