Pioneer missionary aided inter-religious understanding in India
-10/07/06
Bartholomaeus
Pioneer missionary aided inter-religious understanding in India
-10/07/06
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, the first Protestant missionary known to have to set foot in India 300 years ago, in 1706, is being celebrated by secular and religious groups alike for aiding inter-religious and inter-cultural understanding during his time ñ writes Anto Akkara for Ecumenical News International.
“He [Ziegenbalg] valued existing religions and wanted to bring about [wider] societal harmony,” said S. P. Thyagarajan, head of the University of Madras in Chennai, during a keynote address at a seminar on Ziegenbalg’s contribution to civil society at the anniversary celebrations.
Ziegenbalg was noted not only for translating the Bible into Tamil when he was in India, but also for rendering key Tamil works into German.
“He interpreted Tamil culture to Europe and talked about the rich heritage here,” said Thyagarajan, a Hindu scholar, at the 3-9 July 2006 tercentenary celebrations of the missionary’s arrival in India.
Three hundred church leaders and scholars as well as 100 international delegates led by Lutheran World Federation president, Bishop Mark S. Hanson, and LWF general secretary, the Rev Ishmael Noko have been attending the celebrations at Gurukul Lutheran Theological College in Chennai, the capital of India’s southern Tamil Nadu state.
Sent by Danish King Frederick IV for evangelisation in India, Ziegenbalg landed on 9 July 1706 at Tranquebar (known as Tarangambadi in Tamil). The area was then a Danish colony on India’s eastern coast, 300 kilometres south of Chennai, or Madras as it was called for many years.
Thyagarajan hailed the German missionary’s “farsightedness” in bringing together Indian and European culture. He said Ziegenbalg made an “unparalleled contribution” to strengthening civil society and people should consider him as a role model.
As vice chancellor of the prestigious University of Madras, Thyagarajan assured church delegates that the institution was prepared to promote research into the contribution made by the German missionary, who died in Tranquebar in 1719.
He said the Centre for Comparative Religious Thought and Communal Harmony being set up by the university would be open to proposals from churches in this regard.
R. Nagaswamy, former director of the [secular] archaeology department of Tamil Nadu, highlighted Ziegenbalg’s sensitivity to India. During a period when many Europeans asserted that Indians were a “barbarous lot”, Ziegenbalg took pains to introduce to Westerners the richness of Tamil culture and literature, Nagaswamy noted.
LWF president Bishop Hanson reminded delegates that Ziegenbalg had made the Christian Scriptures accessible to the Tamil people. “Yet that did not mean for him a neglecting of the narratives of Tamil culture and language,” added Hanson. “We face a similar task throughout the world today.”
Bernard D’Sami of the Roman Catholic Loyola College in Chennai noted that Ziegenbalg believed that education was indispensable for societal development.
While the German Lutheran laid stress on character formation, D’Sami said that Christians could also learn from the missionary how to make their schools open to people of all castes and classes.
“The sources of knowledge for Ziegenbalg were not books but his contemporaries,” said Daniel Jeyaraj, a theologian who has authored the book ëBartholomaeus Ziegenbalg – the Father of Modern Protestant Missioní, which was launched at the ceremony.
Dr Jeyaraj, professor of World Christianity at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, highlighted the Tranquebar Mission’s contribution to Indology.
“Ziegenbalg wanted to empower the people”, and was even prepared in the process to expose the misdeeds of the local rulers at the time, Jeyaraj noted.
Later, Jeyaraj told Ecumenical News International that he chose Ziegenbalg’s mission as the topic for his doctoral research at the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, to answer those who ridiculed him for embracing the religion of those who have “destroyed” Hinduism.
Born a Hindu at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu, Jeyaraj converted to Christianity in 1980 after studying at the Christian Mission Service centre in Cunnore.
“From my research, I found that missionaries like Ziegenbalg have only enriched local culture and traditions instead of destroying it,” said Jeyaraj, who belongs to the Church of South India.
The widespread prejudice against the missionaries, he asserted, was “due to the lack of study on the contribution of the missionaries”.
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Peace anchors Gospel witness, church leaders told; Missionaries accused of exploiting tsunami victims; Ecumenists seek to recover evangelistic emphasis; Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World; World Mission Conference makes history; Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Post-modern Age ó Brad Kallenberg; WCC has Good News to share, say mission leaders; Protestors say mission conference is gay communist plot; Presence and Prophecy – Study Guide: A Heart for Mission in Theological Education, by Simon Barrow; Catholic leader says yes to unity, justice and peace]
Pioneer missionary aided inter-religious understanding in India
-10/07/06
Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg, the first Protestant missionary known to have to set foot in India 300 years ago, in 1706, is being celebrated by secular and religious groups alike for aiding inter-religious and inter-cultural understanding during his time ñ writes Anto Akkara for Ecumenical News International.
