(On the occasion of the 3rd Birth Anniversary of ICM, I am indeed happy and proud to note that this Indian Catholic Web site portal is true to its motto under the able and experienced leadership of Chief Editor Verghese V Joseph and his dedicated team to ‘communicate the Word of God’ from Indian perspective and the various challenges faced by the Indian and global Churches in the forms of News and Views especially during this ‘Corona Period ‘when ‘printing rendered inaccessible. Indeed, I am overwhelmed by his enthusiasm and selflessness in inspiring to bring out the talents in others for the renewal of the Church. In this article, I make an attempt to stress the impact of theologization and Spirituality on the society, the culture and the Church.)
Any Spirituality – Indian or Western, no matter, is assessed by the coherent relationship it weaves out to lead a meaningful life in a changing world, taking into account the variant and unifying factors in every human endeavor such as religion and culture, economy and ecology, morality and education.
For centuries, every institution and human endeavors found their origin from the “Divine Recourse” including the very existence of man, ecology and the institutions of Monarchy he set up to rule over himself. During the ‘pre-historic religions,’ we find ‘competing gods’ for supremacy among the ‘polytheists’ that find a ‘parallel heavenly war’ and the ultimate victory of ‘monotheism (Yahwism)’ among the Israel, leading them to the promised land with judges, kings, land and laws. And no wonder, by the time of David, ‘integrity and unity’ is achieved and his capital is shifted to ‘Jerusalem’, the ‘city of peace”. We too see the post Solomon era that witnessed disintegrity and disunity ultimately leading them into diaspora.
Just like the ‘gods and goddesses’ of pre-historic era were the replica of earthly affairs of wars and plunders, the present day concepts of ‘Democracy, secularism and socialism’ in contrast to ‘monarchy and hierarchy’ is replaced with the ‘spiritual realm’ nullifying the ‘spiritual urge’ of man to seek something higher, holier. Humanity is uprooted from any Divine recourse to merely secular and earthly, supported by empirical science and egalitarian concept of Democracy and Socialism.
Theologians interpret the transition of God’s nature from transcendence to imminence, from heavenly kingdom to earthly kingdom, from divine to human, from monarchy to Democracy, nevertheless integrating the two, has a great impact in effecting a “lopsided transition from Divine to Secular” in place of “infusing Divine into secular” and thereby “hallowing the social and secular order intended by the Vatican II to give them a new orientation. In the history of the Church, we find such “theological shift” of the “Humanity and Divinity of Jesus” by the Alexandrian and Antiochian school respectively. In other words, Deification of Jesus Christ, devoid of his humanity is as dangerous as humanizing Jesus Christ, denying of his Divinity.
Such ‘extreme stretch out’ led to the misuse of historical ambivalence. With ‘no other god but me’ seems materialized equally by the political and spiritual institutions, denying the Aristotelian principle of “mean between ends”. The very ‘nature worship’ of pre-historic era was meant to see the “presence of God” in every created being which later got “absolutized” as “gods and goddesses’ in the Hellenistic and Afro-Asian culture, leading to ‘Nature Worship’. The so called ‘divine derivatives’ of human institutions like, monarchy, papacy, hierarchy and Brahmanism, in the middle ages absolutised and corrupted the very ‘nature and intentions’ of these institutions, nullifying the divine recourse of service to the people.
Historical reactions led to the abolitions of such institutions through wars and revolutions and today, it reached the opposite extreme where spirituality could be sought outside religion, condemning religions as the source of division, terrorism and war, (New Age spirituality).
God of today is socialized and democratized that struggles for an expression in the social order. Recently in Kerala, a man put up a “Corona Devi” as his “domestic goddess” for worshipping. Religious symbols such as “cross”, “festivals”, ‘morality, sacraments or rituals’ are interpreted by politicians and civic institutions and often dumping them into the waste -bin. In fact, Niche’s ‘Death of God’ is polluting the society. Even the sex is no more “complementary”, rather on a “belligerent” nature of “self-gratifying”, unable to be “attracted” towards the “other” as much as one lost fascination to the enchanting love of God, religion and morality.
Jesus prayed that all may be one. Even in the Indian spirituality, we find historical evolution from “Dwaita” (dualism) to “Adwaita” (Monism). The revival and progress of society, Church could be achieved only in unity and integrity, notwithstanding the differences for which Jesus prayed, “that all may be one”.
