LIBERATION OF THE OPPRESSED: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
by Dr.Konrad Raiser

Address at the International Consultation on
Contemporary Reflection on Global Oppressed Communities
Gurukul Lutheran Theological College
Chennai, India
24 February 2003

I.
Let me begin my presentation with an expression of thanks for the invitation addressed to me as General Secretary of the World Council of Churches to join this important international consultation to reflect in a global perspective on the condition of oppressed communities. This initiative, undertaken jointly by Gurukul Theological Seminary and the National Council of Churches in India, comes at a timely moment, and I congratulate the organizers for having brought together such an impressive gathering of representatives of oppressed communities and of those who want to be in solidarity with their struggle.

For me it is also a welcome opportunity to visit this campus once again towards the end of my mandate as General Secretary. Gurukul Theological Seminary has made a name for itself in opening up new avenues for theological reflection and action. Inspired by the leadership of Dr. K. Rajaratnam, it has - as one of the first institutions of theological research and education in Asia - opened up courses for women's studies, for communication and ecology in addition to pursuing social analysis and human development from a theological perspective. Most of all, Gurukul, already in 1987, established the Department for Dalit Theology, which was the first of its kind and has since then contributed significantly to Christian theological reflection on the Dalit struggle for identity and liberation.

I recall my earlier visit to this campus in 1995 when I was introduced to Gurukul's attempt to make the concerns of the Dalits axiomatic to theological education in India. During that same visit to India, I also had a first encounter with the national working committee of the Dalit Solidarity Program as well as with the leaders of the National Council of Churches in India, to learn about their initiatives to respond to the issues of justice and human rights for the oppressed. This present visit therefore gives me a welcome opportunity to reaffirm the support and solidarity with the partners of the World Council of Churches in India in their struggle for the liberation of the oppressed people.

For the last 20 years, the WCC has been accompanying this process. I do recall the consultation on racism in the 80s, held in the Netherlands in the summer of 1980 when, for the first time, a member of the Dalit community from India exposed under tears the conditions of oppression under which the Dalits and the tribal people were suffering. In the period following the Vancouver Assembly in 1983, the WCC has placed the Dalit issue on the agenda of its Programme to Combat Racism, and Bishop Azariah as a consultant to the commission has contributed significantly to generating understanding for the challenge that the situation of Dalits in India poses to the witness of the churches for justice and human rights. In 1989, the commission of the Programme to Combat Racism held its commission meeting here in Madras. The meeting was preceded by a number of extended team visits to different Asian countries. Among these, one team also visited several Dalit communities, both in the north and in the south of India. As a result, the commission voted to accept responsibility for the setting up of a Dalit support programme, which was initially planned for a five-year period. This is the origin of the Dalit Solidarity People's Programme, which has helped to make the concerns of the Dalit community widely known throughout the fellowship of churches in the World Council of Churches. In 1991, the Canberra Assembly of the WCC, in its statement on indigenous peoples, said: "We affirm the growing consciousness of indigenous peoples' struggle for freedom, including those of the Dalits in India." Small and insignificant as this reference may seem, it is an indication that the culture of silence, which has been surrounding the Dalit community for centuries has been broken.

In recalling these earlier stages of developing a sense of ecumenical solidarity, I do not wish to make any particular claims for the World Council of Churches, for it is ultimately the Dalit community itself which has developed the courage and determination to bring its cause to public recognition, including important international fora. It is therefore a joy for me to be amidst church leaders, leaders of the Dalit movement and ecumenical organizations who have gathered here to commit themselves to the task of Dalit liberation. I thank God for this movement of the Spirit and for the partnership in the ministry of the gospel that liberates and calls us to liberate. I have come here also to express our solidarity with the churches in India as you seek to witness to the liberating power of God in an increasingly complex and hostile environment.

