Kortom a.h.w. zo myDiActueel als het maar kan ...!

Back to India & the rest of the world!

Stanley, whose second name is Jedidiah, 'Beloved of the Lord,' Samartha, the name that Solomon was given in the bible, grew up in a deep Christian spirit, highly influenced by the Basel Mission. In an article, 'Digging Up Old Wells,' in which Sam reflects upon the legacy of the BM in India, he acknowledges the fact that 'those of us who trace our christian origin to the BM should recognize that we had no other way of receiving the gospel except through the ministry of the Basel Mission. Some of the characteristic elements of the BM legacy Sam enumerates are a distrust of all ritual, dogma, ecclesiastical authority and a strong emphasis on the participation of the lay people in the church; concern for the youth in the life of the church; the importance of the christian family in the spiritual nurture of the community; then centrality of the bible; the attention given to evangelism and the close connection between work and worship as past of the Christian vocation in the world.

In Mangalore he went successively to the BEM high school; the Government College for two years of under-graduate studies, and the St Aloysius' College, where he studied history and economics. Here he obtained his B.A. Degree, which was granted by the Madras University. During those years, he became a member of the Student Christian Movement, with which Samartha has been associated ever since.

In assessing the period under review, Sam stresses the deep impact of the BM in shaping his Christian character. Though the BM Christians constituted a minority in a Hindu environment, Christian life within the BM community was flourishing. More and more responsibilities were handed over to Indian leaders by Western missionaries. The other side of the picture was the introverted character of the BM Christian community. According to Samartha, the BM Christians adopted a rather isolated position in the Indian society. 'We are an almost intro-verted community, still suffering from the "mission-compound complex". To break down our isolation and to provide fellowship aimed at strengthening our spiritual life is one of our great needs' he wrote in 1951.

Een vooruitziende blik: iets dergelijks gaat ook nu nog steeds op voor talloze christelijke (Joodse & islamitische!) gemeenschappen ANYWHERE!