Rock Church and Caste
Feb 26 - Today we went off to visit Rock Church.
This was a fascinating facility in what seemed to me to be the middle of nowhere. This ministry is 41 years old with a campus for it’s scholastic endeavors being 25 years old. There are dormitories for students, a bible college, and most curiously, the beginnings of an exceptionally large sanctuary. It is hard to understand the need for this 5,000 seat structure, when the current congregation is only around 400 people and there is clearly no infrastructure around to support such a facility at capacity… yet.
The school has 419 students attending composed of 270 who live on campus, 40 or so from surrounding orphanages, and a few from the homes in the area. Originally a school for the deaf and dumb, it is a middle and high school seeking to take these generally poor students and train them to national standards and requirements. During our visit, I saw an interesting piece of how the caste system forces some interesting moral dilemmas on Christian schools like this one.
India has a program similar to Affirmative Action in the United States. It reserves about 30% of government jobs for those coming from those so marginalized that they are no longer part of the caste system. There are four castes that about 55% of the Indian society divides into. Then there are people considered so defiled that they are considered out of the caste system or “outcastes.†This is about 40% of the population. Ninety percent of Christians in India are from these outcastes.
The interesting thing is that when a person converts to Christianity, the government considers that an “upgrade†of sorts changing one’s caste. It is not clear what caste you change into, however the implication is that conversion to Christianity will not allow you to enjoy the benefits of government employment set aside for the outcastes. There are apparently many millions of “un-baptized†or “secret†Christians, who do not officially register as Christians, because to do so would jeopardize the possibility for employment.
At the Rock Church school, even though most of the students are schooled as believers and many become believers, their graduation papers do not reflect this “conversion†for fear that the very opportunity that Christian schools are struggling to provide these students would be removed should it be acknowledged that they converted.
This situation raises some very interesting questions. Is it immoral to “lie†to the government just so you can help your students get a job? Does a government need to know about one’s religious conversion? As a believer and an outcaste, if you believe the caste system to be wrong and unjust, should you take jobs reserved for your caste?