After a period of a relatively great degree of freedom, the Christian Church in India has come under considerable pressure in recent months. The task of evangelisation has been challenged and the selfless ministry of Christian schools and hospitals has been vilified as manipulative. Physical violence inflicted on Christian missionaries and social workers culminating in the gruesome burning of Graham Staines and his two sons and the brutal killing of Catholic priest Father Arul Doss has shocked us all. It must be acknowledged that the Indian context where persecution is experienced within the constitutional freedom to practise and share our faith presents us with a paradoxical combination not faced by Christians in a totally despotic situation like China. Even while standing up for our rights and exposing the dangers of an intolerant fundamentalism (in any religion), the representatives of the Christian community have had to choose between a posture that would tend to be militant and threatening (for fear that we would be perceived as weak) and that which would be appear as abject surrender to evil.
In this essay, I confess that I have tended to be one-sided as I have sought to highlight the neglected side of persecution. I want to assure my audience that I have no intention of being masochistic and encourage Christians to seek suffering as if there were virtue in it for its own sake. Nor do I recommend a martyr complex by which we would be known for our faith only by the moroseness of our bearing. On the other hand, my single-minded goal is that we Indian Christians would develop and live by a robust understanding of the reality of persecution which is in many ways inescapable and that we would face it pro-actively on the basis outlined in Scripture. Further we need to rediscover the joy in persecution highlighted by our Lord in Matt. 5:10-12. We ought also to learn some lessons from these recent experiences. It is in this light that I suggest the following for reflection and response:

1. The Theology of Suffering
It is absolutely necessary for us to arrive at a Biblical picture of suffering which is one of the more tangible evidences of moral evil.
A. Suffering is an indicator of the secondary reality of evil and the primary reality of good. It is the Christian who is in a position to take this view because of his/her belief in an omnipotent and supremely good God. Evil and suffering are seen as perversions and not as part of the original created order which was morally neutral and functionally good. By raising suffering to an almost absolute level, Buddhism misses the point that suffering cannot be understood except as the absence of enjoyment - it also loses the basis for appreciating the good that is actually present in the world.
B. Suffering ensues when moral beings revolt against their all-holy Creator. The words that God reserves for the man, the woman and the serpent indicate that suffering of various kinds will be their lot because of their rebellion against Him. This understanding of suffering underlines the moral reality underlying suffering of any kind. Suffering has therefore to be acknowledged as more than just an existential reality but rather as an indicator of the moral disorder that pervades our universe.
C. Consequent to the above, in a fallen world system, suffering becomes inescapable for good to triumph over evil .This encounter is seen essentially as a moral confrontation. The highest example of this for the Christian is Calvary. A pale reflection of this paradigm is also evident in assassinations of men like Mahatma Gandhi and Abraham Lincoln - evil shall not allow good to prosper but would strive to thwart it in whatever way possible. The death of Christ however is not that of a martyr for a good cause but is of tremendous cosmic consequence. The writer to the Hebrews says (2:14,15) that it was only through death - the last enemy and the ultimate in suffering - that death and the one who held the power of death - Satan - could be destroyed. Jesus also made it clear to His disciples that the ones who would follow Him would have to deny themselves (a painful experience indeed!) and take up their respective crosses of self-denial (Lk.14:25-27).
D. The Bible makes it clear, however, that pain and suffering are not to be sought after for their own sake. That would indicate a psychologically perverted, masochistic mind-set which is the very antithesis of the Christian mind. Thus, Jesus could ask God in the garden of Gethsemane to take away the cup of suffering, thus displaying not just His humanness but His psychological robustness. In the will of God, however, Christ and His followers can be expected to meet with suffering and even rejoice in it as they engage the dominion of Satan in spiritual warfare.

Authenticity of the Christian Message.
I believe that the Christian message derives its authentic uniqueness because of three distinctives each of which would invite persecution in its own right and from which we can not afford to shy away.
A. Persecution results as we proclaim the uniqueness of the message of salvation in Christ alone (Acts 4:12). In a recent letter to the press, the General Secretary of the RSS did not so much condemn the social activities of Christians as their claim that there was no other way to God except in Christ. In the Scripture passage quoted above, the Jewish leaders had Peter and John flogged for preaching in the Name of Jesus. We should not be surprised by this reaction, particularly in the philosophically sophisticated environment which this country offers to us. The word tolerance is given the meaning that all truth claims are equally valid and there are only truths and no errors when it comes to the subject of religions or philosophies.
B. I recently heard a Christian friend remark that in view of the opposition to the Christian proclamation, the Christian community should only live the Christian life but remain silent so far as the spoken message was concerned! The assumption was that a silent practice of the Christian lifestyle would make life easier for the Christian community! Jesus made it clear that persecution will ensue not only because of Him and the gospel but also on account of righteousness (Matt.5:10,11). Paul was under no illusion about this fact - he could affirm that everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (II Tim. 3:12). Because this message by lips and life will always confront the evil of the fallen world (like corruption in our country), we should be prepared for suffering which results as a consequence.
C. The uniqueness of Christ’s love is also expressed by us in our concern and social involvement with a hurting world. We will be misunderstood as trying to bribe people into God’s kingdom. But those who had chosen to follow Christ because they saw a truly selfless love in us would know that the persuasion which brought them to Christ was not human manipulation. In fact, we need to recognise the fact that when Jesus healed the sick, it was not on condition that they would eventually become His followers. It was pure unadulterated love and compassion that moved Him to minister to people at all levels of need (Matt.9:36). May I make the rather dangerous statement that Jesus did not heal the sick or feed the hungry with the ulterior motive of their spiritual salvation?! We should seek to emulate Him in this respect as well. The holistic nature of our ministry rightly proclaims the good God Who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matt.5:45).

