The world is in dire need of the essential Gospel of Jesus and Mary

Jose T. Thomas

You speak of “Christian Brahmanism” in your book. Does it mean Christianity became a dominating Caste in the world?
Not Christianity, but the Christian priestocracy. Since the 1960s, neatly worded Conciliar and Post-Conciliar documents make the Church the People of God. Simple paper work. All through the Ages, ‘Church’ stands for the collegium of bishops, priests and deacons – simply the hierarchy. Even now, when Vatican or local Synods, and for that matter, even the parochial vicar in the last kilometres exhort to ‘think/believe with the Church’ or to ‘act with the Church’ it simply means to fall in line with that collegium, that priestocracy, that Christian thrivarna – the hierarchy.
This is the Christian Brahmanism. The nuns and the laity are Sudras. And non-believers the untouchables. The only difference with the Indian varna system is that in Christian varna system, Vysya mercantile functions are distributed uniformly among the castes of bishops, priests, deacons and nuns.
It’s interesting to extend this varna model in the inter-denominational space, or what you call the ecumenical space. The sub-castes of universal Christian Brahmins are the different episcopacies of the Churches. Similarly, world Christian Kshatriyas are split into the presbyteriums of different Churches. These Brahmins and Kshatriyas succeed in perpetuating sub-caste divisions and hegemonies among the universal Christian Sudras in the name of liturgy, theology (especially scriptural theology) and tax-collection. Before all the global Brahminisms wither away in due course of human cultural evolution, what we see today is that, differences in details apart, every national or international religion is trying to ape the dominant Christian Brahminism.

The “Eucharistic Jesus” was made a king, the rod of the shepherd was converted to the sceptre; why do you think this happened in History? “How do you explain John 6:15? “They were about to come and make Him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by Himself”
Two years after an online draft of my book was published and two months after its revised and enlarged second edition was printed, the results of the seven-year Westar Institute ‘Christianity Seminar’ (an offshoot of famous Jesus Seminar of the 1980s and 90s) conducted by intergenerational and multidisciplinary scholars came to be published. It’s titled “After Jesus, Before Christianity” (2021, HarverOne). It beautifully and with, what you may call, academic rigour unveiled the diverse ways and manners in which the Jesus followers of the first two (or two and a half) centuries lived. They were not backward extrapolations. Those scholars found out what is left behind marking the multiple eucharistic Jesus Movements before the patriarchal, hegemonical and theology-loaded Christian enterprise, of which my humble editorial research could arrive at only very naively, intuitively and using subjective Bayesian probability (And the word ‘eucharistic’ used by me here is not in the strict sense of sacramental theology, but in the non-dualist communional sense of I-in-You-and-You-in-Me. It prompted many reviewers to see the importance of this book in its synthesis of the life and message of Jesus and Mary with Advaita).
It’s enough to say the rod of the shepherd was converted to the sceptre by Constantine and Eusebius fixing a patibulum towards the top of the rod making Cross the Sceptre, in which sign you shall conquer the world! The greatest human ever born who never tried to become a priest or king in the Melchizedekian or Davidic line is tactfully anointed (christened) in that line! Then and there began Christianity, the product of male priestocracy.

Your book speaks of the Catholic Church in India accepting a foreign Christ. Vatican II speaks of inculturation and Cardinal Parecattil and Fr. Amalore moved in such a direction. Do you think such attempts must move forward and why?
All the Churches in India, from Catholic to Evangelical, from Orthodox to Pentecostal, from Anglican to Salvation Army, are proclaiming a European Christ. Christ with the cross of Constantine and Eusebius. There is no need of inculturing Jesus in India. He and his good news are incultured and amply marked in the people’s life of Greater India ever since the time of SidhaThoma, whom many call Saint Thomas. Doing research with Western methodologies and looking for Episcopal Thomas lineage and remains of Chaldean Taxa won’t trace the spreading of the real good news of ‘God is unconditional love’ i e. AnpeShivam.
When both ecclesial and secular pundits were unaware of such legacy, what at most could be attainable was the inculturation highlighted by Father Amalore’s NBCLC in the national level and Cardinal Parecattil with the silent support of almost all other local bishops in Malabar. But when the baptism certificate holders of the three Individual Catholic Churches in at least a single village cannot come together for a simple prayer meeting, liturgical unity as envisaged by the Church-in-India seminars of the 1960s is unimaginable especially when the Canon Law provides no space for inter-Individual-Church liturgy. If ever the striving of the 1960s and early 70s comes to the logical conclusion, it could be a great Indian model for the global Catholic Church – even making room for the necessary changes to renew the Church as a true communion of Churches.
Anyway, now that I have, for my conviction and satisfaction, found Jesus the Non-Christian, I don’t have much interest in such projects which fall short of following Jesus of history. Even then, I dare to predict that after the jubilation of the present Indian Political Christianity fade away by the turn of this decade, Churches in India can be here only by looking back to Parecattil and Amalorbavadas.

