The Kerala Council of Churches (KCC) has come out with a statement welcoming the Communist Party of India(Marxist) portraying Jesus Christ as Obama and leaders of the Congress(I) and BJP as his disciples in a poster displayed in connection with the just-concluded party State conference in Thiruvananthapuram.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, Dr Gabriel Mar Gregorios, KCC president, and Prof Philip N. Thomas, general secretary, said the reading of Jesus as a great liberator of the poor and the oppressed was something to be appreciated, even when it is a late realization.
They said the non-believers too have equal right to read Jesus in a secular way.
“Insistence of a group that all others should read their religious icons only in their own subjective way of understanding and reading is nothing short of a fascist trend, religious fundamentalism and negation of religious freedom which have no place in a secular democracy like India,’’ the statement said.
According to the KCC leaders, the parody of historical events, art works, speeches etc, are common, even though to be discouraged. They need not be given undue attention so long as they are not vulgar and inflicting pain to others. The recent Last Supper parody was not even worth mentioning but for its contradiction, they added.
They said the “Last Supper painting is symbolic of the great event in history that triumphed over the evil by self-denial and sacrifice.
Holding this view, the parody with Obama as Jesus and capitalist ideologues as disciples for the ‘last supper’ of capitalism symbolises its future victory, a concept which Marxists oppose by tooth and nail. The parody is a contradiction in total ignorance,’’ the statement said.
KCC leaders say that in Christianity, God is conceived and realised as the great liberator who intervenes in history for the transformation of not only humanity but the entire creation to fullness. Jesus has testified himself as the liberator. This liberation or salvation includes not only material and mundane but also spiritual. This all-inclusive, wholesome or integral view of salvation, as it has always been affirmed, is the core of Christian Liberation Theology.
The prevalent ideology of the world is the globalised market economy with free movement of capital and goods; the basic tenants being competition, profit and consumption according to desires. Liberation of the less entitled in the market is not an agenda at all. In this context, reading Jesus as a liberator of by the CPI(M) was a welcome step, the statement said.
For believers, Jesus Christ is the son of God, for persons like Gandhiji, a great Guru, and for some others a prophet and so on, it adds.
