Bhakti Traditions and the Rethinking Group: P.
Chenchiah
February
2017
Presenter: Laldanmawia
_________________________________________________________________________________
Introduction
As a Rethinking Group,
A. J. Appasamy, P. Chenchiah and V. Chakkarai are outstanding in Indian
Christian thinkers who have contributed to Indian understanding of Christ. They
shared the view that Indian Christian Theology should begin with Christology.
They were unanimous in rejecting Western formulations as irrelevant in India, and
hence their plea for Rethinking Christianity in India.[1] P.
Chenchiah’s main interest was religious and his centre of reference was the
Truth in Christ. However his writings cover a wide range of subjects in
response to that was happening around him. That is why it is impossible to
cover all his writings in this paper except some important methodological
issues in his theology.
1.
Towards a Rethinking Group
The famous book
“Rethinking Christianity in India” had been published in 1938 on the eve of the
International Missionary Council’s World Conference at Tambaram. From the title
of this book some stimulating thinkers of Madras who contributed articles in
this book like A. J. Appasamy, P. Chenchiah and V. Chakkarai are came to be
known as “the Rethinking Group.” The book is mainly as an Indian reply to
Hendrik Kraemer’s publication “The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World.”[2] In
his book, Kraemer writes about the Witness of the Church and the fundamental
position of the Christian Church as a witness-bearing body in the modern world,
dealing in detail with the evangelistic approach to the non-Christian faiths.[3]
2.
Methodological Issues in Chenchiah’s Theology
2.1. Influential
Factors for His Theological Methodology
There
are two important influences which constitute the background his writings.
First is the “integral yoga” of Sri
Aurobindo. Aurobindos idea of spiritual powers which come from outside with a
transformative strength and which can make evolution of new and better
humanity.[4]
This integral yoga according to Chenchiah is the Holy Spirit, who comes from
outside and transform human into new humanity. We can see this influence in his
understanding of the Holy Spirit. Second is the “practical teaching” of Master
CVV who was the guru of a school of
yoga. His teaching is world-affirming, and he teaches a reversal of Hinduism
which teaches non-attachment as means of attaining salvation, that is wholly
directed to practical living. God reveals himself through creation and
demonstrates his power. And the fullest form of new quality of life is to be
found not in isolation but in society.[5]
Thus CVV’s concept of new life that involves in society with practical
expression in community by discipline of life is what Chenchiah takes into his
theology, that he says salvation is not sinlessness but lifefulness, life which
is fulfilled in society.
2.2. Jesus Christ as New
Creation
For
Chenchiah, New Creation is the only rationale for the continued existence of
Christianity. He claims that the real uniqueness of Christianity consists in
the doctrine, or rather, the fact, of new creation and new birth.[6]
New Creation is not just a matter of individual men and women being born again
in the evangelical sense of the term, but it is a further stage in the
planetary life of mankind brought about by the release of fresh energy through
a new and tremendous creative act of God.[7]
He
emphasized on the newness of Christ, who is the first fruits of the new
creation. He is the adi-purusha (first
man) of new creation, who is a new, living entity, the God man, the bridge
between God and man (sic). However in his view, it is wrong to speak of Christ
as a metaphysical union of God and human, but right to speak of him as new
creation, a personality resulting from the union of God and man (sic).[8]
In
the New Testament the term new creation is ascribe to the believers, but in
Chenchiah, to Christ himself. Once Appasamy raises a point that if the doctrine
of Chenchiah is true that with the birth of Jesus a new type of human appeared,
it follows that during the 20 centuries there must have been several sons (sic)
of God.[9]
2.3. The Raw Fact of Christ
Chenchiah
accepted only one absolute in Christianity, that is the raw fact of Christ. The
Central fact of Christianity is the direct experience of Christ, and a Christian
must have the anubhava (experience)
of the living Christ. He opposed the absolutization of doctrines and dogmas,
worship and rituals, mysteries and ceremonies for Jesus is beyond creeds,
churches and scriptures.[10]
As he said, “Church, doctrine and dogmas, whether from the West or from the
past, whether from Apostles or from the modern critics, are to be tested before
they are accepted.”[11]
For
Chenchiah, Christianity begins with Jesus Christ and not with Genesis of even
with God and Christology should govern theology.[12] His
Christology mainly includes the idea about Jesus as the ‘permanently human’ and
the ‘unchanging core’ of the Christian faith, acting in history both during the
time of the incarnation and today. However,
he avoided equating Christ with God. To him, Jesus is not God, the absolute,
unapproachable, incomprehensible, but God as standing in relation to human. His
Christ is something new, something different from either God or human, a new
emergence or mutation or new creation.[13]
The
fact of Christ is the birth of new order in creation. Christ is not an avatara
who comes for a limited period of time but he is here in the world as human,
rather than as the second person of Trinity. He is not God the absolute, but he
is God standing in relation to human. He is Godman. Hence he rejected
Chalcedonian definition of Christ as ‘fully God and fully man.’[14]
2.4. Reproducing Jesus
The
work of Christ for Chenchiah consists in what he is rather than what he does.
