Was Jesus the founder of Christianity?

Most Christians will respond emphatically that Jesus is the founder of Christianity just like Mohammed is the founder of Islam. Was he?

The following is, in brief, the view of James Tabor: [emphasis mine]

James Tabor

“Jesus, as we know, was the son of Mary, a young woman who became pregnant before her marriage to a man named Joseph.  The gospels tell us that Jesus had four brothers and two sisters, all of whom probably had a different father from him.  He joined a messianic movement begun by his relative John the Baptizer, whom he regarded as his teacher and as a great prophet.  John and Jesus together filled the roles of the Two Messiahs who were expected at the time, John as a priestly descendant of Aaron and Jesus as a royal descendant of David. Together they preached the coming of the Kingdom of God.  Theirs was an apocalyptic movement that expected God to establish his kingdom on earth, as described by the prophets.  The two messiahs lived in a time of turmoil as the historical land of Israel was dominated by the powerful Roman Empire.  Fierce Jewish rebellions against Rome occurred during Jesus's lifetime.

John and Jesus preached adherence to the Torah, or the Jewish Law.  But their mission was changed dramatically when John was arrested and then killed.  After a period of uncertainty, Jesus began preaching anew in Galilee and challenged the Roman authorities and their Jewish collaborators in Jerusalem.  He appointed a Council of Twelve to rule over the twelve tribes of Israel, among whom he included his four brothers.  After he was crucified by the Romans, his brother James – the “Beloved Disciple” – took over leadership of the Jesus Dynasty. 

James, like John and Jesus before him, saw himself as a faithful Jew.  None of them believed that their movement was a new religion.  It was Paul who transformed Jesus and his message through his ministry to the gentiles, breaking with James and the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, preaching a message based on his own revelations that would become Christianity.  Jesus became a figure whose humanity was obscured; John became merely a forerunner of Jesus; and James and the others were all but forgotten.”

Who is this Paul Tabor is referring to?

               

Reactivating my blog

Ever since Alex Kaniamparambil, my countryman and good friend, now living in the U.K., stopped publishing his e-magazine “Snehasandesham” to which I used to contribute regularly, I have become intellectually lazy. I have stopped putting pen to paper, an activity that gave both exercise and pleasure to my depleting brain cells.

Well, I want to restart writing. What to write about is not an issue, since the choice is limitless; what to choose to write about is more vexing. I have started re-reading some books and often I am left with a different perspective than what I originally held.

During the past Easter Week, I re-read parts of two books that I hold in high esteem as far as depth of research and strength of evidence are concerned. They are:

1.            The Jesus Dynasty [The Hidden History of Jesus, His Royal Family, and the Birth of Christianity] by James D. Tabor and

2.            Jesus Who? [Myth vs. Reality in the Search for the Historical Jesus] by Dr. James Gardner.

Please note that the three of us share the same first name ‘James’, although that’s where the commonality ends!

For quite some time I have been pondering the question: Who is the founder of Christianity as a religion?

What do you think?

FLOGGING AN (ALMOST) DEAD HORSE

The Chief Editor of Sneha Sandesham is a diehard Knaist. This word does not exist; I just made it up. It has a nice ring to (it as it can be bracketed with such sophisticated words as Marxist, Capitalist, and Existentialist. I suppose we can define Knaist as someone who believes in the myths and traditions of the members of the Knanaya community. However, like the typical Kerala Marxist who in public embraces socialism but in private is a hard-line capitalist, one may be a staunch Knaist, but may have children who are only fractionally Knas since they married outside the community. We cannot blame the diehard Knaist for the ‘betrayal’ of their children.

Like all senior citizens, I do tend to wander off as I muse. It could be due to the fast depletion in brain cells as one ages. At times, I go back to Africa; at other times, I like to dabble in philosophical or educational issues. Whenever this happens, our Chief Editor, being a diehard Knaist, gently prods me back to the straight but narrow path of Knaism. Our last telephone conversation went something like this:

Chief Editor (CE): Your article on Patrick Mphephu, the black Venda king, was OK. But remember, Sneha Sandesham is a publication mainly aimed at the Knanaya community. So, Maani, see if you can discuss some Knanaya issues that can help improve the lot of our Knanaya brothers and sisters.

