It was on 26th August 2012, during my intensive field education in CSI Kanyakumari Diocese, that I happened to hear about the murder of Mr. Edwinraja, a young, 29 year old man. Later I was surprised to know that it was the fruit of violence, propounded by the ideology of cultural nationalism of the Hindutva Parivar. On the one hand, it is hard to listen to stories of how churches are undergoing suffering because of communal ideologies and on the other hand, it is also hard to understand and accept the fact as to how churches are becoming more exclusive and are shutting our doors for others with our mono- theologies. We are living in the midst of several ideologies and God-talk which are in one or the other way trying to influence our life and attitude. Can we close our ears without listening to the voices of our brothers and sisters who are crying out in pain and suffering and who are standing and struggling against the powerful mono-ideologies?
These are the voices which challenged and inspired me to search for the manyness of God as witnessed in the pages of the Scripture and to understand the meaning of Christian public witness in our context celebrating our diversities. In this faith journey, the book of Amos helped me to widen my understanding of God and God's plan for God's creation, and I would like to share this gospel with my community this morning.
Amos, the ‘Prophet of Doom', understood the relationship between God and God's people much more deeply than others of his time. Clearly Amos knew about the election of Israel and in the giving of the land, about Yahweh's special intervention against the strong Amorites. However this notion was reversed in the later part of his prophetic oracles and that appears in Chapter 9:7. Here in this passage, the prophet questions the people's belief in election. I would like to share two insights from this text for our consideration even as we search for alternative models of bearing witness in the public sphere, discerning the signs of the times.
1. Manyness of God: A Counter Paradigm for Mono-Theologies
Israel proudly and doxologically affirmed that Yahweh was the one and only God and Israel was the only chosen people of Yahweh. What we see in this faith affirmation is an ideological temptation to absolutize Israel as the only chosen race of Yahweh, the absolute God. This is how the Exodus event was understood by the Israelite community and most of the Christians. It is not that the Israelites did not believe in Yahweh but that they believed too much so that they made an ideological claim on their understanding of Yahweh. The Israelites interpreted the concept of election to develop their own exclusivist ideology and theology. Because of this ideological linkage Israel became self-satisfied with its ethics and worship. In the midst of such absolutist and exclusivist God-talk, Amos re-interprets the exodus history to re-discover the manynesss of God and God's faithfulness to the pluriform community that God created.
Amos compares Israel with other nations to confront these exclusivist claims of Israel, informed by the manyness of God's manifestation and intervention in the life of different communities journeying with them in their Exodus experiences. The rhetorical question, "Are you not like Ethiopians to me?" contains the answer ‘Yes', in itself implying that both the people of Israel and the Ethiopians are the same to God in all respects. That is the bold challenge to Israel's conviction that they stood in a privileged relationship with God. Such an understanding glorifies the "sameness" of God and reduces Yahweh as the private deity of a particular tribe or race. Amos helps the community to come out of this distorted God-talk. The people of Israel and the Ethiopians are ethnically, physically, culturally and religiously different from each other but each of them is considered to be equal before God. Through this, Amos claims that Yahweh is not a mere national deity of Israel.
He also re-interprets the exodus history of Israel, from Egypt to Canaan, which was remembered among the Israelites as a great redemptive event. The Israelites believed and interpreted the exodus history as Yahweh's marvellous action that happened only in the history of Israel. But Amos asserts that the exodus history has its parallels in the histories of other nations too which underscores the manyness of God's manifestation in history. He quotes the histories of two neighbouring nations - the exodus of the Philistines and the exodus of the Assyrians. Amos affirms that Yahweh is more than the God of just Israel. Yahweh is the God of all nations, which also includes people who are considered to be Israel's long standing enemies. According to this, there is no single ‘salvation history', no fixed line of ‘God's mighty deeds', for such deeds happen in many places and many of them are beyond the purview of Israel's orthodoxy.
At this juncture, Amos presents a critique to the mono-ideology that was prominent in his own time. We hardly see prophets who confront this issue in their prophetic oracles. But Amos takes this as a challenge to re-interpret the history of exodus, and places a counter paradigm for the existing mono-ideology of sameness.
