Church council condemns RSS chief Bhagwat for misquoting Bible, says lynching not in Bible

The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) has slammed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat for misquoting the Bible and stating that lynching comes from it. Addressing the Vijayadashami celebrations in Nagpur, Bhagwat said the word lynching comes from an incident in the Bible where Jesus Christ told people to hit a woman with stones only if they had never committed any sin in their pasts.

“The National Council of Churches in India (NCCI) condemn the misquoting of the Bible by Mohan Bhagwat, the Sarsanghchalak of RSS, to justify the term mob lynching,” said Asir Ebenezer, NCCI general secretary, in a statement.

Questioning Bhagwat’s motives, the NCCI said it was precisely such false attributions which have created suspicion among the people and has humiliated the Christian minority.

“We are shocked that such statements which have the potential to divide communities on religious lines are made in public fora. We appeal all people not to be carried away by such misrepresentation or misinterpretation which are often done with political intentions,” added Ebenezer.

The statement said that the Biblical incident that the Sarsanghchalak mentioned in fact exposes how Jesus stood by a woman who was a victim of patriarchal structures of that time.

“Jesus was no way justifying lynching or any such heinous acts, rather the said incident from the Bible was as an expression of Jesus’s mercy and compassion towards the victims of the elitist narratives of the society of his day. Quite contrary to what Bhagwat suggests, Jesus was in fact saving an accused woman from the wrath of the mob in the said passage,” said the NCCI statement. The incident from the Bible that Bhagwat mentions is found in the Gospel of St. John 8: 1-11.

Pointing to the fact that all mob lynching incidents target the vulnerable communities in India including the religious minorities, Dalits, adivasis, the economically poor and women, the NCCI has asked all government officials and leaders, including Bhagwat, to condemn such heinous acts and irresponsible public statements so that peace and communal harmony can be maintained in this country.

In fact, there were 16 lynching cases reported in Jharkhand alone within a year from March 2018 to March 2019. In April, June and September 2019 three cases were reported in which two cases were against Adivasi Christians and one was against a Muslim.