The Second Vatican Council put up a serious attempt to “integrate spirit and matter”, Theocracy and Democracy, secular and sacred, hierarchy and Laity, Religion and Science in a fast changing industrialized and scientific world. However, the explosions of Information Technology could not hold the world together. Although Church exhorted to make use of the Communication media to re-evangelize the world, it met with only partial success and here lies the significance of electronic media like ICM.
The ‘spiritual despotism’ of the hierarchy often comes into conflict with ‘Spiritual socialism’ propounded at the backdrop of “Democratic, secular society”. Socialism is a ‘political tenet in establishing social and economic order to all citizens with “equal opportunity”. Of course, “such egalitarian socialism in Russia and Eastern Europe was a failure”. The spiritual socialism, hitherto unheard, is propounded by theologians knowingly or unknowingly that” levels down” “equanimity of clericalism” with that of the “faithful” both in “role and status”. It is in line with “secularism” where God and Religion are not the central focus.
Pope Benedict XVI warned against it when he said, “Clericalizing the laity is as dangerous as secularizing clergy”. The arguments of the postmodern theologians are that priesthood is not the “monopoly of the clerics”, historical Jesus was not a priest in the strict sense, priesthood belongs to “all the baptized” and “apostleship “may embrace “every disciple” who followed Christ, Holy Communion is more a meal” than sacrifice and so on. In fact, the above theological statements have ‘partial truth’ of historical nuances.
The ultimate effect of such “theological inversion” into “socialism” is brought about for the “reversal of spiritual hegemony” of hierarchical Church in the same way the “women’ liberation movement” that fights for “gender parity” has been the fruit of “male Chauvinism”.
To bring about this “divine- human parity”, theologians addresses “His Holiness Pope” into simply “Francis or Benedict effect”, “dear bishop”, ‘no more Rev., but simply names of priests” in the spiritual arena while no more “my Lord” in judiciary” and wives address husbands by names or local nuances. If the catholic theologians “de-value” the very culture to the extent they annihilate even the expression “AD” and “BC” into “CE and BCE” to fit into a “multi-cultural world”, (mind, I am not against inculturation or inclusive theology) why to blame the BJP for “prohibiting the priests to be called “father” in the educational institutions some years back in North India? The ‘tags’ addressed doesn’t matter if there is “love and respect” for each other and if that misses, it counts. Such attributes are more “merited than demanded”. Even Jesus did not liked to be addressed as “good Master”.
Ultimately, the “foundation of spirituality” is the acceptance of a creator more powerful than the creature” viz. the “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great/Almighty). This alone brings “submission/ obedience “humility (Mus-Salim). The modern concept of socialism produces “demanding rights without duty and deep down “equality not only gender and economy, even with God, thereby the despotic man makes every opportunity including religion and spirituality to “empower himself” in a competing world. To counter act, “leveling down” of role and status is equally unproductive. Jesus lived and taught the “essence of socialism” which respected differences with an underlying unity which is the law of nature.
Despite “Trinitarian Equality”, we find Jesus “submitting to his Father”. (Phil.4). However, “perverted submission” history witnessed as “enslavement” of laity and “despotism of hierarchy” with a “divine justification” and the present crisis of the Religious vows taken for granted as a form of ‘subjugation’ are to be taken care of. While differences are the laws of nature, the underlying “divine socialism of God as Father, each other as brother/ sister in a spirit of love and compassion” are to unite the structure and mission of the Church. Jesus, the High Priest lived among and associated with the poor and sinners which only day by day “increased and revealed his dignity, Divinity and Authority’, truly, the ‘Royal Spirituality’ that is expected of both the hierarchy and laity. Simplicity of approach is seen in St. Paul too. Such a socialism is very much in resonance with the Indian culture of “unity in diversity”, nevertheless stretching to either extreme.
It is quite evident that every “spirituality” influences the sub structure and super structure of the society and Religion. Spirituality transposes the forms of governments and vice-versa and when God or Spirit is rid of social development, it turns to Nihilism/ materialism for which the theologians, hierarchy, the teaching authority of the Church is to a great extend responsible. We note such material, scientific, educational development in the West wherein ultimately, Christ and the Church is “thrown” out with the bathwater. Since India is abounding in poverty and injustice, it is possible our theologians emphasize too much on ‘material development (love of neighbor) while neglecting obliviously the ‘spiritual development’ (Love of God). May the Holy Spirit help the Church to ‘exceed our spiritual socialism’ to discover the ‘Love of God’ within and without.