Being unfair to oneself

In this day and age of many having an opportunity to be heard by a reasonably large audience, many philosophies, prescriptions of attitudes and such float on the world of web. Being fair to oneself is one such idea that floats around on the web. It is seen as the touchstone for all decisions in one's life. Perhaps, amongst those with an undying concern for justice, the inclusion of the word 'fair' gives it a slight edge over the other popular ideal of 'pursuit of happiness'.

Being fair to oneself has given birth to a progeny – of Abrahamic proportions if I might add - of ideas with some leading ones being 'do what you love', 'walk away from exploitative relationships', 'enlightened self interest' etc. Apart from these positive ones, I believe even the cynical statement, 'cannot rise up from one's class interests' also has the same parent.

The idea is assuming a hegemonic status today in the informed circles. It would be interesting to ask the question, what is the alternative or is there an opposing idea. There must be one because ideas can emerge only in a context of multiplicity of ideas. So what is the other and what is the basis of the other. I will make an attempt to put together the other which can also be its exact opposite.

The sailor who refuses to abandon a sinking ship until everyone else is safely on the rescue boat and risks going down with the ship, the wife in an abusive relationship choosing to risk her life in all senses by staying in the relationship either by nurturing an irrational optimism of transformation in the relationship or believing that to be the demand on her on account of the commitment entered into on a happy day years before, the person who suppresses his voice out of concern about the impact his speech will have on different members of the audience and beyond. These are people, who I think, are challenging the 'being fair to oneself' idea.

To be fair to the idea itself and its proponents, the idea probably has many riders. There can be a moral boundary on what are one's legitimate interests, one can argue that one's interest is actually others' happiness and therefore, being fair to oneself would necessarily include others' happiness. While that might indeed be there, the practical usage of the idea has generally been about protecting the person's life, property, dignity, happiness and right to fair treatment.

There is a fairly dramatic counter example to this. The following is the description of the finest hour of Jesus Christ.At the age of 33, Jesus was condemned to death. At the time Crucifixion was the "worst" death. Only the worst criminals were condemned to be crucified. Each nail was 6 to 8 inches long. The nails were driven into his wrist. Not into his palms as is commonly portrayed. There's a tendon in the wrist that extends to the shoulder. The Roman guards knew that when the nails were being hammered into the wrist that tendon would tear and break, forcing Jesus to use his back muscles to support himself so that he could breath. Both of his feet were nailed together. Thus he was forced to support himself on the single nail that impaled his feet to the cross. Jesus could not support himself with his legs because of the pain so he was forced to alternate between arching his back then using his legs just to continue to breath. Jesus endured this reality for over 3 hours.

A few minutes before he died, Jesus stopped bleeding. He was simply pouring water from his wounds. From common images we see wounds to his hands and feet and even the spear wound to his side. But do we realize his wounds were actually made in his body. A hammer driving large nails through the wrist, the feet overlapped. And an even large nail hammered through the arches, then a
Roman guard piercing his side with a spear. But before the nails and the spear Jesus was whipped and beaten. The whipping was so severe that it tore the flesh from his body. The beating so horrific that his face was torn and his beard ripped from his face. The crown of thorns cut deeply into his scalp. Most men
Would not have survived this torture."He had no more blood to bleed out, only water poured from his wounds." The human adult body contains about 3.5 liters
(just less than a gallon) of blood. Jesus poured all 3.5 litres of his blood; He had three nails hammered into his Members; a crown of thorns on his head and, beyond that, a Roman soldier who stabbed a spear into his  chest. All these without mentioning the humiliation he suffered after carrying his own cross for almost 2 kilometers, while the crowd spat in his face and threw stones (the cross was almost 30 kg of weight).

That is the description of the hours in which he surrendered to God's will and  sacrificed his life, dignity, happiness and right to fair treatment. Since he never had any property worth the name, there wasn't much to sacrifice on that front. Did he find happiness in undergoing crucifixion. Only in the sense of fulfilling his duty. For as C S Lewis states 'In Gethsemane the holiest of all petitioners prayed three times that a certain cup might pass from him. It did not.'