Maani (M): Alright. If you recall, I have mused on a number of issues pertaining to our community: the practice of endogamy, alcoholism among our members, scandalous extravagance in our marriage celebrations and perunnals, weak leadership on the side of the hierarchy, sycophantic attitude of the little lambs, feudalistic practices still prevalent among the clergy, little or no effort to look at the problems of the aged left to their own devices for survival by their non-resident children, family problems among NRIs, defence of the indefensible in the Abhaya case, etc. To keep raking up these issues repeatedly is like “flogging a dead horse”.

CE: Ha! Ha! Ha! (Peals of laughter heard on the other side of the line for a minute). Maani, I really like the expression. But I don’t think the ‘horse’ is dead; I can see some faint movement. Maybe, you should change the expression to “flogging an almost dead horse”.

M: True. In the last issue of Sneha Sandesham there was the article written anonymously by some disgruntled youth about neglect of the Malabar region by the Knanaya leadership. Going by the large number of.......... (dashes), referring I presume to rogue priests, it appeared to me to be more about the immorality among the Knanaya clergy. By ‘immorality’ I don’t mean only sexual as we, the little lambs, have been repeatedly told; it includes all the cardinal sins, starting with avarice and greed.

CE: There certainly is life in the ‘horse.’ Recently there was the shameful news of a Knanaya priest who was about to be arrested and put in jail in US for paedophilia.

M: I too heard about it. When I talked to a relative who was on a short visit home from US, he told me that the man received some inside info and left in a huff. And you know what? He is not an ordinary priest; he is a Monsignor!

CE: Well, well, well. Monsignors are a breed apart. Haven’t you heard of another Monsignor in the US who is keeping ready a bishop’s red skullcap, staff and his very own mitre with the image of Knai Thoma painted on it hoping to be made the bishop of the Knanaya diocese of USA in the near future? The man seems to be stooping to such low levels to achieve his aim that he has become an embarrassment to the Knanaya community there.

M: BTW, have you seen the email in an American Knanaya Google group wherein an appeal has been made to the Knanaya makkal in the medical profession, particularly to those in the field of psychology/psychiatry for help in treating this Monsignor to get rid of his delusions?

CE: I have. The flavour of the season among Knanaya priests in America seems to be buying/building churches.

M: This must be a big money making scam by priests. As you rightly stated in your open letter to Rev. Mutholam, the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ was delivered from a mountain top, not a gilded church pulpit. Do you know that the ‘beatitudes’ were not addressed to the world at large, but to the Qumran community who called themselves ‘poor’. It does not make sense for Jesus to ‘bless the poor in spirit,’ meaning spiritually poor, since they could not have inherited the kingdom of heaven. The inheritors were people ‘rich’ in spirit. The Sermon on the Mount is not a collection of ‘blessings,’ as taught by the Catholic Church; they should rather be viewed as a series of recruiting slogans to sign up to the Essene Sect to which, it appears, Jesus belonged.

CE: So dear Maani, we should all try to make a collective effort to get the ‘horse’ to its feet. At the moment it is full of sores lying on its stinking dung.

M: Few will contest that Knanaya belief in the ‘purity of blood’ is a myth. Can you imagine a situation wherein for more than sixteen centuries no adulteration took place? But then, one can use this myth as a unifying force. There are millions around the world who still believe in the literal creation of the universe in 7 days. My complaint is that we don’t have strong leaders either among the clergy or laity with a vision to take us forward.

CE: True. Most of the recent economic prosperity of our community members is not because of but in spite of the so called Knanaya leadership. It is the result of individual and family sacrifices. Once signs of economic success appear, the powers that be fly down with their begging mitres in the name of building churches, ‘education fund,’ and so on.

M: The current Knanaya Catholic Congress President is planning a whirlwind tour of US (I am reminded of Sancho Panza, Don Quixote’s squire) to mobilise funds for ‘endogamic’ business ventures. Following on the success of the Malabar migration, it is proposed that we encourage our people to migrate to African and South American countries where large tracts of land are available for agriculture. I am thinking of going to South America. It would be great fun to laze around on the Copacabana beaches and watch salsa dancing in the nightclubs and take part in the Brazil carnivals. Want to join?

