| Dominic
Moghal Introduction First of all I would like to thank Rt. Rev. Erik Norman Senendsen and Rev. Jonna Dalsgaard for the invitation and the opportunity to share my experiences about how we are trying to build God's Kingdom in Pakistani society through the work of the Christian Study Centre in Rawalpindi. As I go ahead to share my experiences it is important to describe what we mean by building God's Kingdom on earth. For this reason I will refer to the Holy Scriptures and share with you three passages which will help you to know about our understanding and reflection of the Kingdom of God. Let me start with the Book of Isaiah: ... The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. (Isaiah 2:3-4)
From the New Testament we derive our understanding of the Kingdom from the Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles: The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. (Luke 4:18-19)
The third passage is from Acts: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Act 2:42-47)
In the light of the above mentioned passages understanding of the Kingdom of God is, a society based on love and care, a society where all human beings have opportunities to live a fully human life. Where there are differences between human beings on the basis of caste, creed, colour, gender, ethnicity, language etc., where people live in freedom and have solidarity. A society which protects the basic rights of the weak and minorities. A society where the people are good stewards towards the natural resources and everyone has enough to eat. A society where there is no war and everyone lives in peace. In summary form I will say, the Kingdom of God is Kingdom of truth, justice freedom, love and peace. Some of you may question why I am emphasizing the particular understanding of God's Kingdom which is so ver action oriented and has a worldly dimension while I am ignoring the spiritual dimension of the Kingdom of God in heaven. Frankly speaking I think both these dimensions are understandings are inter-linked as St. Mathew pointed of for us when he says, Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat ...'. Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat...' (Mt. 25: 34-46) After describing the concept of the Kingdom of God we now come to the Pakistani society and see what are our strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats, as we work for the realization of God's Kingdom in Pakistan. The context of Pakistan Pakistan is a pre-dominant Islamic country with a population of 136 million people. According to Pakistan's Year-Book Christians are 3% of the population. A similar number of other religious minorities like Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhist and Bahai's also live in the Pakistan. Politically Pakistan is an Islamic democratic State unfortunately since 53 years of its existence we have experienced democracy nor Islam in Pakistan. Most of the time in our history we have been ruled by authoritarian military regimes and have had to face the wrath of extremist fanatic religious fundamentalists who have forced discriminatory and draconian laws like Blasphemy Law and separate electorate for its religious minorities. Although the constitution of the country allows all the citizens to confer, practice and propagate their respected beliefs and everyone is equal before the law but contrary to the constitution there is a religious apartheid in the country. Muslims are preferred over non-Muslims and the laws of the land discriminate against non-Muslims in all spheres of life. In the recent "Devolution Plans" which is meant to share power with the masses, a Muslim has been given the right to exercise 5 votes whereas non-Muslims only one. This kind of religious apartheid is found no where else in the world except Pakistan. Socially and culturally Pakistan is a feudalistic society and is governed by feudalistic norms and rituals. Through cultural traditions it is inculcated in the psyche of the people that few are born to rule and the rest to be ruled. The old Hindu caste system is still very much present and in-spite of the fact that Islam claims to be an egalitarian religion and the religion of 97% of the total population of Pakistan, system is very much practiced among the people of Pakistan. The worst part is that this caste system is taking the shape of class system. Further more Pakistani society remains a male dominant society and participation of women outside the four walls of the house is sistematically denied. In the public sphere religion and cuIture both play an important role in the lack of participation and under development of women. Pakistani society is overwhelmed with the network of relationships sere sometimes relationships are more important than religion. I often say, we Pakistanis are not human beings in fact we are related beings. We give so much importance to relationships that it is almost our obligation to take care of our relatives even if it is illegal to do so. Terminology like nepotism thus become positive terms when one carries out ones social responsibility. We are people of traditions and lost often than not we are strongly allergic to change. The economic status of Pakistani society can be best summarized by UNDP's Report: There are 55 million people