Evaluation Service: Daniel T. Philip

On July 23, 2008, Mr. Daniel T. Philip conducted his evaluation worship and sermon. Both the worship and sermon reflected his social and spiritual concerns as well as creativity. His friends composed the Invocation song and the Commitment song.Rev. Sam Mathew,K., MTh II, Sam N. Joshua, and Shaiju Kumar did the beautiful Rangoli and art work. Shaiju Kumar whose mother passed away on the morning of July 24, 2008, could not participate in the evaluation session. One significant feature of the service was that there was no actual public scripture reading. Instead, there was a contextual enactment of 1 Kings 21: 1-19 (Naboth Text). Of course, in the beginning of the service while the prelude was being played instuction was given to read and meditate upon the text. The enactment depicted the plight of some villagers whose ancestral land was facing the threat of being taken away by the Government to create a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) so that multinational corporations can establish their factories with the benefits of exemption from taxes and labour laws. This has become a major feature of the Globalization in India, which was opposed by some liberal governments like that of the state of Goa but supported by the Left Governments of the states of West Bengal and Kerala. Mr. Philip gave a contemporary interpretation to the Naboth text with reference to people's resistance movements in Nandigram and Kerala for land rights. Another feature of the contextual scripture enactment was that in place of the prophet Elijah's confrontationist role against King Ahab in the Naboth's story, the villagers themselves, inspired by the preached word of God, assumed the prophetic role and has begun to resist the displacers. The sermon alerted the hearers about their prophetic role in the face of gross human rights violations. He also introduced a contemporary version of faith affirmation and Lord's prayer. It is noteworthy that an increasing number of students find the need to reinterpret the traditional creeds and Lord's prayer to make it more relevant for today. We congratulate Mr. Daniel Philip and pray that his commitment to Jesus will find more creative expressions in his future ministry. Two of his brothers are already ordained ministers of the Mar Thoma Church.