Lutheran Missionary's Legacy Hailed at Tranquebar Tercentenary Celebrations in India Seminar, International Consultation, Look at Past and Post-Modern Mission Challenges
CHENNAI, India/GENEVA, 18 July 2006 (LWI) *Tribute was paid to the legacy of the first Protestant missionary to arrive in India, in 1706, at a one-day seminar and a two-day international consultation, organized for July 4, and July 5*6 respectively, during the recent tercentenary celebrations held in Chennai, India.
Three hundred church leaders, delegates and scholars, including 100 international delegates led by Lutheran World Federation (LWF) President Mark S. Hanson and LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, attended the celebrations, which took place 3*9 July at Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and in Tranquebar (known as Tarangambadi in Tamil), 300 kilometers south of Chennai, where the German Lutheran missionary Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg first landed.
An Unparalleled Contribution to Civil Society
In a keynote address to the seminar on the "Contribution of the Tranquebar Mission to Civil Society," Dr S.P. Thyagarajan, vice-chancellor of the University of Madras in Chennai, praised Ziegenbalg's "farsightedness" in bringing Indian and European cultures together. He had made an "unparallele d contribution" to strengthening the civil society, he said, and people should consider him as a "role model." The missionary had "valued existing religions and wanted to bring out societal harmony." He also had interprete d Tamil culture to Europe in portraying India's rich heritage through his translations, Thyagarajan, a Hindu scholar, added.
The former director of the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archeology, Dr Ramachandran Nagaswamy, also highlighted Ziegenbalg's sensitivity to the Indian context in carrying out his work. He pointed to the pains taken by the missionary to introduce Westerners to the richness of Tamil culture and literature. Missionaries of the time were known to require obedience to their beliefs and customs, whereas Ziegenbalg had first made the effort to learn Tamil and Tamil philosophy.
Speaking on the Tranquebar Mission's contribution to education, Dr Bernard D'Sami of the Roman Catholic Loyola College in Chennai, observed that Ziegenbalg's entire life had been devoted "to the pursuit of true wisdom." For the missionary, the Roman Catholic professor said, school was an indispensable means for the development of the society. While Ziegenbalg had stressed "character formation" as one important component of education, D'Sami continued, Christians should also learn from him to make their schools more open to people of all castes and classes.
Dr Daniel Jeyaraj, a theologian and professor of World Christianity, in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, underlined the mission's contribution to Indology. "Ziegenbalg wanted to empower people," and was even prepared in the process to expose the misdeeds of the local rulers at the time, he said. According to Jeyaraj, who chose "inculturation in Tranquebar" as the theme of his doctoral research, missionaries like Ziegenbalg had only enriched local culture and traditions. Any widespread prejudice against them, he continued, was due to the lack of study about their contribution. The uniqueness of Ziegenbalg's mission was to work with Indians, enabling them to articulate their fears and hopes, he affirmed.
Post-Modern Challenges to Christian Mission
The inaugural address of the July 5*6 international consultation on "Post-Modern Challenges to Christian Mission" was presented by Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The moderator was LWF Deputy General Secretary, Rev. Chandran Paul Martin. Hanson offered a description of what was meant by "post-modern," what Lutherans had to offer to Christian mission in the context of Ziegenbalg's contribution, and what themes emerged for study. In a pre-modern context, "Ziegenbalg's work is a powerful witness for the work that lies ahead of us," Hanson said. "More than anything, post-modern is a way of recognizing that the world is in a period of transition," he writes in his statement. "Ziegenbalg knew what it meant to be a theologian of the cross," standing with and living among the Tamil people of India.
"The roots of this church deeply planted 300 years ago continue to bear fruit as Lutherans in India remain steadfastly committed to being engaged in God's mission for the life of the world. You are clear that living the way of the cross calls you and the people of India to the liberation of all Dalits. Your absolute resolve that all Dalit people must be granted human rights, dignity, and liberation, is a sign to the whole world that your discipleship is centered in the cross," Hanson wrote. "As people of faith, we cannot be in service without being in pursuit of justice."
In her keynote address to the consultation, Bishop Dr Margot Kässmann, of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany, noted that today, "The church that goes out and meets the people is a relevant church." She emphasized that amid a "rapidly secularizing context," not only in Germany, but also in India and other parts of the world, Christians should discern the spirit of the times. "We need to translate the Bible into the language of the secularized world so that faith becomes meaningful to the current generation," she said.
Concerns of Poor Should Become the Churches' Agenda
In the five panel discussions that followed, Dr William Stanley, director of the Integrated Rural Development of Weaker Sections in India (IRDWSI), pointed out that the "church has the duty to protect God's Creation," saying that environmental protection and conservation had to be a serious concern for the church. "The poor, the marginalized and the least powerful are those who suffer most from illness and pollution caused by environmenta l degradation," he said. As Christians we do have an ethical responsibility to "seek policy changes through advocacy and promote alternatives for sustainable initiatives."
Demanding greater recognition for women in church affairs, Dr Priscilla Singh, secretary for Women in Church and Society in the LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD) said, "History has proved that mission becomes a success only when it starts to include women," who at times had served without even being acknowledged as missionaries, or when mission had made it a priority to empower them with knowledge and skills. To reiterate her plea, Singh urged the participants to pursue the model set by Ziegenbalg who gave women the opportunity to question and learn from him.
The church has an "impressive record" of developing human power for health care, according to Dr K.M. Shyamprasad, director of the National Lutheran Health and Medical Board in India, but "we have not responded to the current needs of the health-care sector of the country." Even though India has the largest number of HIV cases in the world, Shyamprasad said, "the very mention of HIV and AIDS is anathema to the church, which equates it with sexual sin."
"Will the church dare to break new paths and new inroads to solve (the) issues related to poverty, caste and gender, which perpetuate this disease and many others?" he asked.
In closing remarks at the consultation, Dr Kunchala Rajaratnam, executive secretary of the LWF National Committee in India asserted that: "The concerns of the poor should become the agenda of churches not only at the national and international levels, but at the local congregations also. *We need to revise the theological curriculum to make the pastors and others respond to new challenges."
Ziegenbalg died at the age of 36 on 9 July 1719. He is buried at the New Jerusalem Church in Tranquebar. (1,227 words)
(With reporting from Ecumenical News International correspondent Anto Akkara, and the ELCA News Service.)
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(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund, Sweden, the LWF currently has 140 member churches in 78 countries all over the world, with a total membership of 66.2 million. The LWF acts on behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)
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