A starting question could be whether I should speak of “Religions and Social Movements” or “Religions as Social Movements”. Religions can be seen as social movements. On the other hand, social movements can simply be social with religions playing a part it, sometimes an important one. So I plan to speak here of “Religions and Social Movements” since it would be, not merely a more neutral, but a more accurate theme.
There was a stage in world history, before the 6th to the 5th Century BCE, when all religions were cosmic religions, in the terminology of Aloysius Pieris. The world was seen as animated by cosmic forces, often personified as spirits. The sun, the wind, the water, the forest, the trees, the agricultural fields were all inhabited and/or directed by appropriate spirits. The humans had to propitiate them with gifts and sacrifices in order to obtain their favour. Natural calamities were seen as the anger of the gods. A supreme God was often recognized, but remained remote. Socially speaking, there was no great difference between society, culture and religion. They were mutually involving each other.
From the Cosmic to the Metacosmic
Around the 6th century BCE and later there was, what some historians of religions call, an axial period. People began reflecting and looking into natural phenomena to discover deeper levels of being. In China there was Taoism, which looks on the whole of reality as the dynamic movement of the yin and the yang, the receptive and the active principles, the feminine and the masculine forces. Confucius evolved an ethical system that did away with a pantheon, acknowledging only an abstract ‘Heaven’. The Indians affirmed the non-dual relationship between the Brahman, the ‘substratum’ of the universe, and the Atman, the principle of life and consciousness. This one principle underlay the multiplicity of the universe, including the gods. The Buddha opposed the Vedic sacrificial system and the pantheon underlying it and proposed a personal ethical discipline that opposed egoism and desire. The Prophets in Israel like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel saw Yahweh, not as the tribal god of Israel, but as the almighty Creator and Ruler of all. Plato in Greece spoke of the Ideal world of which the present world is only a shadowy reflection. All these reflections speak of a fundamental Reality of which our universe is only a manifestation, emanation or creation. The really Real is beyond the cosmos, but both immanent and transcendent. Of course, it is the transcendent dimension which is new. It is beyond name and form, impersonal and personal. In this process, some Cosmic religions have now become Meta-cosmic, rooted in a transcendent principle.
Experiencing the Real in the World
Once the distinction is made between the Real and the Phenomenal, some suggested the that we have to leave the phenomenal in order to reach the Real. The Indians prayed: “Lead me from the unreal to the Real, from darkness to Light, from death to Immortality.” Others however suggested that the Real is immanent in the world and that it is there that were have to experience it. The problem, of course, is that the humans were either ignorant of the Real and/or too attached to the unreal. Such attachment is shown in selfish behavior that leads to inequality and injustice in the world manifested in all sorts of suffering. Reaching and experiencing the Real becomes the goal of life. The Transcendent has to be experienced in the immanent. The transcendent that is the goal is no longer individual, but collective, a community of all reality. Some thought that this would happen in another world and to reach it we have to renounce this one. Others thought that it is this world that has to be built up as a community, thought it will be totally transformed into a new reality in the other world.
Let us take Hinduism as an example. The goals of life are listed as righteousness (dharma), wealth (artha), pleasure (kama), and liberation (moksha). Dharma involves living ethically in community. After having lived a full life in this way, one aims at liberation. But the sannyasis renounce everything and aim directly at liberation. In the Bhakti tradition, however, not only people have to maintain the world through dharma, but God himself comes down to the earth as Avatars to help re-establish and uphold dharma. So building a community of dharma becomes a socio-religious responsibility. Aiming at moksha and encouraging others to search for moksha will be more a religious movement. But trying to build a dharmic community in the world is a socio-religious movement.
The Kingdom of God in the World
Similarly, in Christianity, the Kingdom of God is the goal of life. Jesus, the incarnate God, proclaims the coming of the Kingdom in this world and inaugurates it through his preaching and miracles, death and resurrection. This Kingdom is not only an other-worldly reality, but has to start here and now in history, though it will be fully realized only in the other world beyond time (history) and space. The Church is the symbol and servant of the Kingdom in this world. The Kingdom is immanent in this world. But its full realization is transcendent. The Church then is a socio-religious movement that is being built up as a community of freedom, fellowship and justice in this world, in history. But it will reach its fulfillment beyond history. George Soares-Prabhu has described this beautifully.