The question that one should is ask is, why the sacrifice? He sacrificed for redeeming humanity from the consequences of eternal death for lives drenched in a sinful nature. He opened a path out of those consequences and invited all to enter. What if we deny the whole need for such a redemption by saying that the 'consequence' is merely a figment of our imagination. In that case, can we have an ideal that would logically demand similar sacrifices out of us? My guess is no. If we remove that condition, we cannot really think of anything more than 'being fair to oneself' and calibrated sacrifices. Not the total sacrifice of the kind written above.

To further accentuate the contrast, one can compare the finest hour of Krishna in the Hindu mythology. The revelation to Arjuna at the end of the Bhagvad Gita where Krishna is revealed as the all powerful, all encompassing and omnipresent followed by his fulfilling the purpose of his incarnation by destroying evil in the form of Kauravas in the war in Kurukshetra. In the case of Krishna, the evil had a person in the form of Kauravas which had to be destroyed. In the case of Christ, evil did not have a personality and there was nothing to be gained by destroying the Jews or Romans. The Jews and Romans went about their lives undisturbed by the crucifixion and the resurrection. There was simply no material impact for the sacrifice. At least not for a few years. It is a different matter that today our newspapers proclaim the 'event' when they use the Gregorian calendar for dates.

There are many who have taken that path towards a complete, total sacrifice. Where they were unfair to themselves. Every missionary who has ventured into the unknown and suffered the consequences, a Mother Teresa who went out into the streets of Kolkata to take care of the leper, the dying, Paul Brand who treated leprosy all his life and made astounding contribution to understanding leprosy, a Gandhi who stood spellbound by a statue of crucified Christ at the Sistine Chapel and eschewed every protection other than that offered by God, a Socrates who willingly drank the hemlock in service of his beloved democracy. Closer home, my grandfather knelt in front of a knife wielding, drunk attacker who had come to take the life of a friend of his and said, 'take my life if you must.' They were not being fair to themselves.

Now that there are examples of individuals who lived a life that was the opposite of 'being fair to oneself', let us see what the left liberal calls these people and their sacrifice. “Professor Thapar’s public intellectual is not a Socratic or Christ-like gadfly with a raging death drive, but is embodied in the figure of the Buddha.” (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-rise-of-the-liberalright-intellectual/article6926683.ece). There is no glory in sacrifice. It is merely a 'raging death drive' for some. I would think that these are also the purveyors of 'being fair to oneself' as an idea. For they have effectively destroyed the foundational premise of 'glory in sacrifice'. There is no eternity, it is only the life on earth. There are no seraphs inviting you to be in their midst and glorify God, it is only a figment of imagination. There is no metaphysics, it is only a dead branch of philosophy. There is nothing before the beginning of time, nothing has no observational consequences (http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-beginning-of-time.html). I also suspect that there is the assumption of 'no natural limits' that underpins the 'being fair to oneself' idea. If life had zero sum games, then being fair to oneself might actually entail stepping on someone else's toes. But this assumption is not a necessary one.

It is important that we are extremely guarded when we proclaim the virtues of sacrifices. A simple test would suffice. Gandhi has given us that test. "Joy comes not out of infliction of pain on others but out of pain voluntarily borne by oneself." If you are asking another person to sacrifice, be warned that you are not glorifying sacrifice but denigrating sacrifice. If you are asking yourself to sacrifice, you are indeed glorifying sacrifice. But then there will be moments where others seek your advice on whether to sacrifice or not. Answer cautiously, with prayer, with faith. And do keep in mind the fate of the holiest of all petitioners. 

This is something I dedicate to a friend who has stood by me through my highs and lows, who has challenged me, who has comforted me and importantly listened to me. While I do dedicate this to her, it is by no means to be seen as suggesting her concurrence with these views. But this is for her. 