CE: Why don’t you go first and scout the place for me. In the meantime, let me go back to flogging the dead ‘horse’.

M: The almost dead ‘horse’.

CE: Can I expect something on Knanaya issues soon?

M: Will try and get back at the earliest.

CE: Bye for now.

M: Bye and take care.

THE KING AND I

 

My daily exercise regimen consists of a couple of hours of brisk walk in the evenings. Most days I walk alone along the rural by-lanes of semi-urban Adichira, near Kottayam. This is also the time for reflection and reminiscence. Often I ruminate on my time and life in Africa.

I left for Zambia with my family in 1979. As the Zambian economy went from bad to worse, my wife and I managed to get jobs in South Africa and moved there in 1984. We were both posted to Dimani Secondary School in Thohoyandou, the capital of the ‘Republic of Venda’.

A brief outline of South African history might be useful to a better understanding of what follows. Before the arrival of white man, Africans lived in tribal groups under different kings. In Southern Africa there lived tribes such as Zulu, Venda, Khosa, Shangaan, Kwa Ndebele etc. Each major tribe was ruled by a king with the help of chiefs who lorded over the clans under them. Fights and wars were common between tribes. The conquering tribe would kill all the men and take away the women and children and make them wives and slaves.

Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini kaBhekuzulu

In 1652, Jan Van Riebeeck, an employ of Dutch East India Company, came to Cape Town and established a settlement there. On realising that the country was good for farming, more people migrated from Europe. In the course of the next 200 years the whites managed to grab the more fertile lands of the region using their monopoly of guns and exploiting the jealousy and rivalry among tribal kings.

With the country under their control, the white rulers brought in the idea of ‘separate development’ known as apartheid. The local blacks were forcefully herded, according to tribal affiliation, into large tribal enclaves called homelands that were arid and fit only for cattle farming. Later, some of these homelands were declared ‘independent countries’ and others ‘self-governing territories’. Thus, there came into existence four ‘independent’ countries, Venda, Ciskei, Transkei and Bophuthatswana, all recognised as ‘Republics’ by South Africa and Rhodesia (current Zimbabwe), but none else in the rest of the world. All these ‘countries’ had their own Presidents, ministers, parliaments, passports, postal stamps etc.

Venda snake dance

The President of the ‘Republic of Venda’ was Patrick Ramaano Mphephu, formerly the king and Paramount Chief (Chief of chiefs) of the Venda tribe. His official residence, the parliament, and the various ministries were all a stone throw away from where we lived in Thohoyandou. However, he normally stayed in a large housing complex about 30km away in Makhado which was the capital of his original ‘kingdom’.

President Patrick Ramaano Mphephu of Venda

A few houses further down the road, there lived an eccentric old man, Mr Maniatshe, with whom I became quite friendly. A very intelligent man, he was a friend of the President. His small yard was full of banana plants. From morning till night he would be transplanting banana saplings into any space available. So much so, his yard looked like a banana forest! Six months after I started living there, Maniatshe came to my house early one morning. He told me that the tradition of the tribe dictated that all new comers to the area should visit the President (in effect their king) with some suitable gifts. This had two purposes: one, to pay your respects and acknowledge him as your king and two, to request his protection.

Maniatshe managed to get an appointment for us with the king. So, early one morning, I packed my family into our brand new Toyota Corolla and took Maniatshe along to show us the way. In the boot I loaded a crate of 24 ‘Long Toms’, Mphephu’s favourite brand of beer. Maniatshe brought along a dozen or so banana saplings from his garden. The road in those days was full of boulders, the size of my head, and my heart sank as I drove over the 30 km stretch of gravel road to the President’s residential complex. It consisted of a large number of rondavals (round huts) where servants, dependents, relatives and wives of the president (there were 29 at that time) lived. According to Maniatshe, every night the President would go round the complex with a big cane. If he heard couples quarrelling he would just enter and physically beat the husband and wife with his big cane until they promised to behave.