In a context like India, we see a number of mono-ideologies around us. Hindutva has been a classic example of this. Hindutva promotes violence against the ‘others', who according to them do not belong to this nation and thus deserve to be alienated from the nation. It promotes the idea of one people, one nation and one religion. In a wider context, in our contemporary times, we can see how the political mono-ideology of Jewish Zionism misinterprets the theology of election and promotes the ‘chosen land' and ‘chosen people' and legitimizes violence. The Christian church also has become an instrument of this political ideology and legitimizes violence on Palestinian communities. We have a number of examples of violence that have been propagated by these mono-ideologies in our contemporary lives. The lives of Palestinian people are threatened and put into trouble by these mono-ideologies. They have to face abuse, harassment, suffering, and death everyday because of the violence unleashed by people who profess the sameness of God and the claim of being the chosen race occupying the Promised Land. In a way it breaks our hearts when we hear that scripture has played a major role in influencing this ideology. But the truth is not that. It exposes the violence of the dominant scriptural interpretations which makes it imperative on us to engage in alternate hermeneutical explorations.
Our call here is to understand the manyness of God and the need to affirm plurality in our lives. Mono-ideologies make us stagnant and hinder our growth in our relationship with God. We cannot limit the will and purpose of God to one nation alone, or to one particular people or even to a particular religion. The need of this hour is to re-visit our call and commitment in this pluralistic world more realistically and relatively. If we also subscribe to such a distorted understanding of God and God's purpose, we are in no way different from others who try to segregate people through such ideologies.
2. Exodus in the Plural: A Call to be Faithful in a Pluralistic World
The oracle of Amos appeared in the context of the powerful mono-ideology of the Deuteronomists and their strict belief in the theology of election. However, the prophecy of Amos, in the wider context of Israel's mono-ideology, serves as evidence that pluralism is voiced as a critique of the seductive mono-ideology. Amos resituates Israel, Yahweh and the nations by asserting that what is true concerning Yahweh cannot be contained or domesticated into Israel's favourite slogans, categories or claims.
A question arises here as to how Amos was aware of the history of other nations, especially the nations which were far away from Israel and considered to be long standing enemies of his nation? When the entire nation of Israel is so rigid with its mono-ideology and the theology of election, how is it possible for Amos to discern the activity of Yahweh among the others? The answer is simple - we need to understand the vigorous capacity of the prophet to imagine the pluralistic propensity of Yahweh that permits him to know and imagine facets of the lived reality from which Israel is blocked by its mono-ideology. And it is his powerful imagination in relation to his pluralistic context that re-situates Israel, Yahweh and the nations in his oracles. This is known as pluriform Yahwism and can be seen as a healthy re-situation of Israel's life in the world that affirms that there are facets of Yahweh's life not subject to Israel's mono-ideological umbrella. There is a deep sense of otherness to Yahweh in human history, which stands as an invitation and principle of criticism when Israel's faith becomes self-serving ideology. Amos clearly has no fear of a pluriform Yahwism but sees it as a stance from which Israel may re-vision itself more faithfully and more realistically.
As we have already seen, it is due to the misinterpretation of scripture and a narrow understanding that God has been viewed as a God of particularity. But Amos is different. His message is clear evidence to say that he was unlike other prophets of the time, who were also knowingly or unknowingly subscribing to these mono-ideologies and legitimizing the rigid belief of the Israelites. Amos had the awareness that made him to become sensitive even to the other nations and other people. In a way we all subscribe to some mono-ideologies in our lives. The exclusiveness of Christian churches has contributed towards the ideology of Zionism. At present the churches have started to propagate tourism and pilgrimage to the so called ‘holy land'. We can see this as a subtle form of Zionism that may be termed Christian Zionism. In this, Christianity also makes exclusive claims on its one and only true God to dismiss the legitimacy of other Gods and hinder the theological initiatives for dialogue. Jonathan Swift's satirical poem truly reflects our Zionist faith, "We are God's chosen few. All others will be damned. There is no place in heaven for you. We can't have heaven crammed." Amos' oracle is negation of this God talk. By affirming the manyness of God's salvific presence in our midst, Amos invites us to search for new epiphany experiences at the most unexpected places in our history where God initiates new exoduses in the lives of our neighbours.
