Federated Faculty for Research in Religion and Culture

An Assignment on
“World View” Its Meaning and Function:
Mission and the Transformation of World View
Submitted by: Sunil Koshy, M.Th I Presented on 23rd September 2019

Abstract

Case 1: during my missionary engagement in Bihar, once an old lady aged about 70 plus
came to me with a prayer request. I puzzled by hearing the prayer request because if a person
from Kerala approach me with the same matter the prayer request might be just opposite. The
prayer matter is that: her son is in Mumbai and trying to go to Singapore for a better job and a
better earning. She asked me to pray to stop his journey to abroad. Because she believes that
crossing the sea is hostile to her religious conviction.

Case 2: The 32 year old man who was the youngest son of my house owner expired in an
accident. He was the earning member of that house and was affectionate with his parents.
When his departed body brought to the village it was placed outside his house on the mud
surface and upon a straw base without any respect or gentle care. Even his closed ones
hesitate to see the body. But the “Shradd”1 was celebrated immensely and hundreds of people
attend for the “Bhoj.”2

Case 3: A 21 year old girl from the Santhal tribe passed away in Dhumka district of
Jharkhand. They dressed her body decently, decorate it with makeup and placed it inside the
church for few hours to watch the body. Those who came to see her body placed some money
under her pillow then put oil upon her face. Finally they took the body for burial with the cot
where her body laid. Inside the ditch at first they placed all her belongings such as all her
cloths, books, the vessels she used and the money which placed under her pillow during the
time of viewing. Finally upon all these things they place her body and covered it with earth.

Introduction

The abstract given above shows some of the different worldviews of different communities of
India. For the first case the worldview of the rural community of Bihar and many other parts
of India is that regarding crossing the sea is not good and it will cause to harm and even to
death. For the second case the concept is that the dead body is impure and bring it to the
house will cause to pollute the house where the deity is placed. For Santhali people they keep

1
The Hindu ceremony after a few days of death celebrates in order to liberate the departed soul from the
surroundings where he/she lived.
2
The ceremonial meal at the end of the Shradd.
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a kind of worldview on life after death and for their lives they place all the belongings of the
dead one into the grave.

Worldview is the latest concept in anthropology which is supposed to be its youngest sibling
in connection to culture. Worldview determines the character of a community or a society.
Mission occurs in the communities and it interacts with human culture knowing ones
worldview has a key role in mission. This paper is an attempt to understand the meaning and
functions of worldview and its role in mission as well as the role of mission in worldview to
transform it.

1. Worldview: Its Meaning and Function

1.1. The Meaning and Importance of Worldviews

The English term ‘worldview’ is a translation of the German Weitanschauung, a word first
coined by Immanuel Kant. It has been a key term in Western intellectual discourse since the
early 19th century. By the end of that century it has also become common to speak of a
Christian world-view.3 Basic of the idea Weitanschauung is that it is a point of view on the
world, a perspective on things, a way of looking at the cosmos from a particular vantage
point. Therefore it lean to carry the connotation of being personal, dated, and private, limited
in validity by its historical conditions.4

In order to emphasis a particular relevant aspect different disciplines used the term
“worldview” differently. For example, in management science, “worldview” is typically
taken to be about an individual or group’s value system, while in theology, “worldview” is
often taken to be an individual’s view about the existence and nature of God. Personal
worldviews evolve as people try to integrate their knowledge, experience, and intuitions into a
coherent framework they can use to make sense of their lives and make decisions about how
to live and what to do.5 James H. Olthuis defines worldview as “a framework or set of
fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it.”6 A
worldview, then, is the overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world in all
its diversity and complexity. It functions as a map of reality that people use to bid their lives.

