S.N.Balagangadhara
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Professor S.N.Balagangadhara or Balu as he is popularly known among his students and admirers, is director of the Research Centre Vergelijkende Cultuurwetenschap (Comparative Science of Cultures) in Ghent University, Belgium. He has authored a book, The Heathen in His Blindness : Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion, on the nature of religion. His central area of inquiry is to develop a description of the western culture against the background of the Indian culture.
Prof. Balagangadhara is currently holding the co-chair of the Hinduism Unit at the American Academy of Religion (AAR).
[edit] Religion is not cultural universal
Prof. Balagangadhara argues that religion cannot be assumed to be a cultural universal. Such an assumption is only dictated by Christian theology. In Balagangadhara's own words -
"Not many would challenge the claim that Christianity has been highly influential in the development of the western culture. We need to take this statement utterly seriously. It means that many things we `take for granted', whether in the West or in India, come from the influence that Christianity has exerted.
I claim that Christianity expands in two ways. (This is not just typical of Christianity but of all religions. I will talk only of Christianity because I want to talk about the western culture.) Both of these have been present ever since the inception of Christianity and have mutually reinforced each other. The first is familiar to all of us: direct conversion. People from other cultures and `religions' are explicitly converted to Christianity and thus the community of Christian believers grows. This is the `surface' or explicit expansion of Christianity. In India, both in the colonial and modern times, this has been a theme of intense controversy but, according to me, not of very great consequence when compared to the second way Christianity also expands.
Funnily enough, the second way in which Christianity expands is also familiar to us: the process secularisation. I claim that Christianity `secularises' itself in the form of, as it were, `dechristianised Christianity'. What this word means is: typically Christian doctrines spread wide and deep (beyond the confines of the community of Christian believers) in the society dressed up in `secular' (that is, not in recognisably `Christian') clothes. We need a very small bit of Western history here in order to understand this point better.
Usually, the `enlightenment period', which is identified as `the Age of Reason', is alleged to be the apotheosis (or the `high point') of the process of `secularisation'. What people normally mean by `secularisation' here is the following: the enlightenment thinkers are supposed to have successfully `fought' against the dominance that religion (i.e. Christianity) had until then exercised over social, political, and economic life. From then on, so goes the standard text book story, human kind began to look to `reason' instead of, say, the Church in all matters social, civic, political etc. The spirit of scientific thinking, which dominated that age, has continued to gain ascendancy. As heirs to this period, which put a definitive end to all forms of `irrational' subservience, we are proud citizens of the modern day world. We are against all forms of despotism and we are believers in democracy; we believe in the role of reason in social life; we recognise the value of human rights; and we should understand that `religion' is not a matter for state intervention, but a `private' and personal affair of the individual in question. This, as I say, is the standard text book story.
The problem with this story is simply this: the enlightenment thinkers have built their formidable reputation (as opponents of `all organised religion' or even `religion' tout court) by selling ideas from Protestant Christianity as though they were `neutral' and `rational'. Take for example the claim that `religion' is not a matter for state intervention and that it is a `private' affair of the individual in question. (Indian `secularists' agitatedly jump up and down to `defend' this idea.) Who thought, do you think, that `religion' was not a `private' affair? The Catholic Church, of course. Even to this day, it believes that you should believe what the Church says, and that because the Church mediates between Man and God, what you believe in (as a Christian) is decided by the Catholic Church. The Protestants fought a battle with the Catholics on theological grounds: they argued that `being a Christian believer' (or what the Christian believes in) is a matter between the Maker (i.e. God) and the Individual. It was God (i.e. the Christian God), who judged man; and men could not judge each other in matters of Christian faith. The Church, they argued, could not mediate between Man and God (according to their interpretation of the Bible); the Catholic Church argued that men could not, using only their reasoning and interpretative abilities, interpret the Word of God (i.e. the Bible). To think so is to be seduced by the Devil, and the only guarantee against the seduction by the Devil and eternal damnation was the Church itself and its interpretation of the Bible. (There is a famous doctrine of the Catholic Church, which says, `Extra ecclesiam nulla salus': there is no salvation - i.e. being saved from the clutches of the Devil - outside the Church.) To cut the long story short, the Protestants won this theological battle. The enlightenment thinkers repeated this Protestant story, and this has become our `secularism'"
