V Chakkariah's Theology
Calvin Institute of Theology
Paper Presentation
Topic: “V. Chakkarai’s Theology”
Subject: Introduction to Indian Theologies
Submitted to: Rev David Blessingston By:
Simeon F. Nei Zam, BD III, (23/01/2018)
Introduction:
Doing
Christian theologies is considerable an in-processing work. For it has been
developed from the several decades and till on-going according to the contexts
and in needed situations. Therefore, even in this paper will present the
theological works of V. Chakkarai, the Indian Christian Theologian, whose works
is diverted from the others Christians Theological works of Western in
terminology and methodologies and how it became for the new way to understand
Christianity in India.
1.
Biography:
Vengal
Chakkravarthy was born on 17th Jenuaty 1880 in Madras, as the son of
the Kesavea Chetty, the Vedantic and
Andal Ammal, the devotees of the Vaisnava
Bakti, who belong to the Cheetiar Caste, Hindu’s family in Tamil Nadu. He
received his early education in Scottish Mission School and then went to Madras
Christian College, where he was deeply influenced by William Miller. He taught
in high School in Madras for five years after graduating in Philosophy. He was
qualified as a Lawyer and practice la
from 1908 to 1913, but later worked with Danish Missionary Society in Madras
and work among educated Hindu.[1]
His conversion, he felt like “a young
man in the spring-time of life turning from the love of his mother to his first
love, the mother still remaining the mother along with the new position.” That
was the mystery of Jesus ‘Cross that led him to accept Jesus as Lord and
redeemer. He was baptised at the Madras Christian College Chapel in 1903 and
was admitted to the Free Church of Scotland.
In Politics: He
joined Home Rule movement in 1917a and in 1920 Gandhi’s Non-cooperation
Campaign. He became the Chairman of all-India Trade Union Congress in 1951.and
became the a member if the legislative Council in 1954. He was the Socialist
and after the Independence, cooperated with the communist Party of Tamil Nadu
in building a political opposition.[2]
2.
Contribution
to Indian Christian Theology:
There are some of his views have
expressed out as follow:
i.
Towards Indian interpretation of Christianity
(19232).
ii.
Jesus The Avatar ( 1027)
iii.
Cross and Indian thoughts ( 1032)
iv.
Rethinking Christianity in India (1938)
v.
He owned and edited the weekly paper Christian
Patriot and Harvest Field, the Missionary Intelligencer and the Guardian from 1917-1926.[3]
He
was the member of the rethinking Christianity movement. And he was one the
founders of the Christo Samaj, whose
member were nationalists-minded Christian Intellectuals. That is oppose the
imitation of the western Christianity in India and advocate Indenisation in
both outer and spirituality.[4]
3.
The
Personal Idea/Concept :
His
theology was influence of the principal William Miller who believes that the
Hinduism would find its fulfilment in Christ.[5]
Chakkarai made extensive use of the Hindu terminological in stating his faith
and formulating his theology. That is redefining the Christian Faith in Indian
term and relating it to the culture heritage of the country. His theology as
closed to the Kesbub Chandra Sen’s interpretation
of Satchhitananda. For him, ‘Sat’= the unity of the universal
spirit of beauty; ‘cit’ =love and ‘Ananda’ = truth.[6]
God: for him God is immanent. He further states that, we know God,
the unmanifest, only through the revelation in Jesus the Immanuel, God with us.
Therefore the knowledge of God the Father begin with the personal experience of
Jesus Christ the Incarnated of God.[7]
Jesus Christ: Jesus is the ‘Avatara’ (incarnate) of God. In him
is the real avarahana (descent) of God and as Avatar, He is the revealer of
God. His Christology is A Christology of Spirit. He lament on the modern
theology has over emphasis on reason and has reduce the historical Jesus to a
“mere dialectical and reformer, and an asserter of Messianic claims. He see
Christ as the immoral Christ as the universal spirit of Beauty, love and truth.[8]
He
sees Jesus Christ is as an exemplary of human, th model for being human. In
this, he used the concept of Hindu, which was found in the Vedic writings on
the mythological figure Purusha, who
is “ human being.” He used the Sanskrit
term for Jesus, as the Sat
Purusha ( the true human being). For
him, Jesus is; the Man of Man, the Son of Man, the original pattern in the mind
of God Himself after who all men (sic) have fashioned. Though Jesus is a human, he is sinless in the
sense that he is free from the taint of maya
because his self is ever burnt up in the sacrificial fire at the heart of
God and true human. Though Jesus the Avatar,
but unlike the temporary and repeated avatars
of Hindu, is permanent and dynamic because
once incarnated Jesus remains forever the God-man in human history as
Mediator of true spiritual communion between God and humanity (believers). The
life of Jesus and resurrecting is the clue to the metaphysic of God-world
relations.
