Stanley Jedidiah Samartha

Stanley Jedidiah Samartha (ಸ್ಟಾನ್ಲಿ ಜೆದಿದಿಃ ಸಮರ್ಥ; 7 October 1920 – 22 July 2001) was an Indian theologian and a participant in inter-religious dialogue.

Samartha's major contribution was through the World Council of Churches (WCC) sub-unit "Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies" of which he was the first director.

Western Scholars on Hinduism like Jan Peter Schouten brings Samartha in the line of thinking of M. M. Thomas (an Indian thinker) and Raimundo Panikkar (a Catholic Priest) terming them as the "Great Three"

of whom Samartha was very involved in the developments in the Church in India.

Stanley Jedidiah was born on 7 October 1920 in Karkala, Karnataka into a pastoral family.

His mother was a primary school Teacher while his father was a Pastor with the Basel Evangelical Mission.

Stanley had his education at the Basel Evangelical Mission High School after which he enrolled at the local Government College.

Later in 1939 he joined the Jesuit St. Aloysius College (then affiliated to the University of Madras) from where he obtained a B.A. in 1941.

It felt natural for Stanley to follow in the footsteps 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.

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 of his Professors, particularly Marcus Ward and P. D. Devanandan.

In 1945, he was awarded the graduate degree of BD from the Seminary.

From 1945 to 1947, Stanley served as an Assistant to the Pastor in Udipi.

Stanley was appointed as lecturer in the Basel Evangelical Mission Theological Seminary (now Karnataka Theological College)

, Mangalore beginning from the academic year 1947 - 1948 to teach Theology and Religions.

After availing study leave for the period 1949 - 1952 Samartha returned to the Seminary and resumed teaching responsibilities.

The Basel Evangelical Mission sent Stanley to the Union Theological Seminary in the city of New York for post-graduate studies (S.T.M.) in 1949.

He studied under Paul Tillich, the Christian existentialist Philosopher and worked out a thesis titled The Hindu View of History According to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan which eventually got published.

In 1950, Stanley enrolled as a doctoral candidate at the Hartford Theological Seminary, Connecticut and was awarded a PhD in 1951.

Samartha's doctoral thesis was entitled The Modern Hindu View of History according to Representative Thinkers.

After completion of doctoral studies at Hartford Theological Seminary in 1951, Samartha spent a year at Basel, Switzerland at the invitation of the Basel Mission Board.

Being at Basel seemed to have thrilled Samartha since it was the very mission board through which his parents came to Christ.

While spending his days here, he also began attending Karl Barth's weekly lectures at the University of Basel besides visiting the local congregations in Switzerland as well as in Germany.

It was here that he also met Hendrik Kraemer, the Dutch Reformed Theologian and the first Director of the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey.

The Basel Evangelical Mission ordained S. J. Samartha on 30 March 1952.

In 1952, the Seminary made Samartha its Principal, a position in which he continued up to 1960.

In fact, he was the Seminary's first Indian Principal.

It was during Samartha's period at Mangalore that the Seminary became affiliated to the Senate of Serampore College (University), West Bengal.

While being the Principal at Mangalore, Samartha availed a sabbatical and taught for an academic year (1957–1958) at his alma mater, the Hartford Theological Seminary before returning to Mangalore.

William Stewart had been the Principal of Serampore College from 1959 to 1966.

In 1960, Samartha moved to the United Theological College, Bengaluru where he began teaching Philosophy and History of Religions.

The Council of Serampore College appointed Samartha as the Principal of Serampore College {the only constituent college of the Senate of Serampore College (University)} in 1966.

Samartha led the College through turbulent times up to 1968 after which he took up an assignment with the World Council of Churches.

Among those who studied under his Principalship in Serampore included James Massey, S. Jeyapaul David and G. Babu Rao.

".....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'."

"..... 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."

".....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."

".....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."

".....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."