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Gandhi's Continuing Relevance*

“Love your enemy. Resist not evil. Every one who hears these words and does

them will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock."

--From the Sermon the Mount.

W. T. Randall**

ABSTRACT

Mohandas K. Gandhi's life (1 869-1948) was an active, outstanding embodiment

of Jesus' teaching in the in the Sermon on the Mount (found in chapters five

through seven of the Gospel According to Matthew in the New Testament), so his

relevance will continue and his challenge to Christianity will be great. The present

paper attempts to identify and examine briefly the major areas of that challenge for

present-day Christianity. Contemporary Christians, either by relegating the

teaching of the Sermon on the Mount to the monastic life, or by setting it aside as

"spiritual", or else by simply dismissing it as "impractical" for the "real" world ,often

fail to accept this teaching of Jesus as truth for life and action. In contrast to that

treatment, Gandhi's acceptance of the teaching of the Sermon as truth, his

integration of that truth with his Hindu faith, and his faithfulness to it throughout

all his life and work, all challenge modern Christianity's serious lack in this regard.

Gandhi's work for the civil rights of Indian citizens in South Africa, and his work for

India's independence from colonial rule were carried out on three main principles:

1) satyag7laha, truth force which refuses to do violence, 2) incarnation of truth in a

life of voluntary poverty, self-denial and identification with the longing aspirations

for freedom, justice and peace in the songs of the poor, and 3) ahimsa a life style

that consciously shuns destruction of life in any form. His life thus stands as a

challenge to the church for it frequently has been unresponsive to the oppressed and

it has often been slow or unwilling to challenge the oppressor. Indeed, rather in

seeking to gain power, wealth, or secular approval - in becoming the "religion of

kings" - the church has tended to become the oppressor and thereby to forfeit its

true status as the church. The corrective for this tendency for material strength and

ethical weakness is for the church to heed the voices and signs that lead back to the

New Testament and renewal. Gandhi's is such a voice and his life is such a sign.

The perils of the nuclear age call for the church to return to ifs true self and to be

the light of the world in this dark age.

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Gandhi Encounters the Sermon on the Mount. ,

M. K. Gandhi was a native of Gujurat, a member of the high caste vaishya tribe.

His father and uncles were prominent lawyers and politicians. Western influence

was relatively weak in that part of India but as a young man Gandhi was drawn to

the West. At the age of eighteen he went to London to study law. He excelled in his

studies and at age 22, upon university graduation and the successful completion of

the qualifying examinations, he was admitted to the British bar. While in London

he read the New Testament for the first time. He came upon the Sermon on the

Mount and the result was electrifying.The words of the Sermon became the norm

for his life The truth he found there was his moral dynamic during the more than

twenty years he spent working for the civil rights of Indians in South Africa, and

during the subsequent three decades of struggle for Indian independence from

British colonial rule.

In his autobiography, Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography. The Story of My

Experiments with Truth, he tells of his Bible reading:

"I began reading (the Bible), but I could not possibly read through the Old

Testament. I read the book of Genesis, and the chapters that followed

invariably sent me to sleep. But just for the sake of being able to say that I had

read it, I plodded through the other books with much difficulty and without the

least interest or understanding. I disliked reading the book of Numbers. But

the New Testament produced a different impression, especially the Sermon on

the Mount which went straight to my heart. I compared it with the Gita. The

verses, 'But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite

thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man take away

thy coat let him have thy cloke too,' delighted me beyond measure. . . My young

mind tried to unify the teaching of the Gita, The Light of Asia and the Sermon

on the Mount. That renunciation was the highest form of religion appealed to

me greatly .”１

Thus the encounter with Christian scripture awoke in young Gandhi the power

and the truth of his own religious heritage. In his mind and in his life he unified the

words of Jesus with the words of the Hindu scriptures:

"For a bowl of water give a goodly meal;

For a kindly greeting bow thou down with zeal;

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For a single penny pay thou back with gold;

If thy life be rescued, life do not withhold.

Thus the words and actions of the wise regard;

Every little service tenfold they reward.

But the truly noble know all men as one,

And return with gladness good for evil done " ２

The Sermon on the Mount as Truth.