Rondavals

The President received us in his simply furnished drawing room. He sat behind a plain wooden table on an equally plain wooden chair. After the preliminary greetings, the two old men started talking in the local language. Then the President turned to us and asked about our well-being, whether we were happy here etc. He was delighted with our gifts. After an hour of talk, I expressed my desire to leave since I had noticed a large crowd waiting outside to see the President. He asked us to spend more time with him, since ‘these people are all here to trouble me with their silly problems’. He told his senior wife Doris to bring some tea for us. After spending another hour with him, we took leave. Before we left, the President gave me his personal telephone number and told me to call him directly if anybody ever troubled us. Maniatshe later told me as we drove back that the news about our visit would be all over the small country within the next 48 hours and no one would dare touch us – if one even tried, he would be found dead at the bottom of the nearby ravine! No questions asked!

As we came out of his room, I saw the ministers of Education and Internal Affairs outside patiently waiting their turn. Tradition dictated that people entered his room on their knees and when coming out they walked backwards, since no one was to show his or her backside to him.

My daughter had during the past 6 months become conversant in the local language, Tshivenda. She later summarised for me what the President told Maniatshe. He had told him that he was so happy that this ‘Indian family’ had been the first to come and see him to pay their respects and to ask for his protection.

Mphephu’s death was tragic. He was poisoned by one of his close confidants. Though rushed to Pretoria for treatment, Patrick Ramaano Mphephu, the President-for-life of Venda, died on April 17, 1988 at the relatively young age of 63.

There was a public funeral service attended by all the dignitaries and most of the people of the tiny country. The actual burial was done secretly, attended by a handful of his closest. It is customary for the Venda people to bury their dead with blankets, rice and other necessities so as not to suffer cold and hunger in the next life. Rumour that went around at that time spoke of an additional custom in the case of the king: a man had to be buried alive with him to be his servant in the next life; hence the secrecy.

May the two rest in peace!!

[Published in the July 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

 

KNANAYA INTELLIGENTSIA

 

Recently, the conversation during the weekend ‘happy hour’ (the hour that I spend on Saturday evenings with close friends discussing sundry issues over a couple of drinks) turned to the intellectuals of the Knanaya community.

Happy hour

None of us know for certain the real intentions of Kinayi Thoma in undertaking the long and hazardous journey to Kerala. If he had come purely for trading purposes, he would not bring along women and children on that dangerous trip. They were probably running away from some unpleasant or dangerous situation. These days there is a twist to the ‘trading’ tale: they came to evangelize the Kerala heathens with trade on the side for sustenance.

The level of intelligence required for evangelization is minimal. All that is needed is to memorize parts of the bible and speak fluently and convincingly in a loud voice. Sprinkle in a few threats of the hellish fire and brimstone and the everlasting joys of heaven. As far as trade in those days was concerned, it required a different set of skills, though nothing fancy. You buy cardamom at Re 2/ton and sell it at Re 3/-

Knanaya farmer in the 50’s

In the 1950’s when I was growing up, most members of the Knanaya community eked out a living from agriculture, something that did not require great intelligence. The recent spurt in income thanks to the Knanaya youth taking up professions in nursing, information technology and business administration does not seem to have brought about a corresponding rise in the intellectual levels of its members.

That probably could be the reason one of my drinking buddies during that ‘happy hour’ made the rather startling statement: “Knanaya intelligentsia is an oxymoron”.

An oxymoron is a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous and seemingly self-contradictory effect. E.g. extremely average, objective opinion, original copy.

Here is the first stanza of a poem I found on the internet, in which every line is an example of an oxymoron:

One fine day in the middle of the night,

Two dead boys got up to fight,

Back to back they faced each other,

Drew their swords and shot each other.

The rest of the group, all Knas, arrogantly assuming to be part of the intelligentsia, became very emotional and strongly objected to that statement. We told him in no uncertain terms that there exists in the Knanaya community an elite group of intellectuals. He told us to mull over the issue once the whisky fumes have evaporated from our heads.

Next morning as I nursed my hangover with a cup of strong black coffee, my mind went back to the previous evening’s discussion. Knanaya intellectual: is there a contradiction in terms? Who are the inventors, the creators, the thinkers, the artists, the writers of the community? Where are our Aristotles, the Ciceros, the Augustines, and the Einsteins? Do we have any media that encourage critical and creative thinking?