Let us examine ourselves. We are aware of the exodus of Israel, but are we really aware that we are also a part of an exodus at present? This exodus is not like Israel's, with one people and one God. Ours is an Exodus and a journey of life in the midst of plurality, different people, and various cultures and with people of many faith(s). For such a time or in an event like this exodus, our call is to be faithful. What does it mean to be faithful? It is to be sensitive to the realities and the faith of other communities. Therefore in this exodus, we are also called to be faithful. We are called to be open enough to affirm and accept the manyness of God and God's activity in the lives of people, who are of different ethnicity, culture and religion. May God be with us in this our endeavor. AMEN.
Andrews Christopher J.
BD IV
These are the voices which challenged and inspired me to search for the manyness of God as witnessed in the pages of the Scripture and to understand the meaning of Christian public witness in our context celebrating our diversities. In this faith journey, the book of Amos helped me to widen my understanding of God and God's plan for God's creation, and I would like to share this gospel with my community this morning.
Amos, the ‘Prophet of Doom', understood the relationship between God and God's people much more deeply than others of his time. Clearly Amos knew about the election of Israel and in the giving of the land, about Yahweh's special intervention against the strong Amorites. However this notion was reversed in the later part of his prophetic oracles and that appears in Chapter 9:7. Here in this passage, the prophet questions the people's belief in election. I would like to share two insights from this text for our consideration even as we search for alternative models of bearing witness in the public sphere, discerning the signs of the times.
1. Manyness of God: A Counter Paradigm for Mono-Theologies
Israel proudly and doxologically affirmed that Yahweh was the one and only God and Israel was the only chosen people of Yahweh. What we see in this faith affirmation is an ideological temptation to absolutize Israel as the only chosen race of Yahweh, the absolute God. This is how the Exodus event was understood by the Israelite community and most of the Christians. It is not that the Israelites did not believe in Yahweh but that they believed too much so that they made an ideological claim on their understanding of Yahweh. The Israelites interpreted the concept of election to develop their own exclusivist ideology and theology. Because of this ideological linkage Israel became self-satisfied with its ethics and worship. In the midst of such absolutist and exclusivist God-talk, Amos re-interprets the exodus history to re-discover the manynesss of God and God's faithfulness to the pluriform community that God created.
Amos compares Israel with other nations to confront these exclusivist claims of Israel, informed by the manyness of God's manifestation and intervention in the life of different communities journeying with them in their Exodus experiences. The rhetorical question, "Are you not like Ethiopians to me?" contains the answer ‘Yes', in itself implying that both the people of Israel and the Ethiopians are the same to God in all respects. That is the bold challenge to Israel's conviction that they stood in a privileged relationship with God. Such an understanding glorifies the "sameness" of God and reduces Yahweh as the private deity of a particular tribe or race. Amos helps the community to come out of this distorted God-talk. The people of Israel and the Ethiopians are ethnically, physically, culturally and religiously different from each other but each of them is considered to be equal before God. Through this, Amos claims that Yahweh is not a mere national deity of Israel.
He also re-interprets the exodus history of Israel, from Egypt to Canaan, which was remembered among the Israelites as a great redemptive event. The Israelites believed and interpreted the exodus history as Yahweh's marvellous action that happened only in the history of Israel. But Amos asserts that the exodus history has its parallels in the histories of other nations too which underscores the manyness of God's manifestation in history. He quotes the histories of two neighbouring nations - the exodus of the Philistines and the exodus of the Assyrians. Amos affirms that Yahweh is more than the God of just Israel. Yahweh is the God of all nations, which also includes people who are considered to be Israel's long standing enemies. According to this, there is no single ‘salvation history', no fixed line of ‘God's mighty deeds', for such deeds happen in many places and many of them are beyond the purview of Israel's orthodoxy.
At this juncture, Amos presents a critique to the mono-ideology that was prominent in his own time. We hardly see prophets who confront this issue in their prophetic oracles. But Amos takes this as a challenge to re-interpret the history of exodus, and places a counter paradigm for the existing mono-ideology of sameness.
In a context like India, we see a number of mono-ideologies around us. Hindutva has been a classic example of this. Hindutva promotes violence against the ‘others', who according to them do not belong to this nation and thus deserve to be alienated from the nation. It promotes the idea of one people, one nation and one religion. In a wider context, in our contemporary times, we can see how the political mono-ideology of Jewish Zionism misinterprets the theology of election and promotes the ‘chosen land' and ‘chosen people' and legitimizes violence. The Christian church also has become an instrument of this political ideology and legitimizes violence on Palestinian communities. We have a number of examples of violence that have been propagated by these mono-ideologies in our contemporary lives. The lives of Palestinian people are threatened and put into trouble by these mono-ideologies. They have to face abuse, harassment, suffering, and death everyday because of the violence unleashed by people who profess the sameness of God and the claim of being the chosen race occupying the Promised Land. In a way it breaks our hearts when we hear that scripture has played a major role in influencing this ideology. But the truth is not that. It exposes the violence of the dominant scriptural interpretations which makes it imperative on us to engage in alternate hermeneutical explorations.