1. Three popular views.

How does Gandhi's life challenge modern Christianity? In order to answer that

question it is necessary to point out three views of the Sermon on the Mount that

enjoy wide acceptance in the community of Christ today. Gandhi's life calls each of

these views into very serious question. In summarizing these views I have leaned

heavily on the excellent treatise by Hans Windisch, The Meaning of the Sermon on

the Mount３. For the sake of ease of understanding I have chosen terms that are

sometimes different from those in his treatise, but which hopefully capture the

essence of his conclusions. The three views of the Sermon on the Mount which are

herein called into question are the monastic view, the spiritual view, and the

realistic view.

In substance, the monastic view holds that the ethical demands of the Sermon on

the Mount are impossible for the "general run of men", and only a very few "special

persons" can fullfill the demands. Accordingly a system of merit is maintained for

those “special persons .

The spiritual view is held by interpreters who insist that the ethical demands of

the Sermon are an impossible ideal. The recognition of that impossibility awakens

the need for salvation in the heart of the individual. In this view, the Sermon's only

work is that of a schoolmaster bringing persons to repentance. The impossibility of

attaining its ethical demands disqualifies it as a way of life.

According to the practical view of the Sermon on the Mount, the ideals expressed

in the teachings are indeed wonderful words but have no practical application in the

real world. Since these teachings are impractical for persons living in the real world

they are not binding

2. Gandhi's view

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In contrast to these most commonly held contemporary views of the Sermon on

the Mount, Gandhi simply looked upon the teachings of Jesus as truth. The truth he

found there inspired and undergirded something unprecedented in known human

history. That was the liberation, through actions based on non-violent principles, of

an entire sub-continent of people from colonial bondage. In short, the man Gandhi

and his life challenge the Christians of our time to regard the teachings of our Lord

as truth; truth for life and truth for action.

Incarnation of Truth.

l. The Sermon on the Mount and the Gita.

Gandhi's life was, without dispute, profoundly built on the New Testament

teaching of Jesus. Yet he regularly articulated his faith in Hindu categories. This is

very important for Asian churches to consider.

Gandhi often heard the reading of Hindu scripture in his childhood and youth. He

notes with shame４ that he never read them for himself until his dramatic

encounter with the New Testament while a student is London. Later in life in 1925,

he wrote in Young India: "When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me

in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon. I turn to the Bhagavad-Gita,

and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of

overwhelming sorrow.”５ Mahadev Desai, the Mahatma's long-time secretary,

testifies that "every moment of Gandhi's life is a conscious effort to live the message

of the Gita. " ６In other words, Gandhi's life is a powerfully authentic example of

incarnation. He accepted and lived the truth of the teaching of Jesus, not as an

imitation or copy of western Christianity, but as a faithful indianization.

2. The finer work of the gospel.

Perhaps many persons inside the church and outside of it alike have considered

proselyting to be the primary work of the gospel in Asia. It is possible, however, to

discern a finer work in the impact of the New Testament on Gandhi: the work of

challenging the dehumanizing or death-dealing elements, and promoting the

humanizing or life-giving elements in the existing traditions of Asia. The church's

vision needs to be expanded to include this finer work and to give it continuous

promotion and study.

3. Truth incarnated in society.

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The Mahatma was from beginning to end a seeker after truth. He even gave his

autobiography a title including the words "experiments with truth." The truth he

found, including that of Christian scripture, was lived out - incarnated - in Hindu

categories of speech and in Hindu manner of life. His categories and manners were

always active. They always confronted the Indian social and political situation.

Toward the end of his life he wrote these words in The Harijin which appeared just

days prior to his assassination. "The quest (for truth) can not be prosecuted in a

cave. Silence makes no sense where it is necessary to speak. One may live in a cave

in certain circumstances, but the common man can be tested only in society"７This

shows Gandhi's ever deepening acceptance of himself and of India itself. In the

closing chapter of his "Autobiography", written in 1 929, he stated:

"To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must

be able to love the meanest of creatures as oneself. And a man who aspires after

that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life. That is why my devotion to

Truth has drawn me into the field of politics; and I can say without the slightest

hesitation and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing

to do with politics do not know what religion means. Identification with

everything that lives is impossible without self- purification . . . God can never

be realized by one who is not pure of heart. Self-purification therefore must

mean purification in all the walks of life. And purification being highly

infectious, purification of oneself necessarily leads to the purification of one's

surroundings.”８

4. Society is susceptable to change.

Society, then, is not a given entity to which one must always adjust in order to

avoid standing out. Where truth is incarnated, a person and his society are subject

to change, even purification; and the mechanism that brings this about is living the

truth in the life of the often difficult society where one is found. Gandhi was the

consummate Indian; but he changed the course of history in India and in the British

Empire by firmly being faithful to truth in his own society.

