{ "book_metadata": { "book_name": "History of Christianity in India: Source Materials", "book_author": "M. K. Kuriakose", "publisher": "Indian Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge", "published_on": "2011" }, "chunks": [ { "chunk_index": 1, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Debate Over Caste", "chunk_data": "During the early nineteenth century the question of the attitude missionaries should take towards caste was much debated. The statement given here was made by K. Graul in a pamphlet entitled Explanation concerning the Principles of the Leipzig Missionary Society, with regard to the Caste Question, in the context of a disagreement with missionaries of the S.P.G. The portion quoted here is from pp. 1-4.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "K. Graul" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "K. Graul presented the Leipzig Missionary Society's position in the debate over caste.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 2, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Caste as Religious Institution", "chunk_data": "The Leipzig Society fully acknowledges that Caste (although at its outset apparently a rather natural distinction of race and occupation) is, as it now exists among the heathen, not a merely civil but also religious institution, inasmuch as, in its course of development, in order to stamp it with a higher authority, it has been based on a religious ground.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Leipzig Society acknowledged that caste had become both a civil and religious institution among Hindus.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 3, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Caste Opposed to Gospel", "chunk_data": "She acknowledges moreover, that Caste, in the sense of the Hindu Shastras, is totally opposed to the word and spirit of the Gospel, asserting however, that the holding of Caste in the Native Churches is essentially different from the holding of Caste among the heathen:", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Leipzig Society distinguished caste in Native Churches from caste among non-Christians.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Christianity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 4, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Communion and Caste", "chunk_data": "(1) because the indiscriminate partaking of the same cup at the Lord's table necessarily involves the breaking of Caste in the full sense of the Shastras;", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society argued that sharing the communion cup necessarily broke caste in the full sense of the Hindu Shastras.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Christianity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 5, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Scripture and Human Unity", "chunk_data": "(2) because, by introducing the holy Scripture, which expressly declares the common origin of the whole human race, instead of the Shastras, the heathenish superstitious basis is withdrawn and Caste so ceases to be a religious institution with the Native Christians.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society", "Native Christians" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society argued that Scripture removed the superstitious religious basis of caste among Native Christians.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Christianity" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 6, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Caste Among Native Christians", "chunk_data": "But although our Society views Caste among the Native Christians in the light of a national institution, devoid of its superadded heathenish basis, she is fully aware that even so it is not the best one now, and hopes indeed that in the course of time its rigour will be subdued and the social chasm between the different Castes be filled up, believing at the same time, that a thoroughly satisfactory change of that deepest rooted national institution cannot be brought about, before the Native congregations attain to the full growth of a national Church.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society", "Native Christians" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society treated caste among Native Christians as a national institution while hoping its severity and social divisions would gradually disappear.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Society" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 7, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Education Against Caste", "chunk_data": "The best means, to help on that natural course of development, the Leipzig Society sees in a sound Christian education for the lower classes, in the effort of raising them to respectability by means of their acquirements and in a gradual discountenancing of religious Caste distinctions in the Church.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society", "Lower classes" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society promoted Christian education, social advancement, and the gradual discouragement of caste distinctions in the Church.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Education", "Caste" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 8, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Vepery Seceders and Caste", "chunk_data": "This last point was expressly stipulated and agreed to by the Seceders at Vepery, when they petitioned for readmission into the Lutheran Church.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Vepery Seceders" ], "places": [ "Vepery" ], "event": "The Vepery Seceders agreed to discourage religious caste distinctions when seeking readmission to the Lutheran Church.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 9, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 149, 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00173-39d477898bf5604b6313.webp", "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Method of Removing Caste Evils", "chunk_data": "The principal difference between our society and those, who differ from them, seems to me to consist in the method adopted for the removal of the Caste evils. According to Romans XIV. 17. the Leipzig Society does not hold herself entitled to cut off any one from the body of Christ on account of Caste, if it be not made a pretext for notoriously immoral behaviour.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Leipzig Society refused to exclude Christians from the Church solely because of caste unless caste was used as a pretext for notorious immorality.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 10, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Instruction and Christian Example", "chunk_data": "Instruction, exhortation and example that Society acknowledges to be the most efficient means and in that point she knows herself to be in full harmony with the Word and Spirit of the Gospel as well as with the practice of the Apostles, who did not interfere with national institutions in any way, except by preaching the truth, by exhorting the weak, and by setting a good example,", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society", "Apostles" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society advocated instruction, exhortation, and example as the proper means of addressing caste, following the practice of the Apostles.