Indian Christianity And Its Public Role - Socio-Theological Explorations

It is time Indian Christianity reflected deeply upon its place in the Indian public, grew in its publicness, and got involved heart and soul in the processes of the public sphere. Needless to say that Indian Christianity has been existing, in some form or other, as part of the Indian public. However, the context is different today, and it calls for an informed and deeply reflective awareness of its identity, role, relationality with the state and different religious others, presence in public and civil spheres, etc. By way of contributing to such reflection, this volume brings together some essays that explore Indian Christianity's relationship to the Indian public from socio- theological perspectives. The essays take the reader through a journey of getting to know some salient features and concerns of Indian Christianity, and then lead to a public theological rendezvous with relevance, methods, and themes of public theology. The volume would make a good introductory reading for students of Indian Christianity, sociology of religion, public religion, and public theology in the Indian context.

Dr. Gnana Patrick heads the Department of Christian Studies, and serves as the Chairperson of the School of Philosophy and Religious Thought at the University of Madras. Along with Prof. Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza, he edited a volume titled, Negotiating Borders: Theological Explorations in the Global Era, and has authored Wings of Faith: Towards Public Theologies in the Indian Context. He was awarded the Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship and taught a course on Public Religion at Harvard University, USA.

Indian Christianity is facing up to a new phase in its bi-millennial existence. It is a phase wherein it increasingly becomes self- conscious, aware of its identity and role, and gets involved or participates in 'public' concerns or roles. It is a phase distinct and different from earlier ones, whether pre-colonial or colonial eras, when Indian Christianity was less self-conscious of its identity but more spontaneous in involvements. Today not merely its minority status in terms of numbers, but also its religio-cultural practices and social involvements are being problematized, called into question, and debated in the public.

It is necessary that Indian Christianity grows in its publicness in a healthy way. Growing in publicness would imply that Indian Christianity takes effort to become aware of its place in the Indian public, and be involved heart and soul in the processes of the Indian public. The term 'public', in a fundamental sense, would connote, as Hannah Arendt suggests, 'being seen and heard' by different others across space and time. Though it sounds something very ordinary, the normativity involved in this experience is radical, because it would mean not 'extending a privateness' into a public, in the name of being public; it would rather be a radical virtue analogical to 'sitting around a table, not falling over others, and maintaining one's distinct identity and location. The table which separates different others but yet brings them into communicative relationship is perhaps a potent symbol of the public. Such a deep sense of being public is carried further into specific connotations, when it relates itself to such emergent categories called 'public religion', 'religion in the public sphere', 'public theology', and the like. The term is present in these phrases with its rich and varied connotations: first of all, it relates itself to the political process, in a very broad sense, i.e., partaking of the process of decision-making for common good or public life; secondly, it stands for certain discursivity / communicative action, found in the relatively independent space between family, economic systems, and states (and some scholars distinguish it from the sphere of civil society as well); thirdly, though it differentiates itself from family, economy and state, it debates or reasons about them, by way of contributing to creation of public opinion to eventually and effectively impact upon the political praxis; and there are many other context-dependent connotations too. As ours is a participatory world in which increasing quantum of people participate in various spheres of life be it science, technology, medicine, culture, education, religion, etc., they participate immensely in politics too, the sphere of decision-making for public life or common good. And therefore it is but a relevant concern to see that Indian Christians too participate in public life creatively, meaningfully and liberatively.

Experience of religion in our contemporary world is unique in many ways. One among them is unmistakably the way it is being experienced in the public realm. By 'public realm', I mean the spaces addressed as state, political society, public sphere, and civil society. Presence of religion in these spaces has become consequential in terms not merely of external political processes, but also of values and visions, moods and motivations, etc., experienced by individuals internally. Whether a state establishes or disestablishes religion, whether and how religious issues or identities are being debated in the institutions of political society, whether public reasoning includes elements of religion, and, whether and how religion become part and parcel of voluntary initiatives are consequential for the governance both of polities and of individual selves today. Our contemporary religious experience has, thus, become one of public religion!

One of the known scholars to reflect about 'public religion" is Jose Casanova, a contemporary sociologist of religion. Based on experiences from countries of the Middle East and Eastern Europe, he argued in a publication titled Public Religion in the Modern World (1994) that religion went public in the modern context, falsifying the so-called thesis of secularization and privatization. Later on in 2012, he argued that 'religion going public' was an experience not only of the West, but of the East as well. He cited instances of public religion from different continents, including India, showing how religion became part and parcel of the discursive public, generating public opinion. He spoke of different spaces of the political process - state, political society, and civil society, and of their respective public spheres and public religions: state in its bureaucracy, political society in its legislatures and political parties, and civil society in its institutions between state, family and market, have their public religions. This manner of disaggregating public spheres and public religions is a meaningful way of understanding the phenomenon. We find other scholars of religion too understanding public religion in a similar fashion. For example, in the Indian context, Rajeev Bhargava adopts an approach wherein he speaks about the relationship of religion to politics in terms of ends, institutions and personnel, and law and public policy. Placing it within the framework of political secularism', parallel to John Rawls' 'political liberalism,' Bhargava would defend that a secular polity can be in a healthy relationship with civil society (the level of law and public policy), while making a separation at the level of ends (nature of the state) and institutions personnel (bureaucracy).