II.
Christian reflection on the liberation of the oppressed as well as Christian participation in their struggles are not new to the churches and to the ecumenical movement. In fact, liberation became one of the catalyzing terms for ecumenical theological reflection throughout the 1970s which witnessed the emergence of many movements of liberation from colonial, post-colonial and racist structures of oppression in Africa as well as from military dictatorships operating under the doctrine of national security in Latin America. It was in particular the Fifth Assembly of the WCC in Nairobi in 1975, meeting under the theme "Jesus Christ Frees and Unites", which inspired the churches in the fellowship of the WCC to reflect on the manifold forms of oppression and to affirm Christian participation in the struggles for liberation as an inevitable task for the churches in the world.

This is expressed clearly in the preamble to the section report with the title "Structures of Injustice and Struggles for Liberation". The preamble begins with the following sentences: "Structures of injustice and struggles of liberation pose a formidable challenge to the church today. In striving to meet it, the church has no other foundation on which to stand than it has in Jesus Christ. From him it has received its mandate: to witness to the truth which judges and to proclaim the good news, which brings about freedom and salvation. In seeking its particular place in today's struggles for social justice and human liberation, the church needs to be constantly guided by its divine mandate. Whenever a Christian is confronted by structures of injustice and takes part in struggles for liberation, he or she is bound to experience the grip of destructive forces, which are at work throughout the human family. Such forces give a taste of the 'principalities and powers' of which Paul spoke. The gospel brings us a message of God's total identification with humanity, which is suffering under sin and other destructive powers.

God's own Solidarity, with human beings is expressed in the reality of the servant Christ who humbled himself to take up human form, who was born into poverty, who accepted the path of rejection and who finally met his death on the cross. The vicarious suffering of Christ is the supreme manifestation of God's love. God in Christ took upon himself the whole burden of human sin and weakness. ... Suffering, however, is not the goal: beyond the cross is the resurrection. ... The victory of Christ therefore brings a tangible and deepened hope to those engaged in actual struggles against oppression and dominance. Moreover, his victory promises that the vicious circle in which injustice breeds more injustice and one form of oppression gives way to another form is being broken."

The emphases on the liberation of the oppressed and on the prophetic engagement with the socio-political realities of the world have begun to enrich the meaning of ecumenism. The emergence of liberation theologies in the 1970s and 80s remains an important affirmation of faith and they have taught us to understand "God's option for the poor" as a missiological challenge. This has been powerfully exposed and developed by the World Conference on Mission and Evangelism at Melbourne in May 1980, meeting under the theme "Your Kingdom Come". In the section report of this conference on "The Kingdom of God and Human Struggles" we read: "There is a need for the churches to awaken to their prophetic task in the many human struggles - to say 'yes' to that which conforms to the kingdom of God as revealed to humankind in the life of Jesus Christ and to say 'no' to that which distorts the dignity and the freedom of human beings and all that is alive." The courageous involvement of churches in struggles against dictatorial regimes, against racial discrimination and apartheid, and the example of the many vibrant grassroots movements of churches right here in India provide the evidence for this prophetic witness. The churches in many places are determined to interrogate, confront and transform traditions, cultures and structures that oppress and dehumanize, and I see this initiative of coming together as a part of this global movement.