1.2. The Concept of Worldview

3
A.M. Wolters, “World-View” in New Dictionary of Christian Apologetics, edited by W.C. Campbell –
Jack and Gavin J. McGrath (Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 758-762.
4
Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming Worldviews: An Anthropological Understanding of How People Change
(Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2009), 13.
5
Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming..., 22.
6
James H. Olthuis, “On Worldviews,” in Paul A. Marshall, Sander Griffioen, and Richard J. Mouw, eds.,
Stained Glass: Worldviews and Social Science (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1989), 29.
Page | 2
During the past two decades the concept of worldview emerged as an important notion in
philosophy, philosophy of science, history anthropology and Christian thought. 7 It is not easy
to define or attribute the term worldview in single or simple way as it has its complex features
and characteristics. The model or map of a single perception of reality provides to patterning
the life course of a group or a society is its worldview.8

1. 2.1. A Model of Worldview

According to Paul Hiebert, worldview is a totality of basic assumptions about reality which
lies behind the beliefs and behaviour of a culture. Those assumptions are generally
unexamined and therefore highly implicit. They are reinforced by the deepest of feelings
therefore, anyone who challenges them becomes a subject of fiery attack. People believe that
the world is exactly the same what they see it. Supporting Hiebert's view Kraft says “the
worldview lies at the very heart of culture, touching, interacting with, and strongly
influencing every other aspect of the culture.”9

Worldview lay at the very inner part of a culture. Human behaviour, norms, values,
understanding, evaluation patterns are guided by their worldviews. It helps us to understand
cultural stability and resistance of change. It guides human behaviour. In general, culture is an
ascribed system of beliefs, values, norms, and behaviours. Hiebert defies culture and its
essential and functional functions as “the more or less integrated systems of ideas, feelings,
and values and their associated patterns of behaviour and products shared by a group of
people who organize and regulate what they think, feel and do.”10 Thus, culture defines the
reality of the world. Human 'behaviour and products' are the manifestations of culture that we
can see, hear, experience through other senses.

1.2.2. Characteristics of Worldview

1. Worldview assumptions or premises are not reasoned out, but assumed to be true
without prior proof. It means that the assumptions of any worldview are accepted by any
society without the requirement that someone prove them. Such assumptions are deeply
imbedded in the structure of culture. These assumptions are taught to each new generation so
influentially that they seem absolute and are seldom questioned. People then interpret their
life experiences in the terms of these assumptions.

Let us look at a people’s assumption of certain issues to illustrate it. People in one society
believe that life begins at conception. For some other society the assumption of the starting

7
Paul G. Hiebert, Transformin..., 13.
8
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology for Christian Witness (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1996), 51-2.
9
Charles H. Kraft, Christianity in Culture: A Study in Dynamic Biblical Theologizing in Cross-Cultural
Perspectives (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books 1979), 53.
10
Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological Insights for Missionaries (Michigan: Baker Book House 1985), 30.
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point of the life may before birth, or at birth, or at some point after birth. Regarding disease
modern societies assume that disease is caused by germs. But some other societies still
assume that it is spirits, not germs that cause disease. Such assumptions have its deep roots in
their mind which passed to them generations after generations.11

2. A people’s worldview provides them with a lens, model, or map in terms of which
reality is perceived and interpreted. The cultural component is the most pervasive, since it
assures that most of the people in a society will understand and interpret most things in
essentially the same way. In a sense most of our assumptions are not idiosyncratic but are
given to us by those who taught us our culture.12

3. in terms of its worldview, a people organizes its life and experience into an explanatory
whole that it seldom questions unless some of its assumptions are challenged by experiences
that the people cannot interpret from within that framework.13

4. In real life people and their worldview functions together. People cannot say or do or
think anything without having on the basis of their worldview assumptions.14

5. Of all the problems that occur when people of different societies come into contact with
each other, those arising from differences in worldview are the most difficult to deal with.
Many at times the members of a social group refuse to share their assumptions or to accept
other’s assumptions. It many times causes to culture shock or culture stress.15

1.2.3. Functions of Worldview

Before we discuss the functions of worldview essentially one thing we need to keep in mind
that it is people using worldview, not worldview doing something by itself. The major
functions of worldview are as follows:

One’s worldview does a number of essential functions. Our worldview provides us with
cognitive foundations on which our systems are made, supplies rational justification of the
systems. Our worldview validates and shapes our deepest cultural perceptions which we use
to evaluate our experiences and select the best way of action.16 It answers our fundamental
epistemological questions. For example, where are we from? Where are we going to? What is
wrong? How is it judged, and what is its remedy? What is sin? What is righteousness? What
is universe? Where we are in universe? And so on. It provides us with the mental blueprints
that guide our behaviour. It emerges out of our interaction with the world. Worldviews are