When I lived and worked in South Africa, the non-African foreign teachers would constantly refer to African children as ‘brain dead’, ‘stupid’ and ‘good-for-nothing’. As I studied the history of their colonization and delved deeper into their backgrounds, I realized that children of all races and castes are similar in intellectual capacities. It is the way humans are nurtured that determines what they become in life. South African blacks were repeatedly told by their white masters that they have been created as inferior humans by God Himself (some bible passages would be quoted out of context to this effect), that they have no aptitude for Math and Science and that they are fit only to ‘heave wood and draw water’. Through repetition and indoctrination, the African totally internalized this idea and behaved accordingly.

A similar situation is happening to the Knanaya community. From 1911, for one hundred years, its spiritual leadership has been indoctrinating its members and turning them into meek robotic lambs. The irrational fear of God and of hell and of eternal damnation is the tool used for this purpose. Any criticism of the clergy ipso facto rains down God’s curses by the bucket-load. Selective examples of accidental misfortunes befalling individuals are highlighted to demonstrate God’s anger for pointing out the wrong doings of priests and bishops.

The feudalistic set up from which the hierarchy refuses to budge has also helped. Knowledge is power, so keep the lambs in ignorance. So much so, this subservient and slavish mentality has become part of the Knanaya genes and seems to be passed down from generation to generation.

A former Knanaya Catholic Youth League president recently stated in an interview that he is not prepared to publish anything against the community, even though it may be true! This is the type of slavish leadership that is proactively promoted by the hierarchy and its sycophantic lay leadership.

The only official publication of the community is nothing but an avenue for singing the praises of the hierarchy, the clergy and their hangers on. In this less than mediocre publication there are negative comments aplenty about the government but not a word of self-criticism. It seems obsessed primarily with the twin issues of ‘drinking’ and ‘minority rights’.

This is in contrast to the rest of the country, where media is playing a great role as watch dogs and keepers of the society’s conscience. It enlightens the common man of his rights, helps widens his knowledge horizons, and exposes the corruption and mismanagement in society.

Omar Khayyam

The current prosperity of the community is leading its members to a hedonist lifestyle. As Omar Khayyam said, most of our brethren live for the moment.

O cleric, we are more active than you,
even so drunk, we are more attentive than you,
You drink the blood of men, we drink the blood of grapes [wine],
Be fair, which one of us is more bloodthirsty?

Drunkenness has become a cancer. The community is shrinking with many youngsters expelled for marrying outside the community. Time is not far off when this community is going to implode. Visionaries are lacking in the current leadership which is unable to see beyond the dollar notes dangling in front of its nose.

The need of the hour is for a few good members with vision, dedication and love for the community to come together to give the community intellectual leadership. It must help rediscover the humanizing vocation of the intellectual. It must use the power of thought to free the members from their irrational fears and to resolve the dichotomy between the spiritual dictatorship and the oppression of the little lambs. In this way it can lead the members in their attempts at regaining their lost humanity.

The only way to resolve this dichotomy is through education. Education can create awareness leading to praxis – reflection followed by action. Media in all its forms – print and electronic, audio and visual – is a powerful tool in this educative process. It becomes incumbent on the capable members of the community to take the initiate to develop a critical media that helps liberate the little lambs from the mental slavery that it is in now. The alternative is their continued meaningless, drink-induced existence, leading to the community’s disintegration and to its ultimate demise.

And of course ‘Knanaya Intelligentsia” will continue to remain an oxymoron.

[Published in the November issue of Snehasandesham]

 

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND ITS SHEEP

 

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  - George Orwell

 

There is a reason for Catholics all over the world to be referred to as sheep. In the context of his times, Jesus began to be referred to as the Shepherd and his followers sheep or little lambs. He himself used the simile of the shepherd and his flock in his talks to the uneducated Jewish masses to make them understand Yahweh's love for His Chosen People. Times have changed; still the terminology continues to be in use. The reason these days seems quite different: it is the continued sheepish behaviour exhibited by the majority of Catholics.