When the revelation of God’s love (the Kingdom) meets its appropriate response in man’s trusting acceptance of this love (repentance), there begins a mighty movement of personal and societal liberation which sweeps through human history. The movement brings freedom inasmuch it liberates each individual from the inadequacies and obsessions that shackle him. It fosters fellowship, because it empowers free individuals to exercise their concern for each other in genuine community. And it leads onto justice, because it impels every true community to adopt the just societal structures which alone make freedom and fellowship possible…
One cannot fully actualise the vision of Jesus: one can merely approach it asymptotically! Ultimately, then, the vision of Jesus indicates not the goal but the way. It does not present us with a static pre-fabricated model to be imitated, but invites us to a continual refashioning of societal structures in an attempt to realize as completely as possible in our times the values of the Kingdom. The vision of Jesus summons us, then, to a ceaseless struggle against the demonic structures of unfreedom (psychological and sociological) erected by mammon; and to a ceaseless creativity that will produce in every age new blueprints for a society ever more consonant with the Gospel vision of man. Lying on the horizons of human history and yet part of it, offered to us as a gift yet confronting us as a challenge, Jesus’ vision of a new society stands before us as an unfinished task, summoning us to permanent revolution.
The Church, as a symbol and servant of the Kingdom of God, is a socio-religious movement. It is called to build this world, including the humans, into the Kingdom. The cosmos too is called to be part of it. (cf. Rom 8:19-21) The world as it is now, because of human sin and the consequent inequality and injustice, is not a Kingdom community. But the Church is called to transform this world into the Kingdom, both by its example and by its service. This is actually a social movement, religiously inspired. Its focus is not heaven, but a transformed earth, so that it becomes a new heaven and a new earth. John has described this in the book of Revelation.
See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away. And the one who is seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ (Rev 21:3-5)
From God to Others
This process from a transcendent to an immanent focus is seen very clearly in the Gospels. Asked about the greatest commandment of the Law, Jesus said: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Then he added: “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22:37-39) But on the last day of his life on earth, this double commandment becomes a single one. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:12) God seems to disappear from the scene. The vertical (loving God) is absorbed into the horizontal (loving the other). God is experienced and loved in the other(s). Jesus goes on to show what loving the other involves: service (washing the feet), sharing (bread and wine, becoming his own body and blood) and self-gift (giving his life unto death on the cross).
Jesus also gives this command a sacramental dimension. He shares bread and wine (food and drink), transforming them into his body and blood in the process and asking them to repeat the meal in his memory. He also exhorts and empowers them to forgive each other. Appearing to them after his resurrection, “he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them.’ (Jn 20: 22-23) These will become the sacramental celebrations of the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Forgiving each other and sharing food (symbolic of life) in memory of Jesus’ paschal mystery, they become the body of Christ – an intimate community. (1Cor 12:12-13) Their mission was not merely to enjoy this fellowship, but to spread it in the world and make the whole world into the Kingdom of God. Paul speaks of this as the gathering of all things in Christ (cf. Eph 1:3-10), who will reconcile them with the Father (cf. Col 1:15-20) This is the Church’s prophetic call and task. In this way, they are called to be a socio-religious movement, focused not only on the other world, but also on this one.
From Charism to Institution
But sociologists tell us that movements in course of time tend to lose their prophetic thrust or charism and to become institutions. Religious movements tend to become focused on the other world and lose their prophetic impact on this one. They are no longer socially transformative. On the contrary they tend to justify and legitimize the existing socio-cultural institutions. One forgets mission and focuses on the maintenance of the status quo. This happened to the Church also after the first few centuries. Then arose the Religious orders which take on the prophetic role both in the Church and in the world. In the beginning the hermits and monks witnessed to an alternative way of life focused on the Kingdom, praying and working. Later they also began to exert some influence for transformation in the Church around them. St. Francis of Assisi came with a new vision. He launched prophetic communities that live a life of poverty (non-attachment to wealth and comfort) and fraternity, but also seek to spread it in the Church and in the world. St. Francis even went to meet the Sultan in Egypt. St. Ignatius Loyola started a fully apostolic order, without monastic trappings, ready to go to the ends of the world – a task facilitated by the colonial movement. Though they helped the poor in various ways, their focus was otherworldly – saving souls. They lead the people to the sacraments and spread the Church in mission lands.
