“Christians by Faith, Pakistani by Citizenship” Negotiating Christian Identity in Pakistan

Abstract

For this dissertation about Pakistani Christians, I have studied three organizations (the Christian Study Centre, the National Commission for Justice and Peace, and “missionary schools”) to explore how, civically engaged and self-identified “Christian” or “church-affiliated”, organizations are involved in processes of negotiation of Pakistani Christian identity in semi-public settings. The main question was how these organizations negotiate both, their own religious identity and their Pakistani Christian identity, in relation to various others with whom they interact in semi-public settings. The findings of this dissertation demonstrate that Pakistani Christians employ continuously changing categories of identity, which emerge on different levels. This dissertation has demonstrated that Pakistani Christian identity negotiation is affected by perceptions of changing legislation, and of events between Christians and Muslims in Pakistan. Time and again it became evident that contemporary Christian experiences of social and political exclusion and alienation are fashioned by a religious nationalism in which Pakistani belonging is defined in Islamic terms. Negotiations of Pakistani Christian identity are often a response to these experiences. These responses take shape in different settings. At an ecumenical organization for interreligious dialogue, called the Christian Study Centre (CSC), perceptions of Islamization in the 1970s and 1980s are countered by efforts to present Pakistani Christianity as a local religion. In these efforts, Pakistani Christianity must be shed from its European heritage and redefined in relation to Pakistan’s socioeconomic, cultural and religious character. In addition, CSC forwards claims of Pakistani Christian citizenship. Christians should be recognized as a religious minority and Christian contributions to Pakistani society are emphasized to prove Pakistani Christian citizenship. Some decades later, at the same organization, perceptions of Islamization are accompanied by experiences of interreligious conflict and violence. As a result of these experiences CSC aims its interreligious dialogue activities at “interfaith harmony” and “peaceful coexistence”. While the various Christian and Muslim participants bring diverging expectations to the dialogue activities, CSC constructs the activities as encounters of interfaith harmony. At a Pakistani Catholic organization, called the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), negotiation of Christian identity takes place through advocacy for reform of primary education textbooks. NCJP perceives the textbook content as intolerant, biased and discriminatory. As a result the organization problematizes the textbooks as a danger to society, as historically distorted and as unconstitutional. Through these advocacy efforts NCJP communicates both its Christian identity as well as its commitment to the country’s national interests. Also engaging with these textbooks are Christian teachers at church-affiliated “missionary schools” in Pakistan. The teachers hold perceptions of textbooks as biased and intolerant of religious difference. In order to communicate Christian identity in the religiously diverse classrooms at the “missionary schools”, the teachers omit and alter the textbook content. This allows them to create space for Christian identity and religious difference in discussions of Pakistani history and society. The above demonstrates that these organizations redefine and reinterpret Christian identity as well as Pakistani identity. Perceptions of Islamic nationalism and Islamization are countered by attempts to reconcile religious difference and national sameness.