Satyagraha .

l. Faithfulness and social conflict.

Faithfulness to truth almost inevitably brings conflict between a person who

firmly seeks to live by truth and the power structures of society. In such a case

faithfulness, even by a minority, becomes the instrument of change and liberation.

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It was in just such a conflict situation that the now famous satyagraha was

formulated. On August 22, 1906 the Transvaal Government Cazatte published the

text of a new British law which was directed at the Indian population of South

Africa and was particularily detestable in its content. The new law required all

Indians above the age of eight to register, be fingerprinted (a procedure otherwise

applicable only to criminals), and to carry a registration card at all times. Failure to

comply was punishable by fine, imprisonment or banishment. All Indians were

subject, under this law, to summary search of their persons or domiciles by British

police or officials. The Muslims were outraged by this latter provision for to them

the domicile is inviolate, and the person of a woman was private without exception.

2. Faithfulness and victory.

Three thousand Indians filled the Imperial Theatre of Johannesburg on

September 1 1to discuss measures of resistance. No one was prepared to comply

with the new law and many were openly saying they were prepared to kill in

resistance. Gandhi assured them that he was prepared to die rather than comply,

but that for "no cause" was he "prepared to kill." He led them in a solemn oath with

God as witness that they would not comply with this "Black Law" formulated by a

government which had "taken leave of all sense of decency." Every person took the

pledge that on pain of jail or even death they would be faithful to the oath. Gandhi

reminded them that it would be a long struggle but boldly promised, "I can boldly

declare and with certainty that so long as there is even a handful of men true to

their pledge, there can be only one end to the struggle - and that Is victory .”９

3. Thoreau and jail.

The promised victory indeed came but before it proceeded the promised beatings,

indignities, and jailings. Gandhi suffered all of these with the rest, indeed he was

the first to be beaten and the second to be jailed in this action. While he was in jail

for the second time during this action he became acquainted with Thoreau's essay,

Civil Disobedience. The similarities of language and spirit between Thoreau's essay

and Gandhi's speech at the Imperial Theater a few months before are striking

indeed. More than half a century before Gandhi began his campaign of

non-compliance Thoreau had gone to jail for refusing to pay taxes to a state that

legalized slavery and promoted war against the Mexicans. Subsequently he had

written:

"I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I

could name - if ten honest men only - ay, if one HONEST man, in this state of

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Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this

copartnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would- be the

abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how small the beginning may

seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."１０

4. The formulation.

Gandhi used his times in jail to read, pray and think about the movement that

had begun. He tried to find a name for its central principle and at first called it

"passive resistance." Then he soon changed it to satyagraha, "truth force", a power

that does not depend on numbers but on firmness. The sanskrit satya is from the

root sat meaning "truth.” Graha is the Sanskrit word for "firm." Gandhi discussed it

saying, "Satyagraha is literally holding to the truth and it means therefore

truth-force . . . It excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing

the absolute truth and therefore not competent to punish."１１

Incarnation and the Poor of India.

1. Gandhi's identification.

Gandhi's identification with his people is shown in his acceptance of that most

pervasive and most characteristic stratum in all of India, its poverty. This is not to

suggest that he glorified the poverty state. He saw it as it was. He knew its impact

on persons. In 1921 he wrote in Young India, "For millions (poverty) is an eternal

vigal or an eternal trance. It is an indescribably painful state which has to be

experienced to be realized."１２

It was Gandhi's genius that he did realize it, and hence could speak authentically of

meeting peasants as coming "face to face with God."１３ At the same time he was

able to see that the solution to India's poverty would not come from the elite, not

from the rulers, but from the poor themselves. He declared, "We must refuse to be

lifted off our feet."１４ He said that while the poor must have food they must earn it.

He declared, "They cannot be given it. They must earn it. And they can earn it only

by the sweat of their brow ."１５

From the foregoing discussion, the pivotal nature of Gandhi's vow of poverty is

indeed clear.