11
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 55-6.
12
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 56.
13
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 56.
14
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 58.
15
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 57.
16
Paul G. Hiebert, Anthropological..., 45.
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maps for living. For example, for the Muslim universe is a creation of Allah, we are servants
of God and we are here to fulfil his wills which are revealed in the Quran. It guides our
behaviour with a map of reality. Hence, it does both predictive and prescriptive functions.17

Our worldviews protects us from dangers by giving emotional strength. We face many
uncontrollable forces and crises of drought, illness and death, and plagued by anxieties about
an uncertain future, people get relief by their deepest cultural beliefs for comfort and security.
We face the fear of death which is the most powerful emotion. We can face death itself as
martyrs if we believe and have deep conviction on its purpose. Our worldview supports our
fundamental beliefs with emotional reinforcements so that they cannot be easily destroyed.18

Worldviews help us to integrate our culture. It organizes our ideas, feelings, and values into a
more or less unified view of reality. Our worldview gives us a sense that we live in one world.
Similarly, our worldview integrates and organizes ideas, beliefs, norms, and values.
Simultaneously, it monitors cultural change.19 We confront with various kinds of new ideas,
behaviours, knowledge, and new products in modern society. Our worldview helps us to
adopt those which are similar to us and reject those which are not. When our worldview no
longer meets our basic needs, desires, and demands we adopt new one. Worldviews provide
psychological reassurance that the world is truly as we see it and a sense of peace in which we
live in. People experience a worldview crisis when there is a gap between their worldview and
their experience of reality.20

When different dominant worldviews meet, encounters exist. Therefore, we need to analyze
the situation from both synchronic and diachronic ways which help us to understand how
people view the structure of the world and the myth of the people.

1.3. Different Foundations of Worldview

1.3.1. Philosophical Foundation of Worldview

The basic philosophical question surrounding worldview is what truth is? It goes back to the
ancient philosophers including Confucius, Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian. Gutek’s focus was
on building connections between education, thinkers, and events that brought us to the world
we know today. Men such as Aquinas, Calvin, and Thomas Jefferson were men who explored
truth. They sought to build a worldview around the truth, and their philosophical beliefs are
still influential today. Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy was based on political change brought
about by non-violent means. According to Gutek, Gandhi’s humanistic worldview brought

17
Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming..., 28.
18
Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming..., 29.
19
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 60.
20
Paul G. Hiebert, Transforming..., 30.
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about great change to India and influenced the worldview of men like Booker T. Washington
and Martin Luther King, Jr.21

1.3.2. Secular Humanism Worldview

Secular humanism worldview refers to the belief that humanity is the source of all truth and
knowledge. In the United States secular humanism is the most well-organized secularist
movement. There are two types of secular humanism: (a) atheistic free-though and (b)
religious humanism. Religious humanism grew from the Unitarianism and Universalism
religious doctrine.22

1.3.3. Socialistic Worldview

The Nehemiah Institute has defined the socialistic worldview, one that is founded on
humanity needing a ruling body to control all areas of life, as having the opinion and faith that
elite members of the community or nation should determine the common good. Three words
are often used to define the socialistic worldview: liberty, equality, and fraternity, argued that
of these three values, equality was the most central to the meaning of socialism. Socialism
was founded on the principal of human equality, a faulty principle. Human beings are not
equal; rather the human race is a diverse race. A socialistic worldview sees man as the answer
to the needs of the world. The central force of American education moved from being
essentially Christian to building the dignity of man. Socialism is rooted in faith in humanity,
or humanism, the belief that education and a strong ruling force can elevate humanity above
crime and poverty, with everyone being equal, and no one going without security.23

