Church as People’s Movement
Peoples Movement is important phenomenon in today world. There are
many kinds of social movements or people movements in India like peasant
movements, fisher community movements, Dalit movement, women’s movement, environment
movements etc. According to T.K. Oommen, social movements are mechanisms
through which human attempts to move from the periphery of a system to its
center. They are conscious efforts by the people on the periphery “to mitigate
their deprivation and secure justice” and emerge “when people committed to a
specified set of goals participate in protest-oriented, purposive collective
actions.” M.S.A. Rao describes social movements as an organized effort
on the part of a section of the population, involving collective mobilization
based on an ideology, to bring about changes in the social system. Church as
People’s Movement can be discussed as liberative, human dignity, solidarity and
justice and environment movement dimensions.
1.1. Liberative Movement: The
Indian society is marked by grave injustice and violence built into its
structures and institutions of civil life. Economic exploitation and social
exclusion based on caste, marginalization of large sections of people in the
civil and political processes, unfair distribution of the benefits of
scientific and economic progress, unequal access to educational and employment
opportunities, forced poverty, discrimination against rural people etc. are all
different forms of conflicts, injustice and violence imbedded in our social
fabric. The movements are having concern about these issues. They play a vital
role in conscientizing the civil society in areas such as human rights, social
justice and ecology. They compel the civil society and the state to address issues
like corruption, poverty, marginalization of women and girl children,
oppression and exploitation of dalits and tribals. Church surely got a mandate
for liberative motive and thus it should participate in the issues of people
and support these social movements.
1.2. Human Dignity Movement: For
the church and for people’s movements human dignity is a primary value.
Everyone has a right to live with dignity irrespective of their gender, race,
language, region, religion, caste or sociopolitical and economic status. The
church’s social doctrine and the social vision of movements place the human
person at the center of all economic and social life must be at the service of
human beings, especially the disprivileged. Providing dignity and equality is
one of the fundamental vision and goal of the body of Christ and leading the
de-humanized into humanity is the mission of church consequently church and
people’s movement can be partners in this venture.
1.3. Solidarity and Justice Movement: Solidarity with the socially marginalized was a characteristic
trait of the life and mission of Jesus, who sought to defend the human dignity
of the despised of his society that included tax collectors, sinners,
prostitutes and victims of leprosy. The contemporary church sees solidarity as
a fundamental social virtue directed to the common good. The life of Jesus
provides hope and solidarity for the discriminated people because the biblical
pictures of Jesus presented in the gospel traditions present Jesus being in
solidarity with the margins. Jesus movement was movement providing a voice to
the voiceless in Galilee and the early Christians were from socially deprived
group. Church as the herald of Jesus’s life and ministry should show
sensitivity to the issue of solidarity with the struggling community by
supporting various social movements. Justice is the chief issue which most
people’s movements try to address.
1.4. Environment movement: The
contemporary church and many movements stand for a non-consumeristic and
sustainable lifestyle that keeps us from unduly exploiting natural resources.
There are several movements that advocate environmentally sustainable
technologies in the management of natural resources. The church agrees with
such movements that the pursuit of development must be oriented towards
creating just, humane and sustainable societies based on harmonious and
non-exploitative relationships within and between human communities and between
human beings and the ecosystem. People’s movement based on environmental crisis
provide sense of reverence to the nature, earth, trees, rivers, mountains,
animals etc. and by doing so one becomes aware of the oneness of life that we
are part of the nature. It provides a holistic vision of life in general and of
the corporate life of the human community. Church can easily identify itself
with these concerns because these are the attempts to find the goodness in
creation (Gen. 1:4,10,12,18,21,25,31).
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