Culture and Communication Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Culture and Communication Research Paper - Essay Example Christianity is one of many religions which thrive in that country. The people are spiritually minded. Hinduism is the religion of the majority with 82% of Indians being Hindus. 12.1% of Indians are Muslims. Those officially following Christianity form a meager 2.3% (Census of India, 2001). For a follower of Jesus (which is what we mean from now on as 'Christian') it is a command and an obligation to share the gospel with others who do not know. According to Mark chapter 16 and verse 15, Jesus has commanded us to 'go into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'. Yet in a country like India which is deeply entrenched in spirituality there are tremendous challenges to the credibility of the gospel message. We will look at the communication of this message primarily among the Hindus in India The popular perception in India is that Christianity was brought into the country by foreign missionaries who came along with the British East India Company in the early 1700s. The British eventually captured and ruled the country till the mid 1900s. As Wikipedia the online encyclopedia states about that time: "Imbued with an ethnocentric sense of superiority, often known as the White Man's Burden, British intellectuals, including Christian missionaries, sought to bring Western intellectual and technological innovations to Indians, ignoring the fact that the Indian Christian tradition went back to the very beginnings of first century Christian thought" (Wikipedia contributors) Hence although untrue, there is a sense that Christianity is a foreign religion. The fact that the West is predominantly Christian contributes to this perception. Money from the West that has traditionally come in for evangelistic and missionary campaigns also fuels the perception that the financial base of Christianity in India is abroad. As Astrid Lobo Gajiwala an Indian Christian activist writes, ".They just don't see Christians as Indians; they see us as an alien 'other', minions of a white, Christian world that is synonymous with spiritual and racial chauvinism (1998)." Language and attire incompatibility. It cannot be denied that western influence has permanently crept into Indian Christianity. Christian worship is conducted in many languages but English is predominant among them. The exceptions to this are the Tamil, Malayalam and Latin languages which may be more popular in the respective states (Latin is used in Orthodox churches). English has never been in the scheme of things for Hindu worship or religious literature until recently. Christian communities especially Roman Catholics and Goans have predominantly English names and western attire. The communication at home among these communities is predominantly in English. Songs and music Music used for Christian worship has its influence in the West. The songs sung in church are either hymns composed by English or American songwriters in English or contemporary songs again composed in the West in English. Churches depicted in Hindi movies usually have a church organ playing in the background. Local worship songs have begun to gain in popularity but this is a recent though

Islamic Responses to Western Modernization in the Middle East Essay

Islamic Responses to Western Modernization in the Middle East - Essay Example In present times, when modernity is largely defined according to the terms of the West, Islam has often been criticized of being regressive and unable to move on with the times. This paper shall look at two articles that came out in The New York Times and in BBC. According to Nicholas Kristof and Timur Kuran, there is an underutilization of women in the Middle Eastern Muslim Countries. They however, argue that this is a fairly recent phenomenon. They argue that it was the advent of industrialization that has resulted in a comparatively less liberated atmosphere that women have to face in Muslim countries of the Middle East. The authors talk about the different standards that are set in ascertaining the contributions of women in the different cultural frameworks. They also argue that the problems that are found with the Islamic treatment of women can be traced to a faulty assessment and interpretation of Islam. It happens according to them as a result of â€Å"Islamism†, a phen omenon that occurs as a result of the conflict between modernity and Islamic worldviews. According to them, such conflict deepens the stands that are taken by hardliners within the Islamic establishment, making them adopt more and more regressive perspectives (Kristof and Kuran). There are problems with such an approach. One of them is that it does not admit of the possibility of a debate into the tenets of Islam that actually may be oppressive for women. Apart from this, it also talks of the possibility of a utopian form of Islam that can be achieved merely through a different interpretation of it. Apart from these flaws, this approach also ignores the historical marginalization that woman of these communities have faced and the economic and social repercussions of it. The article seeks to set right the flaws in religion through religion and not through a holistic intervention. Roger Hardy’s article does not fall into the trap of offering alternatives. He talks of the flaws in the processes of modernity and the hurry that it has displayed in asserting its superiority over Islamic structures of society. Instead of incorporating changes, what the colonizers sought to do was to impose them. This, Hardy suggests is something that was counter-productive. According to him, one of the major issues that such communities have with modernity is the doubt that it introduces into the psyche of the societies that it is a part of. This problem persists in most Muslim societies of today as well (Hardy). As can be seen, there are several problems that can be identified right from the level of the perspective of the author(s). To find or to suggest any solution would not be a conclusive venture but a beginning. This is so because any possible solution needs to emerge from a dialogue in which every party which has a stake needs to be a participant. As a result, one needs to take on board the doubts that are voiced by the Islamic establishment and also organizations that work within such countries for the empowerment of women for making such a solution. A solution needs to be reached through a compromise where each party is willing to cede ground to the other. However, this does not mean that outmoded ways of living that unfairly oppress one section of mankind are allowed to stay on. The inevitability of progress has to be accepted. The oneness of the progress of humanity in a