While we are entering the threshold of a new Millennium, is it right still to expect of only women, the key role in transmitting values to the next generation? Is it not the parental duty of both the mother and the father? This question needs to be asked in the context of the increasing expectation on women to carry on traditional roles while they have to enter various other roles as working women along with a decline in community living and living as extended families, in which the grand parents also played this role. Moreover, the erosion of the nuclear family with more women facing single parenthood, this is an impossible expectation!
Having made my point, I now place myself in my Indian context of a minority Christian living in a multi-faith, multi-cultural, multi-language context where the constitution states that the Government is secular. Through formal institutions, the missionary movement had been actively involved in widespread education of the masses that was till then the privilege of the upper caste and through this channel, an informal education in the Christian faith was also imparted. This had led to an increasing number of unbaptized believers and sympathizers of the Christian faith throughout the country.
In the name of safeguarding the secular nature of the country, it is now forbidden to have religious education during school hours and instead, to have a period in a week allotted for moral instructions. A few of the mission schools, where mostly women teachers are employed, open half an hour early to impart some religious education through simple stories. The BJP Government did try recently to introduce "Sarasvathi Vandhana", Worship of Saraswathi, the Goddess of learning in the educational institutions which was objected to by the minorities. Politicization of religion is affecting the peaceful co-existence that India had been famous for and for imparting religious instructions for all children through formal education. The possibility of children studying the essence of all faiths to deepen their knowledge and faith has to be emphasized. This can only be done if people of all faiths come to see the need for such an education.
The dominant values in religious education
In the education of young minds either through formal or non-formal education, religious traditions and preferred texts have always been used to reinforce the popular cultural norms of women being submissive, as guardians of culture, carriers of traditions and as performers of rituals within the household. Emphasis on their code of behaviour and their way of dressing that would conform to the accepted norms of society was emphasized through selected scriptural passages and role models. More prominence was given to the ten commandments in which women are depicted as possessions of men over the commandment of love that Jesus condensed it into. Women as the cause of sin and therefore deserving a subordinate status and therefore to be obedient to their menfolk is made normative. This had been internalized also by women so that women see their suffering in the suffering of Jesus who bore it patiently. The liberative aspects of the revolutionary conduct of Jesus towards women is never highlighted. Whether it was in the family, or the Sunday school, rote learning of the verses were encouraged more than a questioning mind. So much so that to this day religion has been compartmentalized into not having to do with reason but as a ritualistic or an otherworldly spirituality.
The importance of home as the place for laying the foundation of one’s faith is becoming a thing of the past and it is expected of the church and Sunday schools to provide this although not emotionally bonded with the children as the family would have been, with their personal witnesses of faith. Somehow faith has rather become knowledge based than emotion based that would anchor the people in faith! The thirst for myths and stories and simple forms of instilling faith can be evidenced in the multiplicity and the increasing demand for Tele-serials based on religious stories. The ascetic, and Bhakti ways of living has given way to pomp and show. Community worships have become one of the major cause for communal clashes!
Religion has to become liberative if it has to live
In the Indian context with the predominance of Hindu religion, our culture and different art forms like singing and dancing are so intertwined that it is difficult to differentiate where religion ends and where culture begins. So the tendency had been to completely disregard the rich cultural heritage that all could have enjoyed and in turn been enriched. Instead option for westernization in religious activities was introduced as Christianity was more popularized through western missionaries. There have been sporadic attempts to redeem us from the so-called westernization but Christians themselves have denounced these as syncretism! Now we are reaping the rewards from the fundamentalists for the alienation. So first, we have to liberate Christianity from the western garb and re-clothe it with our cultural heritage. Secondly, patriarchy has to be denounced which is in our theology and in our church practice. If we confine the issues of violence against women which is on the increase, to homes instead of condemning it as an evil to be exorcized through active religious teaching, we are binding more women and men than liberating them.
The institutionalization of religion has also brought with it power struggles and hierarchy that excludes the lay people from the clergy and marginalize women, youth and children. This is a serious lapse that has to be rectified. There should also be stress on community building rather than personal spirituality to sustain people of the new century. I would like to quote a possible way that we could work this out as people of faiths. "Religion should be considered in several parts: One part should be man’s relation with God, in which everybody can have different approaches. Speculations about who created the Universe, why so much disparity, what would happen after death etc. may be left to the religion itself. But social behavior and relationships governing ethical and moral principles as a humanistic concept can be reinforced by spirituality".
From a women’s perspective, I need to say that though women of different faiths have been trying to live together peaceably by sharing their faith, sharing gifts and goods during their festivals with their neighbours, they have not been part of the dialoguing processes actively which is more cerebral, based on doctrines and theology than on daily practice. So women need to be involved because they bring with them the wisdom of involving emotions and rituals in spirituality that deals with living one’s faith. I would like to quote an instance where such a dialogue mutually helped me and a strict adherent of the Sikh faith. I was assigned the task as a student of theology to dialogue with a person of another faith and to present my paper. I happened to meet a Sikh on the way who observed all the 5 Ks and wore a big sword. I asked him whether he would talk to me. After sharing my insight of his faith that it is liberative to women and is a hospitable religion, he listened to my story as a student of theology and exclaimed that how could his religion which is so progressive and positive towards women, lag behind in not opening ways for women to study theology also and immediately affimed that he would bring this up in his religious circle! We can find ethical value in all religion and work concertedly to emphasize living with these values.
I feel liberated when I do my feminist theology that enables me and other women to be liberated in Christ and wish that more women from other faiths would find these liberative strands from their religion through study and interpretation to enable more women and men to move on from simple religiosity to a liberated and informed affirmation of their equality. Religion has always been a strength for women and when women learn to interpret those positive strands, they would enrich themselves and the religion that they follow. To this effect, we need to share our methodology and our rituals and worship elements together!
Religion should not be static but dynamic. The demands of our times like globalization, privatization, individualism and a consumer mentality, different life-styles and orientation need to be addressed by religions and given answers that would help people not to live with these demands but to counter them. When everybody understands that the multi-nationals and trans-nationals who promote a market-based, profit-oriented economy erasing cultures, geographical borders and traditionally held values, it is only the faith-based communities with strong values on human dignity and equality of all, with their largest networks spread throughout the world, could counter the demon of greed for profit over against the well-being of all peoples. Would to God that we could, as people of faiths work together towards making this God-given earth, a safe place for all!
Priscilla Singh is Executive Secretary of the Womens’ Desk of The Lutheran World Federation.