As Christ is new man (sic), the salvation for human consists in being so united
to Christ by the power of the Spirit that he/she too becomes a new creation. He
said that if we want to establish the Kingdom of God, we must reproduce Jesus.
As Jesus was the begotten of God, the Christian must be begotten of the Holy
Spirit. So true evangelism consists in reproducing Jesus.[15] The
destiny of man is to evolve into a higher, spiritual race and he finds his
scriptural base in Romans 8:19, “For the earnest expectation of the creature
wait for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Salvation thus for him is the
process of reproducing the image of Christ or even of becoming Christ.[16]
This applies being united to Christ by the power of the Spirit, and then one
becomes a new creation too. In that way we can reproduce Jesus.
2.5. Holy Spirit as
Cosmic Energy
Chenchiah
never affirms or negates the personality of the spirit; rather he seems to be
content with the understanding of the Holy Spirit as a great creative power and
energy, which he calls ‘cosmic energy’. It is used in the sense of the power of
the Holy Spirit that brings transformation in the political and social
structure of the world.[17] He employs several
Hindu categories in the development of his theology of the Holy Spirit. A more
prominent category is mahasakti (great power). But it is not clear
that whether Chenchiah identifies the Holy Spirit with mahasakti. He
seems to find mahasakti or sakti as adequate categories to
express the Holy Spirit as the cosmic energy to the great power, which will be
more intelligible to Hindus. Another category Chenchiah used is visvakarma.[18] Rig-veda
refers to visvakarma “as the personification of the all creative power
and the architect of the universe, sometime identifies with prajapati.
Unlike cosmic energy visvakarma refers to a more personalized creative
power, the builder of the universe. In his usage of Hindu categories, P. V.
Joseph continues to comment that Chenchiah does not seem to identify the Holy
Spirit with them, rather he seems to show the creative power of the Holy
Spirit, perhaps with a view to making it more indigenous.[19]
2.6. The Holy Spirit
and Yoga
Faith
union with Christ becomes the essential basis for the Christian life. That life
is called by Chenchiah the ‘yoga of the Spirit’. This Christian yoga, he
defines as the transformation of oneself into the figure and the image of
Christ. This Christian yoga should be the normal life of a Christian, must be
wholly dependent on the Holy Spirit, who ever since Pentecost abides
permanently on earth.[20] He
did not fully accept the Hindu yoga, but influenced by the yoga of Sri
Aurobindo and Master CVV and their teaching about the divine power that comes
from outside. They speak of spiritual power coming into a person from outside
which they called supra-mind and divine power respectively, while Chenchiah
calls it the Holy Spirit.[21]
2.7. Church and Its
Mission
Chenchiah
conceived of the mission of the church in terms of the new creation, the
Kingdom of God and the renewal of the social order. It was the mission of the
church to harness the Holy Spirit to the creation of new life, and that new
life was to be the sign of the Kingdom of God come among humans. That kingdom
has to manifest itself in the social order as well as in the hearts of humans.[22]
However the kingdom inaugurated by Christ seems to be taken over by the
institutional church and any movement of Spirit loses its potential when it
gets institutionalized into community, a sect, a caste.[23]
This is how Chenchiah thinks of Indian churches. Church’s administration,
dogmas, property, rituals hierarchy, etc hindered a person coming into the
direct contact with the living Christ.[24]
That is why he rejects the westernized form of Christianity or church based on
creed and dogma and proposed Indian way of Christianity based on Indian roots
like practice of yoga of spirit.[25]
2.8. Christianity and
Hinduism
Chenchiah
thinks that Christianity has been a failure in accepting the Gospel that is God
in Jesus has made a new creation. Instead of a new creation, we made a new
religion.[26]
From the essence of new creation, he establishes the relation between
Christianity and Hinduism, saying that other religions represent only old
creation while God has been at work in all of them so that it is possible to
build bridges from Christ to them. He does not accept the understanding of
their relationship as an antithesis of darkness-light, natural-supernatural,
and human-divine. He does not fully subscribe Christianity as the fulfillment
of Hinduism.[27]
He does not tend to introduce new religion by combining them, but only trying
to explore the experiences and creative thinking which must help in
understanding Christ.[28]
He
builds his idea that syncretism was never serious in the Christian history. The
Spirit of Rome and the spirit of political individualism could be seen in Roman
Catholicism and Protestantism respectively. If Christianity has survived the
syncretism of the church, it can face the new syncretism with Hinduism.[29]That
is why he believes that the Christian faith must be open to receive new
insights from Indian culture, saying Christians have nothing to fear from such
a use of Hinduism.[30]
Among the features of the spiritual heritage of Hinduism that Chenchiah wanted
Christianity to assimilate were ashramas
and yoga.[31]
3. Critical Analysis: Challenges and Issues
3.1. When
Chenchiah wrote about the emergence of Indian Christian Theology, he thought
that his interpretation of Jesus would be its corner stone. However A. J.
