A statement in a speech made by Kerala Chief Secretary Jiji Thomson got him into trouble as the right wing groups created a mountain out of mole by twisting the statement and are demanding his expulsion.
Mr. Jiju Thomson on Thursday said the 'biggest legacy of the Church is to preach the gospel', while addressing the gathering during the bicentenary celebrations of the old theological seminary of Malankara Orthodox Church in Kottayam. Also present on the occasion was the chief guest Kerala Governor P Sathasivam.
In his speech he said, "You and I should take the duty to preach the gospel across the world. The biggest mission of the church is to spread the gospel. The Bible clearly talks about that... This is an occasion for self-introspection with regard to the mission of the Church."
He explained that there are three ways to spread the gospel- personal evangelism, church evangelism and mass evangelism.
"In the next two months, you will witness in Kerala a series of incidents of mass evangelism during Bible conventions. You and I can do personal evangelism, which does not require the help of clergy," he added.
"When that mission (of spreading the gospel) is accomplished... Only at that moment, I can say I am a Christian," said Thomson.
His words apparently did not go well with the right wing Hindu extremist group as they termed his speech as religious terrorism.
Mr. Kummanam Rajashekharan, general secretary of The Hindu Aikya Vedi (HAV) also called Hindu United Front general secretary, called Mr. Thomson' words as an attempt in promoting conversion of people from other religions to Christianity. He termed it as an offence and a violation of the Constitution.
Later, Thomson said his speech was misunderstood by some. "I was not advocating for proselytization. What I told the meeting was that the Church's mission is to preach gospel. What I wanted to communicate is that a Christian has to take care of his fellow beings as part of personal evangelization.''
The issue snowballed further into a controversy as various political parties took no time to criticize chief secretary's remarks and called for his ouster.
Thomson is a 1980 batch IAS (Indian Administrative Service) officer of Kerala cadre. He took over as the chief secretary on January 31. Earlier, he served as the director general of the Sports Authority of India from March 2014.
