Sunday musings...

The Carmel Church, located near Boston - the only Mar Thoma Church in New England - is completing twenty five years of it's existence. The bulk of the congregation's members - almost exclusively immigrant Christians from Kerala of South West India - come from different parts of Massachusetts while some live as far as New Hampshire and Connecticut. At a brief meeting following the Sunday worship service today, the year old jubilee celebration was inaugurated. At the function, the officials of the church narrated the historical roots of the congregation and outlined their plans for the future. The jubilee year projects include, they stated, initiating a social outreach work in Kerala including setting up a fund to "get poor girls married".

Rt. Rev. Euyakim Mar Coorilose, Bishop of Mar Thoma Church's North American - Europe Diocese, who was the Chief Guest at the function today, however, struck a different note. He challenged the parishioners to start the mission in their own locality and then venture out to India and other places. He reminded the parishioners that now American is their home country and therefore, they need to be creatively involved in the local society.

Bishop Coorilose has sufficient credentials to challenge the congregation to be socially involved in their own immediate contexts. Under his leadership, the Diocese has started outreach work in Mexico and among the Native Americans. The Diocese had also responded to the crisis in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Diaspora churches in the U.S. - mainly from India, Korea and China - however, tend to isolate themselves from the local churches and societies while preferring to remain as "potted plants". While at the hierarchical levels, the leaders of the immigrant church associate with the local churches at the ecumenical levels, most lay members tend to be inward looking whose "outreach" is limited to responding to the needs of the far off lands of their origin. The Bishop can, therefore, be credited for posing a viable challenge to his members to be responsive to the needs of their immediate neighborhood.

Even those who are open to transcending cultural and social barriers, however, tend to stumble with regard to some other (stronger?)obstacles. Patriarchal dominance in church is one such. Among the half a dozen leaders of the parish who played various roles at today's function, there was no woman, despite the fact that women generally outnumber men at worship services. Though it is often acknowledged that women professionals provide the bulk of the revenue of the Diocese, their role in the Church is marginal. Even the Bishop in his sermon today repeatedly referred to Jesus' statement that he would make his disciples fishers of "men". Obviously, in comparison to cultural and social areas, patriarchy is a harder obstacle to overcome.

The negative attitude of traditional churches often drive sensitive women to take extreme steps. Today three women are being ordained as Catholic priests in Boston. The service is being held in a local Protestant church while the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, in accordance with Vatican teaching, says the participants in today's ordination ceremony would be automatically excommunication themselves from the Church. The women being ordained, however, are clear that they are acting because they feel called to the priesthood and compelled to resist what they view as a wrong church teaching. "We're part of a prophetic tradition of disobeying an unjust law", they said.

Modernity, democracy and the social justice movement have posed serious challenges to several traditional practices that inhibited the full potential of marginalized and oppressed persons and communities. However, we obviously have still a long way to go to secure equal participation of women in church and society.