Miguel de Unamuno said that Catholics believe in “quarternity and not in trinity”- Father, Son, Holy Spirit and ‘Mother of God’-Mary. What do you think? St Augustine has called God Father and Mother- Pater et mater, are you saying the same or more or different?
If I am right, Unamuno said it as a criticism of Catholicism. What I observed is that the absence of such a quaternity is a weakness of Catholicism. I don’t think an iota of Saint Augustine’s Pater et Mater is imbibed by any of the Catholic liturgies – Eastern or Western. What the official theologians do is just quoting some phrasal suggestions from the Old Testament. Even Ruha di kudistha is mentioned only for academic purposes. No paradigmatic shift has hitherto happened in catechesis, homilies, dogmatic constitutions and for that matter, the liturgical texts. Clergy and bishops have many other serious things to handle!
In fact, towards the end of the book, I was bluntly saying that Trinity as an all-men club cannot rule the world in the new epoch of Girl Child and equal human dignity. Truly, truly, Mary has to be discovered anew. The book sees Pope John Paul II calling Mary, the Woman of Eucharist and hopes that Pope Francis’ insistence on Theology of Woman will be a great leap towards a new Catholic understanding of feminity though many male Chaldean theologians are scary of the word ‘gender’ and the papal theme ‘Theology of Woman’.

Your book speaks of the Gospel of Thomas as giving the “original Jesus”. And consider the canonical Gospels ideologically constructed. What made you think so? Have any idea as to the author of the “Gospel of Thomas”? What is the notion of woman in that Gospel? “For every female who makes herself male will enter the domain of Heaven.” says Jesus of this Gospel.
What I tried to say is that I have such a reading experience that I can say early sayings gospels including the hypothetical ‘Q’ and the actual Gospel According to Thomas are far ahead in time and purity than all the canonical Gospels and hence they can help us much in the search for the most probable (and hence authentic) wordings of the parables and conversations of Jesus of history. I see ideological overtones in every theology, and it has become common knowledge that gospels are theological narratives and metanarratives.
How much we know about the author of the Thomas Gospel is equivalent to what we know with regard to the authorship of canonical Gospels. But internal evidence shows that the author/s and redactors are well exposed to the non-dualist (Advaita) wisdom of Greater India. I don’t have to struggle much to find that the last saying in the Thomas Gospel (verse114.iii) quoted here is not anti-feminist, comparing the immense struggle I have gone through in my school days after reading Mark 7:27. Many are unable or made unable to conceive a laughing Jesus. That’s one of the problems. Defenders of the canon search for difficult verses or the so-called Gnostic interpolations in Thomas and foo-fooing the eastern (most probably an Indian one in its bottom layer?) Gospel. Anyway, it is devoid of the European Christ. Jesus of Thomas says: “I am the light that is over all. I am the All. The All came forth out of me. And to me, All has come. Split a piece of wood – I am there. Lift the stone, and you will find me there”. Pure Advaita. A European or Europeanized Christian has to bathe twice to grasp this. Behold, they are bathing in the Gospel According to John, which swallowed a lot from Thomas just to discredit him as the Doubting Disciple. A retro reflection of the present War of Thrones everywhere in the Christendom.

Your book speaks of “De-construction, reconstruction and inculturated translation”; are you attempting an incuturated translation of Jesus teaching?
The technical terms may sound high. As I explained earlier, I was trying to go as near as possible to Jesus of history by searching for his most probable sayings. The hypothetical ‘Q’ Gospel (Appendix iv) contained in canonical Luke and Matthew and the non-canonical Thomas (Appendix viii) quenched my thirst. Grouping together the almost concordant verses in them, I arrived at one of the most probable oral Jesus Gospels (Appendix vii) with less than 70 verses. It confirmed my intuitive knowledge of what constituted the sum and substance of the universal wisdom of historical Jesu – What Is Supreme Is Unconditional Love. What/whom you call God (Shivam) is anpu. God is love and Satan is fear. Or love is God and fear is Satan. Love is the only virtue and fear is the only sin. Jesus removed/defeated sin/Satan by being unconditional love/fullness of humanity in word and deed — in the fullness of his life.
In that sense, he is Saviour/Redeemer/Liberator. (Behold THE Human. Every one of us is called to be saviour/ redeemer/ liberator for the other). The gospel of Jesus is complete here. But if you start theologize, legalize, ritualize it with Greco-Latin philosophy, jurisprudence and art it begins to be something else. And that’s what happened in history.
Something more. Jesus was full love. Who told you Mary was not?

You have an ardent believer in the “empathetic and merciful love” which you think is the gist of the Gospel of Jesus? How important is your finding in society divided by caste, religion and communities?
I find that the world is in dire need of the “essential” Gospel of Jesus and Mary more than Jesus-Christian Gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John, Systematic and Scholastic Theology, ritualistic sacramentalism and anti-people clericalism. And the happiest thing is that the new generations, barring caste/denominational and religious considerations, are ready to live that Gospel. It’s the elders who are to be changed. Otherwise, their legacy will end with them. No hell, but no remembrance either.

For you everything in the plurality is microcosm; it explains the world for which there is science and technology, religion and art. Are they related? German philosopher Heidegger says “science does not think” How do you think of religion and art in the context of technology?
When religions are depoliticized, what little remains is the interiority, the inner voice and insight. They are always in wedlock with art.