Appasamy argued that it is in western scientific thought and not from spiritual
heritage of India, that is why he did not see the necessity to follow
Chenchiah’s position.[32] Appasamy’s
critic was on the basis of Chenchiah’s use of biological language in the new
Creation. When Chenchiah tries to
incorporate with Hindu cultural heritage, he still employs biological language
like mutation, evolution, and genetics.
3.2.
His understanding of Holy Spirit as new cosmic energy for the inauguration of
New Creation can reduces its nature as the third person in a Trinity. For
Sunand Sumithra, the identification of Holy Spirit as ‘the energy beyond
creation which flowed into the world’ can virtually amounts to non-recognition
of any activity, or even the existence of the Holy Spirit before the
incarnation.[33]
Will Indian church as a doctrinal church digest the non-recognition of the presence
of Holy Spirit as a person?
3.3.
P. V. Joseph opines that Chenchiah seems to fall into the understanding of
Christian mission as a renewal of creation and human societies only. In fact
the Holy Spirit who renews the creation and transforms human societies also
brings regeneration and renewal in human souls. He thinks Chenchiah has failed
to balance this bipolar category of mission, and also fail to recognize this
fundamental truth of Christian faith.[34]
Observing Christian mission only with social dimension can be dangerous,
because it can devalue God’s redemption of human beings from sin. If the value
of evangelism and individual salvation is ignored, Christianity can be easily
understood as a social institution which is called to serve and transform human
society.
3.4.
Dalit, Tribal and other contextual theologies try to incorporate Christ into
their context. They bring down him to their level to make him experience their
real life situation. The Dalitness of Jesus, the Tribalness of Jesus, the feminist
attitude of Jesus need a ‘top down’ or ‘fit in’ presentation, that is fitting
Jesus into one’s culture/situation. However on the other hand Chenchiah’s
Christology would invite us to unite to Christ into new Creation by the power
of the Spirit, that means that we cannot expect Christ to be fitted into human
situation, rather we have to be fitted into Christ new nature. From this point,
it is difficult to see Chenchiah’s Christology to be relevant in today’s
contextual theology.
4.
Contemporary Significance and Relevance
4.1.
In order to create a theology that is relevant for India, we need to explore
the meaning of Jesus Christ in the context of political and social struggle
taking place in India. In that situation, Chenchiah’s interpretation of the mission
of the church would be relevant. For him the mission of the church is in terms
of the new creation, the Kingdom of God and the renewal of the social order,
that is to connect the Holy Spirit to the creation of new life, and that new
life was to be the sign of the Kingdom of God come among humans. That kingdom
has to manifest itself in the social order as well as in the hearts of humans.
4.2.
Like many Indian theologians, Chenchiah also thinks that evangelization is not
merely baptizing and planting the Church. In that situation he challenges Christianity
to reject the institutional set up and move towards Jesus, by answering a call
for a new humanity to emerge in union with Christ through yoga. Mission and
evangelism as classical understanding do not work well in a multi religious
situation in India, particularly where dominants are Hindus. That is why today,
we need to present Christ, who is universal, new humanity and the new creation.
4.3.
Chenchiah understands the relationship of Christianity and Hinduism as
dialogical. He sought dialogical encounter and synthesis in manner, and he
thinks that Christianity as a new creation should be open to receive insights from
old creation-Hinduism. Mutual openness is significant in contemporary India in
order to build religious harmony. Not only in cooperation in fighting injustice,
we can assume mutual incorporation of insights as useful tool for better
relationship.
Conclusion
Jesus Christ is
the new Creation, the Holy Spirit is the new cosmic energy, the Kingdom of God
is the new order, the children of God are the new type that Christ has
inaugurated.[35]This
is the methodology that he opted for his theology. Being influenced by yoga of Sri Aurobindo and master CVV,
Chenchiah’s interpretation of the Holy Spirit and his understanding of the new
life in Christ are in the way which look to the coming of force from outside
which could enter and change human nature. Moreover, his strong inclination to
Hinduism and his opposition towards the institutionalized Christianity and
traditional theology put him in an uneasy relation with the church. All these
influences shape his hermeneutical frame in Indian Christian theology.