The liberation struggles in the 1970s and 80s took place under the condition of the bipolar block confrontation of the Cold War, which turned into militant and violent confrontation in the many situations of substitute conflict. The collapse of the communist block has, for a short time, provided a window of opportunities for many of these liberation struggles to be transformed into a negotiated settlement. I mention the cases of South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique, of Central America and the end of military rule in South America as well as the people's revolution in the Philippines. However, after the few years when the building of a new international order based on peace with justice seemed possible, we now find ourselves confronted with the new forms of oppression as a consequence of the process of economic and financial globalization combined with hegemonic ambitions on the political and military levels. Globalization has removed more and more of the limitations from the uninhibited expression of the human greed and has thereby increased the oppression of the powerless. As these new forms of oppression become linked with traditional oppressive structures, it becomes necessary for us to reflect afresh on the meaning and implications of the liberation of the oppressed in the present world scenario. The process of economic globalization has allowed the market forces of competitiveness and commodification, combined with the promotion of utilitarian and materialist values, to pervade all spheres of life of the human community. The intrusion of the market forces is proving to be disastrous for the socially disadvantaged communities. Through systemic deprivation and disempowerment, the processes of economic globalization have virtually eliminated the possibility for oppressed communities to live with dignity and free from want. The political culture, too, in many parts of the world seems to have been infected by the influence of the brutal logic of power in terms of imposing one's will, if need be by the use of force. Political options seem to change according to economic and power interests. The oppressed and excluded communities therefore are left at the mercy of the dominant powers and their struggle for extending their sphere of control. The manipulation of democratic institutions to serve the narrow and vested interests of the powerful has led to the brutalization of many societies, leading to violent political and social unrest.

III.
Faced with these larger and global realities of oppression, we have to reassess our Christian and ecumenical agenda in terms of our solidarity and participation in the struggles for the liberation of the oppressed. The new forces and instruments of oppression oblige us to review the roots and objectives of our commitment.

We first need to rethink our traditional notions of diakonia. It has been the primary impulse on the part of the churches to turn towards the immediate needs of the poor and the oppressed and to alleviate their suffering. Churches have been far more hesitant to confront the causes of poverty and oppression and to identify as a missiological challenge the structures of power, which maintain the systems of oppression. The Larnaca consultation of the WCC (1986) on "Called to Be Neighbors - Diakonia 2000" coined the notion of a "prophetic diakonia" to affirm the Christian commitment to justice and peace through diakonia. However, in the light of the post-liberation experience in Southern Africa or Central America, we are beginning to realize that liberation from oppression without leading to efforts of restoration is neither real nor lasting. Restoration as an expression of the Christian commitment to overcoming structural oppression needs to be accompanied by the readiness to be transformed and to transform structures and people.

This has been one of the central findings of the WCC study on racism, which was presented to the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC in August 2002. The report says: "In the context of racial-ethnic justice, churches, governments, civil society victims or offenders cannot restore - reinstate, re-establish, bring back, return - what has been lost. Centuries of racism, racial discrimination and sexism cannot be erased -either historically, collectively or individually. People's lives and cultures, languages, lifestyles, liturgies and spirituality cannot again be as they were." The report therefore proposes transformative justice as pivotal to Christian engagement in issues of social justice. "Transformative justice deals with the past in the present. Its goal is to overcome racism and to achieve healing, reconciliation and the re-establishment of people's relationships, with a particular focus on justice to racially and ethnically oppressed peoples. Transformative justice calls us to overcome that ambiguity of human existence to believe and act out as saints, to explore our capacity for goodness and generosity and love and to be open to newness of not complying with the standards of this world but, on the contrary, undertaking deliberate, consistent and constant action against racism."

If liberation stops with a mere exodus, painful experience shows that the liberated will all too often follow the same logic as their former oppressors. Therefore Jesus calls us for an ethical transformation of structures, cultures and systems. Speaking at the Nairobi Assembly of the WCC, Dr. M. M. Thomas said: "The history of the church and (hu)mankind is evidence that Jesus Christ and the ferment he creates continue all the motifs of liberation present in the Old and New Testaments. He shatters every unity, which turns into bondage, whether it be social, moral, cultural or religious; he makes men and women free to establish a more mature unity, only to break it when it too turns into bondage. ... The divine promise in Jesus Christ of humanity's ultimate maturity is the ever-present dynamic within the dialectic of freedom and unity, which we call history. In the light of the continuing work of Christ to liberate people from premature unities for more mature unities, we have to see every unity and every freedom which beckon us in personal, social or church life as en route - as helping us in our pilgrimage of faith under the guidance of the Holy Spirit to 'a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God' (Hebr.11:10)."

