An Indian Journey through Lent, Day 28
Afternoon Tea at the Vicarage
Today Lena and I had the great good fortune of having high tea at the Shimla vicarage. I must explain and update the terminology. The Vicar, now called the Presbyter-in-Charge, is the Rev Mushtaq Malk. He and his wife Neera - who is also a Presbyter - and their two children Arvind and Rhythm rattle around in a huge converted school that may still be called the Vicarage. The Reverends Malk now minister within the Church of North India which, like the Uniting Church in Australia is a union denomination made up of several antecedent denominations brought together in the 1970s.
Christ Church in Shimla is the second oldest church in south Asia. It was the church the British leadership in India - Viceroys and their entourage - attended during the “unbearable” Indian summers when the apparatus of government retreated to the cool of Shimla, more than 2,000 metres above sea level. Christ Church is very English. It is large, built stolidly of stone, dominates The Ridge that overlooks Shimla, and has the obligatory Anglican Norman tower. Inside, the pulpit stands a metre or two above contradiction, and the altar, cut off by the communion rail from the rest of the church, is at least 20 metres from the nearest pew. The set of organ pipes is Asia’s largest. Just to tune them costs 40,000 rupees every few years. Most of the available wall space is covered with plaques commemorating dead English dignitaries. The building now used as the Vicarage was a school for the children of said dignitaries.
Lena and I had a most interesting conversation with the Malks about how in the name of all that is cross-cultural one could expect a congregation that uses these edifices to foreign conquerors of a bygone age to prosper.
On the one hand they are frustrated by issues of property maintenance that dwarf those that most congregations in Australia face.
More difficult yet, there are still elderly Indian Christians who occupy positions of power in congregations and who hanker after the old ways of the Church of England. Young people are refused permission by organ-and-hymn-loving “gate keeper(s)” to use guitars, drums, etc. in worship, let alone authentically Indian instruments like the sitar and the tabla. Arvind, young, a preacher’s son and a musician, waxed eloquent on this subject, then began playing and singing Indian music. This congregational argument sounded like “western worship wars” compounded by cultural collision.
But perhaps the most difficult obstacle the sheer presence of the church places in the way of Christian outreach today is the sense in which it, by standing so prominently on The Ridge, overtopped only recently by a huge statue of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, is still a symbol of the British Raj and Religion. Although British rule ended nearly three score years and ten ago the memory of being under the colonial rule of those of a foreign faith is still a huge irritant for many patriotic Indians and devout Hindus.
On the other hand, by virtue of its high visibility and accessibility, and its historical significance Christ Church attracts many tourists. This gives rise to many opportunities for contact with people. Instead of having to reach out to people, Mushtaq’s experience is that many people who would not normally come to a church come to Christ Church, not just as tourists but as spiritual seekers. In a country where overt religiosity is the norm he routinely spends at least an hour after services praying for people who request it.
This experience of paradoxical acceptance was confirmed by one of my own the previous day at the writers’ seminar. Having endured one academic harshly criticising Australia and its Christian religion for its racist treatment of aborigines without appearing to know too much about the facts or context I was very touched, having told another academic about myself, to be invited on the spot to come and talk about the Christian church in the town in which he lives. Christianity is part of the fabric of Indian society, he reasoned, and we Hindus need to know more about it from someone who can explain it from the inside, as it were. This was famous Hindu tolerance at its best. I can only hope and pray that some of my fellow Christians would be equally generous towards those of differing convictions.
My further reflection is that in Mushtaq’s and Neera’s struggles with how best to use property and tradition in the quest for congregational renewal they and the Church of North India are far from alone. The Uniting Church has such problems in these matters that one of its former Moderators provocatively suggested selling all property and giving the proceeds to the poor! In England these issues are perhaps even more acute. Some years ago I accompanied said former Moderator and others from the Uniting Church on a tour of “fresh expressions of church” in southern England, and came home relieved that at least we did’t have 1,000 year old buildings and traditions to move into the 21st century! But to have to deal with the problems posed by property maintenance and staid conservatism in a context which is overwhelmingly other-religious, in which one’s own faith is still associated, rightly or wrongly, with the hated colonial ruler - that is a difficult place to be. I left afternoon tea at the Vicarage with a fresh appreciation and admiration for my sisters and brothers of the Church of North India.
