No boat on a choppy Sea of Galilee would have been tossed as violently as the Church in India finds itself shaken today, trying to negotiate its way between competitive political space with Muslims and Hindus in distant Kerala, rampant persecution by non-state actors in the north and central states, its resources constricted by increasingly vindictive state policies, and its institutions, its social face for two centuries, staring at an uncertain future in many regions.
This is perhaps a moment of the greatest challenge for it since Independence, a time to conserve its strength, consolidate its unity and reach out to friends in civil society for support. Instead, church leaders find themselves rapidly losing allies, even as they make new enemies, and widen the many internal fractures of dogma, doctrine, racialism, and caste. The struggle of women against a patriarchal religious leadership, gathering pace in recent years, gives the crisis just that critical momentum to pitch it to the international stage for everyone to see.