{"id":4693,"date":"2004-10-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/10\/25\/2004-10-25-christian-churches-in-kerala-adopt-hindu-ceremony\/"},"modified":"2004-10-25T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-10-25T12:00:00","slug":"2004-10-25-christian-churches-in-kerala-adopt-hindu-ceremony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2004\/10\/25\/2004-10-25-christian-churches-in-kerala-adopt-hindu-ceremony\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Churches in Kerala Adopt Hindu Ceremony"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a HREF=\"http:\/\/www.ndtv.com\/features\/showfeatures.asp?slug=Church+conducts+Vidyarambham&#038;Id=849\">Source<\/a><\/P><P>THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, KERALA, INDIA, October 25, 2004: HPI note: The following is an example of what the Christians call &#8220;inculturation,&#8221; the adoption of Hindu customs, beliefs and practices into a Christian setting in order to make the church as a whole more palatable to possible Hindu converts.<BR><br \/>\n<BR><br \/>\nSt. George Orthodox Syrian Church in Thiruvananthapuram conducted Vidyarambham or the ceremony to initiate children into the world of letters over the weekend. It is essentially a Hindu tradition, which this Thirvananthapuram church started following last year. This time many Christian and non-Christian parents took part in the ceremony with their children. &#8220;The Hindus take their children for this ceremony. So we were also keen to get this ritual done through a church leader,&#8221; says Bindu, a parent. &#8220;We believe that if it&#8217;s done in the name of Jesus, the children will be disciplined, they will respect their parents and listen to their teachers,&#8221; says another parent G K Soman. When this church began the ceremony last year, it was opposed by a section of the congregation who alleged the &#8220;Hinduisation&#8221; of the church.<BR><br \/>\n<BR><br \/>\nBut this time the church Vicar got the backing of the Church general body. The Vicar insists the church is adopting a Malayalam tradition rather than a Hindu ceremony. But he admits it could help soothe communal tension, specially since the Kerala Christian community has been increasingly attacked by right wing Hindu groups in the recent past. &#8220;Surely it will lead to communal harmony. That is the main aspect. That&#8217;s why we are conducting it,&#8221; says Father Geevarghese Erakkath, Vicar. Taking a cue from the Thiruvananthapuram church, two more churches and a mosque organized similar functions in the State. Although Vidyambham is a traditional Hindu ceremony, the church leaders here view it as an integral part of Kerala&#8217;s rich cultural heritage. They say they have set a precedent for other Christian denominations to follow to strengthen the secular fabric of our country.<BR><br \/>\n<\/P> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SourceTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM, KERALA, INDIA, October 25, 2004: HPI note: The following is an example of what the Christians call &#8220;inculturation,&#8221; the,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}