He made that vow while in South Africa and spent the entire rest of his life working

it out. It was an ongoing statement of who he was. It was his solution to his own

identity crisis. From the point of having made that vow, he shed his property, his

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love of first class travel, and his tailored British clothes. Even his language changed

as he put away from himself everything, Indian and Western, that smacked of the

elite or of elite associations .１６

2. The evolution of the soul.

Perhaps the Mahatma saw the evolution of the soul as a distinct possibility within

the poor estate. It is certain he saw that India's independence must have that estate

for it departure point. He wrote in 1922:

"I have no difficulty in imagining the possibility of a man armored after the

modern style making some lasting new discovery for mankind, but I have less

difficulty in imagining the possibility of a man having nothing but a bit of flint

and a dail for lighting his path or his matchlock ever singing new hymns of

praise and delivering to an aching world a message of peace and good will upon

the earth." １７

Gandhi's life calls the church back to incarnation faith. Incarnation is solidarity

with one's people without compromise of truth and without conformity to the booms

and panics engineered by the elite. It brings life by living and transformation by

constantly being transformed. It longs for freedom and peace and finds their

beginnings in the songs of the poor of the earth.

Hindu, Christian, Muslim, and Jew.

1. Politician or saint?

Henry Polak quotes Gandhi's remarks in South Africa on religion and politics. "Men

say I am a saint losing myself in politics. The fact is I am a politician trying my

hardest to be a saint. My patriotism is subservient to my religion.”１８

In a remark intended to degrade Gandhi, Winston Churchill paid high tribute to the

Mahatma's political stature. On February 17, 193 1 , Mr. Gandhi met with Viceroy

Lord Irwin, the highest British official in India. Mr. Gandhi was the recognized

representative of the Indian people. It was an historic and decisive event and

Churchill saw it clearly. He was revolted, he declared, by "the nauseating and

humiliating spectacle of this one-time Inner Temple lawyer, now seditious fakir,

striding half-naked up the steps of the Viceroy's palace, there to negotiate and

parley on equal terms with the representative of the King-Emperor " １９

Gandhi's biographer, Louis Fischer, says of that slur:

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"Churchill's anger and contempt, undisguised and ferocious, did not blur his

vision. He grasped the basic fact which was not the state of the Mahatma's

undress or his discarded profession but the equality he had acquired and was

asserting in parleys with Irwin. Gandhi had not come, like most of the Viceroy's

visitors, to petition for favors. He came as the leader of a nation to negotiate 'on

equal terms' with the representative of another nation."２０

Only a complete politician can stand at such a parley. Such were the

accomplishments of the man, Mohandas K. Gandhi, politician. We must not forget

that he came to that place while trying to be a saint.

2. Morality in politics.

One who knew Gandhi well has written, "In politics he cleaved to moral

considerations, and as a saint he thought his place was not in a cave or cloister but

in the hurly-burly of the popular struggle for rights and the right. Gandhi's religion

made him political, and his politics were religious…Gandhi had mental health

because in him word, creed and deed were one; he was integrated. That is the

meaning of integrity, 'the truth shall make you free' - and well."２１

3. Was Gandhi a Christian?

By now the reader surely wants to ask, "But was he a real Christian?" Yes. He was

not only a real Christian. His life and words also help us to see that much of which

often passes for real Christianity is not necessarily so.

4. Formal evidence.

There is much formal evidence of the reality of Gandhi's faith in Jesus. His

acceptance of Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount was previously

mentioned. His long friendship with the Christian missionary, C. F. Andrews is well

known. The Mahatma said of Andrews, "He is more than a blood brother to me. "２２

Louis Fischer described their relationship in the following terms, "The Hindu saint

found no better soul kin than Andrews, the Christian; the Christian missionary

found no better Christian than Gandhi, the Hindu "２３The Reverend K. Matthew

Simon of the Syrian Christian Church of Malabar, India, said of Gandhi, "It was his

life that proved to me more than anything else that Christianity is a practical

religion, even in the twentieth century."２４

His acceptance of Christianity went beyond the Bible itself, and beyond Christian

associations. He loved the Christian hymns. At the close of his historic fast for

Hindu-Muslim unity in 1 924, he called for the singing of his "favorite hymn" as part

