1-ON THIS SUBJECT, PLEASE CONSIDER THE YEAR 2000 TERM OF REFERENCE TO BE FOUND IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.Canadians are not the only ones having a census.
By the end of this year, the biggest head-count in history will have ended with over 125 nations taking part.
Already the findings are ominous. In a special report released this week, Rafael M. Salas, head of the United Nations Fund for Population activities, says that zero population growth for the world will not take place until the year 2110 or 130 years from now.
By that time, global population will stand at over 10 billion--two and a half times the current number and could go as high as 14.2 billion.
South Asia will treble its present population from 1,400 million to about 4,100 million. Latin America will also treble its numbers from 400 million to 1,200, with Mexico alone rivalling that of the United States. Africa, the one region showing no signs of a slowdown, will quadruple its hosts of humanity.
Obviously, unless massive, global efforts are made, the sum total of human misery and degradation through poverty, disease and famine--not to mention wars--will sharply and dangerously increase.
Salas informs us:
-Already in 1981 about 1.200 million do not have proper water, sanitation or health care.
-In the poorest countries, only one child in 10 is ever seen by a health worker or immunized against the basic, preventable diseases of childhood.1
-An estimated 450 million people do not have adequate food (the world produces enough, but distribution is the problem).
-More than 100 million 6-to-11-year-olds have no schools to go to.
-About one-third of the world's workforce is either out of work or earning too little to support a family.
North Americans, seduced by the "instant answer syndrome," tend to feel that global family planning is the answer.
Population experts--even within the Roman Catholic Church--have been dismayed by the 1968 encyclical against artificial contraception and especially by the present Pope's adamant insistence on it in such places as Mexico, Brazil, Africa, and the Philippines.
A $40 million U.N. World Fertility Survey, just being completed, shows that approximately half the Third World's women want no more children, yet, of these, only half have access to family planning methods.
In 20 developing countries, one-third of the women interviewed by the survey team said their last pregnancy was unwanted.
But, family planning without justice, without clean water, food, health care, jobs, and education is no solution to anything--rather it is a cop-out for those who have everything.
The truth is we are facing a moral issue of gargantuan proportions. Since morality is supposedly at the heart of religion, it is ultimately a challenge to each and every religion on the face of the earth.2
This point was made in Toronto this week in the most forthright terms by a distinguished Christian Indian from Madras, Chandran D. S. Devanesen.
"This generation will pass on as its legacy to the 21st century about 1,200 million destitute human beings," he said. "It is of the utmost urgency that in the face of this each member of every one of the world's great religions-- Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity--ask themselves: 'What is my responsibility? What should I be doing?' "
The 63-year-old educator, author, poet, and social critic, said both his reading of the gospels and his Indian experience have convinced him that unless the world religions agree that, in spite of their differences, their core teaching demands they unite in social action they will have failed mankind.4
A keen, evangelical Christian {Methodist3 before the merger which formed the present Church of South India) with a brilliant academic record at Cambridge and at Harvard, Devanesen was principal [of] Madras Christian College, vice-chancellor of the North Eastern Hill University, India, and president of the Christian Education Council of South India before taking on his present post as director of the Institute of Development Education, Madras.
As well as writing a regular column, the Layman's Diary, for the Guardian, India, he serves on both the Indian and the Asian regional council of the TMCA as head of the Interfaith Committee.
He and his wife, Savithri, are in Toronto to visit their son, a doctor who is on staff at St. Michael's Hospital, and to hold talks with Muslim leaders5 before going to Colorado to take part in 150th anniversary celebrations of the YMCA.
Devanesen points out that love for God, with its ineluctable "other side" of love for one's fellow human beings, is basic to all faiths. The Buddhist monk represents an image of a social worker that predates his Christian counterpart by five centuries, he says. Hindus have the key concept of Dharma, or service, while the Muslim's Koran makes giving to the poor and caring for the needy and homeless a central obligation.6
Christians, he notes, can talk about "being saved" or being "born again" but the nub of their discipleship comes in the question: saved for what? Born again to lead what kind of life? A commitment to Christ which is not at the same time a Christlike commitment to others is a farce, he argues.7
Christians in India today, he believes, should drop the "statistics game" of conversions and an aggressive. proselytizing stance which frightens or alienates others and begin to be the true reconcilers they are called to be.8
In his view, Christ can "look after Himself or, in other words, if Christians make their presence felt by doing God's will, God will lake care of the rest.
