Roy was one of the greatest social reformers, scholars and rationalists attracted by the teachings of Jesus and often called ‘the father of modern India’. He was instrumental in abolishing harmful practices like sati,10 child-marriage and enacting legislation for widow-remarriage.11 He was influenced by the Islamic teachings of monotheism and his contact with ‘Unitarians’ resulted in his rejection of the polytheism of popular Hinduism. Roy was attracted to Christian ethics
7
Jacob Parappally, Emerging Trends in Indian Christology (Bangalore: IIS Publications, 1995), 6.
8
Anantanand Rambachan, ‘A Hindu Look at Jesus,’ Vidhyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection 58/12 (December 1994): 773.
9
Balwant A.M. Paradkar, ‘Hindu Interpretation of Christ from Vivekananda to Radhakrishnan,’
Indian Journal of Theology 18/1 (January-March 1969): 70-73 and 77-80; P. Fallon, ‘A Critical
Evaluation of the Hindu Interpretation of Christ,’ Indian Journal of Theology 18/1 (January-March 1969): 81-87; Ronald Neufeldt, Hindu-Christian Dialogue: Perspectives and Encounter, edited by Harold Coward (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1989), 162-175; Parappally, Emerging Trends, 6-9; Watson, Towards a Relevant Christology, 53-57; Boyd, An Introduction, 19-26; Sumithra,
Christian Theologies, 209-230. 10
Sati is the practice of burning the wife in the funeral pyre of the husband. He became a crusader against this custom when he was the unwilling witness of the sati of his brother’s wife. With the help of Lord William Bentinck, he was able to stop it by legislation.
11
In Hinduism widow remarriage was not allowed and not only he brought legislation for it but also proved it by marrying a widow.
rather than dogma.12 We may summarise his fundamental ideas into the following points: first, monotheistic faith in the unity of God; second, morality is the essence of true religion, and moral degradation is the accompaniment of polytheism and idolatrous worship; third, rationalism demands that religious beliefs should be reasonable and reason should purify religion of superstition and unnecessary mysteries and miracles.
Roy was inspired by the Upanishadic teachings on Brahman as Supreme-being and Jesus’ ethics, especially the Sermon on the Mount which shaped his Christology. He published a book called ‘The Precepts of Jesus’ based on the teaching of Jesus which was inspired by the four Gospels; his intention was to provoke Hindu intellectuals in the cause of the moral reform of Hindu society.13
Roy ultimately denied the full divinity of Christ. For him, Jesus was a great teacher and ‘messenger of God’. According to him, the ‘Son of God’ title was just the expression of the created nature of Christ, although the most highly exalted of all creatures.14 Roy proved what he called ‘the natural inferiority of the Son to the Father’ by quoting many passages from Bible.15 He held that Jesus is merely authorized with power from God, but did not possess this power, intrinsically. Roy explained the Johannine text which speaks about the unity of the Father and the Son, as ‘a subsisting concord of will and design, such as existed among his
12
Boyd, An Introduction, 19.
13
Ram Mohan Roy, The Precepts of Jesus (Calcutta: The Baptist Mission Press, 1820).
14
Boyd, An Introduction, 22; He elaborates: Jesus is the Son of God, a term synonymous with that of Messiah, the highest of all the prophet; and his life declares him to have been, as represented in the scripture, pure as light, innocent as a lamb, necessary for the eternal life as bread for a temporal one, and great as the angels of God or rather greater than they; see Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Second Appeal (Calcutta: Printed by the Baptist Mission Press, 1821), 69, cited by Boyd, An Introduction,
23.
15
Mohan Roy,Second Appeal, 12.
apostles and not identity of being’.16 For him, the claim that Jesus was God-man cannot be accepted, as it is incompatible with the vedantic understanding of the supreme-being.17
Although Roy affirms the virgin birth, miracles, and even the bodily resurrection of Christ, he does not give much emphasis to these aspects. He believes that the saving work of Christ is accomplished only through his teachings. For this reason, he does not see any significance in the vicarious suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.18 For him, Christ’s death is merely the supreme illustration of those precepts, whose communication invited the sole object of his mission.19 In Roy’s thinking, ‘the blessing of pardon’ is available ‘from the merciful Father through repentance, which declared the only means of procuring forgiveness of our failures’.20 Thus, Roy negates the need for an atoning death. He finds divine injustice, if God inflicts suffering on an innocent person on behalf of others.21
Similarly, others in this group appreciated the person and message of Jesus, but were wary of acknowledging the divinity of Jesus and accepting him as God, which was impossible for them. Parapally rightly comments, ‘Commitment to the person of Jesus Christ must remain a pre-requisite for understanding the person
16
Roy,Second Appeal. 17
Parappally, Emerging Trends, 8; Ironically, he believed in the Virgin birth and the miracles of Christ, however, rejected the personality of Holy Spirit as the agent of Christ’s birth saying that it would mean the Godhead having had intercourse with a human female. The miracles of Jesus did not carry any weight in India where so many other miracles are believed.
18
Parappally, Emerging Trends, 8.
19
Sumitra, Christian Theologies, 44.
20
M.M. Thomas, The Acknowledged Christ of Indian Renaissance (Madras: Christian Literature Society, 1970), 27; According to him, repentance is the only means for salvation. He affirms that there is not ‘a single passage pronounced by Jesus enjoining such a doctrine of the Cross, as all sufficient and indispensable for salvation.’
21
Boyd, An Introduction, 24.
and message of Christ’.22 Hence, their interpretations of Christ remained that of ‘outsiders’.