in Pakistan who do not have the facilities of health, sanitation and safe drinking water; one hundred million do of have an access to sewerage; 37 million live below the poverty line; 44 million are illiterate among whom 2/3 are women and 12 million children under five are malnourished. This situation shows that the Kingdom values we saw in the Scriptures do not reflect Pakistani society. In fact the existing values are contrary to Kingdom values. In theological language we can say that there is social sin prevalent in our society. There is another side of our challenge which we can term as personal sin. The fear of death, irresponsible attitude toward other human beings, attitude of selfishness, greed and ghetto mentality of the majority of the people make things more difficult for the realization of Kingdom values. And thus inculcating love for God against fear of death, taking responsibility for others, wing our fellow human beings as ourselves, sharing our sources with others, openness and pluralism become real challenges for our mission and ministry in Pakistan. In this kind of situation one is then confronted with the question, What keeps one going?' In my opinion biggest resource is our faith in God Almighty and Christ, the love we share with him and the hope that the Holy Spirit inculcates in us when we see a few signs Kingdom of God appearing out of the blue. We always come across a few very positive stories of joyful co-existence where people express and manifest these values. But most important for us is the desire of the people to change their present environment and live a dignified life as human beings. The Christians in Pakistan Though Christians are spread all over the country, ethnically about 98% of Christians from all over Pakistan are Punjabis; approximately 60% of whom live in the villages of the Punjab province. The rest are Goans, Anglo-Indians and people of other Indian origins. There are also a few tribal Hindus of the lower castes who have recently converted to Christianity, coming from the Katchi, Parkarl Kholis and Marwaries tribes in interior Sindh. Most of the Christians in the Punjab were converted from the lower-caste Hindu background amongst the "Untouchable" classes more commonly known as chooras (this is also true in the case of the majority of Muslims in Punjab, who came from the lower-caste Hindu background). These people before they were converted were poor, illiterate, exploited and were kept out of the political-economic order of the day, and their lot, though better today, does not reflect any major progress in-spite of some hundred plus years of consistent missionary aid and development. As far as Christian denominations are concerned the Roman Catholics constitute about 55%, and the rest are divided among different Protestant denominations. Among Protestants the Church of Pakistan (a United comprising of the old Anglicans, American Methodists, Scottish Presbyterians and Scandinavian Lutherans constitutes the largest group, followed closely by the American Presbyterians, and the rest are from different Evangelical Churches constituting a very small percentage. The Christian Study Center and its ministry Within the above-mentioned context the Christian Study Centre tries to carry out its ministry for the realization of God's Kingdom in Pakistan. The focus of our work has four foci,1 • To assist the Christian Church in Pakistan in its attempt at getting a better understanding of its historical background and its existence as a part of the universal Church and of its particular calling in an Islamic state. It also focuses on the process of Islamization taking place in Pakistan and its impact on the position of women and minorities in Pakistan. • To undertake and encourage theological, academic, and people oriented research into, and the study of Islam, and the necessary Christian-Muslim relationship. • To develop participatory studies and research which will encourage dialogue, foster mutual understanding and promote cooperation in all essential spheres of life in Pakistan. • To stimulate evaluation, participation, study and research of the Christian involvement in various spheres of nation building in Pakistan. With this purpose and mission the Centre not only works towards the development of local theology, which is contextually sound and emancipatory in focus, but also reaches out to the broader society. For the latter, it maintains constant contact (dialogue) with Muslim of Islam scholars of Islam as well as other social scientists and with people working in various organizations focussing on social change. All this is reflected in the Christian Study Centre's quarterly journal Al-Mushir. Carrying out dialogue of any sort in a society which sees itself as ideologically and religiously monolithic and homogenous is a completely different process from that undertaken by those who practice and theorize on "dialogue" from within societies which are fundamentally committed to a belief in plurality of existence and heterogeneity in these areas of human concerns. This is a challenge which the Centre experiences in fulfilling its vocation of dialogue and participation in various groups concerned with social change, as well as in its writings and reflections. We keep our focus on our