From Kasama Project;
By Harsh Thakor
Today on December 25th we celebrate Christmas, the most
popular festival in the world which commemorates the birthday of Jesus.
One of the most complex questions is assessing this
legendary prophet- Jesus. To scientific people the miracles were not true, nor
his ressurection. However the religious minded people Christ ressurected and
performed miracles. Over the centuries the ruling classes used Christianity as
a tool for opression and the Church became the equivalent of a very powerful
political body which influenced the functioning and political decisions of the
State. The propertied classes used the Church as an instrument to opress the
poor.
In the Spanish Inquisition the Red Indian massacre was
sponsored by the Church. The Church offered support to slavery and supported
supression of slave revolts. In the era of capitalism the Church was one of the
leading allies of the factory owners.
The most debatable point is whether Jesus Christ would have
ever supported the policies of the Catholic Church, over the centuries. Remember
how he always stood up and championed the cause of the poor like a crusader..e
waged a moral war against the Romans, Pharisees, moneylenders and all
exploitation and injustice perpetrated. His teachings imbibed the communistic
principles. Christ would almost certainly have fought against slavery in later
history, evils against women, landlord opression and even anti-semitism. Christ
displayed phenomenal courage when fearlessly walking to the cross. The Catholic
Church indirectly blessed the persecution of the Jewish community which Jesus
Christ would have been against.
True we have to question Christ on his stand on non-violence
in his time. Maybe like M.K.Gandhi he could have even betrayed the
revolutionary anti-colonial movements in the name of non -violence.However
Christ's behaviour had greater depths of anti-rich, pro-poor attitude than
Gandhi. Bertrand Russel was very critical on Jesus' assesment on hell. We have
to combat the 'genesis' and the 'Adam and Eve' concept and defend evolution. We
also have to refute concept of miracles. However we must remember that Jesus
lived over 2000 years ago when Science had hardly progressed. What is most
relevant is whether the Church could turn it's back to the opressors and take
the side of the Revolution. In fact in today's context supporting revolutionary
movements is much more tune to the teachings of Jesus Christ than supporting and still support the revolutionary movements.
We have to analyze how the Church manipulated Christian teachings to protect
the interest o f the big landlords, slave -owners etc. Communists, remaining
atheists need to imbibe the spiritual aspects of Christ. Revolutionaries
need to cultivate a change from 'within. 'We have something to learn from the
'spiritual' aspect of Jesus as against 'religious teachings. 'Remember how much
the lives of Marx, Lenin Mao or Che reflected this aspect.
No comments:
Post a Comment