My grandfathers and me

The stories that I heard of members of my family, the stories that were played out in front of me in the family setting, both have had a profound influence of how I thought and acted. It has had its role in shaping the values that I live with or try to live with. I still remember the solemn promise I made to myself when writing my name on top of the answer sheet in exams. 'This answer sheet belongs to Thomas P. Thomas and it has my grandfather's name on it. (My paternal grandfather is Dr. P. M. Thomas and I am named after him.) I will not do anything that will sully his name.' Basically, it was just my prop to stop myself from cheating in the exam. Clearly, the unethical nature of cheating in the exam itself was not enough to stop me. And I must admit. This did not always stop me. I did have a couple of instances of cheating in exams in my time. But it did seem to work in most cases. But that is how I look at family folklore.

Now, it was not just Dr. P. M. Thomas, I also had another grandfather, the one on my mother's side. C. J. Palu. Now if you were to look at the two characters, they appeared very different from each other. One was a medical doctor working as a missionary doctor, initially for a short spell in Dahod in Gujarat and then later settling in with another missionary hospital in Vazhoor in Kottayam district of Kerala. He took  matters of Christian faith very seriously. I will rely on his nephew for a description of him. "Dr. P.M. Thomas who passed away in Oct. 1972 was a very extraordinary man. Six feet tall, broad shouldered and weighing over 80kg, he had an arresting personality. Always pleasant and soft-spoken, calm and unruffled, his eyes bespoke sympathy and tenderness. The papers have done scant justice in reporting his death, because in his lifetime he never cared to publicise his services; but the village (Vazhoor, near Kottayam) where he practiced medicine for over 30 years, held a condolence meeting and decided to perpetuate his memory. They wanted to construct a village hall in his name; but being short of funds, decided in stead to institute a foundation to help the poor children studying in schools."

Now C. J. Palu had fairly different pursuits in his life time. He was a businessman with interests in gold, agriculture and agri-commodities, chit funds (a financing mechanism), real estate and perhaps a few others as well that I do not know. In many ways he was a remarkable man. He grew up in a rather poor family. Was not educated beyond basic schooling, his grasp on matters of faith was perhaps not very high (Although he was fairly active in the church and my most enduring image of him is when I saw him through a partly opened door saying his prayers just before hitting the bed. He built a bit of a business empire during his time and he became a fairly well recognised person in Thrissur district. I came to know about the breadth of his influence only when I was typing address on invites to his death anniversary function. I was typing addresses of half the town of Thrissur and even senior politicians in Kerala turned up when he died. For me, he was the person who brought chewing gum for us in the evening when he returned from his shop, the leader of a silent pack of three (including his brothers) who sat quietly when there was any celebratory function at home. He was the one who took us to his farm early in the mornings and instructed the person in charge there to give us tender coconut water and raw mangoes with chilly powder and salt as accompaniments. He was the one who would address us in rather uniquely Thrissur ways like 'Kochappan' for boys and 'Kochammani' for girls, asked why we lacked 'chodi' (energy), moru kazhukiyo (did you wash your face?) and much more. His quietness was one of the most remarkable traits. As my uncle, his eldest son used to say, 'You should have seen him in his elements in his youth. He was a fairly fiery character.' But I did not get to see much of it. I still do not know much about him. But from what I have overheard about him at numerous alcohol driven conversations at home between my uncles, he must have been quite a character in his times, unafraid of anything, a visionary businessman and someone who always acted with a sense of fairness and in a spirit of compassion.

While, the two appear different on many fronts, there are two stories that I have heard about both of them which tells me that there was something which was common to both of them.

On one occasion, there was a theft at my grandfather's (Dr. P. M. Thomas) place. He knew who had done it. It became a bit of a talk of the town or rather the village. He did not file a police complaint because he felt that it was not required to harass the person on this theft which he was willing to overlook. The then Home Minister, who happened to be a friend dropped down in Vazhoor around the time and heard about this incident. He asked him to file a police complaint. However, he declined. The Home Minister then asked the police to send the beat police every night to their house. Thus was established a routine of two policemen coming to the house every night to sign the beat record kept at the house. Meanwhile, the person who committed the theft was not acted against.

