An image of the cover of theologian Felix Wilfred‘s new book, For a Socially Engaged Faith, is seen among other books. (Photo: UCA News)
Dec 13 2023
The Church needs to develop new ways of theologizing to make faith socially relevant in Asia, where socio-political understanding of faith and society has changed in the past few decades, says Asia’s leading Catholic theologian Felix Wilfred in his new book.
Asians in general are witnessing a decline in democratic principles amid a surge of populism and authoritarian tendencies with a departure from the noble ideals in politics and economics, Wilfred says in his book “For a Socially Engaged Faith” published in early December.
Digital technology and networking have resulted in an “administered world” that diminishes human agency, which makes human actions susceptible to predictable algorithms. This undermines the uniqueness of human expression, says the 75-year-old theologian.
The Churches also need to develop effective theology to become relevant in the face of fast-deteriorating values such as human rights and democracy, he adds.
The 512-page book published by the New Delhi-based Indian Society for Promotion of Christian Knowledge is divided into 14 chapters.
Human rights have evolved to include “cultural, minority, and gender rights” and are also “inextricably bound up with the protection of the environment.” Human rights also today include the rights of the disabled, prisoners, refugees, and such people.
“Religious nationalism challenges the social involvement of Christians and other minority religions”
“Religions could play a creative and constructive role in the evolution of these rights to become more and more inclusive,” the book says.
Socially conscious Christians are urging the Church to attend to current pressing issues such as migration and land alienation of tribal people, trafficking of women and children, and exploitation of vulnerable people such as farmers, fisher people, and the socially poor lower caste and tribal peoples.
Besides, religious nationalism challenges the social involvement of Christians and other minority religions, which are seen as a direct challenge to the state’s authority.
The Western education and medicinal system that missionaries brought to Asia, particularly South Asia, helped introduce modernity. But over the years, it has triggered resistance from certain sections of the state following apprehensions of conversion, and they initiated their own social service programs.
For long the Churches in Asia viewed social service as a way of asserting its Asian identity but it needs re-evaluation in the changed scenario, he said.
Christians suffer for their faith in Asia and it is easy to interpret their suffering and death as persecution and martyrdom. However, Christians need to free themselves from the “martyrdom complex” and understand that evangelization is an “unswerving commitment to the poor and a readiness to bear all the consequences” of it.
The theologian, based in the southern Indian city of Chennai, specifically focuses on the socio-political challenges of the Church in South Asia, and the need to deliver “the liberating message” of Christ to the socially oppressed and women, and also to the poor in the fast urbanizing and digitizing areas of the region.
“Democracy in India is much more than freedom of thought, expression, and right to participate in an election”
The book dedicates a chapter to discuss the liberation of women through an inter-textual reading of Biblical narratives and Abhijana Shakuthlam, the Indian classical play by Kalidasa. Both the Biblical tradition and the play “challenge us to direct our attention” to the modern women, who are marginalized, abused and exploited, he argues.
As he examines the issues of democratization in the Church, the theologian asks: “To what extent has the Catholic Church in India become a participatory and democratic Church?”
Democracy in India is much more than freedom of thought, expression, and right to participate in an election but “it is much more complex, involving the caste structure in Indian society.”
As Indian democracy cannot be analyzed without understanding “its interplay with caste,” the “same is true of democracy and democratization in the Catholic Church,” he asserts.
Wilfred argues that the Synodal Church, which Pope Francis stresses, is an essential path and “a grand scale vision” for the Church to become relevant as it crosses a millennial threshold.
Synodality is a process of making the Church an “inverted pyramid” and it aims to rehabilitate “the people of God” in the Church.
“It is a wake-up call to the leaders of the Church in India” and other places to live “in communion” with other Churches “and increase co-responsibility at all levels,” the theologian says.
In order to create a more democratic, responsible, inclusive Church, Asian theological efforts need to show “more and more an integral understanding of mission and salvation” and reorient toward a “public theology.”
The theologian argues for developing “a public theology” stressing its interdisciplinary dependence and “the spirit of Asian theology.”
The last two chapters of the 14-chapter book discuss the need for a post-COVID-19 theology. The book shows how the pandemic exposed divisions in the world based on race, caste, gender and religion.
“Deep religious prejudice and stereotyping led even to segregation of Muslim, Dalit, and tribal patients in hospitals,” he noted.
“The pandemic has challenged us to develop a theology of the body for our times. Reflections on human vulnerability should start from the body,” Wilfred has said in the book. – UCA News