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Missions", "Caste" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 11, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Caste and Slavery Compared", "chunk_data": "as for instance in the case of slavery, although the Greek word for slave (being a neuter) as well as the general usage did not only obscure the common origin of slave and of the master, but placed the slave without the sphere of rational beings altogether, and compared him not only to a 'horse or ox' but even to an inanimate 'tool' in the hand of the 'artisan'. (Aristotle: 'the slave is an animate tool and the tool an inanimate slave.')", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Aristotle", "Apostles" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society compared the Apostles' treatment of national institutions with the historical treatment of slavery.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Slavery", "Society" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 12, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Spirit Over Caste", "chunk_data": "Moreover the Leipzig Society knows herself to side with the great majority of Christian Missionaries from the very beginning of the Christian Church up to the present time. In one word, the attacks of our Society are not so much aimed at the Caste Institution, as at the truth that as soon as the Caste Spirit is expelled by the Spirit and in the way of the Spirit, all that is wrong in Caste, will fall down as a 'caput mortuum'.", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society", "Christian Missionaries" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society emphasized that spiritual renewal would cause the wrong elements of caste to collapse.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Caste", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 13, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Preaching the Word", "chunk_data": "Now, as the Word of God is Spirit that Society thinks it to be her duty to handle it in its full extent by preaching, teaching and exhorting, and then patiently to wait for the final result, of which there can be no doubt, since the word of God is quick and sharper than any two edged sword and pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and the joints and marrow.'", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society upheld preaching, teaching, and exhortation as the means by which God's Word would produce the final transformation.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Preaching", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 14, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Outward Measures and Heart", "chunk_data": "Whatever may be effected by merely outward measures, our Society sees in the light of St. Mark ii, 21.22. and although it may be admired by many it cannot excite her admiration, because she knows, that man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.'", "time": { "start_year": 1851, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1851, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1851" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Leipzig Missionary Society" ], "places": [ "India" ], "event": "The Society rejected reliance on outward measures alone and emphasized the condition of the human heart.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Christianity", "Missions" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 15, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Luther on Reform", "chunk_data": "In order to illustrate the principles of the Lutheran Church on similar points, I beg leave to quote here some words, spoken by Luther on occasion of Carlstadt's hasty and forcible measures against Popish abuses.", "time": { "start_year": 1522, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1522, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1522" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Martin Luther", "Carlstadt" ], "places": [ "Germany" ], "event": "Martin Luther criticized Carlstadt's hasty and forcible measures against abuses in the Roman Church.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Reformation", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 16, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Winning the Human Heart", "chunk_data": "'One ought to catch first man's heart, which is effected by handling the word of God, by preaching the Gospel and by detecting the errors of the people. If you would proceed in that manner, then the word, you preach, would fall to-day into this man's heart and to-morrow into that man's heart. So the abuse itself would at last crumble and vanish.", "time": { "start_year": 1522, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1522, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1522" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Martin Luther" ], "places": [ "Germany" ], "event": "Martin Luther argued that reform should begin by winning people's hearts through God's Word and the preaching of the Gospel.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Reformation", "Preaching" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 17, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Patience With the Weak", "chunk_data": "Charity requires, that thou shouldst have patience with the weak, until they become strong in faith like thyself. Thus all the apostles have acted.", "time": { "start_year": 1522, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1522, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1522" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Martin Luther", "Apostles" ], "places": [ "Germany" ], "event": "Martin Luther urged patience with the weak until they became strong in faith, following the example of the Apostles.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Reformation", "Church" ] } }, { "chunk_index": 18, "chapter_name": "1851. The Leipzig Missionary Society on Caste", "page_numbers": [ 150 ], "image_paths": [ "raw\\pages\\00174-a4f02697138ccfc702fb.webp" ], "chunk_title": "Reform Without Force", "chunk_data": "Summa summarum, I will preach it, I will teach it, I will write it, but I will not use any forcible means. I have all the time only handled, preached, and written the word of God, and while I have been sleeping, that very word has wrought so much, that by its power Popery has been weakened more than by any monarch or emperor.'", "time": { "start_year": 1522, "start_month": null, "start_date": null, "end_year": 1522, "end_month": null, "end_date": null, "time_display": "1522" }, "meta": { "people": [ "Martin Luther" ], "places": [ "Germany" ], "event": "Martin Luther declared that preaching, teaching, and writing God's Word, rather than force, had weakened Popery.", "tags": [ "Religion", "Reformation", "Church" ] } } ] }