Coming to my maternal grandfather, one of his friend's and supplier of gold for his business was arrested under a dreaded anti smuggling law of the time. The man was isolated by the gold business community as none of them wanted to direct the suspicion of the police towards themselves. My grand father was the one person who stood by him and helped him fight the case. He came down from Thrissur to Trivandrum to meet him in jail. The man, after the case was settled, went on to become a successful businessman in Thrissur. He remained a loyal friend of my grand father and his family since then.

What I see as common to both the persons is that they give primacy to their own moral judgment instead of legality and due process of the law. They had their own convictions about rights and wrongs and was not willing to 'let the law take its own course.' There is a boldness in asserting their sense of rights and wrongs and they had not 'outsourced' their ethical framework for operation to the 'law of the land'. Perhaps, I note this feature the most because I find myself often doing this outsourcing and being afraid to apply my own sense of rights and wrongs when the law says the opposite.

Resurrection and the necessity of the claim

The resurrection of Christ is a claim that lies at the heart of Christian thought. It is a claim that meets with a lot of questions. From historians, there is the question of is it true. From the theologian, the philosopher and the spiritualist, there is the question whether the truth of the claim is material to the idea of Christianity. It is the second question that I am going to write about here.

Many commentators from different disciplinary areas have admired the Sermon on the Mount and assorted sayings of Christ for its clarity, the continued relevance of the sayings to the present days and philosophical consistency. Often, they detach it from the claim of the resurrection and say that it is not material for our spiritual development. In this, there could be two categories of people. One, for those whom the speaker and the spoken are two different things and for others the spoken (and the done) are the only ways of defining the speaker and often the spoken is the speaker. For the latter, the saying from Christ, 'Before Abraham, I AM' is a strong indicator of his claim that he was indeed divine. For them, it has to be either true or false and if it is false, the questions about other things he said about kingdom of God, God etc becomes difficult to accept at face value because here was an intentional lier. And then the ethics that flows from it will have to be examined carefully. Clearly, I am taking a side on the issue of whether he actually said that. I am also talking specifically about taking the word of a person because you know him to be a truthful person. Not about applying your reason to examine what he said and then taking a call on the truth of it.

Now, for those to whom the speaker is immaterial and the spoken words are the only matters at hand, those who want to apply their reason.......it is to them that I have to make an argument and a claim. There is a part in Christ's statement about turning the other cheek. When faced with violent action, do not defend yourself, let alone counter attack. What is the basis for it? It is a clear call to adopt non violence as a principle and not merely as a principle. What can be the world view in which that is doable. When faced with the massive scale of violence of a Hitler, Winston Churchill called for arms against Hitler, Gandhi wrote letters to Hitler. What explains the difference. In my view, this one call from Christ to turn the other cheek is the clear marker of the boundaries of the temporal earthly kingdom and the glorious eternal kingdom of God. Without a glorious eternity, it is difficult to conceive a reasoning for turning the other cheek. Our history of the world does not give us enough reasons to do that. The demands of establishing peace and a reign of fairness and love in any time bound manner (whatever be the length of time) demands some form of violence to counter the 'violence of the evil'. The more massive the scale of violence, the less time we can tolerate. Which is why Barack Obama, in spite of his best attempts to adopt the Gandhian world view on non violence, had to concede that he cannot abjure violence as the Commander in Chief of the United States of America. He chose to concede this when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize.