1.3.4. Christian Biblical Worldview

A biblical worldview is comprised of basic beliefs founded on the Bible. Scripture describes
the meaning of worldview, “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 NKJV).
The Israelites of the Old Testament proclaimed their worldview daily, “Hear, O Israel: The
Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4, NKJV). Jesus was the first to teach a
Christian worldview in his Sermon on the Mount in Matthew Chapter 5. A Christian
worldview sees the world as Jesus Christ saw it, embracing its beauty while renouncing its

21
G. L. Gutek, Historical and philosophical foundations of education: A biographical introduction, 4th
ed. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education 2010)
22
Carolyn Potts Simoneaux, “A Comparative Analysis of Worldview Development and Religious
Commitment between Apostolic College Students Attending Apostolic Christian and Secular Colleges”
(Doctoral Diss., Liberty University, 2015), 38, in https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/1027., accessed 11
September 2019,
23
Carolyn Potts Simoneaux, “A Comparative Analysis..., 39.
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sin. Simply, a Christian biblical worldview is a worldview based upon the Bible and the
teachings of Jesus Christ.24

1.4. Worldview and Cultural Change

Solid culture changes may cause to the change of the worldview of a culture. “Just as
anything that affects the roots of a tree influences the fruit of the tree, so anything that affects
a cultures worldview will affect the whole culture and, of course, the people that operates in
terms of that culture.”25 Sometimes it effect might be heavy which that culture cannot bear.
Always the result would not be positive or creative but just opposite may happen. For instance
when the Nigerian Christians asked to reject polygamy and follow monogamous life style,
even Christians of Nigeria had the assumptions concerning the Christian God that: (1) God is
against the real leaders of Nigerian society, (2) God is not in favour of women having help
and companionship around the home, (3) God wants men to be enslaved to a single wife, (4)
God favours divorce, social irresponsibility and even prostitution.26

1.4.1. Cause of Change in Worldview

A change in the worldview of any societies occurs because of pressure that comes from inside
the society but due to the inspiration of something from outside. The contact with the outside
factors and advocates forces the insiders to think for the change. Such outside factors at first
develops dissatisfaction with their traditional assumptions and approaches to life. This
dissatisfaction pressures people to develop new ways of understanding and coping with the
new circumstances.27

1.4.2. Worldview Transformations

Charles Kraft borrows a basic model of the process of worldview transformation from Antony
Wallace’s book Revitalization Movements: Some Theoretical Considerations for Their
Comparative Study which consists a three idealized conditions:

Old steady state Crisis situation New Steady Stage

In it, the first stage represents the idealized equilibrium of all stages is go stable and enduring.
The second stage represents the introduction of some radical challenge to a people’s steady
state. This challenge may have various roots such as a war, or a natural calamity, or the
imposition of the customs and worldview values of some foreign society. Here due to the
process of transformation a number of traditional valuations and allegiances are called into
question by the new circumstances. Here many of the familiar rules and guidelines especially

24
Carolyn Potts Simoneaux, “A Comparative Analysis..., 40.
25
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 65.
26
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 65.
27
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 435.
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in the area of social control, no longer work and many traditional assumptions no longer
satisfy. The third stage represents the ideal resolution of the crisis that is the survival of the
society living within a formulation of a new steady stage. For achieving such a study stage it
will take a long time.28

1.4.3. Patterns of Worldview Change

As it discussed above the changes in worldview can affect either way to a society. The
following model presents various possibilities for the process of worldview change and its
results.
Submersion
Cohesion
retaining with
dramatic change Conversion

Steady State Crisis Reservoir

(Existing Stage) Stress of tension
Extinction:
Cohesion escape/die out
broken:
demoralization Revitalization:
Cohesion rebuilt

Figure 1.4.3a The Process of Worldview Change and its results 29

As this figure shows the change of worldview in any people group starts from an existing
traditional steady stage. Into this steady stage there appears the pressure or influence from
inside or usually from outside, that produces significant cultural crisis stress. This stress
builds and produces “a reservoir of tensions,” says Allen Tippet. He explains, “It may be an
intellectual, emotional, or spiritual build-up or a complex of them all. This reservoir of tension
may be a feeling of expectancy or an intense passion for emancipation.”30 This tension
between the existing and the new remains for a period of time where the existing remains but
the transition to the new started.