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of the simple ceremony that marked the fast's closing. His instructions for that

ceremony were: "I have in mind that when I break my fast we might have a little

ceremony expressing religious unity. I would like the Imam Sahib to recite the

opening verses of the Koran. Then I should like you to sing the Christian hymn, you

know the one I mean, it begins, 'When I survey the wondrous Cross' and ends with

the words, 'Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all."' The

ceremony was to close with a Hindu hymn. ２５

5. A secret Christian?

Was Gandhi a secret Christian? His opponents, especially Hindu ones, sought to

discredit him with the charge of "secret Christian". Gandhi considered this "both a

libel and a compliment ―a libel because there are men who believe me to be

capable of being secretly anything . . . a compliment in that it is a reluctant

acknowledgement of my capacity for appreciating the beauties of Christianity."２６

In 1 924 a visitor noticed the one solitary decoration on the wall of Gandhi's mud

hut, a black-and-white-reproduction of a face of Jesus. Under the print were the

words "He is our peace." The visitor remarked in suprise, "You are not a Christian?"

The reply was "I am a Christian and a Hindu and a Muslim and a Jew ."２７

Missionary Propagated Western Christianity.

1. Culture and human rights.

The Christian religion as propagated by missionaries from the West often troubled

Gandhi. As a youth he discovered that there were Indians whose conversions to

Christianity were indeed conversions to repugnant Western manners.

"I heard of a well known Hindu having been converted to Christianity. It was the

talk of the town that, when he was baptized, he had to eat beef and drink liqour,

that he also had to change his clothes, and that thenceforth he began to go about in

European costume including a hat. These things got on my nerves. Surely. I thought,

a religion that compelled one to eat beef, drink liquor, and change one's own clothes

did not deserve the name. I also heard that the new convert had already begun

abusing the religion of his ancestors, their customs and their country. All these

things created in me a dislike for Christianity.”２８

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Missionary propagated Christianity fostered unacceptable attitudes toward the

Indians' own basic human rights. While Gandhi was still a young lawyer working

for the civil rights of Indians in South Africa he discovered Christian complacency

in the face of social injustice. His friend and client-co-worker Abdullah Sheth

explained, "They never come to us, and to tell you the truth we care less to recognize

them. Being Christians they are under the thumb of white clergymen, who in their

turn are subject to the government." Gandhi later wrote of this in his

"Autobiography": "This opened my eyes." He states the obvious question "Was this

the meaning of Christianity? Did they cease to be Indians because they had become

Christians?"２９

2. Christianity moves West.

Gandhi recognized the loss which Christianity suffered when it moved West. In 1

946 He told an interviewer, "Jesus possessed a great force, the love force, but

Christianity became disfigured when it went to the West. It became the religion of

kings "３０

It is vital for us to understand that it was that "disfigurement" in becoming "the

religion of kings" which has made Western Christianity unable to stand in the face

of violence; it has rather too often made the churches the standard bearers in the

nations' wars of repulsion, aggression and colonization. Gandhi refused to support

armed resistance to Nazism and Japanese imperialism in World War II. He said

that such violent resistance would only create greater violence and noted that

"facism, Stalinism, war, crime and corruption (are) related demonstrations of the

triumph of Western violence over Christian morals He believed therefore "that

violence could not cure the evils that violence had produced."３１

The Triumph of Western Violence over Christian Morals.

How did this triumph come about? A full answer to that question would require an

investigation far beyond the scope of the present work. But the arresting nature of

the assertion that such a triumph has taken place demands at least a sketch which

will point the way for fuller future studies.

1. Conversion of Emperor Constantine and the Council of Arles.

Jacques Ellul, Professor of Law and Government at the University of Bordeaux

places the decisive turning point at the conversion of the Roman Emperor

Constantine and the Council of Arles which immediately followed the Emperor's

conversion in 3 1 4. The Council's pronouncement that Christians were obligated to

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serve in the Roman Army was an historic first. ３２Until that time, the Christian

position had been that Christians must not serve in the military. Kenneth Scott

Latourette, late Professor of History at Yale University, wrote that: "For the first

three centuries no Christian writing which has survived to our time condoned

Christian participation in war. "３３ He noted that just the opposite was the case,

mentioning the teaching of Hippolytus and of Tertullian as cases in point.

