|
Dr. M.M.THOMAS
If you don't
love, who will?
Dr.M.M.Ninan
A brother pays
homage to his big
brother.
M.M.Thomas was my eldest
brother. He was born in
1916 and I was born in
1934. He was the first
born in the family and I
am the last born. With
an age difference of 18
years, my memories of
him are only as an
active social worker.
In those days when a
degree was considered
the ultimate status in
society, instead of
taking up a lucrative
job - which was easy to
find - he went down to
the capital of Kerala
and started an orphange;
where he trained
children in
technological skill so
that they may become
useful and productive
citizens. He was
influenced both by the
Indian Independence
Movement (following the
footsteps of our father
M.M.Mammen) and by the
Marxist Movement. My
father, being in the
publishing field,
provided the impetus for
Thomas to go over from
mere passive social work
to political activism;
as he himself was
involed in the Indian
Independence struggle in
cooperation with Gandhi
while maintaining his
personal committment to
Christ . With such a
Christian upbringing at
home, our morals were
always fixed in the
Bible and in Christ's
teachings. Even when
some of us went to
extreme groups, we still
maintained the strong
christian convictions
and ideals. It was this
christocentric
upbringing confronted
with the demands of a
pluralistic society and
secular politics that
produced M.M.T.
He left for Geneva while
my thought patterns were
being formed, again
under the same christian
background with almost
similar conditions.
Soon I left for Africa
and MM returned to
India. I got involved
in the missions is the
Sudan and in Yemen. But
as a young Christian my
first understanding of
the Sovereignity of God
came through my
brother. I could not at
times explain the
problems I was facing in
my workplace and in the
Christian field. One
simple question put to
me by my brother, echoes
in my ears over and over
again -and that put me
in the right
perspective. "Who is
important? You or God?"
Without that
understanding I could
not have survived. He
learned it in the hard
way when his beloved
wife left him. Pennocha
(Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas)
died of cancer. This
changed his life
completely and came to
know of a God who was
sovereign. Instead being
bitter he grew closer to
God in a personal way
and prompted him into
action based on the
royal law of love. His
favorite poster that
hang behind his old
Kerala Charu Kasera was
the picture of a
cruicified Christ with
the words. "If you don't
love, who will?" His
theology and actions
were controlled by the
centrality of the
Crucified Christ and he
transmitted this to all
around.
He encouraged everyone
to write. "Stop
studying alone and start
writing along with it"
was his last advise to
me when we met in San
Jose in May 1996. We
transfer our heritage
and a life time of
learning by putting our
thought and experience
in writing-which may
otherwise be lost to the
generations. This was
his passion for many
years. This impetus has
created many of his
students to be excellent
communicators and
theologians.
As the Madathilparampil
Family remembers him -
our Big Brother, we
proudly present a life
well worth lived. From
a simple home in
Kozhencheri he ascended
the Sarvanjapeeda of
theological world and
rose to become the
Governor of Nagaland.
He refused to compromise
his faith and ideals and
left the honor and power
the world gave him with
greater dignity. He
has fought the valiant
battle, he has kept the
faith, and now a crown
of glory awaits him.
It is difficult to give
any tribute to my
brother's life without
acknowledging his vast
contributions to society
and Christianity. I
thought this is best
done by quoting a
tribute rendered by the
Princeton Seminary
Faculty. No one could
summarize his
contributions better
than this. I quote:
A Tribute
(May 15, 1916 - December
3, 1996)
Charles C. West, the
Stephen Covwell
Professor of Christian
Ethics Emeritus at
Princeton Theological
Seminary, delivered this
memorial minute at the
February 26, 1997
meeting of the Seminary
faculty
As published in
The Princeton Seminary
Bulletin, Volume XVIII
Number 2 New Series
1997, 208-210
Between 1980 and 1987
Madathilparampil Mammen
Thomas, known to almost
everyone as MM was for a
semester each of six
years a guest professor
of Ethics, Mission, and
ecumenics at Princeton
Theological Seminary. It
was just before the John
A. Mackay Chair in World
Christianity was
established. Otherwise,
he would certainly have
been its first incumbent
. He taught such courses
as
The Gospel in a
Pluralistic World; The
Church in Mission and
Unity; Christian Social
Ethics in Asian
Perspective; and above
all, The Ecumenical
Movement: Its Past, Its
Present, and Its Future.
To say that he taught
these subjects is,
however, hardly
inadequate. He was
the ecumenical
movement in our midst.
He embodied the world
church mission and,
through his teaching
presence, made us a part
of it.
M.M.Thomas was born May
15, 1916 to a devout Mar
Thoma Christian family
in Kerala, South India.