But when you do have a glorious eternity to think about, one has the option of turning the other cheek. Without the belief in a glorious eternity, one cannot cross the final frontier of the earthly kingdom and turn the other cheek. And I am not saying eternity. I am saying glorious eternity. For if there is no value for eternity, again one is left with no meaning or purpose for turning the other cheek. That begets the question, what is eternal. It is timelessness and what exists eternally. The only thing that is eternal is God. And God is glorious in himself. There is no cause for God's glory. He is uncaused and his attributes are uncaused. If there is a glorious eternal and it matters to us (if we take turning the other cheek seriously), then we must think of what is beyond death. And it is here that the Christian claim of resurrection comes in. There is eternity and death is not an end. There is a God who can transcend death. And the only basis we  have for that claim is the resurrection of Christ. In the absence of that, one questions the claim of eternity. When one questions the claim of eternity, one questions the sagacity of turning the other cheek. So for that saying of Christ to hold true, resurrection is his only argument. Of course, you can choose to apply your mind and pick what you want and leave what you dont want from what Christ said.

Compassion as the well spring of action

This has been bothering me for a few years now. The constant battle in mind between the idea of fairness and compassion. When I observe a waiter's error at a hotel and my mind goes into an over drive thinking of whether to forgive or punish in the interests of systemic improvements, the inherent sense of revulsion that I feel for a discussion on positive and negative incentives, when I find decisions on terminating an employee as a major cause of heart burn........

The primary basis for Christian action has to be  a  well spring of compassion and not really a framework of fairness. In fact, the framework of fairness has to come from that well spring of compassion. If the framework of fairness collides with the demands of compassion, perhaps we should change the framework of fairness and cede to the demands of compassion.

Cricket and me

As someone who fell in love with the game of cricket long time ago, it is a shame if there is nothing on cricket on my blog. So here is something on it. It is about what I love about the game, how I look at organised cricket's recent set of controversies and why it does not really shake my love for the game.

This was written first on facebook as a response to a comment of a friend of mine which was in turn a response to my status update on the issue of 'walking' in cricket.

First the comment from my friend. Here it is.

"am reminded of my legendary school correspondent, who ppl say, used to strain his neck while in his car to see if any school students are playing cricket in some corner of a play field.. he considered cricket as a waste of time and there are instances when he beat up such children then and there..that's ridiculous and i'm not saying lets do that ... but commercial cricket that ppl were crazy abt (so intense that some fans died of heart-attacks while watching matches) ..where thr's also lot of money and controlled by an orgn that pays no taxes and once said the players don't represent the country.. the players who let us down.. these guys shd walk rather than wait to be shown the way out.. don't we have better things to do than cheer for fixed matches ..........."

And then my response to it.

People and their support for the game, the organisation that runs organised cricket in India which does not pay taxes, claims of not representing the country, and corruption. Those are the issues that I see in the status update.

First, the support thing. Cricket is a game for heaven's sake. Not something worth dying for. The average cricket fan has that perspective. It is only the story of the extremes that finds space in media. Let us not ourselves lose a sense of proportion.

The organisation that runs cricket in India does do its job well. Its side has won the highest accolades of the game. It supports its past players through pensions, has invested in development of the game through better grounds with improvements in spectator comforts, cricket academies for kids, negotiations with sports goods companies for sponsorships for upcoming players, remunerative system of tournaments for players etc. Not to mention organising games which provide entertainment to quite a few people. Even if it is not paying taxes, it seems to be doing a pretty job as far its institutional purpose is concerned. And I think there are other organisations which do not pay taxes but dont have any major impact.

I have personally heard ex footballers and atheletes who have played at district or state level lament the government of India's affiliated sports bodies which are not able to take care of them and how they admire the cricket associations taking care of its players. So clearly, BCCI seems to be getting a few things right.

On the issue of representing the country. If the Government of India says that whoever claims to represent India must be authorised by GoI, well I dont think I need that. The Constitution is about 63 years old. So is GoI. The last time I checked, the 'India' that I have in my mind has a history of at least 2,000 years. So I am good if BCCI says take a hike to GoI. There are organisations, institutions and cultures which GoI do not like but I call them Indian enough. And I see some of that India in the Indian team and the way it plays and performs on and off the cricket.