“He [Ziegenbalg] valued existing religions and wanted to bring about [wider] societal harmony,” said S. P. Thyagarajan, head of the University of Madras in Chennai, during a keynote address at a seminar on Ziegenbalg’s contribution to civil society at the anniversary celebrations.
Ziegenbalg was noted not only for translating the Bible into Tamil when he was in India, but also for rendering key Tamil works into German.
“He interpreted Tamil culture to Europe and talked about the rich heritage here,” said Thyagarajan, a Hindu scholar, at the 3-9 July 2006 tercentenary celebrations of the missionary’s arrival in India.
Three hundred church leaders and scholars as well as 100 international delegates led by Lutheran World Federation president, Bishop Mark S. Hanson, and LWF general secretary, the Rev Ishmael Noko have been attending the celebrations at Gurukul Lutheran Theological College in Chennai, the capital of India’s southern Tamil Nadu state.
Sent by Danish King Frederick IV for evangelisation in India, Ziegenbalg landed on 9 July 1706 at Tranquebar (known as Tarangambadi in Tamil). The area was then a Danish colony on India’s eastern coast, 300 kilometres south of Chennai, or Madras as it was called for many years.
Thyagarajan hailed the German missionary’s “farsightedness” in bringing together Indian and European culture. He said Ziegenbalg made an “unparalleled contribution” to strengthening civil society and people should consider him as a role model.
As vice chancellor of the prestigious University of Madras, Thyagarajan assured church delegates that the institution was prepared to promote research into the contribution made by the German missionary, who died in Tranquebar in 1719.
He said the Centre for Comparative Religious Thought and Communal Harmony being set up by the university would be open to proposals from churches in this regard.
R. Nagaswamy, former director of the [secular] archaeology department of Tamil Nadu, highlighted Ziegenbalg’s sensitivity to India. During a period when many Europeans asserted that Indians were a “barbarous lot”, Ziegenbalg took pains to introduce to Westerners the richness of Tamil culture and literature, Nagaswamy noted.
LWF president Bishop Hanson reminded delegates that Ziegenbalg had made the Christian Scriptures accessible to the Tamil people. “Yet that did not mean for him a neglecting of the narratives of Tamil culture and language,” added Hanson. “We face a similar task throughout the world today.”
Bernard D’Sami of the Roman Catholic Loyola College in Chennai noted that Ziegenbalg believed that education was indispensable for societal development.
While the German Lutheran laid stress on character formation, D’Sami said that Christians could also learn from the missionary how to make their schools open to people of all castes and classes.
“The sources of knowledge for Ziegenbalg were not books but his contemporaries,” said Daniel Jeyaraj, a theologian who has authored the book ëBartholomaeus Ziegenbalg – the Father of Modern Protestant Missioní, which was launched at the ceremony.
Dr Jeyaraj, professor of World Christianity at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton, Massachusetts, USA, highlighted the Tranquebar Mission’s contribution to Indology.
“Ziegenbalg wanted to empower the people”, and was even prepared in the process to expose the misdeeds of the local rulers at the time, Jeyaraj noted.
Later, Jeyaraj told Ecumenical News International that he chose Ziegenbalg’s mission as the topic for his doctoral research at the Martin Luther University in Halle, Germany, to answer those who ridiculed him for embracing the religion of those who have “destroyed” Hinduism.
Born a Hindu at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu, Jeyaraj converted to Christianity in 1980 after studying at the Christian Mission Service centre in Cunnore.
“From my research, I found that missionaries like Ziegenbalg have only enriched local culture and traditions instead of destroying it,” said Jeyaraj, who belongs to the Church of South India.
The widespread prejudice against the missionaries, he asserted, was “due to the lack of study on the contribution of the missionaries”.
With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.
[Also on Ekklesia: Peace anchors Gospel witness, church leaders told; Missionaries accused of exploiting tsunami victims; Ecumenists seek to recover evangelistic emphasis; Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World; World Mission Conference makes history; Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Post-modern Age ó Brad Kallenberg; WCC has Good News to share, say mission leaders; Protestors say mission conference is gay communist plot; Presence and Prophecy – Study Guide: A Heart for Mission in Theological Education, by Simon Barrow; Catholic leader says yes to unity, justice and peace]