THE ANGUISH OF A CHRISTIAN AUTHOR

Light of Truth

Valson Thampu

Two contrary assumptions prevail about Christians in our country. In the first, Christians are the pioneers and providers of education, a pacifist and ethically sensitive community, a God-fearing, service-oriented people. The second view is just the opposite. It prevails mostly in North India. In this view, Christians are Dalits, culturally and intellectually low, or mlech. They lost a culture in being converted, but did not gain any for being converted. It is ok to have them around; but as servants, not as equals.
Given this, what are my experiences as a piddling Christian author? I have been secreting words for three decades. Located in North India, I was concerned about the poor image of the community. I decided to address the prejudices feeding it. To me, the key issue was the presumed cultural and social de-merit of Christians in the North. That was the prism through which the community was viewed by others; especially upper caste Hindus and elite Muslims. Being young and idealistic I believed that the children of God cannot be second to any. Jesus has mandated us, besides, to seek perfection.
In this crucible of shame and earnestness my mission formed itself. I concluded that the best service I could render to my community was to enhance its public image to the extent I could. As long as the miasma of prejudice remained, Christian witness would remain ineffectual. It would even provoke resentment. As Kabir said, a bottle of milk in the hand of a drunkard will be mistaken for toddy by everybody.
I adopted two strategies in pursuance of my mission. First, I broke into the intellectual and activist circles of Delhi, including the media. By 1995 I became a freelance columnist, projecting a Christian perspective on issues of national importance, eschewing the religious lingo. I had already published two books on HIV/AIDS –Heresy and Prophecy & Cross-Cultural Issues in AIDS. These books looked at the pandemic from a Christian perspective. So also, the TV documentary on AIDS I produced –The Third Epidemic-You have a Choice. The signal note of its script was drawn from Deuteronomy 30:19: ‘choose life’ Two purposes underlay these efforts. (a) To demonstrate the relevance of biblical spirituality to contemporary life and (b) to project a positive Christian image in national consciousness.
The second strategy was to produce Christian literature specific to the needs of the community itself. So, I worked on interpreting the teachings of Jesus Christ, with special emphasis on intuiting the depth of His wisdom and its contemporary application. In 1993 I started a monthly publication called the Christian Mind Series (CMS, for short). A booklet was published every month. Each issue addressed one theme in depth. The goal was to popularise a culture of thinking biblically on contemporary issues. The first unit was on Mother Teresa, in response to the BBC Channel 4 documentary titled, Hell’s Angel, based on a script by Christopher Hitchens. This publication ran uninterrupted for the next 13 years. It was discontinued when I became principal of St Stephen’s College in May 2007.
Where do I peg yourself as a Christian author? What style, what substance, shall I share? Most importantly, with what sense of purpose shall I fashion the material? If I am slightly ahead of the pack, I lose them. If with the pack, I lose my vocation to quicken the community. Should I run, only to stay stationary?
Repetition is universally held to be insufferable. Why? Because repetition is mechanical. It doesn’t stimulate growth or enlightenment. Yet, in Christian networks, one is required to be, mostly, repetitive and simplistic. On many occasions I have been told by those who suffered my sermons, ‘It’s a pity you didn’t proclaim that Jesus is the Saviour of the world. I’d ask them, ‘Don’t you know He is?’ The response would be either silence or the remonstrative, ‘But, still….’
The biblical idea of reality, of truth, has a triangular structure. You, God and the unknown are its three corners. Biblically, therefore, it is impossible to be committed to truth without the spirit of seeking. Seeking is the only way to relate to the unknown. Jesus urged His disciples to seek (Mt.7:7). He came to seek the lost (Lk.19:10). But why are we lost? Is it not because we have no room for the unknown. It is to the unknown that we, as nominal Christians, are lost. It is because we are lost thus, that we are cocksure of everything. Every establishment is built with bricks of certitude. All aberrations are committed in this cocksureness. It is impossible to be a seeker and a killer at the same time.
Christian humility is rooted in the ‘unknown’ of reality. God is the Supreme Unknown. ‘God’s ways are mysterious,’ says the Bible. If so, only two possibilities exist. Either God is related to in meekness (Mt.5:5), or God is excluded from the systems we create, as the Laodiceans did (Rev.3:20). When we shut the door on God, we open a thousand doors to hypocrisy.
The plight of a Christian author is not unlike that of a prophet. The need for prophecy arises because people sway from their spiritual calling and go after strange gods, including money and sex. This very degeneration makes them intolerant of prophets, who are ridiculed, cast out, or stoned to death. But the more we attack prophets the more we prove we need them. A Christian author, likewise, is challenged by the all-round mediocrity of the community. He bestirs himself to address the famine thereof. What happens? He faces a famine of responses. The popular option is to anaesthetize hearers with entertainment and false hopes. That way, much is cooked and served. But the famine continues to worsen.
Hungry rats chew even human toes. They act desperately, when they are unable to survive normally and naturally. The thing to do is not to attack, or defend, aberrations; but to nourish the community spiritually and intellectually. Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones can become a mighty army! That’s the good news. To Jesus, excellence is the hallmark of spirituality. More than ever before, there is a need today to produce and popularize spiritual literature of the sort from which people of all persuasions can benefit. We are called to be, after all, the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

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