Our call here is to understand the manyness of God and the need to affirm plurality in our lives. Mono-ideologies make us stagnant and hinder our growth in our relationship with God. We cannot limit the will and purpose of God to one nation alone, or to one particular people or even to a particular religion. The need of this hour is to re-visit our call and commitment in this pluralistic world more realistically and relatively. If we also subscribe to such a distorted understanding of God and God's purpose, we are in no way different from others who try to segregate people through such ideologies.
2. Exodus in the Plural: A Call to be Faithful in a Pluralistic World
The oracle of Amos appeared in the context of the powerful mono-ideology of the Deuteronomists and their strict belief in the theology of election. However, the prophecy of Amos, in the wider context of Israel's mono-ideology, serves as evidence that pluralism is voiced as a critique of the seductive mono-ideology. Amos resituates Israel, Yahweh and the nations by asserting that what is true concerning Yahweh cannot be contained or domesticated into Israel's favourite slogans, categories or claims.
A question arises here as to how Amos was aware of the history of other nations, especially the nations which were far away from Israel and considered to be long standing enemies of his nation? When the entire nation of Israel is so rigid with its mono-ideology and the theology of election, how is it possible for Amos to discern the activity of Yahweh among the others? The answer is simple - we need to understand the vigorous capacity of the prophet to imagine the pluralistic propensity of Yahweh that permits him to know and imagine facets of the lived reality from which Israel is blocked by its mono-ideology. And it is his powerful imagination in relation to his pluralistic context that re-situates Israel, Yahweh and the nations in his oracles. This is known as pluriform Yahwism and can be seen as a healthy re-situation of Israel's life in the world that affirms that there are facets of Yahweh's life not subject to Israel's mono-ideological umbrella. There is a deep sense of otherness to Yahweh in human history, which stands as an invitation and principle of criticism when Israel's faith becomes self-serving ideology. Amos clearly has no fear of a pluriform Yahwism but sees it as a stance from which Israel may re-vision itself more faithfully and more realistically.
As we have already seen, it is due to the misinterpretation of scripture and a narrow understanding that God has been viewed as a God of particularity. But Amos is different. His message is clear evidence to say that he was unlike other prophets of the time, who were also knowingly or unknowingly subscribing to these mono-ideologies and legitimizing the rigid belief of the Israelites. Amos had the awareness that made him to become sensitive even to the other nations and other people. In a way we all subscribe to some mono-ideologies in our lives. The exclusiveness of Christian churches has contributed towards the ideology of Zionism. At present the churches have started to propagate tourism and pilgrimage to the so called ‘holy land'. We can see this as a subtle form of Zionism that may be termed Christian Zionism. In this, Christianity also makes exclusive claims on its one and only true God to dismiss the legitimacy of other Gods and hinder the theological initiatives for dialogue. Jonathan Swift's satirical poem truly reflects our Zionist faith, "We are God's chosen few. All others will be damned. There is no place in heaven for you. We can't have heaven crammed." Amos' oracle is negation of this God talk. By affirming the manyness of God's salvific presence in our midst, Amos invites us to search for new epiphany experiences at the most unexpected places in our history where God initiates new exoduses in the lives of our neighbours.
Let us examine ourselves. We are aware of the exodus of Israel, but are we really aware that we are also a part of an exodus at present? This exodus is not like Israel's, with one people and one God. Ours is an Exodus and a journey of life in the midst of plurality, different people, and various cultures and with people of many faith(s). For such a time or in an event like this exodus, our call is to be faithful. What does it mean to be faithful? It is to be sensitive to the realities and the faith of other communities. Therefore in this exodus, we are also called to be faithful. We are called to be open enough to affirm and accept the manyness of God and God's activity in the lives of people, who are of different ethnicity, culture and religion. May God be with us in this our endeavor. AMEN.
Andrews Christopher J.
BD IV
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