What Is Religion?

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What Is Religion?
A Theological Answer
South Asian edition

Nigel Ajay Kumar

SAIACS Press Bangalore INDIA

WHAT IS RELIGION? A Theological Answer Copyright 2014 Nigel Ajay Kumar. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. The South Asian edition is published in 2014 by SAIACS Press. isbn 13: 9788187712329 For permissions within the South Asian region, write to: SAIACS Press SAIACS, 363 Doddagubbi Cross Road Kothanur, Bangalore560077, India www.saiacs.org saiacspress@saiacs.org For permissions outside the South Asian region, write to: Wipf and Stock Publishers 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3 Eugene, OR 97401, USA www.wipfandstock.com Cataloging-in-Publication data: Kumar, Nigel Ajay. What is religion? : a theological answer / Nigel Ajay Kumar. xii + 324 p. ; 23cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 13: 9788187712329 1. Religion. 2. Theology of religion (Christian theology). 3. Chenchiah, Pandipeddi, 18861959. I. Title. BL48 K85 2014 Original Cover design: Jim Tedrick (Wipf & Stock). Cover design and layout adapted for the South Asian edition by SAIACS Press. Printed and bound by Brilliant Printers Pvt. Ltd, Bangalore.

Contents
Preface to the South Asian Edition vii Preface ix 1 Introduction: The Need for a Theology of Religion 1 2 The Context of Chenchiahs Theology of Religion 51 3 Chenchiahs Theology of Religion 123 4 Evaluation of Chenchiahs Theology of Religion 201 5 A Critical Framework to Formulate a Theological Answer 229 6 Conclusion 287 Bibliography 297 Index 319

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Preface to the South Asian Edition

Recently, as I was teaching a short-term course to pastors and missionaries who were serving in rural regions, I couldnt help but wonder whether this book What is Religion? was relevant. I always believed that the discussion about religion was useful within an academic context. Nevertheless, I was suddenly unsure whether a study of how religion is defined would have any value for the lives and ministry of Christians who face unique challenges in the pastoral and mission fields. For a moment, then, I was tempted to think that having my work published in the US was enough, even if most South Asian Christians would never be able to access it. I was shaken out of my negativity by those very pastors and missionaries sitting in front of me. From them I heard that they wanted to learn, they wanted to read about theology, and they saw critical reflection as crucial for their own theological formation. This was not just a pragmatic concern. They longed for deeper theological studies, and they stated the need for resources that would help them grow in their understanding of their faith. Their words rekindled my desire to pursue this South Asian edition with fervour and urgency. This book is regrettably only in English (and so, still restricted in access), but I believe that its content is relevant for all Christianspastors, missionaries or simply those interested in theological education especially within this multi-religious context. The language is accessible to intermediate readers, though some concepts may require careful re-reading. This book as a whole contains a simple ideathat Christians need to think about how their faith that shapes their understanding of the world. I argue that our theological heritage, which includes the Bible and our rich Christian tradition, has the potential to shape/reshape the various ideologies and categories that surround us. In this book, I use religion as a case study through which I show how Christian theology can in fact reshape our understanding of this common, yet misunderstood, word. It must be said

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What Is Religion?
that my prioritization of theological perspectives is not to undermine our need for (or even dependence on) secular scholars/scientists/philosophers who have shaped not just our understanding of religion, but also our understanding of the world around us. In fact, I interact with many of those scholars in this book. Yet, I still propose that theological perspectives are paramount for Christians to help in guiding our responses to the words and ideas that surround us. A theology of anything (in this case religion), is rel evant, regardless of ministerial profession, economic situation or ethnicity. Therefore, I do not want to dichotomize too strongly between practical workers and theological scholars. The debate about the nature of religion extends to all Christians who want to think more deeply about their own faith, their own religion. I no longer hesitate, even in front of a room full of pastors and missionaries, to commend this book for the Church at large. Regarding this South Asian edition, it differs from Wipf & Stocks US-produced book (Sep 2013) in a few ways. It reverts to the original Indian (UK) spellings in which this work was first written. Then, some of the excerpts from journals and books are highlighted more clearly (4 or more lines quoted are indented). This, I feel, will enable students, and interested readers, to clearly identify the primary texts that are quoted extensively. Naturally this change of format has led to different page numbers. I have also made some corrections to errors that invariably crop up in such a large volume, but I have kept the content mostly unchanged from the US edition. The only significant edit I have done is to change some phrases of my concluding paragraph. I feel the content is still the same, but the words I use differ slightly from the US edition. The biggest difference of course is that this South Asian edition is a lot cheaper. I want to thank Wipf & Stock for being willing to enter into a partnership with SAIACS Press, to allow for context-sensitive pricing for this region. Without such a move, I doubt many of the intended audiences would have had a chance to access this work. I end this preface by reiterating that understanding what is religion? is important for South Asian Christians who want to see the impact of their own faith on ideas that have historically been accepted unchallenged. This edition is dedicated to those Christians who hold on to their faith and seek to communicate it more meaningfully with others. NAyK, January 2014