When the reservoir of tension has built up in a society, the people may respond in one of a
variety of ways, depending on whether the former cohesion is retained or broken. If the
cohesion is retained, a people will usually move into what Tippett labelled submersion or
conversion. If the cohesion is broken or severely damaged, people tend to move into some
state of demoralization, issuing in either extinction or revitalization.31

28
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 435.
29
Charles Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 437.
30
Alan R. Tippett, Introduction to Missiology (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1987), 287-88.
31
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 437.
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2. Mission and The Transformation of Worldview

2.1. Relation Between Worldview and Mission

There may be a question among many that how the study of anthropology and worldview
helps the study of mission. But the small discussion we have regarding worldview and its
functions points to the relation between the two. As worldview contributes to the development
of culture understanding ones worldview helps a missionary to communicate with people of
that particular culture in a proper and effective manner. The study of culture is particularly
relevant for the kind of cross-cultural missionary situations in India. “An understanding of
worldview is absolutely essential if one is to navigate the marketplace of ideas that have
shaped history and are at the roof of what many have termed the culture wars.”32

2.2. Biblical Understanding of Worldview

A worldview can be function as a pair of glasses through which we observe and understand
our world. Anything we see must come through these glasses. For instance if you see things
through an atheist glasses or Buddhist glasses the way you see things will be different where a
theist see the same thing through his theistic glasses. Biblical worldview begins with God. A
Biblical worldview is a perspective that sees everything through the glasses of Scripture. Here
Bible makes the determination.33
2.3. Christian Worldview
Christians believe that God has spoken and revealed the essentials of a worldview that is
genuine and objectively true. Through his creation (universe) and His word (the Bible) God
has shown man how to make sense of his world and his life. God explains why He made the
world and where He is leading it.34 As we see earlier worldview is a framework or set of
fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it we will
try to make a definition of Christian worldview.
As per the theologians viewpoint worldview gives us four categories that commonly use to
understand human experience. Those four categories are:
2.3.1. Creation: The way God created the world and everything in it, including the people he
made in his own image, with the ultimate goal of displaying his glory.
2.3.2. The Fall: the way we turned away from our creator, choosing to live for ourselves
rather than for our Father’s glory, and thus came under the condemnation of a righteous God
in a world of sin and curse.

32
William E Brown, W. Gary Phillips,and John Stonestreet "Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical
Worldview," Faculty Books. 6. (2008), accessed on 10/09/2019 at 2:00pm,
http://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/faculty_books/6.
33
William E Brown, W. Gary..., 16.
34
William E Brown, W. Gary..., 6.
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2.3.3. Grace: the way God is working to save his people from sin and death through the
crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Son, and then transforming our lives by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
2.3.4. Glory: the way God is fulfilling all his purposes for his people through the present and
future pre-eminence of Jesus Christ over the everlasting kingdom of God.
What unify the Christian worldview are not merely an idea, but the being and character of
Almighty God. The Bible does not present God as the conclusion to some logical proof, or as
a mystery beyond our comprehension, but treats his existence as the basic premise upon
which everything else in the entire universe is built. God is always our ultimate frame of
reference, the supreme reality at the centre of all reality—the be-all and end-all of everything.
Therefore, whatever else we include in our worldview will need to be understood with
reference to God. 35
Christians believe that by denying the existence of God, atheism gets things wrong from the
beginning. So does secular humanism, or any other worldview that puts the self at the centre
of the universe. We should not begin with ourselves at all, but with God, whose existence and
nature are “the independent source and the transcendent standard for everything.”36 We start
with God and work from there on up. Otherwise, the consequences are devastating, morally as
well as rationally. The Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky was right when he said, “If God
did not exist, everything would be permitted”37 including many things that are evil or cruel.
2.4. Transformation of Worldview through Mission
The history of Mission is the history of transformation of various communities in different
manners including worldview. Jesus describes the touch of the Kingdom of God to be like the
touch of yeast in a lump of dough (Luke 13:21). This is an image of how transformational
change works. Transformation is not superficial change painted over the surface of a culture
like frosting on a cake.38
2.4.1. Examples from the New Testament
New Testament writers give us ample of evidences regarding the transformation of worldview
or a call to transformation. In John 9 we come across with a blind man. The disciples of Jesus
asked to Jesus “Whose sin caused him to be born blind?” Here though the disciples of Jesus
are with Him for a notable time still they didn’t changed their Jewish worldview which taught
them that the born blindness is a consequence of sin. The answer of Jesus “His blindness has

