Engagement and Marriage

Human beings are shaped by culture and tradition. No matter how much you protest against the tradition that a person finds it insignificant, he/she carries out the same. Nevertheless, no culture is superior! Every culture and tradition has their own good and evil factors. Therefore, it should be confirmed in the light of the faith praxis. Well, you may find different approach towards the engagement. However, I would limit myself in the biblical pattern as far as possible. Indeed there is no such detail about the engagement in the Bible. Nevertheless the New Testament begins with the context of Joseph and Mary’s engagement.  I have no intention to elaborate more about the biblical illustration rather I would try to pen down some of the vital issues that we have to undertake about the marriage and Engagement. However, I would not be a right person to write about marriage, but, of course, I have enough rights to note down about the ‘engagement,’ after all I am engaged with Thiru whom I love so much.

Engagement is a vow between a girl and a boy that they would get marry after some days. It’s a tradition of the church to give some brake for girl and boy, in case there are some illegitimate relationships of either party in prior dates which may have enough reasons to obstruct the wedding, provided adequate evidences. If so, the vow would be shrunken under mutual understanding. That’s all I understand.

What is the role of finances in engagement and wedding? I read few years back in one of the column of NBCBS bulletin where author displays his experiences of the West. The western youngsters hesitate to get engaged in the church tradition and get their wedding done in the church due to the height of the expenses that the church tradition has laid out. Therefore, they tend to move away from the church and get married beyond the church. This may not be the absolute fact for the young people to move away from the church in the West. However, it is a part of the reasons that really gives us enough room to think and articulate our approach towards the engagement and wedding.   

The most distressing part is that we Christians do not understand the fact that the money we spend, does not really belong to us. In fact we are just a care taker only that God has granted us to be.

Before I attempt to elaborate more, it would be worth suggesting to young people, to read the “This Momentary Marriage,” written by John Piper. This is a classic book written by Piper which should be read by all young people, who are in verge of marriage. I would begin by Bonhoeffer’s[1] note that he wrote a month after his imprisonment and two years before his death from the military section of the prison at Tegel, Berlin, “A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell.” He choose the text Ephesians 1; 12.

Marriage is more than your love for each other. . . . In your love you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, and office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man.

Well, Piper starts with two points that he keeps it in the zenith of his discussion. i.e. a. Marriage is doing of God; b. Marriage is display of God. It is God himself who decrees that Man’s solitude is not really a good. Therefore, it is God himself who sets out to complete the man’s loneliness and created a central design of creation, man and women in marriage. That’s all.

My intention of portraying all these is to disclose the central idea of the marriage which we young people have to understand.  How the church has interpreted this easy and holy factor of the marriage? Someone said that God makes things easy but it is Christians that make the easy things complicate. I do not know how far it is true. You can contemplate over this.

Coming to the idea of Engagement and Wedding, there are few things that we all have to ponder about.

1. The trend of high-expenses
2. The trend of dowry
3. The trend of show up

I have never understood (and perhaps will never) why we still have been wronged with the issue that is troubling our society. Some people debate that the cultural factor compels them to uphold some of the traditions. If that is the argument then where is our faith which is white and Chrystal! Therefore, we are not enslaved of the tradition rather we should be an adherent of the faith, without violating the tradition. For sure that a tradition can be observed and articulated in the light of the changing society. You might be surprised to know that the highest divorce rate in India is found in Kerala which is also known as God’s own country, having maximum percentage of Christians. Friends! Think for a moment. I was invited in a wedding few months back in India. To my surprise the cost of the wedding tent itself was more than 2 lakhs (IC). Think about the wedding expenses! He is pasturing a church in one of the metro cities in India. There are thousands of people on the road who are dying without getting a morsel of rice. Here we murmur that we did not a get a piece of Mutton. I wonder what Christ would have thought when we eat mutton piece, while there are people who do not have privilege for lodging and fooding. In Nepal, there should be Khasi ko Masu (mutton) in the wedding, if not marriage is unsuccessful. This is the tragedy of Christian leaders that we never think of others! What would be future road of our leader? If you possess all this customs which, in fact doesn’t have any biblical support rather we have hired from others. However, I do not intend to generalize it, There are leaders and churches which has displayed their integrity. Thumbs up for those leaders who stand with the people!

Where do we show our identity? If we do not make any differences in the world, then where do we preach our Christianity? Christianity is not a pulpit preaching only; rather it should be projected through our life and tradition. What I meant by saying all these is to display clear thought over the wedding and engagement. Marriage and engagement is something that is very personal between girl and boy. Therefore, it should be done in such a way that would provide an apparent and easy road map to the upcoming generation. Remember that someone would be in the verge of marriage after you. Church is a mixture of different cultures, traditions and standards, and in midst of all these realities we are called to be one family, sharing our life each other. You might be having plenty that you can invest in your wedding. But think about others! The next one would be waiting at doorstep and who is in verge of the marriage but may not have all possibilities like you have and struggles to arrange the wedding dress. How would then, they conduct their wedding if the church does not bother over these realities! This is my humble request that low budget of wedding does not harm our identity! We are who we are! People know us very much that we do not need to add extra flavor to highlight it. Do not spoil the tea by adding an extra sugar.

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[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer got engaged to be married to Maria when he was hanged at down on 9^th April, 1945, at the age of thirty-nine. He had been opposed to Nazism and finally was arrested in 1943, for his involvement in a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Therefore he never married but skipped the shadow on the way to the reality.

