Stanley Jedidiah Samartha

Stanley Jedidiah was born on 7 October 1920[5] in Karkala, Karnataka into a pastoral family. His mother was a primary school Teacher[6] while his father was a Pastor with the Basel Evangelical Mission. Stanley had his education at the Basel Evangelical Mission High School[6] after which he enrolled at the local Government College. Later in 1939[6] he joined the Jesuit St. Aloysius College (then affiliated to the University of Madras) from where he obtained a B.A. in 1941.[5]

It felt natural for Stanley to follow in the footsteps[4] of his father, a Pastor. The Basel Evangelical Mission Board approved his candidature for theological studies and sent him to the United Theological College, Bengaluru in 1941.[5] While pursuing theology, Stanley was afflicted with typhoid which kept him out of the Seminary for a year. While at the Seminary, Samartha came under the influence[7] of his Professors, particularly Marcus Ward and P. D. Devanandan. In 1945, he was awarded the graduate degree of BD from the Seminary.

• Israel Selvanayagam, Principal, United Theological College, Bengaluru.[14]

.....What is imperative for him (Samartha) is 'dialogue', which he defines as 'a mood, a spirit, an attitude of love and respect towards neighbours of other faiths. It regards partners as persons, not as statistics. Understood and practised as an intentional life-style, it goes far beyond a sterile co-existence or uncritical friendliness'.

• Andreas Anangguru Yewangoe of Indonesia:[15]

..... Samartha was a productive thinker who was interested not only in theological, but also historical and philosophical problems, who paid much attention to Western thinkers as well as to such Indian philosophers as Vivekananda, Radhakrishnan, and Gandhi. He was trying to "dialogue" with these ideas, and to come to his own interpretation of Christ within the Indian context.[15]

• Hans Schwarz, University of Regensburg,[16] Germany.

.....For Samartha, there could not be any Christology without theology and no Christian theology apart from Jesus Christ but there can be and are theologies without reference to Jesus Christ namely in other religions. Samartha asserted that to ignore or deny this fact was like being insensitive to the faiths of our neighbours.

• Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Professor of Systematic Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena.[17]

.....Stanley J. Samartha sees in the coming of Jesus Christ part of "God's dialogue with humanity." Our dialogue with people of other faiths is part of our participation in God's dialogue with humanity. And since Jesus Christ came to create a new kind of community "through forgiveness, reconciliation, and a new creation," dialogue is necessary to incorporate others into that community. Participants in the dialogue can trust the Holy Spirit to lead all into truth.

• Timothy Yates, an Anglican Evangelical Missiologist, Durham.[18]

.....Samartha made the proposal that to overcome the personal-impersonal divide between Christianity and Eastern religions, Hindu and Buddhist, the Eastern approach to truth as 'impersonal' be viewed instead as 'trans-personal' or 'supra-personal'. He was no doubt aware that there has been a strand of Orthodox theological tradition which has used the impersonal in relation to God in the interests of stressing the mystery of the Godhead.

• Kirsteen Kim, Past Lecturer, Union Biblical Seminary, Pune.[19]

.....Samartha stressed that dialogue takes place 'in community' because discussion does not centre on 'other faiths' as religious systems but on their adherents, whom Samartha called 'our neighbours of other faiths'. Thus he stressed the experiential nature of dialogue and was concerned not so much with 'systems of thought' as with 'living faiths'. In Samartha's view, though seeking truth is the aim of dialogue, truth can only be an issue when mutual respect of one another's convictions has first been reached; that is, a pluralist approach in which no one tradition can claim a monopoly on truth is a prerequisite for dialogue. However, he was at pains to point out that this does not mean that the partners in dialogue suspend their respective religious commitments since dialogue is a combination of 'commitment with openness'.

Samartha was acknowledged as a leading authority on inter-religious dialogue. S. Wesley Ariarajah quotes Samartha on dialogue:

Dialogue is not a matter of discussion but of relationships. it has more to do with people than with ideas. Dialogue is a spirit, a mood, an attitude towards neighbours of other faiths. In a multi-religious country like India where the destinies of different religious communities are intertwined and where people of different religious persuasions and ideological convictions face the same human problems in the life of the nation we need to remove suspicion, and build up confidence and trust between people. Thus, in a community where people of different faiths live and work together, dialogue can become an expression of Christian neighbourliness and part of the Christian ministry in a pluralist world.[20]

After being relieved as Principal of Serampore College, Serampore in 1968, Samartha served as Associate Secretary,[16] Department of Studies in Mission and Evangelism in Geneva up to 1971[2] working closely with Hans-Jochen Margull, Professor of Missions at the University of Hamburg, Hamburg.

It was at the Central Committee meeting at Addis Ababa in 1971 that a sub-unit of the WCC Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies was set up with Samartha as its first Director.[23] S. Wesley Ariarajah succeeded Samartha at the WCC.[24]

In 1982, the Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore brought out a festschrift in his honour edited by the then Principal Rev. Dr. C. D. Jathanna entitled Dialogue in Community: Essays in Honour of Stanley J. Samartha.[9]

India's first University,[25] the Senate of Serampore College (University) in West Bengal conferred upon Samartha an honorary doctorate in 1986[26]

In the same year, the Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands also awarded him an honorary doctorate.[2]

In 1980, Samartha returned[16] to India after his stint in Geneva with the WCC was over and was Consultant[16] to the Christian Institute for Study of Religion and Society (CISRS), Bengaluru and also Visiting Professor at the United Theological College, Bengaluru. After 1989,[16] Samartha returned to India and got empanelled on South Asia Theological Research Institute's Committee supervising theses on Theology and Religions in Bengaluru.

A Press Release issued by the World Council of Churches Office of Communication on 24 July 2001 stated that Stanley Samartha died of prolonged illness on 22 July 2001[27] in Bengaluru.

• Rev. Dr B. V. Subbamma
• Rev. Yisu Das Tiwari
• Bishop N. D. Ananda Rao Samuel
• Rev. Fr. Dr D. S. Amalorpavadass
• Rev. Emani Sambayya
• Bishop Victor Premasagar
• Rev. Joshua Russell Chandran

• S. K. Samartha, Introduction to Radhakrishnan (1964)
• Sudarshana Devadhar (1987). "Stanley J. Samartha's Contribution to the Interfaith Dialogue". Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Michael Kinnamon, Brian E. Cope (Eds.) (1997). The Ecumenical Movement: An Anthology of Key Texts and Voices. ISBN 978-0-8028-4263-3.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
• Vinoth Ramachandra (1997). The Recovery of Mission: Beyond the Pluralist Paradigm. W.B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-4349-4. samartha inter-faith dialogue.
• World Council of Churches (December 2001). "Current Dialogue" (38). Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Sudarshana Devadhar (2002). "Is Samartha's concept relevant to the Christian Mission in North America ?" (PDF). Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Bob Robinson (2004). Christians meeting Hindus: An Analysis and Theological Critique of the Hindu-Christian Encounter in India. ISBN 978-1-870345-39-2.
• J. P. Larsson (2004). Understanding Religious Violence: Thinking Outside the Box on Terrorism. ISBN 978-0-7546-3908-4.