The Lord Jesus Christ is the
truth; these verses say so, “So the word
of God became a human being and lived among us. We saw his splendour (the
splendour as of a father’s only son), full
of grace and truth…For while the Law was given by Moses, love and truth came through Jesus Christ”
(John 1:14-17, PHILLIPS, Emphasis Mine).
Because Christ is truth, HE lived
the truth. Because Christ is truth, the radical Christian should live the
truth. This is Christlikeness, and this is the truth.
Living in the truth demands
living against lies. Christ opposed lies through HIS words and deeds. Christ
did not tolerate business in the temple; HE threw the businessmen out. Christ
did not tolerate the Pharisees, Scribes and Teachers of the Law; HE condemned
them. Christ lived the truth by confronting and condemning evil.
One such evil / lie is in ‘groupism’
that manifests through undesirable and unjustifiable caste and clan hierarchies.
The Evil of Casteism
Any social system that glorifies
some and ruins others is evil. Caste system deems some as superior, others as
average and yet others as despicable.
At some point in time Christians
embraced Casteism. As a result, there is the unwritten but highly prevalent upper
and lower caste Christians! This
inequality is offensive to God and man.
God did not create people as unequals
- superior and inferior. God created mankind as equals; the only distinction HE
built into mankind is the gender - male and female.
If you walk into some churches in
India, you will observe casteism in its glorious evil splendor. People
belonging to a specific caste will occupy all-powerful positions. To be
politically correct, they may donate meaningless or subordinate roles to other castes.
In some instances, they are so full of themselves that they totally disregard
people of other castes.
Casteism manifests defiantly and
differently as well. This is a matrimonial advertisement by a Christian in “The
Hindu,” dated 20-Jan-2014:
“CSI NADAR 26/174 B.E., MBA (IIM, Ahmedabad) working in MNC seeks
suitable employed B.E./M.E. Nadar
girl, aged below 24 years…THE HINDU,Madurai-625020. (Published on Jan 19, 2014)”
‘CSI’ refers to Church of South
India, ‘Nadar’ is a caste, and ‘IIM’ is Indian Institute of Management – a premier
academic institution in India. Here is a well educated Christian boy and his
parents desiring only a girl from the same caste. Why?
I do not see any valid reason for
this demand. The only reason I see is that the parents and the boy have not understood
the Bible. Hence this caste cruelty will proceed for generations in this household
until they see the light of Christ’s gospel in their life.
Is inequality correct? It’s not even
correct from an irreligious vantage point. Is inequality biblically correct? No!
The Bible does not support evil practices that destroy man’s inherent worth.
The Bible urges everyone to serve
each other. The Bible encourages us to descend into greatness; never to ascend
to greatness (Luke 18: 14).
Casteism is a lie. People are not
born superior or inferior. All men and women are made in the image of God.
There is another form of casteism
in churches.
I was once visiting a very small church.
During communion, the pastor announced that only those who have been baptized by
that church can partake in the Lord’s table. Since I was the only non-member of
that church in attendance that day, I was sure that the pastor’s announcement
was intended at me.
For the sake of peace during that
worship service I considered it unwise to violate pastor’s mandate. Respecting
the church’s policy, I didn’t partake in the Lord’s table. However, I did not agree
with the Pastor’s mandate. It was absurd. The bible does not make those demands
on communion.
Christians should not be a part
of caste based groups be it in church, social media, public or private. Christians
cannot subscribe to casteism in any form or size.
The Evil of Clannishness
Inequality manifests in other
ways as well. Consider clannishness, and more specifically language based
clannishness.
There is nothing wrong in a
church that worships God in a specific language. Of course, churches
worshipping in a specific language will attract people speaking that language.
This is acceptable. There is nothing wrong in gravitating towards our friends
and neighbors speaking the same language.
But some Christians are so caught
up into language based clannishness that we go to the extent of disrespecting
or antagonizing Christians speaking other languages. Clannishness raises its
ugly hood when we focus and support only those speaking our language to the point
of disregarding or eliminating the ‘others’ from our group(s).
A Church of South India diocese
that I shall leave unnamed has its Bishop-elect waiting to assume his office since
a good number of pastors are protesting his election. Why? The Bishop-elect
originally belongs to a neighboring state (speaking a different language)!
What’s wrong if a pastor (from a
neighboring state) gets elected as a bishop of a diocese (of another state)
that he has been serving? Why should the local pastors protest this man’s
election? Should the bishop be elected on the basis of his language / state or
because of his anointing (cf. Acts 6: 3)?
There should not be any language
based clannishness in the Church of Jesus Christ. There cannot be conflicts between
language groups in the Church. This is an abomination.
Isn’t this an evil instance of
clannishness politics? Would Christ affirm clannishness? No!
To conclude, Christ came for all men, not just
the Jews or for a specific people group. HE came to save all men.
When we overtly or covertly subscribe
to casteism or clannishness of any form, we are not living a Christlike life.
To be radical as the Lord is to love all our neighbors equally - without
partiality - just as we love ourselves and just as Christ loved us. Amen.