Hippolytus said, "any who sought to enlist as a soldier must be cut off from the

church;" Tertullian argued that to be in the army "brought one under a commander

other than Christ that it "entailed taking the sword," and that even "peace time

service" was forbidden. Tertullian said that "in disarming Peter, Christ ungirded

every soldier "３４

The pacifist stand of the early church was based on the teaching of Jesus. Those

who were faithful often bore in their bodies the marks of the truth of Jesus'

admonition in Matthew, Chapter 10: "A disciple is not above his master. Whoever

does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." Perhaps the

best known case of martyrdom for refusing induction into the army was the case of

the young North African Christian Maximilan who died with the testimony "I

cannot be soldier, I cannot do evil, because I am a Christian "３５

2. From persecuted church to persecuting church.

The Constantinian outlook was not merely a change in attitude toward the military.

It was inestimably more profound than just that one ethical question. It marked the

church's refusal to be the church. Ethelbert Stauffer, modern rediscoverer of the

theology of martyrdom, wrote in his Märtyrertheologie und Täuferbewegung:

"When the church is true to its calling it is a suffering church. With the conversion

of Constantine, however, it exchanged its status as a suffering church for that of a

persecuting church and therefore lost its status as the true church."３６

3. The double bounty of emperial favor and a militarized church.

Favorable relations with the Emperor brought a double reward to the western

church of the fourth century. It ended persecution from the state and it was

economically rewarding to the favored groups. Large gifts were made to their clergy,

and great churches were built for them under emperial auspices. These churches

were granted the right to become legal property holding persons. Of course

dissenting or "heretical" groups could expect no such bounty from the hands of the

Emperor. ３７

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The response to those bounties was a church standing ready to support the military

adventures of the Roman Empire, and even to take up the sword itself on occasion

against unacceptable beliefs.

4. Crusades.

In 1095 Emperor Alexius I felt unable to stand against his international foes and

appealed to Pope Urban 11 for aid. The request was couched in terms of the

relentless threats from the "infidels," the Arab invaders. The Pope called on "all of

Christendom" to help "rescue the holy places" from the heathens. He promised

"plenary indulgence to all who would participate in the enterprise. The message

found immediate acceptance "３８ This launched the First Crusade (1096).

Promises of indulgence, the lure of profit and power, and persuasion from the

throne itself, handily militarized the church and consequently military monastic

orders soon appeared. "The greatest support of the Kingdom soon came to be the

military orders," states Williston Walker, one time Professor of Ecclesiastical

History at Yale.３９ The most notable of the military orders were the Templars, the

Knights of Saint John, and the Teutonic Knights. They were monastic orders in that

they took the usual monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They "pledged

themselves in addition, to fight against infidels, to defend the Holy Land and to

protect pilgrims . . . in some respects the order was like a modern missionary society.

Those who sympathized with the Crusade, but were debarred by age or sex from a

personal share in the work, gave largely that they might be represented by others in

the order "４０ property was mostly in real estate and the Templars and the knights

of Saint John "soon became great landholders in the West."４１

The Teutonic Knights were similar to the other two military orders except they did

not fight outside Europe. They fought mainly in Europe and were distinguished in

East Prussia as "pioneers in civilization and Christianization. "４２

5. The inquisition.

Before the last crusade ended late in the thirteenth century the still crimson sword

of the church was turned immediately from the slaughter of infidels to the butchery

of nonconformists in the church itself. The crusades spawned the inquisition. The

first major thrust of this grisly wave of persecution was against the "heretical"

Cathari of Southern France. There the combined interests of Roman Pope and

French monarch "led to twenty years of destructive warfare (1909- 1229), in which

the power of southern nobles was shattered . . . the defenders of the Cathari were

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rendered impotent or compelled to join in their extermination "４３ This pattern of

dissent management - extermination of the dissenter - persisted until the sixteenth

century. In the Protestant Reformation, the dissenters were enormously persecuted

but could not be suppressed and the Lutherans and other reform-minded groups

emerged.

6. Martin Luther, the anabaptists and the peasants.

The militarized "Constantinian" church pattern did not end with the Reformation of

the sixteenth century. Indeed, the same tendency is altogether evident in most of

the groups, if not all, which emerged in that period. The Lutheran example is given

here as a typical one.