Philip Graham Ryken, ChristianWorldview; A Student’s Guide (Illinois: Crossway, 2013), 34.
35
36
David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002), 260.
37
Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky,
Everyman’s Library (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1990), 589.
38
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 441.
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nothing to do with his sins or his parent’s sins. He is blind so that God’s power might be seen
in him” (V.3). Here Jesus calls his disciples to a transformation of their worldview.39
Jesus’ talk with the Samaritan woman (John 4) transformed not only her but also the entire
city of Samaria. There we can see the expression of a number of worldviews in the Samaritan
woman as well as in the entire Samaritan race: (1) She knew that there is a racial clash
between Jews and Samaritans (v. 9). (2) She also knew that Samaritans and Jews are the
descendents of Jacob (v. 12). (3) A prophet only can say the hidden or unrevealed things (v.
19). (4) There is a conflict between Jews and Samaritans regarding the worship place, as the
former worships in Jerusalem and the later in the nearby mountain (Mount Gerizim). (5)
Messiah will come and when he comes he will proclaim all things to Samaritans (v. 25). Jesus
in his dialogue transformed her every worldviews which was of old traits. Finally she
acknowledges Jesus as Messiah and the climax of the event witnessed transformation of the
entire city in their worldview (vv. 39-42).
Not only Samaritan woman and the city but there was a call to transformation also occurred in
that event. The Jewish worldviews such as seeing Samaritans as inferior, speaking to a
woman privately is not morally right, all are called to change. Though there were not much
dialogue in direct way but the actions of Jesus silently communicated with His disciples.
2.4.2. Historical Evidences from Indian Experiences
2.4.2.1. Transformation of Malto Tribe of Bihar/Jharkhand
In 2009, when I was in Saharsha, one of the north eastern districts of Bihar, on a fine morning
a young man came to me. He was dressed well, looking charm, and introduced himself,
Emmanuel Malto. He came from Sahibganj, one of the northern districts of Jharkhand. He
spoke well and had a missionary thirst to serve the Lord in Bihar or Jharkhand.

Soon after my companion with Emmanuel Malto I visited his village. There I found two types
of Malto community there. One has the majority of Malto populace, living in a chaos
situation. Their surroundings were unhygienic; children were going to the school rarely but
make all kind of nuisance in the community. Kids are under malnutrition, and affected with
different kinds of diseases. Male members of the society were drug addicted with either
alcoholic or smoking or chewing tobacco. Female members are working hard to meet both
ends of the life. All together the community led a life without any goal.

On the contrary to this there I met another group of people who leads better life
comparatively. Their premises (mud houses) are well maintained, surroundings are kept

39
Charles H. Kraft, Anthropology..., 433.
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hygiene, and children attend school regularly. They are healthy and malnutrition rate very
less. No quarrel in family or with others.

In a same village living two kinds of people. How this contradiction among the same people
group living in a same village? To get the answer I visited a church situated in that village.
That church was established by Friends Missionary Prayer Band, a missionary organization
originated in Tamilnadu. They went to Malto community in 1970s and 80s. The mission was
not easy for them but faced many challenges. Few gave their lives to transform these people.
Mr. Jayaraj and his little son died in 1983 by a local disease, kala aja. Patrick Joshua’s son
died of cerebral malaria in the same period. But missionaries pressed on to the target.