overwhelmingly Islamic context and its singular approach to social, political, economic and cultural structures. Simultaneously we are faced with the reality of the lack or an institution Christian community where serious, critical, creative and methodologically contextual theology is generated. Within the Christian community our main aim is the development of the community as a full, participatory and transformative part of society by means of education and consciousness raising. The Centre's three approches of dialogue At present the Centre is using three approaches of dialogue i.e., Dialogue of Mind, Dialogue of Life and Dialogue of Hearts. Dialogue of Mind By dialogue of mind we mean reflecting on our religious resources like scriptures and tradition, and creating a critical consciousness among the people so that they develop a theology that helps people to build the Kingdom of God. We analyze societal and cultural structures and judge them in the light of Kingdom values and see how we can change oppressive and dehumanizing structures of our society. Dialogue of Life In order to provide concrete footing to our effort, in the process of dialogue of minds, we then proceed further to carry out dialogue of life. Here we work with groups and organizations, which are working on concrete development projects to improve the quality of life, the social and economic status of the people. Therefore, we have a great and strong network and relationships with numerous non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that work in areas of human rights, women's rights, minority issues, political education, environmental issues, labour issues and the like. We strongly feel that until and unless we do not participate actively in issues of life which concern people of all faith our concept and understanding of building the Kingdom of God will be extremely limited and will only remain a concept! However, here I would like to mention the formulation of COSAP (Christian Organizations for Social Action in Pakistan) of which the Study Centre is a founding member and which came in being in June 2000. COSAP is particularly geared for greater integration of the religious minorities into mainstream politics. It is trying to achieve this by working for the restoration of joint elections in the country. COSAP members feel that the Kingdom of God can be built only when all, and at all levels, people participate with dignity and responsibility for the greater good and greater peace of all. Dialogue of Hearts The process of dialogue of hearts is a struggle development of a religiosity and spirituality concretizes our above mentioned experiences and see these processes as a concrete spiritual activity where people of different faiths and traditions see development and progress of people as a very spiritual act. They begin to respect the values and beliefs of other groups and communities mainly achieved through our Interfaith Harmony Project. The goals, objectives and activities of the 'Social Harmony Project' i.e., our Interfaith Harmony Project is to promote shared vision of justice, peace and religious tolerance among different religious faiths at the grassroots level through the facilitation of interfaith dialogue collaboration with the participation of grassroots from different religious, local NGOs (non-governamental organizations) and CB0s (community based organizations) in order to plan strategies for the promotion of religious harmony. The project further aims to promote in harmony and tolerance in order to combat religious bigotry by training grassroots leaders in their communities and support local NGOs by promoting skills to work in the local setting in the Northern, Central and Southern region of the Punjab. The Centre's staff in collaboration with these NGOs promotes this project through the publication of resource books, news articles in print media, and the production of street dramas, musical programmes and other programmes broad-casted on the radio. An important feature of the Centre's activities is through its ITCF (Institute of Theology and Christian Formation) programme. It is a highly successful ecumenical venture where Christians from various denominations attend a three year basic certificate course on theology and Christian formation sessions on a part time basis. Dialogue at the ecumenical level over these three years is experienced to the core, which then enables many young men and women to engage in dialogue on a much wider scale, experience greater depth, be more open to greater callings of what the Kingdom of God is about and so face the challenges that lie ahead. Conclusion These are briefly some of the focal points of the work, mission and ministry of the Christian Study Centre and its staff. The beauty of ministry is that it has a never-ending dimension with great possibilities for growth and change, for possibilities and opportunities — so very true of what the Kingdom of God is about!
Notes *This paper was read at the Annual Priest Conference; Diocese of Copenhagen, Denmark and similar views were shared at the places in Denmark in March 2001. 1. Brochure of the Christian Study Centre, Rawalnindi, Pakistan.
Ref.: al-mushir (Theological Journal of the Christian Study Centre), Rawalpindi, Pakistan, vol. 43, n.2, 2001. |