AS I See It

TWO DEMOCRACIES – A STUDY IN CONTRAST

A distinct feature of our current national outlook is a wilful reluctance to see the most obvious. This is illiteracy of a different sort: the illiteracy that prevents you from reading the writings on the wall. Like Pecksniff, the most hypocritical character Charles Dickens ever created (The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit), we look […]

CAN WORSHIP BE BELIEVER-CENTRIC?

The strange thing about religion is this. Human beings are God’s uncompromising priority. But they are not so in organized religion. Presumably, God is. But, going by biblical spirituality, the hallmark of God-centeredness’ is human-centredness. The concern I am raising here is not a new one. Two thousand years ago Jesus said:“Man is not made […]

THE KERNEL OF CHRISTMAS; ESPECIALLY FOR OUR TIMES

Christmas is nothing, if not the embryo of a new beginning. Therefore the contrariness evident in the Christmas event. Human beings have been, at all times, ambivalent about new beginnings. We long for new beginnings. We also feel unwilling, even unable, to let go on the status quo. Hence we live the ambiguity that Tolstoy […]

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ASCETIC IDEAL

Life demands discipline. The essence of discipline, understood in the genius of biblical spirituality, is ‘positive,’ not ‘negative.’ In being disciplined, the significant thing is not that one says ‘no’ to certain things; like meat, fish or milk, say, during the season of Lent. It is saying ‘yes’ to life and, as Jesus said, ‘life […]

JESUS CHRIST AND THE CONGRESS PARTY

A Bit of Blasphemy for Our Times In the days that I was into quasi-political activism, I used to get angry letters from my well-meaning fellow Christians. The over-all sense of their indignation may be summarized as follows. ‘You are a priest. Why are you dabbling IN politics? You had better sit in a corner, […]

WEEP, OH WEEP; YE CHILDREN OF DEVELOPMENT

It is not a bad thing, now and then, to descend from the heights and to reckon day-to-day realities. We live, after all, on the ground, not among pink clouds or astral bodies. We need to do this all the more today, as everything is being done to render citizens deaf and blind to their […]

FRIENDS, CHRISTIANS, COUNTRY MEN, LEND ME YOUR EARS!

I believe that the Christian community in India, as also Christendom globally, is inching towards an unprecedented crisis. It has already reached a stage in which it is utter folly to pretend that we can go on with business as usual. Here I am not referring primarily to the scandals that have burst into public […]

THANK GOD, THE SHOW GOES ON…

The Indian economy, says Subramanian Swamy, who deems himself the only thoroughbred economist in India, is in a tail spin. (He chased Raghuram Rajan, the former Governor of the RBI, out of the country to ensure that his claim to this distinction remains undoubted). According to him, we are not into economic recession. We are […]

Eviction-facing Indian Catholics to fight Muslim charity’s claims

Goans oppose tourism project near 16th century basilica