Afternoon Tea at the Vicarage
Today Lena and I had the great good fortune of having high tea at the Shimla vicarage. I must explain and update the terminology. The Vicar, now called the Presbyter-in-Charge, is the Rev Mushtaq Malk. He and his wife Neera - who is also a Presbyter - and their two children Arvind and Rhythm rattle around in a huge converted school that may still be called the Vicarage. The Reverends Malk now minister within the Church of North India which, like the Uniting Church in Australia is a union denomination made up of several antecedent denominations brought together in the 1970s.
Christ Church in Shimla is the second oldest church in south Asia. It was the church the British leadership in India - Viceroys and their entourage - attended during the “unbearable” Indian summers when the apparatus of government retreated to the cool of Shimla, more than 2,000 metres above sea level. Christ Church is very English. It is large, built stolidly of stone, dominates The Ridge that overlooks Shimla, and has the obligatory Anglican Norman tower. Inside, the pulpit stands a metre or two above contradiction, and the altar, cut off by the communion rail from the rest of the church, is at least 20 metres from the nearest pew. The set of organ pipes is Asia’s largest. Just to tune them costs 40,000 rupees every few years. Most of the available wall space is covered with plaques commemorating dead English dignitaries. The building now used as the Vicarage was a school for the children of said dignitaries.
Lena and I had a most interesting conversation with the Malks about how in the name of all that is cross-cultural one could expect a congregation that uses these edifices to foreign conquerors of a bygone age to prosper.
On the one hand they are frustrated by issues of property maintenance that dwarf those that most congregations in Australia face.
More difficult yet, there are still elderly Indian Christians who occupy positions of power in congregations and who hanker after the old ways of the Church of England. Young people are refused permission by organ-and-hymn-loving “gate keeper(s)” to use guitars, drums, etc. in worship, let alone authentically Indian instruments like the sitar and the tabla. Arvind, young, a preacher’s son and a musician, waxed eloquent on this subject, then began playing and singing Indian music. This congregational argument sounded like “western worship wars” compounded by cultural collision.
But perhaps the most difficult obstacle the sheer presence of the church places in the way of Christian outreach today is the sense in which it, by standing so prominently on The Ridge, overtopped only recently by a huge statue of the Hindu monkey-god Hanuman, is still a symbol of the British Raj and Religion. Although British rule ended nearly three score years and ten ago the memory of being under the colonial rule of those of a foreign faith is still a huge irritant for many patriotic Indians and devout Hindus.
On the other hand, by virtue of its high visibility and accessibility, and its historical significance Christ Church attracts many tourists. This gives rise to many opportunities for contact with people. Instead of having to reach out to people, Mushtaq’s experience is that many people who would not normally come to a church come to Christ Church, not just as tourists but as spiritual seekers. In a country where overt religiosity is the norm he routinely spends at least an hour after services praying for people who request it.
This experience of paradoxical acceptance was confirmed by one of my own the previous day at the writers’ seminar. Having endured one academic harshly criticising Australia and its Christian religion for its racist treatment of aborigines without appearing to know too much about the facts or context I was very touched, having told another academic about myself, to be invited on the spot to come and talk about the Christian church in the town in which he lives. Christianity is part of the fabric of Indian society, he reasoned, and we Hindus need to know more about it from someone who can explain it from the inside, as it were. This was famous Hindu tolerance at its best. I can only hope and pray that some of my fellow Christians would be equally generous towards those of differing convictions.
My further reflection is that in Mushtaq’s and Neera’s struggles with how best to use property and tradition in the quest for congregational renewal they and the Church of North India are far from alone. The Uniting Church has such problems in these matters that one of its former Moderators provocatively suggested selling all property and giving the proceeds to the poor! In England these issues are perhaps even more acute. Some years ago I accompanied said former Moderator and others from the Uniting Church on a tour of “fresh expressions of church” in southern England, and came home relieved that at least we did’t have 1,000 year old buildings and traditions to move into the 21st century! But to have to deal with the problems posed by property maintenance and staid conservatism in a context which is overwhelmingly other-religious, in which one’s own faith is still associated, rightly or wrongly, with the hated colonial ruler - that is a difficult place to be. I left afternoon tea at the Vicarage with a fresh appreciation and admiration for my sisters and brothers of the Church of North India.
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