Preface
In a Contextual Theology class during my theological studies at the graduate level, I was struck by Aloysius Pieriss challenge that Asian theologians must address one of two vital issues facing our contextpoverty or religion. My own urbanized middle-class context had limited my experience of the abject poverty facing our nation. Nevertheless, I had grown up in an India that was deeply religious in both poor and non-poor contexts. I had seen that spirituality, gods, rituals, religious traditionshowever we commonly understand these termswere within Indias cultural core. In fact, when I left my job at Filmfare magazine in 1998 to join SAIACS, one of the first supporters of my journey into theological education was a Hindu colleague who presented me with the Bhagavad Gita. In it she wrote: When you find the truth, tell me. I chose to focus my research on religion because my own experience of a religious India took me there. While the above-stated exposure to Pieris explains my choice of religion, it was working on my MTh dissertation that drew my attention to the problems in the theology of religions. In that 2005 study, I investigated some Indian receptions of Karl Barths theology of religion. Particularly focusing on Chenchiah, Chakkarai, and Devanandan, I began with the assumption that Indian theologians disagreed with Karl Barths theology of religion, especially with his infamous reference to religion as unbelief. I also presumed that the Indian theologians would offer views significantly different from Barths proposal, considering that they themselves had claimed to reject Barth. In the course of study, however, these assumptions were rectified: I discovered that, while fundamental differences between Barth and early Indian theologians remained, these Indian theologians also held views quite similar to Karl Barth, even about religion. To find such similarity of views between Indian theologians and Barth surprised me, and I investigated its possible causes. I found that, to the point that the Indian theologians viewed Christ above religions, they were similar to Barth. Yet to the point that they viewed religions functionally, with the ability to positively impact culture, the Indian theologians were contrary to Barth. An important reason for the perceived confusion and rejection of Karl Barths view of religion was that the Indian theologians and Karl Barth were talking at cross purposes. Barth primarily attempted a theology of religion, the theological perspective of religion. The Indian theologians were largely concerned with a theology of religions, the theological interaction between multiple religious traditions. Hence, Indian theologians found Barths judgment of religion offensive; in Barths universal

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What Is Religion?
criticism of religion, the Indian theologians perceived a rejection of particular religious faiths. I concluded that a positive view of religion was not necessary for a positive interaction with/within religions. So, I proposed that Barths negative theology of religion offered the possibility of a positive theology of religions. Despite the prevailing confusion between a theology of religion and a theology of religions, it was beyond the scope of my MTh thesis sufficiently to explore and clarify the two. Nevertheless, since then I noticed how there was general ignorance about the internal contradictions within a theology of religions about what religion meant. Not surprisingly, theologians of religions were hardly alert to the contemporary discussions about the use and misuse of religion, and thus they were in danger of uncritically reflecting contradictory concepts of religion in their work. It was evident that a much deeper study than my initial MTh thesis was needed to address these issues. My subsequent study for my doctoral research pursued clarity within these two theological fields. As for the reason for choosing to focus on Indian theologian Chenchiah, the beginnings are in another class. While attending the Doctoral Methodology course at SATHRI, Bangalore, in May 2006, I was surprised to see that most of the research proposals by the doctoral candidates focused upon Western theologians. In reaction, the teacher asserted that Indian students must interact with Indian theologians because we had an obligation to Indian theology. He stated that while Western theologians and theologies had been often dealt with from various angles, as Indian scholars we must dialogue with our own to improve our discipline. For indeed, if we did not interact with our own scholars, who would? I remember that I resisted the normative nature of the comment because I found that the scholarly divide between West and East was unhelpful. Yet I noted that there was something to be said about the value of dialoguing with scholars from our own tradition, especially when dealing with concerns that deeply affected the Indian context. I myself had benefited from scholars, such as Alyosius Pieris, who were similarly affected by issues and realities as my own. Thus, while it was not then that I decided to focus upon Chenchiah, I know that a seed was sown. All this could have followed a dangerously unproductive track had it not been for the timely intervention of Kiran Sebastian, a faculty member at UTC, who warned me not to study religion until I had read a book by S. N. Balagangadhara. Through Balagangadharas work I began to look at the concept of religion more critically. In response to his and similar critiques of religion, however, I was drawn to approach the concept of religion more theologically. During my dissertation proposal drafting stage, I spent a lot of time examining the methodologies behind the theologies of religions in the context of contemporary and theological debates about religion. It was eventually clear that a key problem in the theology of religions discipline lay in the confusion over what religion was and to what it could be applied. Nevertheless, theologians rarely spent time exploring theological definitions of what religion was and instead were more focused on the implications of the confluence of one religion with another. As my exploration led me to look for scholars who had offered a theological definition of religion, I was drawn back to the Indian lay thinker who addressed the concept of religion even before the theology of religions discipline became prevalent. Pandipeddi Chenchiah, a Hindu convert and a lawyer, was the epitome of a lay theologian. He wrote several important articles that challenged his generation

