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National church makes sense more here than in Christiandom 
By S Gurumurthy
The New Indian Express (Hyderabad) - October 28, 2000
http://www.hvk.org/

MOTHER Teresa’s successor, Sister Nirmala is a Christian evangelist. Sukumar Azhikode is an intellectual in Kerala. From Calcutta, Sister Nirmala says, ‘Religion cannot be nationalised.’ A week later, from Thrissur in Kerala, Sukumar Azhikode seems to more than agree with her. He says, ‘The concept, of national religion is utter nonsense’, asserting all religions are universal without any geographic boundaries.’

Sister Nirmala is an important spokesperson of Catholics in India. And Azhikode is an important intellectual of Kerala -- surprisingly though he chose to say what he said from a Christian platform, through his keynote speech on ‘The Universal Mission of Christ’. Their views deserve note, and comment.

Given the mind of the Church in India as largely a colonial bequest, Sister Nirmalas do not surprise. For them, the Church and Christianity are indivisible. As, to them, Christianity is global, the Church cannot be national, that is Indian, or Indianised.

But some Hindu intellectuals like Azhikode do surprise us, almost unfailingly. They repeatedly equate the Church as an institution with Christianity as a religion. And do so shockingly against the background of the entire tussle in Christian religious and political history. Which is all about how global Roman Catholic Church was resisted by different nations and cultures, by the Eastern Orthodoxy first, and then, by nation-state and national church movements all over Europe.

And invariably this resistance was not for religious autonomy, but for political sovereignty. Every nation, Protestant or Catholic, in the white West or in the black Africa, evolved its own national Church -- and some in fact their own brand of Christianity.

In his book Diplomacy, the US diplomat Henry Kissinger brilliantly traces how the idea of national interests perceived by Catholic -- but nationalist -- church leaders of Europe asserted over the Roman Church control. The earliest and the telling formulation of this approach, according to Kissinger, came from Catholic France, an early nation-state in Europe. He says, “The French rulers recognised that the progressive weakening of the Holy Roman Empire would enhance France’s security, and even enable it to expand.” The author of this French Policy, known as raison d’etat, was a Catholic, religious leader, a ‘prince of the Church, Cardinal de Richelieu, the first Minister of France’ from 1624 to 1642.

It was then that the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II was attempting to revive Catholic domination and stamp out Protestantism. This process, known as the Counter Reformation in Christian history, led to the ‘Third War’ between Catholics and Protestants. It destroyed a third of the population of areas, which became Germany later. Catholic France should have welcomed Ferdinand’s drive to restore Catholic Orthodoxy. But, Cardinal Richelieu, says Kissinger, “put the national interest above religious goals” of the Catholic Church, and fought the Catholic Roman Empire. He allied with the Protestant nations, even with the Islamic Ottoman, all in the singular interest of France. He also struck a deal with French Protestants. Later, Richelieu’s principle became the model for the whole of Europe as, Kissinger says, “the age of nation-state had arrived”.

Kissinger goes on to explain how had Ferdinand II won, the French national interest would have suffered, irretrievably. And how, in contrast to what the French did, the Habsburg dynasty put the Roman Catholic Church interest above national interest, and as a result, Germany was devastated as a nation and its unification delayed by two centuries. Kissinger says that because Habsburg Emperor had no idea of national interest, even after its unification, Germany had “so little experience with defining its national interests, that it produced many of this century’s worst tragedies”. The lesson is enlightened national interest makes a responsible nation and negating national interests leads to tragedies.

Thus emerged national churches in Europe. Whether it was to secure Royal divorce as Henry VII did, or to ensure national security as France did, or to secure freedom for politics as Italy did, the different national rulers defied the Roman church, and established national or nationalist churches. So there is today a national or nationalist Church for England, for France, for Italy, for Germany, for Greece, for Russia, for Denmark, for Holland, for Finland, for Sweden, and for even the African countries. In fact not only their own churches, many also have their own version of Christianity.

If national Church became a must -- even its identity -- for a Christian nation is it unnecessary for a ‘secular’ nation like ours to evolve its own national church? Is Indian Christianity less original than the Anglican, the Lutheran or the African? Should it remain only a carbon copy of the Western or the Roman? Or should it have its own identity? Failing to address these issues will be equally a national failure, not just Christian.

This is precisely what even some alert thinkers in India seem to miss out in their anxiety to establish their ‘secular’ identity. They do know that religion may be universal, but the church is not. They also know that most churches in the West, and in the East, carry national flags. And yet they speak as if Christianity and the church are one and the same. Secular identity does not mean merely agreeing with whatever a minority wants. Sometimes it may also mean disagreeing with them.

Leave national religion aside. The concept of national church certainly makes sense, more so here than in Christiandom where it exists.

 

 

 

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