Bible - an Asian perspective How George Soares-Prabhu saw it About George Soares-Prabhu by Rudolf Heredia SJ [VJTR, vol 60, July 1996] George S-P, a much loved Indian theologian, died in a tragic accident on 22 July 1995. [Heredia was his cousin and student.]   Decolonising our minds While George's scriptural critiques were regarded as seminal by many, he contributed more significantly in my view as a theologian. I am writing about George's work as a social scientist. I believe there is a dialectical relationship between the social sciences and religious studies, for theological reflection must be based on a social analysis.   George was a committed anti-imperialist determined to decolonise our mindset from colonial thinking, from the dependency of the Third World on the West. Too easily we have accepted a subaltern or marginal status on the periphery of some metropolitan centre. George was not content to play the academic game by First World rules - he was prepared to challenge the ground rules and methodologies, and set a new agenda for Third World theologians. He was determined to unmask the paternalism and exploitation that was embedded in the unequal relationship between First and Third World scholars.   He found it reprehensible that "Christians can enjoy with scarcely a qualm of conscience, the enormous profits of the slave trade in the 17th and 18th centuries, the massive loot from the colonies in the 19th, and handsome dividends paid by multinational corporations ruthlessly exploiting the Third World of today".   He rightly identified inculturation as one of the most urgent theological problems for the Third World: "Any communication of the word needs a double translation - out of its original context and into a new one, for it to be correctly understood." In other words, Third World scholars had to deconstruct western formulations of the gospel message and next reconstruct it for a new culture. We must create a discourse on our own terms, within our own context.   Demystifying academia In demystifying the world of the academic scholar, George was breaking with a hallowed institution of the colonising West that claimed to its scholars were engaged in purely intellectual pursuits, that is, advancing knowledge for its own sake detached from any political considerations. More often, these scholars (historians, scientists, anthropologists etc) were easing the way to state intervention and conquest. The Third World does not need ivory-tower scholars answerable to the academic guild but socially committed intellectuals - who engage in responsible discourse, who are responsive to the real world of the masses and their condition, and are accountable to society at large.   Asian gospel interpretation & social praxis For an Asian theology, the challenge cannot be met in libraries or seminary classrooms. It must be met in social praxis (lived experience). The South Asian reality is characterised by two aspects: an overwhelming poverty, and its multifaceted religiosity. [Aloysius Pieris: Towards an Asian Theology of Liberation, Vidyajyoti Journal, vol 43 (1979)]. The prophetic edge of the good news must not be blunted by academic analysis and interpretion. "The Third World would usefully adopt a 'hermeneutical circle' which moves from experience (praxis) to mystery and back to experience" (G Soares-Prabhu, 1994).   From liberal to liberationist theology George began a dialogue with Marx and came more enlightened about the Jesus who liberates the poor. To my mind, it was Marxian class analysis that helped George in the transition from western liberal to a LAtin American liberationist theology.   A market-driven consumerist society such as ours cannot be a witness to the Kingdom, and the Church has tacitly accepted such an ideology, its own authenticity stands undermined. The NT does not provide a blueprint of the new society and George does not develop a full-fledged political ideology from his theological understanding but he did see the need for a change - both of social structures and in human hearts. George overcomes the dilemma between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith with his very original insight of the 'Jesus of faith' - the 'dharma of Jesus'. But development of the concept remains an unfinished task.   References 1. Voices from the Margin (Orbis 1995)     - RS Sugirthrajah (Ed), Introduction, SJ Samartha, Chap 1