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Dr. Gift Siromoney's Contribution to Religious Education: An Introduction
Dr. Gift Siromoney knew me well since 1957 when I joined the Madras Christian College for Honours in Mathematics. We got to know better after I joined the Faculty of Mathematics in 1966. I was very much benefited by his fellowship and encouragement until he died in 1988. Since Gift Siromoney had theological training for a year under outstanding theologians such as Reinhold Niebuhr in New York, his approach to study the problems of Religion and Society has been very pragmatic and down to earth. I want to highlight his originality in the area of Religious Education in the following four premises of this brief introduction.
First of all, without any hesitation in 1981, he made a scientific investigation among the people of Tamil Nadu with all statistical data to study how strong is the popular belief in the Karma Theory that "People are born into low position because of their misdeeds in their previous birth." His findings were as follows: (i) 51% of the 1900 respondents in the age group 21-30 disagreed with the popular belief whereas only 28% respondents who were over 60 years of age agreed. (ii) 60% of the illiterates, who could not read, believed in the law of Karma whereas 70% of the college-educated disbelieved.
Second, Dr. Siromoney had a special attraction to make an in-depth study of the gypsies -- narikoravas, as they always moved from place to place as pilgrims. He followed them up and established links to learn their language -- Vagriboli. He gave shape to the alphabet of their spoken language and documented them all properly to bring out the Gospels according to St. Luke as well as St. Mark. I do not think anyone had thought of promoting religious knowledge among the most neglected and the poor people so seriously like him.
Third, with the help of three women students of the Department of Statistics, he made an extensive survey in Chennai to know the effect of communication of the gospel of Jesus Christ done by various leaders and the Church among the ordinary folks in the early 1980s. The problem posed was, "Are there believers in Christ, who did not join the Church through baptism?" or usually known as "Non-baptized believers in Christ" In response to evangelism through mass media and gospel campaigns, quite a number of ordinary people had taken a position to believe and worship Jesus Christ only, though they had practical difficulty to join any Christian community though baptism. Since the number of such non-baptized believers is almost equal to the number of professing Christians in Chennai, many seminars have been held looking into the various aspects of the issue since then. The study of Dr. Siromoney was an eye-opener not only to the Church in India but abroad as well.
Fourth, Dr. Siromoney's knowledge of the religious faiths such as Hinduism and Jainism has been profound. His articles on "Hinduism" as well as "Jainism", published in
Douglas, J. D. (ed.) New 20th Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge [Baker:1991], confirms his scholarship of these great religions developed with Indian ethos. The study of the faiths other than one's own would certainly promote abiding values of mutual understanding and harmony among the people of multi-religious and pluralistic traditions of our land. Undoubtedly, religion plays a crucial role in our world today. Value Education and proper understanding of our heritage shaped by many religions of the past can never be ignored, if we want peace and shalom in our civilization, even as keen academician such as Dr. Gift Siromoney envisaged it.
- Daniel J.T.K. (B.A. (Hons), Mathematics 1957-60, Colleague:1966-88)
Formerly: Principal Serampore College (1990-98), West Bengal.
Currently: Christian Theology and Pastoral ministry at Tambaram.
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