The Exceptional Trinitian (Part 3) If Trinity College was merely a collection of grounds and buildings, then its foundation stones can and must be traced back at least as far back as June 1822 when Rev Browning, with his wife, established an educational institution on land that still consists forms part of the College compound. One of those earliest buildings in fact remained in service till as recently as 1992/1993 (indeed this writer distinctly recalls having classes in them back in 1992) until they were demolished to make way for the building on the south side of the main hall - commonly known these days as ‘the hospital block’. Perhaps we may speculate - in the absence of clear evidence - that the ‘MC Room’ which stood its ground to see the dawn of the 21st century until it paved way for the new middle school classrooms just below the upper-school tuckshop, may have dated back as far. Those buildings themselves could never make a great school; but the educational institution that was set up in 1922 would ably serve the people of Kandy for nearly half a century nevertheless. But the identity of Trinity was not meant to be defined by the sanctity of the land she stands on or the grandeur of her buildings. It may seem rather unlikely for us to contemplate today given the polarisation of science and religion as two opposing and incompatible perspectives; but the scientific revolution and particularly the discoveries and life of Sir Isaac Newton in England merely over a century earlier, also inspired a theological and institutional revival in Christianity. Newton’s discoveries had confirmed that the universe had an underlying order, based on decipherable laws:laws so absolute and elegantly laid out that the universe had to have been created an absolute and almighty lawmaker. Discoveries of scientific laws and and underlying order to the universe confirmed and reinforced belief in a creator God and therefore the moral and intellectual superiority of those who believed in such a God as opposed to heathens who did not. It is perhaps noteworthy in such a context, that the founding members of the CMS - though devout Christians - did not hold strong beliefs about their moral or intellectual superiority, but instead recognised their moral obligation to act and hold the actions of others accountable to the example of Christ. As opposed to those who justified slavery based on assumptions of moral and intellectual superiority of the slave owners and the infidelity of enslaved races who did not worship one God and creator of the universe, those who founded the CMS acted out of an obligation to continue Christ’s redemptive mission to free the enslaved, reform the imprisoned and empower the poor. That is why they were driven by issues of social justice much more than they were by the notion of Christian evangelism. Decades later and in lands many oceans away, the british imperial project became a conduit for missionary movements that drew on both social justice advocates as well as evangelists. The missionary movements themselves attracted a mix of individuals who headed their callings from either or both convictions. The Kandy mission too, would attract Christian ministers who acted out as much out of empathy with the natives and sought to empower them as those who wished only to claim their souls for God. By 1859, Charles Darwin’s theory on the origin of species had not only created the first major rift between science and religion, but had directly challenged the credibility of the creation legend in the holy scriptures. As much as it would shake the faith and undermine the credibility of the preachers message, yet others in the British empire and beyond would be tempted to use the theory of evolution to re-assert the racial superiority of the conqueror and coloniser over their ‘inferior’ subjects. By the time “Trinity College and Collegiate School” was founded on 18th January 1872 with the Rev. R.Collins as its Principal, the ‘flock’ at the Kandy mission had seen a succession of shepherds and been through a few turbulent periods. Though founded as a CMS missionary school, there was no guarantee of which strand of missionary values Trinity would adopt and how faithful its education will be to the rational and creative exploration of the world that the scientific method had inspired. Trinity could not have been the logical and inevitable end of the purpose and mission that founders of the CMS had sought to institutionalised. Instead it was left to chance and coincidence; if Trinity did eventually become a bastion of pluralist values, social justice, creativity and rational inquiry, that would be as much a happy accident of history as much as it would be the result of a few visionary and inspired individuals.
Posted on: Tue, 24 Jun 2014 15:05:50 +0000
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