Remedial English course being held in UTC

The Remedial English programme of the UTC started in UTC on Friday. The programme held under the guidance of the English teacher Ms. Geetha Basappa is an yearly programme for the benefit of candidates who have got admission for graduate and post graduate courses of the UTC. The Remedial English programme helps the students with their spoken and written English and prepares them for the graduate and post graduate courses. The principal, Dr. John Samuel Raj, the Master's dean Dr. David Joy, the graduate dean Dr. Sahayadhas and the PRO, Ms. Sasikala spoke at the inaugural session.

Book launch tomorrow

The book launch and inaugural sale of the book "Borders and Margins. Re-Visioning Ministry and Mission", edited by Rev. Dr. Dexter Maben will be held tomorrow at 9 A.M. at the Ziegenbalg chapel in the UTC. The book is jointly published by the Publication Committee of the UTC and the Christhava Sahitya Samithi, Thiruvalla.

Those present will include the students and staff of UTC, Fr. Dr. Joseph Benedict Mathias, S.J., Rector of the St.Peter's Pontifical Seminary, Bangalore, Ms. Corine Kumar, Vimochana, Bangalore, Prof. D. Kiran Jeevan, Head of the Department of Social Work, St. Joseph's College, Bangalore, Rev. Dr. John Samuel Raj, principal of the UTC, Rev. Dr. Sahayadhas, Rev. Dr. Dexter Maben, editor of the book and contributors and language editors. The book will be available till March 11, 2015 for an inaugural price of Rs 350.

Hindu Nationalism and the Indian Church: Towards an Ecclesiology in Conversation with Martin Luther

Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadhas, professor in the department of Theology and Ethics in the UTC has published his latest book "Hindu Nationalism and the Indian Church: Towards an Ecclesiology in Conversation with Martin Luther." The book published by Christian World Imprints costs Rs 1,390 and is being offered at a price of Rs 1251with free delivery all over India.

The publishers say that "In the book, the author attempts to re-construe an Indian ecclesiology vis-à-vis the narrowly defined ideals of Hindu nationalism in contemporary India by analyzing and investigating the ecclesiological thoughts of Martin Luther, the 16th century Protestant Reformer. The book brilliantly places the teachings of the Reformer within ‘the social and historical travails of that time and brings them to bear on the ongoing constructive task of living into a relevant and appropriate Indian ecclesiology (and thereby, Indian Christian theology) today’.In this process, it is being maintained that the Indian Church must transform itself into a “Perichoretic Communion”, in which the diverse Christian ethnic groups and the plurality of cultures of India must interpenetrate in order to form one unit, while keeping their respective ethnic, linguistic and cultural identities intact. The author draws his insights from Luther’s fundamental theological/ ecclesiological principle: unity of the opposites or distinction and integration, and passionately proposes that it must be the principle of the Indian Church today. This theological writing presents an important and pioneering opus. It clearly focuses on contemporary contextual issues, concerns and challenges, and offers insights of general validity, not only for the Indian world but also from a global perspective. It is a timely volume and is well advised for the worldwide Church and the public at large."

Remembering Ilavarasan, Interrogating Casteism: Reimagining Christian Public Witness in India

Dr. Mohan Larbeer

Rev. Raj Bharath Patta

A public lecture on the topic "Remembering Ilavarasan, Interrogating Casteism: Reimagining Christian Public Witness in India" was held in UTC at 5:00 P.M. yesterday. Rev. Raj Bharath Patta, the General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement India (SCMI) gave the main lecture and it was moderated and commented on by Dr. Mohan Larbeer, the secretary of the Board of Theological Education of the Senate of Serampore College (BTESSC). The lecture was jointly conducted by UTC and SCMI.