They made different methods to communicate Gospel with them. They proclaimed the good
news and exercised power dynamics to heal and exorcism. They challenged the social evils
like and malpractices. They made people aware of the malevolence of the use of drugs. The
constant works of the missionaries brought a good result. A large number40 of Malto tribe
transformed into a new worldview and living amidst of their own tribal men who still live
with their traditional worldview. Earlier illiterate, oppressed, exploited but today educated,
healthy and hygiene, living in a new sense of human dignity and found their self-identity.41

2.4.2.2. Transformed Communities of Kerala: A Typical Example for Transformation

An observer of the 21st century scenario of the state Kerala can see transformed communities
in various ways comparatively of other parts of India. But it was not the situation of Kerala
until 19th century where occurred a number of reformation. There were a number of social and
cultural evils prevailed in whole over the nation India especially in Kerala. We will look at a
brief glimpse on some of those things and how it changed into the present situations.

Slavery was very much prevailed in the entire parts of Kerala especially in Travancore. As
casteism has its deep roots in the Hindu religion the upper cast people used to make the lower
cast people as their forced labourers and slaves. Certain communities had been assigned with
certain duties and menial jobs in the temple or elsewhere in the society. They were bound to
fulfil these duties without any excuse. All the public works such as construction of the roads,
government buildings and palaces were built by the slaves under Uriyam42. Payment was very
less. The labourers were of low castes and the slaves but used by the authority for Uriyam.43

40
As of 31 January 2002, the records show 43,048 Malto Christian believers among the total population
of nearly 70,000.
41
Colin F. Blai r, “Christian Mission in India: Contributions of Some Missions to Social Change” (Doctor
of Philosophy dissertation, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2008).
42
Uriyam means forced labour.
43
Koji Kawashima, Missionaries and a Hindu State (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 57.
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Paraya, Pulaya and Kurava communities were the main slave communities in Kerala. There
were slave trade and agrestic slavery in the sense that slaves were attached to the soil and
treated as marketable property.44 The slaves were sold and the slave children were thus
separated from their parents. Most of them were not treated as humans. They had no voice, no
right, no freedom, no identity, no land and nothing in the world to be shown as theirs. The
Hindu religious system counted them as no people who were born to serve the upper cast
people. It is their birth right to serve by that on the other birth they would get a better rebirth.
When the missionaries came to Travancore, they were very much shocked by the reality of
slavery. Through their interaction between the slaves and the missionaries, schooling, health
care and introduction of civil rights and legal system to them, the slaves experienced a new
awakening in their subjectivity. The journals, reports and the literature produced by the
missionaries made a discourse on the emancipation of the slaves which caught the
imagination of the slave people for a new subjectivity.45
Only two examples are referred. There are hundreds of thousands of examples are there from
India itself how mission transformed the worldview of many. Missionary activities to abolish
social evils like Sati, Infanticide, child marriage, prohibition to marriage of widow and many
other are not only helped to uplift the society but it resulted to transform the people into a new
worldview. The traditional worldview which prohibited the low caste children to attend
schools is changed and thousands from such groups are holding higher positions of
contemporary India. Mission schools and missionary attempts are the only reasons for such
transformation. When the Union minister Amith Shah speak out the necessity to propagate
Hindi language for the nation unity, we the nation needs to recognize the contributions of
Rev. Samuel Kellogg who unified 14 colloquial languages into one and contributed plenty of
vocabularies and alphabetical arrangement. Hindi language played a major role to change the
worldview of a large number of citizens of India.
Conclusion
The study of worldview as a branch of Anthropology plays a vital role to understand and
determine the culture of a people who lives in a particular place. By studying the worldview
of a people the missionary of that people can communicate gospel in a fruitful way.
Worldview may be packed with many kind of evil things just as the Malto tribes of Jharkhand
had. But mission as a transforming agent will play its role to transform that ignorant
community to a awakened one with a new worldview.

44
A. Sreedhara Menon, A Survey of Kerala History (Kottayam: Sahithya Pravarthaka Co- Operative
Society, 1970), 269.
45
W.S. Hunt, “Slavery in Kerala” in Kerala Society Papers edited by K. K. Thankappan (Trivandrum:
Kerala Gazatteers, 1997), 276.
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 Figure : A Comparison of Three worldviews.46

46
Paul G. Hiebert, “Conversion and Worldview Transformation,” International Journal of Frontier
Missions 14/2 (April-June, 1997), 83-6.
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