The transition in the Lutheran church from persecuted to persecuting church took

place in less than a decade. In 1 621 Martin Luther was the quintessential reformer

when, before the Council of Worms, he was asked to recant his works and was

admonished that his own martyrdom was the probable price of refusal. Nonetheless

he made his famous refusal with the testimony "I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand.

God help me. Amen."４４

In 1625 the peasants were rising in rebellion against the German prince and the

anabaptists were challenging the religious reformers for a more complete

reformation. But by that time the German Lutheran church was rich and politically

secure. Walker observes that by that time Luther had come to consider "all

revolution (as) rebellion against God."４５He expressed this in his savage pamphlet

directed against anabaptists and peasants, "Against the Murderous and Thieving

Rabble of Peasants." In the tract he demanded that the German Prince crush them

with the sword. The result was frightful bloodshed.

7. The cycle of faith's betrayal.

There seems to be a regular cycle or tendency for the church to betray its faith by

yielding to the seduction of wealth and power, and to the desire for some reduction

in the discomfort of ethical living in an unethical society. This in turn disposes the

church to increase its wealth and power by active support, or at least by prudent

silence, in times of violent adventures by the military state. Once wealth and power

are achieved, and the church has the "respect" of the secular rulers, this power can

be expected to fall heavily upon the nonconformists within. The wealth, in its turn,

will be shared with the conformists in sufficient quantity to help insure continued

uniformity. Western armies of conquest, colonization or occupation have frequently

15

been followed or accompanied by missionaries zealous for making converts to

Christianity and enthusiastic in support of the military and its goals, and desirous

of protection and support from the military. It is not suprising, in view of the above

analysis, that the missions and churches those missionaries have founded have

sometimes been particularly susceptible to the material strength and the ethical

weakness just discussed. This weakness in the church can only be overcome by

constant reference to it's New Testament origins and a constant and active reform

within the church itself. At this point the church needs to pay attention to voices

and signs that lead back to the New Testament and renewal. Gandhi's is such a

voice and his life is such a sign.

Gandhi Embraced Christ and Rejected Christianity.

1. The teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is the touchstone.

Gandhi saw clearly that the Christian faith had been disfigured, but at the same

time he was able to discern the original. He embraced Jesus Christ and rejected the

Western religion that bears Christ's name. In 1927 the mature Gandhi attended a

Y.M.C.A, assembly and was asked by participants if he considered himself a

Christian. In reply he reportedly said, "If then I had to face only the Sermon on the

Mount, I should not hesitate to say, 'Oh Yes I am a Christian . But he continued,

"Negatively I can tell you that much of what passes as Christianity is a negation of

the Sermon on the Mount."４６

2. God uses many instruments.

Gandhi's life, his message, and his work as a national liberator stand as an

unassailable testimony to the power of love and non-violence even in extremely

violent circumstances. Dr. E. Stanley Jones was a prominent missionary in India for

many years and a great personal friend of the Mahatma. He was convinced that

Gandhi s was a prophetic voice for the Christian church "And so," Dr. Jones once

commented, "one of the most Christlike men m history was not called a Christian at

all God he declared, "uses many instruments, and he may have used Mahatma

Gandhi to christianize unchristian Christianity."４７

3. Ahimsa, reverence of life.

In a world that insists that violence must be met with violence, or at least a show of

preparation to do violence, Gandhi brought a fresh and creative response. It was a

personal and ethical response he called ahimsa, the opposite of himsa, "the

16

destruction of life." It is a "comprehensive principle" which better than any other

term captures the man Gandhi and his spirit of seeking truth. He said:

“Ahimsa is a comprehensive principle. We are helpless mortals, caught in the

conflagration of himsa. The saying that life lives on life has deep meaning in it.

Man cannot live for a moment without consciously or unconsciously committing

outward himsa. The very fact of his living - eating and drinking and moving

about - necessarily involves some himsa, destruction of life, be it ever so minute.

A votary of ahimsa therefore remains true to his faith if the spring of all his

actions is compassion, if he shuns to the best of his ability the destruction of the

tiniest creature, tries to save it, and thus incessantly strives to be free from the

deadly coil of himsa. He will be constantly growing in self-restraint and

compassion.”４８

The Mahatma carried his vocation of ahimsa into a life-10ng struggle for human

dignity and freedom for himself and his people. He could not cooperate with evil.

