All We Need Is Christmas Without History-Centrism

History-centrism: In the context of a religion, history-centrism is the tendency to prove its mythology as having happened in the linear time of history, and historic developments having happened in fulfillment of the religious prophecy.

Every time there is Christmas, some heated arguments emerge from the newly emerging breed of internet ‘Hindutvaites’. The target of attack usually would be Sri Ramakrishna Math. How can they celebrate Christmas? Is it not shameful? Why are they behaving like secularists?

I find it hard to criticise Sri Ramakrishna Mission celebrating Christmas. It is vital for us to know that what Sri Ramakrishna mission is doing is not promotion of the sameness. By celebrating Christmas, Sri Ramakrishna Mission as an institution and Sri Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Vedantic tradition as a spiritual tradition, is doing humanity a great favour. They are helping humanity to place Christmas in context and thus reclaim an ancient festival, which is today identified with Christianity - without destroying whatever is good and universal in the Christian tradition.

Swami Ranganathananda (1908-2005), the 13th president of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, in his famous lecture, ‘The Christ we Adore’, delivered during the Christmas celebrations in the Math in 1954, made this point very clear:

The problem with Christianity is its history-centrism. The obsession to inherit the Jewish spiritual tradition and then replace it with the messianic claims of Jesus has done irreparable damage to humanity when institutional Christianity of both Lutheran and Roman sects, started functioning as the tools of colonialism. The history-centred narrative and claims of Christianity are also inseparable from its virulent antisemitic and anti-pagan (and hence anti-Hindu) aspects.

Sociologist, poet, playwright William Hermanns (1895-1990) had an interaction with Albert Einstein. The sentiment Einstein expresses here is something which many Hindus and perhaps many followers of natural religions worldwide would share with empathy.

Hermanns records:

The gentle, mild-mannered Einstein comes out unusually harsh on Christianity in the conversation. And what is more, he correctly zeroed in on the real problem with Christianity – its obsession to make Jesus play the ‘true messiah’ in the historical linear time:

Today archaeology and science are creating uncomfortable question for the history-centred approach to Jesus. Yet, Christmas is a great celebration for a vast section of humanity. If we remove the history-centrism from Christianity, then what remains of it?

Bart D Ehrman is James A Gray, distinguished professor at the University of North Carolina. Author of the scholarly work Jesus before the Gospels (Harper Collins, 2016), in his column two days before Christmas this year, he writes:

In fact, by removing Jesus and mythological events associated with his life cycle from the historical time, Ehrman makes Jesus a psychological God-principle for those born in Christian tradition. If this view is accepted, then there is no need to demand that Jesus was indeed born on a day aligned to winter solstice 2,000 years ago and that he indeed died for our sins and hence we remain sinners unless otherwise we drink his blood.

Theological obsession with history-centrism promoted antisemitism, which ended in the Holocaust. In Africa, the same history-centrism imposed the Biblical story of Ham as history and resulted in the Rwanda genocide. Now one has to think of the kind of obsession the institutional churches in India already show for the Aryan-Dravidian race narratives in India.

In India, with evangelical Christianity becoming a political problem and a threat to Indic culture and spirituality, we need to battle aggressively against the history-obsessed nature of Christianity. In places like Tamil Nadu, Christmas celebrations have also become events for political bargaining with corrupt leaders by the Church (both Roman Catholic and CSI). They also promote, through history-centricism, pseudo-histories claiming that the original Hinduism was a Brahminical corruption of the historically only true religion Christianity.

Just as how hatred against Jews was systematically promoted by the church through the claims of Deicide, in India, hatred against Hinduism is created by false stories of Hindus killing Christian martyrs like St Thomas 2,000 years ago and one Devasahayam Pillai in Kanyakumari district 200 years ago. History-centrism of Christianity through fabricated history creates false martyrs and promote communal hatred.

Interestingly, the persecution stories of the Christian saints which the church deems as having a great potential in India are interestingly derived from the stories of Buddhist saints and Bodhisattvas. Barlaam and Josaphat – the saints of Christianity were appropriated from the Buddhist mythology. With Jains and Buddhists writing competitive versions of their persecution in the hands of each other, this literature seemed to have influenced Christian creation of martyrs.

Obsession with historicism of Christianity and its urge for expansionism was so great that in the twelfth century, Christendom strongly believed that India was ruled by a Christian emperor called Prester John. What is even more interesting is the fact that in 1165, the Byzantine Emperor was given a letter, purportedly from Prester John, who ruled a nation where a river from paradise called Indus was flowing throughout the country. Vatican was excited enough to dispatch a mission to enlist the support of Prester John against Saracens. In fact, today, this letter is mostly known as the handwork of archbishop of Mainz. This shows how the historical knowledge received from Greeks and Romans actually atrophied in the West with the ascent of Christianity before becoming completely delusional until later during the colonial times. This is just one example of the fallacies religious obsession with history-centrism can create.

Hence, what should be the Indic response to Christianity? Those who condemn Sri Ramakrishna Mission for celebrating Christmas should not forget what Swami Vivekananda himself said about the historicity of Jesus. He opined that it was the Jewish seer Hillel whose teachings were rehashed as those of Jesus. He said:

Further, the critics should remember that there is a large number of Indians whom we have lost to Christianity for whatever reasons. In India, Christianity is more like the mediaeval Christianity of the West and is also a political tool in the hands of Breaking India forces. So we need to approach Indian Christians and make them understand the fallacies of historicism that is central to their theology. When the fallacy of historicism is removed, the Christ cult can become harmless deprived of its expansionist tendency. Yet, the devotion may remain for which the solution is provided by the approach of Sri Ramakrishna Mission.

So Happy Winter Solstice, Mithra Jayanthi , Christmas and Good Governance Day to all!