Holy Spirit: he calls the Holy Spirit ‘ the Antaryamin,’ the internal
regulator. This term is relating
with the Atman of Brahman in the Upanishads.[9]
He understood that the Holy Spirit is
the risen Jesus Christ Himself or in
other word, the continuing part of
incarnation, that universalized and indwelling in the devotee as well as
working in all the history to establish the Kingdom of God. His emphasis on the
spiritual union the person of Jesus Christ.
His
formal conviction in his advocacy of spiritual bhakti union was not nor
relation to the external social-political realm, but the letter it express in
his political commitment to the service of the workers and outcastes. “Humiliation
and exaltation, the death and resurrection, the historical Jesus and the
spiritual Jesus constitute two sides of the one reality.”
Salvation: Chakkarai’s view
of salvation is based on the Cross and the Atoning work of Christ. On the one
hand, he also sees the death of Christ as the ‘ moral influence of the
life. However, on the other hand, through
the sakti of His redemptive suffering
eradicates the disease of sin and under the influence of Christ’s Sakti sinners
turns, his /her face to God as the lotus opens its petals to the rays of sun.
so the way of salvation lies in onion with Christ in Bhakti which involves the Cross and suffering.[10]
and work Jesus Christ are not
only to cover the whole range of individual life, the burden of sin and our
justification in the sight of God, but it involves the redemption of society
from the sins of the social order. For him, the social justice and solidarity
of individual with society is in the comprehensive view of the Kingdom of God.[11]
Church: he believe the
Church as the an organism constituted “not by mere cults but by communion with
the living Lord for social action.” For him the Church has to do more with the
lives of the community that with the institutional hierarchies and systems (
its traditional). He oppose the westernized, but like the Ashrams movements.
Authority: The scriptures
and the direct experience of union with Jesus Christ. And the Church traditions
in dogma, cults and polity were secondary.[12]
4.
Relevance
to Present Day Context:
Dwelling of Jesus
Christ in the Believers: this can be related with Indian Religious
experience concern the experience of divine in the depth of one’s own
existence.
The Holy Spirit, the Antaryamin, the internal regular: he
related this working of Brahman, the Supreme Reality, in human life, which was
fond in Upanishad.
The salvation of
individual and society from social sin: This phrase is very related in
today’s doing theologies, viz. reaching the realm or reign of God in individual
life and in society.
5.
Further
Development or Challenge with Regard to the Particular Idea of the Theologian:
Jesus
was known as the egoless person in history. But in this, Orevillo-Montenegro
was disturbed by his theory. So this was one thing can be the danger of
glossing over the historical particularity of Jesus in Christologizing in the
Indian Context. Because caste system, class, gender inequality, ecological
Crisis etc.[13]
moreover in his views of the Holy Spirit, ( the risen Christ), antaryanmin. His Equate Holy Spirit to
Jesus Christ might against to the traditional theological understanding. [14]
For
further development and challenges for today Church from, in the particular on, his understanding
of the Church that it is not a merely cult or establishing itself as
ecclesiastical, but to be as the living Lord for social actions- in this, the
Indian Churches must look upon herself that how far she bears her ministries
towards the societies.
Conclusion:
V.
Chakkarai is one of the Indian
theologian, who had contributed much more the understanding of Christianity in
Indian Term and methods. His works and thoughts are valid and vivid till today for theological Studying
in India.
Bibliography
Boyd, Robin. An Introduction to Indian Theology. New Delhi: ISPCK, 2009.Conclusion:
Chacko, Laji. Introduction to Christian Theologies in
India. Kolkata: SCEPTRE.2014.
George, Samuel. Christology. Kolkata: SCEPTRE, 2013.
Thomas, M.M and P.T. Thomas, Towards an Indian Christian Theology: Life and
Thought of some Pioneers. Tiruvalla: C.S.S., 1998.
[2]
M.M Thomas and P.T. Thomas, Towards an Indian Christian Theology: Life and
thought of some pioneers (Tiruvalla: C.S.S., 1998),138
[4]
M.M Thomas and P.T. Thomas, Towards an Indian Christian Theology: Life and
thought of some pioneers, p., 138
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