- George Soares-Prabhu, “The Kingdom of God: Jesus’ Vision of a New Society,” D.S.Amalorpavadass (ed), The Indian Church in the Struggle for a New Society (Bangalore: NBCLC, 1981), pp. 600, 601, 607.
The Advent of Modernity
Two developments in the 17th -18th centuries bring about radical changes. The Enlightenment, depending on reason alone, and the growth of science challenge the Church. People get secularized. Religion is no longer the centre of their lives. The Church and the Religious become self-defensive. The industrial revolution results in an increase of poor people, the workers and the displaced. Many new religious congregations are started to look after their needs. The missionary movement to spread the Church in foreign lands also flourishes in the 19th century when colonialism gets stabilized in the Third World. The Church then becomes a religious movement. Then Marx appears on the scene and wants, not only to understand the world through science, but to change it. Marxian ideology gives rise to non-religious, even anti-religious, socio-political movements for social transformation. Marxism, combined with anti-colonial movements, inspire many kinds of freedom and social reform movements across the world.
Socio-Political Movements
In the 1970s there is the birth of ‘liberation theology’ in Latin America. Its orientation was mostly economico-political, though cultural analysis and spirituality were added later. But it never became really a movement for social transformation. This is true also of liberation movements elsewhere. In India, for instance, we have Dalit, Tribal and Feminist liberation movements. They have tended to promote the economic and political empowerment of these groups. Their identity is strengthened . But there has not been much effort at promoting social transformation so that a new human community of equals can be built up. The Church in India, specially the Religious congregations, do focus on the sacramental life and on helping the poor. But we do not see any focus on community building based on equality and justice. The Church itself is divided along caste, language and Ritual lines. The Religious congregations too have the same problems. They are neither models nor actors in a prophetic thrust to build community both inside and outside the Church. A minority syndrome further adds to our efforts towards building community. The inclusive Kingdom vision is somehow absent.
In India, Mahatma Gandhi saw his movement as socio-political and religious, promoting harmony among them. His ashrams were like religious communities witnessing to the possibility of many religious and caste groups living together, creating a society of equals. He tried to promote economic, political, social and even religious equality also in the wider world. While his political movement of freedom from the colonial power succeeded, the other dimensions of his broad based social movement were soon forgotten. Ambedkar’s movement for Dalit liberation has had some success in conscientizing the Dalits and empowering them economically and politically through reservations and organization. But the vision of a community where there will be equality and brotherhood among everyone has not been realized, though Ambedkar included it in the Preamble of the Indian Constitution. His leading of a group of Dalit followers into Buddhism was a symbolic gesture. It may have liberated them from the religious dimensions of untouchability based on the principle of ritual purity and pollution. But it has not brought about equality between the different caste groups. Narayana Guru reformed and empowered the Ezhava community in Kerala. He reinterpreterd ‘advaita’, as an indication of equality and unity, to support his vision. But he has not been able to bring about a wider social equality and community transcending caste barriers. Periyar in Tamil Nadu did try to empower the Dravidians. Today, apart from the two major and other minor Dravidian parties and their political power games, all his social ideals have practically disappeared. The Hindutva is a communalistic socio-religious movement.
After this rapid historical survey it is time to reflect on the theme of movements themselves and their relationship to religion. I shall limit my comments to India with reference to Hinduism and Christianity and also to Islam.
Religious and Social Movements
There are many religious movements focusing on religious goals. In Hinduism there are many gurus with their own following, almost establishing ‘sects’. A few are more organized and survive even after their founders like the Ramakrishna mission. In Christianity there are the various Religious congregations. Some of them may involved the ordinary (lay) people also like the ‘Focolarini’ of the Third Orders of St. Francis and of the Carmelites, though these are not that much present in India. There are also less organized, but popular movements like the various Charismatic movements. Religions do encourage some social action like the helping the poor. Many groups are involved in education; but this does not have characteristics of a movement. They may also tend to favour members of their own religions. Some religious movements may be communalistic, having political overtones, like the Sangh Parivar and the Muslim league. They may also engage is occasional social and relief activities, often with a communal background.