Conversion vs Repentance: Kandhmal, Odisha

Kandhmal, Odisha

Beautiful railway station that I have ever seen in India! That is none other than Bhubaneswar station. I arrived early in the morning of 8^th December. After spending two days in the train, I was indeed physically exhausted. Never mind! I had had enough rest in pastor Ullas Pani’s apartment. After a while, we headed for Kandhmal in a hired cab, accompanied by the team. Life was quite challenging in the Kandhmal. I had heard a lot about the Christian persecution in the Kandhmal. In fact, the news captured the attention of the whole world. People poured out their sympathy towards the Kandhmal victims. The brutality of fundamental groups were criticized and condemned from every corners of the world. Nevertheless, the ground situation could not turn into betterment. Pastor Ullas Pani was kind enough to show us the route for Kandhmal. He even showed us a Christian colony which was completely demolished by the fundamental groups during the attack in 2008. Now, there were few huts which were re-constructed through the government’s relief fund.

This led me to think about another incident while discussing about the Odisha persecution. Coincidently, I had an encounter with a friend of Graham and Glady. I was quite shattered hearing from her. She even didn’t want to remember about the incident that took place in 1999. I bitterly cried in the heart that Lord, why it is difficult to understand the secret of your love that even drives your people to the point of death? She said to me, “Janak! Graham was not a kind of person who could provoke others through his works and speech. I am not portraying his humility just because he was killed, but if a truth be told, he was a humble man.” The person, with whom I was chatting, was so close to Graham, even before Graham was engaged to Glady. I asked her whether she has read a book “Burnt and Alive” which talks about the whole episode of Stain’s life and tragedy that happened in Odisha. She simply said, “Please, do not ask me about this. I do not want to read that book. The day he was brutally killed, I rang up to Graham’s home in the morning whether I could visit him. In response, I could hear a crying and shouting, “‘Mam! He has been burnt alive....burnt alive...burnt.’ I literally fell down and could not even believe. In fact I was in touch with Glady and now it’s been many days that I lost contact with her after she left Odisha.”

Our main job in Kandhmal was to construct a literacy primer for Kui people. Kandhmal accumulates of ten lakhs of population, including the majority of kui speaking people. Out of the total population, 80% of people come from the Kui tribe which is one of the major tribal languages in the state of Odisha. Kui people do not have their own literature as we could find in Odiya. Most of the Kui finds difficulty to understand Odiya though they use the same script. Taking this into consideration, Chrystella and friends from LEI took up the burden of constructing a primer for the Kui people that these people would have get an access to read the Bible into their own language.

Odisha is known for the land of persecution and militancy, where common people have been brain washed by the other fundamentalists and extremists. I presume that the lack of education could be one of the reasons for the rise of these disturbances. After couple of days of the workshop, the participants became much acquainted to me. They started to share their stories that had happened in 2008 persecution. Most of them were the local pastors who come from the Kandhmal areas. Jagannath was a pastor who is from the Kandhmal areas. He is gifted in music and singing. He told me the story of Kandhmal riot:

Nothing was left. Looting and shooting was the normal. Fundamentalists didn’t even bother anyone who confessed Christ as their Lord. Either you had to join the group or you would have to die. We as a family ran away to jungle in different directions when the mob came roaring from another village. I peeped from a far, burning my house and properties. They took away some of the things from the house. They took away all my musical instruments that I loved much more than my life. Everything was turned into ashes after few minutes. They destroyed whole Christian village, and killed some of my friends as well. The old and women, who could not run away, were caught and killed brutally. Most of the villagers were scattered to the jungles. We could spend days and nights without food and have to survive by drinking water and jungle fruits. We didn’t even feel hunger due to the fear and anxiety. We were just anxious about our life.  

Persecution and Church’s response have to be re-articulated and evaluated in order to understand a clear road map. I would highlight two major factors that have hindered God’s kingdom in Odisha. After meeting a couple of leaders, I could grasp a part of the fact of the ministerial approach and their understanding about Evangelism. Correct me if I am wrong! Nevertheless, I strongly stand with the biblical teachings. Nowhere in the Bible, I have seen any significance about the conversion without repentance. A true Christian cannot be a Christian if he has not repented his sins. I think we still hold some of the foggy idea of evangelism that we give much priority to the conversion than the repentance. I could sense this feeling in Odisha that a notion of conversion is higher than confessing the sins and accepting Christ. I doubt on the People Movement Approach of McGavran which he has widely articulated in the book Understanding Church Growth. In fact he defends this not as a theory rather a sober recital of easily observable facts. Nevertheless, I do not accept this fact that numerical growth without reaching the core of the matter does not give any significance, therefore, may lead the people towards more to the conversion, forgetting the repentance.   

The other hurdle is our Approach towards the ministry. I wonder why this fact is no more widely known by the Christian leaders. Soon after the persecution, the relief and aid came to Odisha from all over the world. The saddening part is that many people, who are the real victims, have hardly been benefited. The lack of the fund management and accountability has been a part of the setback of the Christian leaders in Odisha. In a simple term, we could see that leaders have a difficulty in sharing to others what they have. Instead of this, they easily can look up to the foreign help. I am sure that this is the cancer in Christian ministry that is not going to help God’s kingdom at any cost.