In that church, with its
Syrian Orthodox
liturgical tradition and
its evangelical piety,
his christocentric
spirituality took form.
It was the beginning of
a life long adventure, a
living encounter with
Hindu faith and
practice, especially
that of Gandhi, on the
one side and with
Communist commitment and
ideology on the other.
At one point in his
youth, he applied for
ordination in the Mar
Thoma Church and for
membership in the
Communist Party. The
Church rejected him
because of his Marxist
leanings of his social
ethics; the Party
rejected him because of
his Christian faith. As
it has turned out, the
Communists were right
and the Church was
mistaken. He became,
with only a college
degree, a self educated
theologian, in later
life a dialogue partner
with the major Christian
scholars of his day. At
the same time his social
ethics, though deeply
committed to the
struggle of the poor for
justice and humanity,
broke sharply with the
total claim of
Marxist-Leninist
ideology and Communist
policy. But the heart of
his ministry was
ecumenical study and
action, where
spirituality, theology,
ideology, and social
conscience met in
Christian witness to a
world in revolution.
The vehicle of his
ministry was the
ecumenical movement, in
India and abroad. MM was
first secretary of the
Youth Christian Council
of Action in his native
Kerala, then Student
Christian Movement
secretary in Madras, and
Youth Secretary of the
Mar Thoma Church. From
1947 to 1952 he served
on the staff of the
World Student Christian
Federation in Geneva,
with special emphasis on
Christian political
witness. He took part in
the First Assembly of
the World Council of
Churches in 1948 and in
the formation of the
Council’s Department of
Church and Society, of
which he became an
active member and
chairman from 1961 to
1968. In this capacity
he also chaired the
World Conference on
Church and Society at
Geneva in 1966. From
1968 to 1975 he served
as Chairman of the
Central Committee of the
World Council of
Churches itself, guiding
it through some of the
stormiest years of its
history. Through the
power of his thought,
the breadth of his
vision, and the genius
of his diplomacy, he
influenced the mind and
policy of the ecumenical
movement more than any
other person save its
architect, W.A.Visser’t
Hooft. The honorary
doctorate conferred on
him by the University of
Uppsala in 1978 was a
belated recognition of
the status he had
already earned.
The centerpiece of
M.M.Thomas’ work was,
however, in India
itself. Returning from
Geneva in 1952, he threw
himself into social work
and joined with India’s
leading theologian,
P.D.Devanandan, in 1957
to form the Christian
Institute for the Study
of Religion and Society,
which he served first as
Associate Director and
then, upon Devanandan’s
death, as Director until
his retirement in 1976.
Over these years the
Institute poured out
literature for the
guidance of both church
and society in India on
social policy, cultural
encounter,
Christian-Hindu
relations, political
analysis, family
problems, and ecumenical
affairs. This literature
was usually the product
of study groups composed
of some of the best
minds of India, working
intensely to produce
something close to
consensus report, which
was then edited and
published under the
names of Thomas and
Devanandan. We will
never know how much of
these reports was M.M.’s
own work. He plowed his
genius into the common
process and made it
fruitful. This did not
prevent him, however
from producing a large
and diverse literature
of his own, in his
native Malayalam and
English, on themes as
diverse as Man in the
Universe of Faiths;
Secular Ideologies and
the Secular Meaning of
Christ; The Christian
Response to the Asian
Revolution; The
Acknowledged Christ of
Indian Renaissance,
Meditations of The
Realization of the
Cross, and a series
of Bible studies for the
church in Kerala. It
also did not prevent him
from opposing, at
serious risk of arrest
and imprisonment, Indira
Gandhi’s suspension of
democracy in 1976. This
led indirectly to his
appointment as governor
of the largely Christian
state of Nagaland in
North East India in
1991, a post in which he
was as much a pastor as
official until his
resignation in 1993, in
protest against central
government corruption.
M.M.Thomas came to
Princeton as a guest
professor after his
retirement from the
Christian Institute. His
contacts with the
Seminary, however, are
older and newer than
this. In earlier years
he sent two of his
colleagues, E.V. Mathew
and Saral Chatterjee, to
study here on visiting
fellowships. Over the
years he has recommended
many other students for
our consideration, most
recently from the
Christian student
fellowship that has had,
and still has, its
headquarters in
Thiruvalla, Kerala home.
At the time of his death
on December 3, 1996, he
was actively promoting
three-year research
project on mission and
evangelism in India, for
which he had recruited
as advisers two members
of the Princeton
Seminary faculty. The
ecumenical ministry that
was his is ours as well.
He was for a while our
teacher and our friend.
He remains our
inspiration and our
challenge.
|
|