Now, my love for the game does not stem from some kind of 'nationalism'. Me watching the Indian team does not have anything to do with patriotism. I will wake up early in the morning and watch England play Australia. I will sit late at night to watch a Lara take on McGrath and Warne. My love for the game has to do with the design/structure of the game. Just to explain, I like the switch on, switch off format of the game, the time it gives a person to think and perhaps the test of concentration involved. Or the fact that the boundary is circular and not linear like in football, basketball or badminton which creates the necessity to trust a player's call about the ball crossing the boundary or not. In football, it is always the referee who takes those line calls, there is not much space for test of moral character of the player. I love the elegance of the bodily movements of a cover drive, the gentle curve of a ball swinging, mesmerising spin of the cricket ball....all of it. I like to watch all that. I love the game.

I am not oblivious to corruption in the game. I am as aware about corruption in cricket as I am aware about corruption in Government, Corporates, NGOs and in me. I have not discarded any of those and I am not discarding cricket or the cricket establishment on the basis of corruption.

Someday I hope to write something about cricket that is well researched, structured and elegant. Till then, something like this will have to do. 

Religion in childhood

This is primarily a response to the criticism against children being taught about their religion. Initially, I considered writing about religion in education. Then I came across the Parliamentary debates on teaching of religions in school education. It is a fairly convincing argument that public schools are not the best places to teach children about religion. For reasons of competence and feasibility. Not so much the issue of confining religion to private spaces.

The argument that religion should not be introduced to children until they attain an ability to judge for themselves based on reason is an often heard one. The basis being that beliefs are to be chosen by a rational mind. To begin with there is a practical difficulty. How does a parent then answer the question from a child, "Why do you go to the Church/Temple/Mosque?". But going deeper, what is the nature of beliefs, how are they acquired, what is the role of reason, can it be a choice. Secondly, what is religion and does it mean to introduce religion to children.

But before getting into, let me list what I understand as the reasons for criticising introduction of religion to children. One, it stunts thinking because it is based on beliefs. Two, religion leads to much strife because it tends to be exclusive of sections of society who do not subscribe to the same set of beliefs.

The oft repeated examples of religion and its impact on thinking are the stories of Copernicus (Heliocentricism and  Geocentricism) and Galileo. What is to be kept in mind in these stories is that what the Roman Catholic Church was defending was Ptolemy's propositions which predates the Church itself. And the criticism was in keeping with the traditions of scientific debate of the time. That opposition was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church through house arrests and destroying records is condemnable in the interests of open debate. But can an honest evaluation of history say that it is only the Roman Catholic Church which has suppressed dissent? Second, is that the experience with other Churches? The Churches themselves have had rather strong debates on everything under the sun and God itself. What about other religions? Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism. They have also contributed to what we call as progress. We should not forget that the decimal system that we are so dependent on emerged is Arab in origin when religious beliefs were popular. Also, we do have periods of strong movement in disciplines like science, philosophy and literature even during the periods of religious dominance. The contributions of religion to the emergence of many universities and centres of academic pursuits cannot be discounted. So, to assume that religion stunts thinking is to ignore that history.

The second aspect of this criticism is the ascription of religion as the primary cause for strife in the world. Pray, I ask what was religious about World War 2 or World War 1 or the fight for supremacy between the capitalist block and the communist block? Mankind's history is replete with stories of violent elimination of differences. And that is not always religious differences.

So, the question that I have is why single out religion for all that is bad with the world.

Coming to the question of religion and children. Most religions are about the following aspects.

1. Description of a God (theism, deism, pantheism etc etc)
2. Man's origin and relationship with God
3. God's expectation from Man and conditions for achieving the 'eternal good life' (generally boils down to a moral framework)

These three aspects together contribute to the development of a world view and a disposition or attitude. The major religions having varying differences on these three aspects. That has very practical implications on how people behave or act when subscribing to different religions. Just like people of different ideological dispositions are likely to different in behaviour and actions. What is particularly remarkable is that the theological frameworks of most religions will have an impact on almost all aspects of human activity and social institutions. Therefore, to shield a child from the influence of religion seems extremely impractical unless we are presupposing the desirability of a non religious society and we are slowly moving towards taking religion out of society.