A few weeks back, a ‘sheepish’ incident took place in my neighbourhood. My neighbour had tied a goat to a stake in an empty plot next door. Its little lamb was left loose to roam free. Somehow, the mother goat got untangled, and seeing the grass greener on the other side, climbed on to the wall and jumped into the next yard. Unfortunately, it landed in a well close to the wall, and its kid, with its sheepish brain, jumped right after its mother as well. The deathly bleating caught the neighbours'’ attention and both were pulled out to safety.

I must confess that till recently I too was one of the sheep. In fact, the years I spent as a seminarian made me one par excellence. It takes years of self-debriefing to change that mind-set. After retiring, with time becoming a luxury, I began to read up on the history of the Catholic Church – from its birth after the death of Jesus to its current state. It came as a big shock, brought up as I was on a diet of absolutely certain ‘dogmatic beliefs’, to learn: that the present Church was founded not by Jesus, but by St. Paul; that the original Church led by James, the real brother of Jesus (not cousin as claimed by Catholic Church to defend Mary’s virginity) died a natural death after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A D; that there are three gods in One and one God in three; that Jesus’ virgin birth, his Resurrection, his Ascension, Mary’s physical Assumption, wine and bread turning into human blood and flesh and a host of such physical impossibilities are all copied from ancient myths, rituals and practices; that the Catholic Church is a big multinational establishment sailing on feudalistic lines in a sea of democratic practices. What baffled me was the ability of this Church to fool so many people for so long and still continue to do so!

As I delved deeper into the subject, I realised that the sheepish ‘blindly-follow-the-leader’ attitude of the vast majority of Catholics has been intentionally developed and purposefully instilled using a number of tactics. Fear stands out: fear of God’s anger, fear of priestly ‘curses’, fear of the unknowability of life after death, fear of the everlasting tortures of hell. Another useful technique is to present to the faithful myths and lies as truths. Repeat a lie million times and it becomes an eternal truth. The mother of all investment frauds is perpetuated by the Catholic Church: become its member, choose pain over pleasure and you will enjoy everlasting happiness after you die in a fantasy place called paradise.

A third technique is based on the dictum ‘knowledge is power’; if you keep the lambs in ignorance, you can keep them under control. One of the means used to oppose Luther, Calvin & Co was book censorship. In 1559 Pope Paul IV issued the first list of forbidden books, the Index Expurgatorius which included works by the humanist Erasmus, scientists Copernicus and Galileo as well as the Qur'an. In 1571 a Congregation of the Index was established to control and update the list. Canon Law now required the imprimatur (let it be published) and nihil obstat (nothing prohibited) to be printed on books allowed to be read by Catholics. This practice is still prevalent.

Galileo explains his discoveries to the Pope.

In 1521, William Tyndale, a brilliant protestant priest and linguist who could speak eight languages fluently, began translating the Bible into English. However, the Vatican did not want a wide readership of the New Testament. Access to the bible was reserved for the clergy, who could then interpret its message to suit the interests of Rome. In such circumstances, the translation of the Bible into English would be dangerous. Tyndale became a marked man; he was caught, tried as a heretic and garrotted by King Henry VIII at the behest of Rome.

A far more vicious and psychologically harmful technique used by the Church since its infant days to keep the little lambs under control has been to link ‘sex’ with ‘guilt’. Saul of Tarsus and Augustine of Hippo have been the two main proponents in the development and spread of this technique.

Based on the philosophy of Plato, Saul (canonized as St. Paul by voice vote) built his theology around an essentially dualistic view of the cosmos in which the earthly was denigrated in favour of the heavenly. Those who denied the body and lived a celibate life, placing emphasis on the higher spiritual things ‘above’, were viewed as holy and free from the taint of the lower material world ‘below’ (asceticism). He advocated celibacy as a higher spiritual way, though he did not absolutely forbid sex. According to Paul, marriage was an antidote for the spiritually weak who might be tempted toward sexual immorality.