The Vulnerability of the Christian
Messenger
It must be generally appreciated that the one who is absolutely sure of what one believes would tend to be loud and militant about communicating it. Another person who would not consider his system of belief to be exclusive in any sense would have to be tolerant. It is only in the Christian faith, that you can be sure of what you believe and yet be gentle and respectful as you communicate your belief (I Pet.3:15). Next to the unique claims that Christ makes for Himself, it is this spirit of vulnerability that commends itself to the hearers of the gospel. It was during the Crusades that this attitude was viciously betrayed when Christian nations sought to impose their faith on Islamic countries by military might. By using the term Crusade for Christian outreach programmes, we inadvertently give the impression that our attitude is not much better than our forbears in the Middle Ages. The three points that follow may slightly overlap one another and may therefore be considered to be aspects of this inimitable vulnerability.
A. The definition that Jesus lent to the word suffering is itself original. While the satyagraha movement implies that we should grit our teeth and bear patiently the pain inflicted upon us in order to eventually have our own way, Jesus taught His disciples to be pro-active while suffering (Matt.5:38-47). The sit-ins and dharnas which have now become a philosophy of our pragmatic lives react to real and imagined injustices. On the other hand, we are taught not to have our own way at the individual level - it should be noted that v.39 is in the singular - but return good for evil. This however is not to be interpreted as social irresponsibility. By not standing up for our personal rights, we will have earned the right to fight for the rights of others! Perhaps it is in this area of the pro-active response that the Christian community should exercise its constitutional freedom and ought to take advantage of the present situation. We should be taking up the cause of the freedom of all religious practice and propagation as we would protest against atrocities on all women, not just Christian nuns. We ought not to be talking about a special brand of protection for Christians but, in this land of grave miscarriages of justice, be protesting against all evil against all Indians. We need to steel ourselves against the brazen accusation from certain communal elements who imply that the victims in the Christian community are themselves the perpetrators of the crime - we need to rise above the spirit of retaliation and identify with the salt paradigm if we are to act redemptively on behalf of our nation at this time. We would do well to remember that salt is a minority in the food and does not suffer from a minority complex! On the other hand, it exerts its influence by losing its identity in the food.
B. There is also a mimetic aspect to the sufferings of Christ. Peter tells us that Christ in His passion left us an example to follow in His steps (I Pet.2:21). In a very real sense, our imitation of Christ reaches its zenith only as we are prepared to undergo sufferings similar to His. I have already made it clear that suffering does not have any virtue in itself. The experiences similar to Christ’s follow only as the qualities of our life approximate His own and are consequent to our walking in His ways. This aspect of Christ’s suffering is important in providing the sustenance while facing the vicissitudes of life - especially what is brought on by persecution. I refer not only to the physical aspect but the mental anguish caused when peace-loving Christians are accused of fomenting communal tensions.
C. Paul in Col.1:24 makes the stupendous claim that he is actually filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ! How are we to understand this statement? Quite obviously, this cannot mean that the sacrifice of Christ was in some sense deficient that Paul or any of Christ’s followers had to make up for it. There is only one way this passage can be correctly interpreted - that there is a salvific agency in this kind of sufferings that communicates the message both inside and outside the Church. So Paul could speak of death being at work in him but life in the Corinthian Church as a result (II Cor.4:12). It is also because of this reason that the blood of the martyr works as the seed of the Church. Could we make it our prayer at this critical juncture that the salvation offered by Christ becomes palpable to the masses of our nation through the suffering of the Christian community?

Lessons from suffering.
I want to raise 3 questions, the answers to which can serve as lessons for us.
A. Do we suffer for the right reason? There are cases where our friends from other faiths have held honest prejudices against our faith which we have not cared to dispel. Some hooligans have taken advantage of this situation to whip up communal passions against Christians. We need to live in our country identifying with her heart cries even as we seek to present the gospel. We are not to be found being stupid and suffering for it (I Pet.3:16,17). I have often gathered the impression that we have stuck out like a sore thumb and have referred to our fellow-Indians as ‘they’. To this extent, our identification with and our communication of the gospel to our nation has been less than incarnational.
B. Is the Gospel being rejected for the right reason? I am afraid that our message can be packaged in alien cultural forms and our audience can very well be reacting against them. I have recently come across the phrase ‘Cultural invasion’ used by the Sangh Parivar and have wondered whether there is some justification for this feeling. In the time of Paul, the cultural symbol of circumcision alien to the gentiles so undermined the cutting edge of the Cross that he took the risk of rejecting it for valid reasons - “...if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing” (Gal.2:21). It should be remembered that the message of the Cross is transcultural and it has been communicated in appropriate cultural symbols down through the centuries. The only reason one decides against Christ should be the price of self-denial demanded by the Cross and no other.
C. Is there correspondence between beliefs and behaviour of the Christian community? There have been instances where Christians have displayed lack of unity among themselves which have been exploited by lumpen elements. We need to remember that the gospel that we yearn to communicate is not just another religion but a revolutionary lifestyle that proclaims the coming of God’s trans-national kingdom. By living mediocre lives as the people of God, we have often misrepresented the truth of Christ before the watching world. This gap between profession and practice has served as a convenient excuse for some for their rejection of Christ.
May the Lord use this season of persecution to cleanse His Church and bring salvation to our nation!