Sebastian Kappen

Sebastian Kappen (January 4,1924 - November 30, 1993) was a renowned Jesuit theologian from Kerala, India. He received his doctorate in 1961 from the Gregorian University, Rome, with a thesis on "Praxis and Religious Alienation according to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx".

His subsequent studies had been geared to the requirements of transformative social action in India. This led him to an investigation into the liberative and humanizing potential of the original teachings of the historical Jesus as well as of Indian religious traditions, particularly the tradition of dissent represented by the Buddha and the medieval Bhakti Movement. He has written and lectured extensively on the cultural restructuring of Indian society.

Kappen had been visiting professor to the Pontifical Seminary (Pune), Vidyajyoti College of Theology (Delhi), The Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and Maryknoll Seminary (New York). He was engaged in a study of communalism and the Postmodernism debate, until his death in 1993.

Books in English

*Jesus and Freedom (Orbis Books, New York, 1977)
*Marxian Atheism (1983)
*Jesus and Cultural Revolution - an Asian Perspective (1983)
*Liberation Theology and Marxism (1986)
*The Future of Socialism and Socialism of the Future (1992).

Posthumous publications

*Tradition Modernity Counterculture (1994)
*Hindutva and Indian Religious Traditions (2000)
*Divine Challenge and Human Response (2001)
*Jesus and Society (2002)
*Jesus and Culture (2002)
*Towards a Holistic Cultural Paradigm (2003)

Books in Malayalam

*From Faith to Revolution(Vswäsathilninnu Viplavathilèkku) (1972)
*An Introduction to the Philosophy of Marx(Marxian Darsśnathinu Orämukham) (1989)
*Prophecy and Counterculture(Pravachanam Prathisamskruthi) (1992)
*In Search of the Non-Christian Jesus(Akraistavanäya Yèśuviné Thèdi) (1999, posthumous).

Jesus and Freedom

Sebastian Kappen's book Jesus and Freedom, was 'an investigation into the relevance of Jesus for the integral liberation of man'. It was published by Orbis Books, New York in 1977 with an introduction by Francois Houtart. In 1980 the book was admonished by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Kappen responded to the censorship by publishing his reply as a pamphlet entitled "Censorship and the Future of Asian Theology".

Extracts from the Reply

"Now, the challenge of the living God and man's response to it today cannot be judged by the yardstick of petrified formulae derived from earlier ages. Rather it should be the other way round. The value of tradition must be assessed in the light of God's contemporary word."

"Moreover, if God is alive and speaks to humans of all places and cultures, there is no basis for a censorship that evaluates all theology by the standard of one theology, I mean, by the standard of the dogmas and concepts developed in the western historical-cultural context. The traditional mode of thinking in the West is representational. It seeks to abstract the essence from the existents, thereby forming concepts meant to represent reality. By the same token it is also analytical, bent on dissecting the real into its constituent elements. In the process it disrupts the primordial unity of being and knowing. In essence, this way of thinking is technological, its goal being the domination of the given world. By elaborating concepts and systems it strives to gain mastery over the earth. Knowledge thus becomes a means to power, if not itself power. Thinking rooted in, and spurred on by, the will to power ends up by becoming an instrument for the domination of human beings, as is borne out by the history of colonialism, fascism, and the on-going technocratic manipulation of the masses. This kind of thinking can only beget a theology that strives to gain mastery over God by reducing him to manageable concepts. The spirit that split the atom and the spirit that dissects God into concepts are at bottom one and the same."

"As Asians, our mode of thinking is unitive rather than analytic, experiential rather than representational, existentialist rather than essentialist. The dichotomies western thought has thrown up — matter and spirit, faith and reason, nature and grace, temporal and eternal, human and divine, and the like — are foreign to us. For us thinking is communing, not conquering; is being present to what presents itself, not re-presenting it through concepts; is being one with the oneness of all, not exploding the one into the manifold. Our ancient seers would have questioned even the 'and' in the customary formulation, God and man, if taken in the additive, disjunctive sense; so finely attuned were they to the underlying oneness of the many. These cultural specificities are ignored by the church when she compels us, Asians, to think as do people in the West. What is this but cultural imperialism and colonisation of the mind?"

"The primary locus of theology, therefore, cannot be the closed community of Christians but the open community of all those who hunger and thirst for justice and freedom. And if the theology that emerges out of dialogue with the Lord of history bursts the old wineskins of tradition, none need shed a tear over it except the makers of old wineskins!"

"The book, Jesus and Freedom, is the crystallization of my basic convictions regarding Jesus and his message. So much so, for me to deny its central message would amount tosheer intellectual dishonesty and a betrayal of my mission as a disciple of Jesus.