Paul’s ideas were taken up by Augustine (354-430) of Hippo. In his youth he had led a life of debauchery. After his conversion to Christianity in 386, he developed a deep loathing and distrust of sex. His experience of sex was confined to illicit loves which left in his conscience a strong sense of guilt and misery. Extrapolating, he concluded that all sex, even in marriage, is wicked and sinful. He came to believe that God had condemned humankind to eternal damnation because of Adam’s ‘original sin’. This ‘inherited sin’ was passed down through ‘concupiscence’, the desire to take pleasure in sex rather than in God. Because we are born as sexual beings, we are sinners who deserve to burn in hell, and if we want to go to heaven, we must have sex only for procreation - and even then, God forbid, we should enjoy it. The man should embrace his wife as though she were a statue and the woman should recite: “I am not doing it for my pleasure but to give God a son.”

All this led to the elevation of virginity to the highest level of spirituality. For him the ideal marriage would be between two virgins. The institution of marriage was downgraded, since virginity was the ideal. This mode of thinking led him to conclude that the minister at the altar should also be celibate.

Augustine’s teachings were held as the basis of sexual morality for the next 1600 years. It is only recently that some form of recognition has been accorded to marriage as a loving union of two individuals. To the old genital approach to sexuality, the Catholic Church has added elements of mutual love and mutual aid; still the primary end of marriage is procreation.

There you have it. If you are nonsexual, you are spiritual!!! The consequences of this anti-natural mode of thinking, not found in the teachings of Jesus, but borrowed from Greek Philosophers, had wide ranging and dire consequences for the lives of Christians for centuries and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. In the name of God, the belief that sex is dirty has perpetrated rampant cruelty, bigotry, and timidity; it has created religious sexual abuse in homes and in churches; it has generated intense shame about our bodies and desires; and it has fuelled the belief that parts of our bodies are dirty, fostering hatred of and confusion about pleasure.

Monasteries and religious congregations were founded on the idea that virginity and chastity were most pleasing in the eyes of Jesus and God. Priests and nuns took the vow of chastity, having been brainwashed during years of formation that the chaste life is a short cut to heavenly bliss. The Catholic Church stands accused of the psychological damage suffered by many in religious life forced to live against nature and for the guilt complex created in the consciences of little lambs in obeying dogmas based on outmoded moral philosophies of ancient men who were products of completely different social systems.

[Published in the January 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]

                   @unknown

BRIDE OF CHRIST – PART 2

In part-1 I mused on the startling results of a survey conducted by the Catholic weekly Sathyadeepam among nuns. It revealed that behind the apparently happy exterior, there is a lot of discontentment floating around in convents. The root cause of this state of affairs can primarily be traced to the three vows of poverty, chastity and obedience that every nun professes. These vows are the pillars on which ascetic monasticism, the idea that full spirituality is best achieved by renouncing the world and its pleasures, is built. The vow of poverty compels the religious to detach herself from all material possessions; the vow of chastity forces her to kill off all the natural God-given physical urges that are part of His grand plan for the continuation of the human race; and the vow of obedience demands the individual to blindly subject herself to other people’s will turning her into part-zombie, part-robot.

Vow of obedience

The origin of ascetic monasticism goes back to the third and fourth centuries. There were many reasons for this idea to flourish at that time. Apostle Paul made Jesus a ‘salvation god’ on the lines of Osiris, the Egyptian god and believed in the fallen nature of man.

         Osiris

He turned Christianity into a ‘salvation religion’. Like Plato, whose ideas he freely borrowed, he also believed that every human was composed of an immortal soul imprisoned in a physical and mortal body. Salvation can only be achieved through a proactive suppression of the body for the sake of the soul.

            Augustine of Hippo

These ideas were supported and improved upon by Augustine of Hippo (354-430). In his effort to explain evil in this world, he invented ‘original sin’. The debauchery of his youth created such a guilty conscience in him that he declared sex the root of all evil. Only married couples should be allowed to engage in this ‘dirty act’. It should be done purely for procreation and not recreation. This mode of thought added to the prestige of chastity.

During its infancy, Christianity was unwilling to accept the practices of Rome. Many became martyrs for their faith. However, with the conversion of Emperor Constantine in 312 AD Christianity came into favour. The martyrdoms stopped. Christians had to invent new ways of suffering for the sake of salvation. Since the physical body was regarded as the root of all temptations, it had to be brought under control through voluntary physical deprivations and sufferings. The lack of opportunities for martyrdom and the need for controlling the physical urges of the body so as to save the soul led to the idea of monasticism. Hence the hair-shirts, the flagellations, the fasts, the bare-foot walking, the nightlong vigils and the blind obedience that was quite common in monasteries and convents until recently.