Preface
to rethink its Christianity in the pre-Independence era. Chenchiah was also one of the earliest Indian theologians to make a theological assertion about what religion was. Of course he did not consciously write a theology of religion or a theology of religions, because its formal discourse did not exist back in his day. Furthermore, Chenchiahs concerns were primarily theological in that his effort was to seek and understand Christ and what he means to humanity rather than provide a framework for discourse between multiple religions. Nevertheless, I saw that Chenchiah was not only interested in theology, but was acutely aware of the religious context within which theology existed. Chenchiah used his theology of religion as a stepping stone for his Christological formulations and his views of religion provided a unique access to the theological discourse about religion. For an Indian theologian who discussed the problem of religion, I no longer needed to look further. The results of my dissertation were drawn over several pages of long and arduous research. Thankfully, despite several edits in this book, my conclusion from my dissertation remains largely the same. Before I proceed to present my case, I have a few people whom I wish to thank. I would like to thank Dr. Chris Barrigar. He has been my supervisor, counsellor, and friend over many years. I thank the members of St. Peters Anglican Church, Montreal, who graciously hosted my family in Montreal. A special thanks to the Faculty of Presbyterian College, my host institution in Montreal, especially to Dr. John Vissers and Dr. Dan Shute I also thank the financial supporters of our trip to Canadain particular Dr. Chris Hancock and AMO. Their assistance sustained us long enough for me to make the best use of the academic resources available there. At SAIACS, I would like to thank Dr. Graham and Carol Houghton, Dr. Ashish Chrispal, Dr. Ian Payne, and Dr. Cor Bennema. I especially thank Dr. Dieter Kemmler, who helped me to translate a German book into English. My many thanks to the library staff of SAIACS, UTC, and McGill. I would like to thank Shilpa Waghmare for her editorial assistance for this book. I also thank the editors and designers of Wipf and Stock Publishers for both the opportunity to publish with them and getting my work print ready. I thank my parents, who supported me unconditionally. I thank my friends Abhra and Sandy, Sandeep and Airy, and Arpit and Shilpa, who stood by my family in difficult and wonderful times. I thank my daughter, Taarika, who reminded me to focus on what was important. And finally I thank my wife, Selena, who stood by me and supported me through it all. My hope is that this work will contribute to the academic discussion about religion, particularly for those willing to engage with theological voices. Similarly, I hope that the Church in South Asia will take notice, to be both inspired by predecessors like Chenchiah but also to take learning and research about religion more seriouslyfor the sake of the Gospel.

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1
Introduction
The Need for a Theology of Religion
When soccer games are seen as religious phenomena and the recitation of Buddhist sutras is not, something has obviously gone wrong.1

PREAMBLE
For a concept as pervasive as religion, colour it is surprising that there is no consensus on what religion is. Neither is there any agreement about what the concept applies to or even to what it does not. It is common to hear both, that Christianity is the true religion2 as well as that Christianity is not a religion at all.3 Nor is it difficult to find instances where Communism is shown to be both antireligious4 as well as religious.5 In India, while most are able to unquestionably refer to Hinduism as a religion,6 some do so with
1. Riesebrodt, The Promise of Salvation, xi. 2. For instance, the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM), a USbased Christian Apologetics centre, unequivocally declares that Christianity is the one true religion. 3. Fowler, Christianity is Not a Religion. 4. Kolarz, Religion and Communism in Africa, 223. 5. Zeldin, The Religious Nature of Russian Marxism, 100111. 6. Singh, In Defence of Religion and Other Essays.