Assuming that the critics are not talking about a religion less society, we need to see how religion will indeed be taught. As mentioned earlier, religion is a world view. It is not merely a set of 10 commandments. Such a world view or attitude is formed over long periods of time. Beginning from childhood. It does not happen through reading alone. It happens through experiencing events, learning about events and through reflection, discussion and debate. The prayer and worship by another person, the views expressed by someone about a person from a different religion, the texts, the expositions, the acts driven by the religious framework, religious institutions - it is this whole cosmology which leads to the development of this world view and disposition.

While much of the development of the world view can happen subtly as socialisation, there are vast elements which require exposition. For example, why a Christian might take a position against capital punishment will require explanation. A discussion on that with a child will lead to religious conversations. Similarly, when a child sees a priest or a missionary do something and ask for an explanation, he will talk about God, Christ and salvation. Without which he cannot be true in his explanation. It is that explanation which will possibly make the child explore about it a little more. He will encounter concepts like fruits of the spirit  which are love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. In the Christian world view, these are acquired through prayer and submission to God's will. There is a strong theological framework which supports this. I would assume that a Christian parent would want to talk about this to his or her child. And if he or she considers this to be true, can he not talk about it and deprive the child of this knowledge? Religion, when taken in its entirety, is not a specific set of beliefs that can be chosen like picking the flavour of an ice-cream. It is a world view and it includes an attitude. Saying that children should not be taught religion is akin to saying ban religion. It is a position that can be taken. But then express it as such.

The other aspect that I would like to point out is that there is an assumption somewhere in the criticism that children cannot apply their mind. Indoctrination is a form of pedagogy that hampers thinking. It is not restricted to religion. And importantly, religion is not restricted to indoctrination. Critical pedagogy and religion can go together. In fact, much of the methods of critical theory emerged  from the study of Bible. 

Abraham, Isaac, God and an explanation

There is a question that is often asked by those skeptical and dismissive of the Christian God. “How can a loving God ask for the sacrifice of the son of a believer just to test the strength of his belief?” A tentative answer to that question can be given by a Christian based on the meta-narrative of Christianity. This will be acceptable only within that meta-narrative. Outside of that, any answer to that question merely subjects the answer giver to the charge of speaking gibberish.

The first part of the meta-narrative is that while God is loving, he also created everything that we see and therefore has absolute right over everything. And the loving God also demands us to give glory to him, he has absolute distaste for anything being given more value than himself by any of his creations. A believer attributing allegiance to anything including his own son is not acceptable to such on omnipotent God. So there lies the grounds for a test of a believer's faith.(Why does an omnipotent God have to test to know? Because, there is a matter of free will.)

Secondly, in the meta-narrative, there is a concept of eternal life. So even if Abraham's son were to be killed, it is not an eternal death. Our body and our existence on earth is valuable only from the point of view of whether it sings glory to God. There is no other reason for our existence. If the act yields glory to God, that in itself is a necessary and sufficient justification. In short, in the context of an eternal life, a father sacrificing a son for the glory of God does not sound so untenable.

Now, this need not surprise any of us. We all, at least most of us including non believers, believe in a variant of this. In matters of public good, we all believe that the father son relationship is subservient to public good. For example, when a senior police official in Odisha tried to protect his son from prosecution in a criminal case (rape), we all shook our head in disapproval because here was a father who was shielding his son from the long arm of the law, the enforcer of public good. Now if we were to replace public good with God's glory, we will get the same hierarchy.

But all of this makes sense only in the context of God as the creator and the idea of eternal life. Else, it looks untenable and perhaps gibberish.