"All of us in all faiths have got to focus much less on the more theoretical dogmas which divide us and concentrate on the human problems which cry out to heaven for an answer." he said.
True to this conviction, the scholar-humanitarian recently organized a joint meeting between Muslims and Christians at Madras which was extensively reported in the prestigious Indian newspaper, the Hindu (May 15).
The Muslims were impressed by Christian liberation theology and the record of service by Christian missions. The Christians were awakened to their ignorance of the vast network of Islamic social service agencies that has sprung up in India since independence.
Both groups made up of scholars, journalists, clergy, and social scientists reached a consensus that both Islam and Christianity need a rethinking of their values, structures, and institutions if they are truly to serve "the interests and welfare of the whole human family."
Devanesen. who like his wife looks much younger than his age suggests, is tired of Christians who see Jesus "as a kind of Holy Spook."
He has a mystical strain himself*— see for example these lines from the Christ of the Indian Road, in a book of poems he published in 1554. The Cross is Lifted. < Friendship Press. New York):
"He gives a dream that win not let
a younyman sleep.
He gives an adventure that will not
let a young man rest. . . ."
But, mysticism can be a pici^e. nr believes, unless you relate it to what God wants you lo do now for others in His world.
His church-related, church-funded elopTnent education institute fo- ^s precb»ely on this. It exists as "a alyst to make things happen and to let others express their creativi- ty."
Its projects range from training seminars in rural problems for young,.Indian pastors, to encourage- ment of folk art and drama by and for the poor.
His wife, Savithri, moved by the pSght of the village pour who often have to pawn even what little they have to rethatch their houses before t.ie-^wful onslaught of the monsoons. tpgan a helping scheme which has nowhnushroomed into a major social se-vice plan.
Called Roofs for the Roofless. it ha^ hew enthusiastically taken in hand by sbbut two dozen young people of all faiths. Concern about roofing has led toroncern for the total welfare of the villages so far approached.
Clean water, schooling for the cyoungstprs, and a weekly health -clinic, i^-e ail sprung from the ini- tial coipept- No doctor had ever set Toot in Ue first village contacted.
When 5^u realize there are 15.600 villages irtlhe Tamil Nadu State and ^53,500 hanlets, you get some feel for ' the enormry of" the task. But, as the Tamil provyb puts it: "Even a stone gets worn or the constant passage of ants." and iiese youth mean to be much more man "insects for God."
India now is self-sufficient in food (a miracle inUtself) but as the De- vanesen's poi»t out. with an addi- tional 13 million new babies a year, problems in U^s area are far from over.
Mrs. Devan&en is involved in teaching village vomen about'family planning but she-fold The Star that the task is a delicate one.
"You can't Just begin with that where the people ore illiterate and where their culture and economic necessity — the need for many hands U» share the work — makes large families a bles&ipg." she said.
"We begin with nutrition and gener- a! family welfare education. Then we ^how them that if you l^ve a smaller family you can care fo^ them better and educate them for a fuller life. At present they have nothing except their children."
It is encouraging to knew of people such as the Devanesens: to learn of the struggle going on in Islam and Hinduism to rediscover those ele- ments of their faiths which stress so- cial reform; to hear their new insist- ence that Third World problems must be solved by Third World countries as well as being a responsibility of the West.
It is especially refreshing to learn of evangelical Christians who see with total clarity that only by work- ing together can the worlds faiths remain faithful to the One Whom they all ultimately profess to set^te,
That would do more to convince a sceptical world of th-e value and truth of religion than any amount of preaching crusades, TV evangelism, or definitions of dogmas.
The Dfvanesens can be contacted at the institute for DeveScpmeat Education, i. Anauya Ave.. KupauT .\ttdras,Hndia. 600 010.
(text of June 13, 1981 Toronto Star Religion column)
1-ON THIS SUBJECT, PLEASE CONSIDER THE YEAR 2000 TERM OF REFERENCE TO BE FOUND IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.