Bibliography
Boyd,
Robin. An Introduction to Indian
Christian Theology. Delhi: ISPCK, 2009.
Chacko,
Laji Introduction to Christian Theologies
in India. Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2014.
Chenchiah,
P. “Christian Message in Non-Christian World” Rethinking Christianity in India.
Edited
by G.V. Job, et al. Madras: A.N. Sudarisanam, 1938.
Chenchiah,
P. “Jesus and Non-Christian Faiths”
Rethinking Christianity in India. Edited by
G.V.
Job, et al. Madras: A.N. Sudarisanam, 1938.
Chenchiah,
P. “Wherein Lies the Uniqueness of Christ? An Indian Christian View” Readings
in
Indian Christian Theology. Edited by R.S. Sugirtharajah, and
Cecil Hargrieves
(Delhi: ISPCK, 2008), 91.
Joseph,
P.V. Indian Interpretation of the Holy
Spirit: An Appraisal of the Pneumatology of
Apassamy, Chenchiah and
Chakkarai. Delhi: New Theological College/ISPCK, 2007.
Kraemer,
Hendrik The Christian Message in a
Non-Christian World. New York: Harper &
Brothers,
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Sumithra,
Sunand. Christian Theologies from an
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Book
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Thangasamy,
D.A. The Theology of Chenchiah with
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Journals:
Thangasamy, DA. “Chenchiah’s
Understanding of Jesus Christ” Religion
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(1964).
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Indian
Journal of Theology.
18, No. 1 (January-March 1969), 88-99.
[1] V. P. Thomas, “Indian Christian Approaches to 'the Knowledge
of Christ,” The Indian Journal of
Theology. 18, No. 1 (January-March 1969), 90.
[2] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 2009),
144.
[3] Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian
World (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1938), v.
[4] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 146.
[5] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 146.
[6] Sunand
Sumithra, Christian Theologies from an
Indian Perspective (Bangalore: Theological Book Trust, 1990), 120.
[7] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his writings (Bangalore: The Christian Institute for the Study of
Religion and Society, 1966), 17..
[8] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology (Delhi: ISPCK, 2009),
151.
[9] D. A. Thangasamy, “Chenchiah’s
Understanding of Jesus Christ” Religion
and Society. XI/3 (1964), 80.
[10] D. A.
Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah
with Selections from his writings, 1.
[11] P. Chenchiah,
“Christian Message in Non-Christian World” Rethinking
Christianity in India. Edited by G.V. Job, et al (Madras: A.N. Sudarisanam,
1938), 150.
[12] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his writings, 6.
[13] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology,
148-149.
[14] Laji Chacko, Introduction to Christian Theologies in
India (Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2014), 131.
[15] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology,
153.
[16] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 153.
[17] P. V. Joseph, Indian Interpretation of the Holy Spirit: An
Appraisal of the Pneumatology of Apassamy, Chenchiah and Chakkarai (Delhi:
New Theological College/ISPCK, 2007), 72.
[18] P. V. Joseph, Indian Interpretation of the Holy Spirit,
73.
[19] P. V. Joseph, Indian Interpretation of the Holy Spirit,
74.
[20] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 155.
[21] P. V. Joseph, Indian Interpretation of the Holy Spirit,
79.
[22] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his Writings, 42.
[23] M. M. Thomas and P. T. Thomas, Towards an Indian Christian Theology
(Tiruvalla: The New Day Publications of India, 1992), 156.
[24] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 159.
[25] Laji Chacko, Introduction to Christian Theologies in
India, 136.
[26] P. Chenchiah, “Jesus and
Non-Christian Faiths”, 55.
[27] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his Writings, 35.
[28] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his writings, 36.
[29]
P. Chenchiah, “Wherein Lies the Uniqueness of Christ? An Indian Christian View”
Readings in Indian Christian Theology,
edited by R.S. Sugirtharajah, and Cecil Hargrieves (Delhi: ISPCK, 2008), 91.
[30] Robin Boyd, An Introduction to Indian Christian Theology, 163.
[31] D. A. Thangasamy, The Theology of Chenchiah with Selections
from his writings, 37.
[32] D. A.
Thangasamy, “Chenchiah’s Understanding of Jesus Christ”, 74.
[33] Sunand Sumithra, Christian Theologies from an Indian
Perspective, 120.
[35] P. Chenchiah,
“Jesus and Non-Christian Faiths”
Rethinking Christianity in India. Edited by G.V. Job, et al (Madras: A.N.
Sudarisanam, 1938), 55.
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