What Is Religion?
qualification,7 and a few find it problematic to refer to Hinduism as a religion at all.8 Furthermore, the Indian Supreme Court has said that Hindutva is not a religious but a cultural system, by using the Hindu Vedas as textual support!9 Added to this problematic is the current and popular view that prefers spirituality over religion.10 In view of these obvious discrepancies, it is surprising that there is a general confidence over the notion of religion. People talk about religion without fearing that they are being misunderstood. This applies not only to popular discourse, but also to the academic study of religion in universities as well as within the interreligious discourse of the religions themselves. Many institutions have invested a huge amount of resources to encourage comparative religious studies, interreligious dialogue and even, in the case of some Christian denominations, interreligious worship. Almost all these initiatives assume that religion exists in all cultures, is knowable (even if in a limited sense), and at its core is essentially good. The purpose of this introductory chapter is threefold. First, I establish that a definitional problem in the category religion does exist. This I do by showcasing the increasingly influential scholarly voices that are critiquing the foundations of religious studies and highlighting the uncritical uses of religion, particularly within the Christian theology of religions. Second, I emphasize the need for a Christian theological definition of religion that is useful for Christian interaction with that which is considered to be the religious and interreligious spaces. Third, I end this chapter by outlining the trajectory of my project. This includes establishing what a theology of religion isI conceive of a theology of religion as the theological method for defining and engaging with definitions of religionand how one would do it. In particular, I explain my choice of the Indian theologian Pandipeddi Chenchiah, showing that Chenchiah is a helpful entry point for this discussion. First, we explore the problem of religion facing the academic study of religion today.

7. Aleaz, Dimensions of Indian Religion, 15. 8. Sugirtharajah, Imagining Hinduism, ixxii. 9. For instance, see the newspaper editorials by Jois, Supreme Court Judgement on Hindutva: An Important Landmark; and Tarkunde, Supreme Court Judgement: A Blow to Secular Democracy. 10. Pearce, The Death of Religion and the Rebirth of Spirit.

Introduction

THE PROBLEM OF RELIGION IN THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION

In contemporary scholarship regarding the concept of religion, there are primarily two challenges. One challenge pertains to the difficulty of defining religion, which makes it almost impossible to differentiate between religion and nonreligion. The other challenge comes from scholars who argue that religion is not a universal cross-cultural reality but a localized (usually Western) and ideological category, making its application to India and the East problematic. In his 1926 lectures, Alfred North Whitehead stated that there is no agreement as to the definition of religion in its most general sense, including true and false religion; nor is there any agreement as to valid religious beliefs, nor even as to what we mean by the truth of religion.11 Almost eighty years later, Mark Taylor opines that the field of religious studies is in a perpetual state of crisis because it can neither define its object of study nor agree on distinctive methods or strategies of interpretation.12 Taylor goes on to say, It has never been more important or more difficult to study religion critically than it is today because the resurgence of old orthodoxies and emergence of new fundamentalisms in multiple traditions pose both implicit and explicit threats that make critical reflection on religion imperative.13 These scholars are certainly not saying that there is a lack of theoretical reflection on the nature of religion. In fact, there are so many definitions of religion that it seems as if there are as many definitions as there are scholars.14 Similarly, there are numerous approaches to religion15 which represent entirely different ways of looking at the subject matter. Neither the definitions nor the approaches correlate easily with one another. It is evident that while it is not so difficult for scholars to come up with definitions or approaches, it is harder to find agreement over their validity.16
11. Despite this, Whitehead ironically went on to offer his own universally-intended definition of religion as a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended. Whitehead, Religion in the Making, 1415. 12. Taylor, Defining Religion, b4. 13. Ibid. 14. Kunin, Theories of Religion, 1. 15. Whaling lists at least eleven approaches to religion. See Whaling, Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion. 16. While a definition and approach refers to two separate things, they are related. As a result, while I focus here on the definition of religion, I am also mindful that it