Self-flagellation

But times have changed. The last two centuries have seen a surge in secular thinking. Belief is giving way to reason. There is a realization that the promise of a heaven after death is the biggest investment fraud committed by two of the more popular religions: Christianity and Islam. At least, there are 72 virgins catering to the martyr in the Islamic paradise whereas the good Catholic can only expect to join a choir in heaven.

 

Angelic choir in heaven

It is against modern day thinking on human rights to make people enter into a contract to live a life of poverty, chastity and obedience till death. It reminds one of bonded labour that is still extant in certain parts of rural India. When a nun takes the vow of obedience she literally pawns her life to her superiors and to the Church hierarchy. The argument that she takes her vows only after she turns 18 is tenuous. It is well known that her indoctrination and spiritual hallucinations start much earlier, often as a preteen.

The vow of poverty is a double edged sword. One requirement prior to profession is the renunciation of all rights to inheritance. This is one of the reasons for relatives to encourage girls to become nuns. It saves the family the trouble of raising her dowry. Some senior nuns are of the opinion that poverty and the guarantee of a secure life are the motivating factors for many undeserving candidates now-a-days to enter the convent. Many among them turn out to be trouble makers.

The fact that the nun is forced to give away her rights to inheritance prior to her profession discourages any thought of leaving the convent. As an ex-nun, she has nothing in her name for survival. The perception that those who leave are perverts unable to control their sexual urges and/or rebellious brats is spread among the little lambs by convent authorities in connivance with the hierarchy. The unhappy nun is forced to continue in the convent against her will for fear of shame and unacceptability by her family and relatives. As per canon law 503 (a) those who leave the convent cannot claim anything for the services done there. Like used curry leaves, they are unceremoniously thrown out. With their prime past in most cases, marriage prospects are dim. Should one be surprised when reports of suicide in convents appear in the media? And are all deaths reported natural?

The vow of chastity goes against human nature itself. It is the cause of many of the problems the church finds itself in. “The devil never harmed the church so much as when the church herself adopted the vow of celibacy.” (Peter Comestor). The belief that when she becomes a nun, she also becomes the ‘bride of Christ’ is instilled in the young woman. Many in their teenage naivety take this twisted compensatory theology to heart and fantasize about their ‘first night’ with Jesus, as Sr. Jesme recalls in her autobiography Amen. The convent becomes the bridal chamber. After all, Jesus the groom is a handsome young man of thirty three, something that enhances the intensity of her fantasies. Some saints (e.g. Theresa of Avila) have taken this intense love for Jesus to the erotic level. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as ‘erotomanic delusion’, a disorder in which someone claims that a famous person is married to or is in love with her.

Theresa of Avila

Has anyone the right to deprive individual freedom in the name of obedience to ‘God’s will’ expressed through one’s superiors and the hierarchy? ‘God’s will’ is another fraudulent idea perpetuated on the little lambs to keep them in line. It has been observed that those engaging in continuous prayer, meditation and fasting in an effort to suppress their natural urges tend to develop neurotic problems. When such individuals are in charge, their administrative style often becomes neurotic as well and hence unbearable. However, under the vow of obedience, little can be done. Anyone who criticizes the rules and policies of convent authorities is accused of madness and confined to a mental asylum or they are ‘character-assassinated’. Surely, this is inhuman.

Mental asylum inmate

The empire building and the power seeking that the Catholic Church began after the conversion of Emperor Constantine continue today with much greater vigour than ever. These days it is run on the lines of a multi-national company. But unlike other multi-national companies, the Church, headed by a self-proclaimed infallible pope, continues to be feudal and dictatorial in its ways. A Global religious empire has been created. Religious congregations are part of the global religious colonization in the name of God. Its members, especially nuns, are forced to lifelong servitude bordering on bonded labour to maintain and support this establishment.

It is high time enlightened Catholics give a sympathetic hearing to the problems of our sisters and expose their exploitation in the name of religion/love of God/everlasting happiness in heaven/etc./etc.

[Published in the March 2011 issue of Snehasandesham]