That would be slavery. He could not return evil for evil for that would make one a

slave of evil itself. There was the heart of his concrete attempt to introduce the

religious spirit into politics. He said, "We may no longer believe in the doctrine of 'tit

for tat,' we may not meet hatred with hatred, violence with violence, evil with evil. . .

Return good for evil."４９

A Call For Nuclear Infants and Ethical Giants.

The evidence is overwhelming that the weapons of war made in our generation may

bring an end to mankind. The church's creed of love needs to be integrated into its

life, only then can it point the way away from death. Gandhi's life challenges us to

believe that is possible.

What difference would Gandhian ideas and actions make when atom bombs fall on

the cities and civilizations of the earth? None, once the bombs have actually started

falling. His is a light that leads us, not toward, but away from that dreadful

eventuality- On this subject one person stated a very essential point. "On the

threshold of war there is always cogent justification for entering it. It is when the

seeds of strife are being sown by greed and blown about by hate and stupidity that

the Gandhian strategy can be applied."５０

"We have too many men of science, too few of God. We have grasped the mystery of

the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount." These words, ironically, were

spoken by General Omar N. Bradley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the

17

United States armed forces in a speech in 1948, at the dawn of the atomic age

"Ours," he continued, "is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know

more about war than we do about peace, more about killing than we do about

living."５１Unfortunately, General Bradley's words were out of harmony with his life

career. He was a man of war. Even today, his successors continue to talk of peace

while preparing for war, - even to the extent of using such slogans as "Peace is our

Profession."５２

In contrast Gandhi, said his biographer Louis Fischer, "knew nothing about killing,

but he had found the secret of happy, useful living. He was a nuclear infant and an

ethical giant. He rejected the atom because he had accepted Christ's Sermon on the

Mount. He was a Christian and a Hindu and a Moslem and a Jew. Who else is?"５３

The American civil rights leader, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a man who

sought to bring his own life and the lives of his people into harmony with the gospel,

particularly the Sermon on the Mount. He said :

"In a day when Sputniks and Explorers are slashing through outer space and

guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death, no nation can win a war.

It is either nonviolence or nonexistance, we will return good for evil, Christ

showed us the way and Mahatma Gandhi showed us it could work."５４

Notes.

１ Gandhi(1957:68-69).

２ Ibid.,p.35,italics mine.

３ Windisch(1950:44-123).

４ Fischer(1954:15).

５ Ibid.

６ Ibid.

７ Bondurant(1965:22).

８ Gandhi(1957:504).

９ Erikson(1969:199-200).

18

１０ Thoreau in Bode(1979:121).

１１ Bondurant(1965:16-17).

１２ De Bary(1966:270).

１３ Gandhi(1957:412).

１４ De Bary,loc.cit.

１５ Ibid.(270-271).

１６ Gandhi(1957:264-266).

Erikson(1969:185-192).

Fischer(1954:28-31).

１７ De Bary(1966:268).

１８ Fischer(1954:35).

１９ Ibid.(103).

２０ Ibid.

２１ Ibid.(35,40).

２２ Ibid.(130).

２３ Ibid.

２４ Ibid.

２５ Ibid.(78).

２６ Ibid.(129-130).

２７ Ibid.(130).

２８ Gandhi(1957:33-34).

２９ Ibid.(139).

３０ Fischer(1954:131).

３１ Ibid.(132).

３２ Ellul(1969:9-12).

19

３３ Latourette(1953:242-243).

３４ Ibid.(132).

３５ Ellul(1969:10).

３６ Burkholder(1957:146-147).

３７ Walker(1959:105).

３８ Ibid.(220).

３９ Ibid.(221).

４０ Ibid.(221-222).

４１ Ibid.

４２ Ibid.

４３ Ibid.(231).

４４Ibid.(310).

４５ Ibid.(316).

４６ Fischer(1954:131).

４７ Ibid.(130)

４８ Gandhi(1957:349).

４９ Fischer(1954:64).

５０ Ibid.(132)

５１ Ibid.(133)

５２ Slogan frequently heard on Armed Forces Radio and Television,FEN.

５３ Fischer(1954:133).

５４ Hoskins(1968:94).

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