2-HERE IS A CASE WHERE THIS REASONABLE ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTER OF RELIGION WRITTEN AROUND 20 YEARS AGO BY THE FORMER CHRISTIAN CLERGYMAN (MR. HARPUR'S QUALIFICATIONS FOR WRITING A RELIGION COLUMN), WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT, UNDERLINES, WHEN PUT IN THE "CONTEXT" OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS INVOLVING OTHER PEOPLE WHO ALSO "KNOW HOW MUCH IS BEING LEFT UNSAID," WHY "ALL OF US" FACE THE FUTURE WE DO.
TO CONSIDER A FAIRLY SIMILAR SECULAR ANALYSIS OF ANOTHER FIELD IN WHICH ALLEGEDLY ITS PRACTIONERS ARE INVOLVED IN DEVELOPING SOCIAL POLICY BEYOND SELF-INTEREST, TAKE A SERIES OF (2) BRIEF SIDESTEPS HERE.
THE QUOTE BEGINS AT THE BOTTOM OF ONE PAGE AND IS COMPLETED AT THE TOP OF THE SUBSEQUENT PAGE IN THE SEQUENCE.
...HERE IS A CASE WHERE THIS REASONABLE ANALYSIS OF THE CHARACTER OF POLITICS WRITTEN AROUND 2340 YEARS AGO BY (VIRTUALLY) THE INVENTORS OF DEMOCRACY (BY NAME), WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT, UNDERLINES...
note remark to VZ about Catholic priests taking vow of honesty and link to CardinalCarteradmitshesasocialistatheart.htm and Trudeaulikesmissiontopapalmessage.htm and FBIspy
3-ON THE SUBJECT OF THE "METHODIST" RELIGIOUS DENOMINATION, IT IS UNAVOIDABLE HERE TO SUGGEST THAT VISITORS TO MY AWARD-WINNING WEBSITE TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.
4-link to Pope in Middle East pushing interreligious tolerance and also, for contrast, the papal supremacy things
5-link to Moslems must learn to protest and Harcourt thing about Kimster and Toronto black rioting and Saudi Gazette Rodney King thing drawing line short of violence and Gandhi to Cardinal Carter
6-THIS WILL BE MORE EASILY UNDERSTANDABLE AFTER CONSIDERING THE NEXT FOOTNOTE HERE AND ITS ASSOCIATED TERMS OF REFERENCE, BUT FOR NOW, IN RELATION TO MR. DEVANESEN'S ANALYSIS OF "COMMON GROUND" AND BELIEFS IN ALL THE WORLD'S MAJOR, LEGITIMATE RELIGIONS--THAT THEY ARE NOT, SAY, "SUPERMARKETS COMPETING FOR CUSTOMERS"...AS I NOTED IN ONE OF THE OTHER TERMS OF REFERENCE TO THIS 1986 REGISTERED LETTER TO THE THEN-SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE ORGANIZATION REPRESENTING THE WORLD'S SECOND MOST POPULAR RELIGION EVIDENCED IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE--TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE.
OF A SIMILAR MIND BUT IN THE SECULAR SENSE, PLEASEE CONSIDER THE WISDOM OF FORMER CANADIAN OVIDE MERCREDI AS IS CONTAINED IN WHAT YOU FIND IF YOU TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE. Royal Bank newsletter.
7-..CONTINUING WHERE FOOTNOTE7 HERE AND THE BRIEF FOOTSTEPS FROM IT PROCEED, WHILE IT IS ITSELF A TERM OF REFERENCE TO A CONTEMPORARY ISSUE OF CONTENTION CONCERNING GOVERNMENTS AND SOCIAL ACTIVISTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, RELATING TO THIS ANNOTATED PASSAGE IN TOM HARPUR'S 1982 RELIGION COLUMN TAKE A BRIEF SIDESTEP HERE, FOLLOW THE LINK IN THE PREFACE TO THE EARLIER TERM OF REFERENCE, AND OF COURSE TAKE THE BRIEF SIDESTEP AT THE BOTTOM OF IT THAT SHOWS HOW THE "POLICY OF SILENCE" ABOUT MY "INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC WORK...ON A DIRECT BASIS" FOR THE WORLD'S CHILDREN LET "ALL OF US" DOWN.
do Muslimsmustlearntoprotest2001.htm
8-explain about arguing with Bob over Gorecki.htm etc., telling him i'm not fundamentalist [link to Reagan term re fundamentalist] but hold certain fundamental beliefs, and link to Carter term with Ephesians quote