National church makes sense more here than in Christiandom
By S Gurumurthy
The New Indian Express (Hyderabad) - October 28, 2000
http://www.hvk.org/
MOTHER Teresa’s successor, Sister Nirmala is a
Christian evangelist. Sukumar Azhikode is an intellectual in Kerala. From
Calcutta, Sister Nirmala says, ‘Religion cannot be nationalised.’ A week
later, from Thrissur in Kerala, Sukumar Azhikode seems to more than agree with
her. He says, ‘The concept, of national religion is utter nonsense’,
asserting all religions are universal without any geographic boundaries.’
Sister Nirmala is an important spokesperson of
Catholics in India. And Azhikode is an important intellectual of Kerala --
surprisingly though he chose to say what he said from a Christian platform,
through his keynote speech on ‘The Universal Mission of Christ’. Their
views deserve note, and comment.
Given the mind of the Church in India as largely a
colonial bequest, Sister Nirmalas do not surprise. For them, the Church and
Christianity are indivisible. As, to them, Christianity is global, the Church
cannot be national, that is Indian, or Indianised.
But some Hindu intellectuals like Azhikode do
surprise us, almost unfailingly. They repeatedly equate the Church as an
institution with Christianity as a religion. And do so shockingly against the
background of the entire tussle in Christian religious and political history.
Which is all about how global Roman Catholic Church was resisted by different
nations and cultures, by the Eastern Orthodoxy first, and then, by
nation-state and national church movements all over Europe.
And invariably this resistance was not for religious
autonomy, but for political sovereignty. Every nation, Protestant or Catholic,
in the white West or in the black Africa, evolved its own national Church --
and some in fact their own brand of Christianity.
In his book Diplomacy, the US diplomat Henry
Kissinger brilliantly traces how the idea of national interests perceived by
Catholic -- but nationalist -- church leaders of Europe asserted over the
Roman Church control. The earliest and the telling formulation of this
approach, according to Kissinger, came from Catholic France, an early
nation-state in Europe. He says, “The French rulers recognised that the
progressive weakening of the Holy Roman Empire would enhance France’s
security, and even enable it to expand.” The author of this French Policy,
known as raison d’etat, was a Catholic, religious leader, a ‘prince of the
Church, Cardinal de Richelieu, the first Minister of France’ from 1624 to
1642.
It was then that the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor
Ferdinand II was attempting to revive Catholic domination and stamp out
Protestantism. This process, known as the Counter Reformation in Christian
history, led to the ‘Third War’ between Catholics and Protestants. It
destroyed a third of the population of areas, which became Germany later.
Catholic France should have welcomed Ferdinand’s drive to restore Catholic
Orthodoxy. But, Cardinal Richelieu, says Kissinger, “put the national
interest above religious goals” of the Catholic Church, and fought the
Catholic Roman Empire. He allied with the Protestant nations, even with the
Islamic Ottoman, all in the singular interest of France. He also struck a deal
with French Protestants. Later, Richelieu’s principle became the model for
the whole of Europe as, Kissinger says, “the age of nation-state had
arrived”.
Kissinger goes on to explain how had Ferdinand II
won, the French national interest would have suffered, irretrievably. And how,
in contrast to what the French did, the Habsburg dynasty put the Roman
Catholic Church interest above national interest, and as a result, Germany was
devastated as a nation and its unification delayed by two centuries. Kissinger
says that because Habsburg Emperor had no idea of national interest, even
after its unification, Germany had “so little experience with defining its
national interests, that it produced many of this century’s worst
tragedies”. The lesson is enlightened national interest makes a responsible
nation and negating national interests leads to tragedies.
Thus emerged national churches in Europe. Whether it
was to secure Royal divorce as Henry VII did, or to ensure national security
as France did, or to secure freedom for politics as Italy did, the different
national rulers defied the Roman church, and established national or
nationalist churches. So there is today a national or nationalist Church for
England, for France, for Italy, for Germany, for Greece, for Russia, for
Denmark, for Holland, for Finland, for Sweden, and for even the African
countries. In fact not only their own churches, many also have their own
version of Christianity.
If national Church became a must -- even its identity
-- for a Christian nation is it unnecessary for a ‘secular’ nation like
ours to evolve its own national church? Is Indian Christianity less original
than the Anglican, the Lutheran or the African? Should it remain only a carbon
copy of the Western or the Roman? Or should it have its own identity? Failing
to address these issues will be equally a national failure, not just
Christian.
This is precisely what even some alert thinkers in
India seem to miss out in their anxiety to establish their ‘secular’
identity. They do know that religion may be universal, but the church is not.
They also know that most churches in the West, and in the East, carry national
flags. And yet they speak as if Christianity and the church are one and the
same. Secular identity does not mean merely agreeing with whatever a minority
wants. Sometimes it may also mean disagreeing with them.
Leave national religion aside. The concept of
national church certainly makes sense, more so here than in Christiandom where
it exists.
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