IV.
In addition to rethinking our understanding of diakonia in line with a commitment to restoration and transformative justice, we are also called to a new self­-exploration of the meaning and purpose of being church. In fact, the being of the church as a liberated and liberating community brings into sharp focus its witness to the gospel as a message of liberation and salvation. Particularly in the context of the multiple forms of oppression and abuse of power, the churches must constantly exercise spiritual discernment in order to protect themselves against the pervasive influence of the logic and patterns of power, which dominate the lives of our societies. The churches in India have gathered painful experience with this dynamic of the power struggle, which is gaining control of the life of the churches. We need to recover those alternative visions and values of the kingdom, which should find expression in the life and structures of our churches.

This also calls us to resist the tendency to resort to fundamentalist expressions of our faith. Very often, in hostile situations Christian communities tend to either withdraw and develop ways of coping with the oppression or to react through aggressive assertion of their religious identity. Both attitudes do not further the cause of liberation of the oppressed and they undermine the credibility of the church. Narrow notions of the identity of the church and an individualistic understanding of Christian vocation not only distort our witness to the gospel but hinder the Christian faith from being a force for the process of transformation. Christian fundamentalism, by promoting an individualistic pursuit of faith, promotes social indifference and tacit approval of social injustice and bondage. This is not the partnership in solidarity, which the oppressed are looking for.

The study process in the World Council of Churches on "Ecclesiology and Ethics" has led to the insight that the church not only has a social ethic but that in its very life it incorporates an ethical message. Being part of the Christian community means to be formed by values and attitudes, by a spirituality of life, which presents an alternative to the values of the dominant system and its structures of oppression. God's salvific work in Jesus Christ includes his whole life, his message and his death on the cross, and as his disciples we are called to continue mission in Christ's way, which means to be actively engaged in the issues of life. Thus, ethical and spiritual transformation moves to the center of the Christian vocation. The churches have to recover the vision of the kingdom and reshape themselves in accordance with its values, which have been at the origin of the Christian community. We then begin to see people outside the church, people of other faiths, as partners in the search for a fuller humanity.

It is against this background that the need to promote a spirituality of resistance has been identified as a central thrust in the work of the World Council on economic globalization and in the context of the Decade to Overcome Violence. Our narrow traditional views of spirituality have often left the victims of oppression with a passive message of hope or have reinforced aggressive assertions of religious identity. Both are neither liberative nor transformative. Where our notions of spirituality are guided by ethical choices, we not only bear witness to the active hope that we have in Jesus Christ; but we are also able to establish new relationships of solidarity and partnership.

The Indian churches should therefore not limit themselves to the liberation of Dalits within their own community, but also join the wider movement committed to the liberation of Dalits. In fact, the churches can create spaces or become themselves places for the celebration and sharing of life-affirming visions. Such expressions of solidarity are to be seen as supportive and affirming the larger struggle for the liberation of the oppressed, but not as normative or claiming general validity Our commitment to the liberation of the oppressed must therefore find expression in our openness to seek new partnerships with the different movements of the oppressed, with people of other faiths and all people of good will who are committed to justice and freedom. The struggles of the Dalits and other excluded groups will continue whether the churches do participate or not; but in the present situation the churches will lose a decisive opportunity to be perceived as instruments of the liberating power of the Spirit of God.

The churches in India are still divided along many lines and are struggling to establish unity among themselves in order to witness to the God who unites. A divided church cannot be the messenger of liberation. We do not seek unity for our own strength and security. Christian unity is not an end in itself, but is to become a visible witness to the one who promises life in its fullness to all. This witness becomes all the more important in situations where life is threatened, abused and denied to many on account of unjust structures. The unity of the church therefore becomes all the more urgent and necessary amidst the increasing fragmentation of the wider human community. As the Indian churches engage themselves with one another and with the movements for justice and with people of other faiths for the cause of the liberation of the oppressed, the ecumenical movement looks forward to new definitions and models of dialogue in action.

By Dr.Konrad Raiser