Rev. Raj Bharath Patta explained the loss of life of Ilavarasan, a dalit man, as a murder and something for which all are responsible. He gave a blow by blow account of the issue which lead to the death of Ilavarasan. The violence of the Vaniyars against dalits was brought out clearly. He saw the incident as
1. The violence against dalit communities after inter caste marriages.
2. There is a anti-dalit hate campaign and also an attempt to say that they are coming up and dressing up like others.
3. There is a political conspiracy to spit venom against dalit communities and this is for the creation of an electoral constituency.
4. There is an ongoing increase of suicides among dalits in various places.
5. There is a nexus between caste and politics, caste and patriarchy and caste and power.

For Raj Bharath the need to remember Ilavarasan today is that he reminds us of several others and their struggles against injustice. Ilavarasan reminds us of Rosa Parks, the modern civil rights movement and the life of resilience. Ilavarasan also reminds us of Nelson Mandela and archbishop OscarRomero. Rev. Bharath pointed out that high caste Hindu educated youth are campaigning against inter caste marriages and saying that their crusade is to preserve Indian traditions. He therefore said that inter caste marriages are the need of the hour if we have to thwart false traditions. Dr. Ambedkar also had such a view.

Rev. Bharath then articulated the problem of caste with what Felix Wilfred and Satish Deshpande have written and talked about as our silence on caste. Rev. Bharath finally brought in an analysis from the bible in the form of the story of Cain and Abel and said that Ilavarasan's death is like Abel's death. It was not death but murder. The retort of Cain "Am I my brother's keeper?" is what we are doing by not talking about Ilavarasan. Good news for the poor is bad news to the rich.

He then talked of a positive story in the bible regarding Ruth and Boaz and how their marriage was inter-territorial and went beyond set boundaries. This is the same route the church must take in India. He ended with a letter written to Ilavarsan confessing our inability to help him and affirming that Ilavarasan is now an epitome of hope to the community.

Dr. Larbeer started by saying that he has always been a supporter of inter caste love marriages. He gave a succint report on the real situation of caste in Tamil Nadu referring to the problem between the Vaniyar dominated PMK and the dalits. He brought out the key issue of the economics of caste and how this was also very much an issue of how the social upward mobility of the dalits was a problem to other castes. He also reminded those present of the new expression of dalit capitalism. He ended by saying "No one can murder or kill love." Students and faculty from UTC and the SCMI unit from Goodwill Women's Christian College attended the lecture.

Dr. Sahayadhas introduced the speakers, Dr. Allan Palanna and Dr. George Zachariah made venue arrangements and took care of logistics, Ms. Veronica, MTh II and Mr. Paul Karunakar, BD III helped in the conduct of the programme and Rev. Dinesh, MTh II offered prayer.

Professorial lecture of Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadhas

The Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadhas delivered his professorial lecture titled "A Theologians Wrestling with Anger and its Trajectories in shaping theology" in UTC yesterday at 4:30 P.M. in the Tagore Hall. The lecture was chaired by the Dean of the Masters Division, Rev. Dr. K. Jesurathnam and introductory remarks were made by the dean of the Doctoral Division, Dr. Nalini Arles. Dr. Sahadhas started by thanking his teachers Dr. O.V. Jathanna, Dr Sathianathan Clarke, Dr. Jayakiran Sebastian, Dr. Christopher Doraisingh, his faculty colleagues, principal, all UTC staff and wife Usha and son Benil.

Dr. Sahayadhas in his lecture talked about the role of anger in our lives and tried to bring out the theology of anger and how it can be channelised to be used by all communities who face oppression. He introduced the participants in the lecture to how anger was seen over the centuries. He looked at anger from the perspective of church fathers, Martin Luther and Buddha.

He then tried to contextualize it by talking of the experience of the Arunthathiyars. He spoke of how they are angry at being oppressed and relegated to the sidelines. But this anger according to Dr. Sahayadhas has taken a good direction and has become the anger of hope rather than the anger of despair. He reminded those present that theology is very ritualistic in India and we have to come out of this.

 Those present congratulated Dr. Sahayadhas and his family.

Rev. Dr. R. Sahayadhas, his wife Usha and their son Benil