As opposed to such religious movements, social movements focus on social goals like promoting social equality, social justice, community building, including peacemaking in situations of conflict. Thanks to the Enlightenment and Marxist traditions which have influenced India during the colonial period and thanks also to the option of India to remain a secular society which treats all religions equally and which also distinguishes clearly between the secular-political and the religious sphere, there are many non-religious NGOs, promoting various economic and social goals. Given the fact that India is a multi-religious country, social movements can only be secular.
Should the secular movements be a-religious or multi-religious? My thesis would be that social transformation supposes some ethical principle. Ethical principle can be rooted in religion. One could say that it needs to be rooted in religion in order to be really effective. An examination of Asian religions and its contemporary leaders has shown that they are for social transformation. In some cases, social movements may challenge religions to change or to rediscover their deeper roots. Let me illustrate this with reference to an example.
An Example: The Caste System
Let me take the caste system. I think that the caste system is a form of hierarchical social organization. Such hierarchical social systems exist in any society. It may be rooted in race or in economic organization of society like feudalism. The caste system is based on the kind of work one is assigned in society. People who are engaged in some activities considered ‘impure’ by society are considered impure. The impurity may become ritual, when the people affected by it are forbidden to participate in certain ritual activities. I do not think that the ritual system is at the root of the caste system. The famous story in the Rig Veda in which people of different castes proceed from different parts of the body of the primordial human is a mythical justification rather than the origin of the caste system. The socio-cultural nature of the caste system is seen from the fact that it is also practiced by other religious groups like the Sikhs, the Muslims and the Christians. A group of people are considered, if not ritually, at least socially impure, so that they cannot be part of the social community. They are untouchable and oppressed – Dalit. Their oppression is multiple. They are economically poor, politically powerless, because they are a minority in a majoritarian democracy and socially marginalized. The Constitution of India has declared untouchability illegal. It has also made provision for reservations in educational institutions and in the government job market. This can help and has helped the economic uplift of the Dalits. But the caste system is not an economic one. Its removal depends finally on whether we accept all humans as socially equal. It is more than respecting the political and legal rights of individual humans. It is respecting and accepting the dignity of the other humans irrespective of what ethnic or cultural group they belong to, what language they speak, what religion they practice, etc. This involves a change of mental and cultural structures and attitudes. Metacosmic religions which place God beyond the world should be able to affirm such equality. There is a popular story of how a Dalit helps Sankara to understand that, if all are one in the Atman, caste discriminations are meaningless. Christians will say all are equally God’s children.
2. Cf. M. Amaladoss, Life in Freedom. Liberation Theologies from Asia. (Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1997)
A social movement that wants to promote the social equality of all the humans would focus, not only on the economic and political betterment of the Dalits, but on the change of mind, especially of the non-Dalits, that all humans indeed are socially equal and any discrimination on the basis of caste, ethnicity, etc. is wrong. It is on this basis that one can bring about peace in the midst of conflicts based on the caste. It may be good to recall here that caste conflicts and discrimination in India take place not only between Dalits and others, but also between other caste groups. The existence of caste or ethnic or other groups is not a problem. In a sea of humanity smaller supportive groups may be helpful. They exist all over. What is wrong is their hierarchical organization so that one group is considered socially inferior to the other.
Religions can Help
In this situation, religion can help in two ways. Negatively, it can attack any principle that justifies caste discrimination. I think that at the moment Hinduism offers such a justification in terms of karma. People like Gandhi and Narayana Guru have shown how Hinduism needs to be reinterpreted and reformed. People like Periyar have condemned the domination by one caste in the field of religion and have promoted practices like self-respect marriages. Positively, religion can show that, in the sight of God, all humans are equal. This may not be easy in Hinduism since birth in a particular caste may be caused by one’s karma. Eventually one can say that any karma is one’s own responsibility before God and it need not be a cause of social discrimination, because the person behind the karma is a free agent who can overcome it either by his efforts or by God’s grace. In Christianity, all are God’s children, especially when they are reborn in Baptism and sit around a common table in the Eucharist. So there is no religious reason at all for social discrimination. This will be true of Islam too: all are equal before Allah. In this way, promoting social equality and community can be the goal of a social movement, which aims at changing people’s minds and value systems. In this process, the religions can contribute their own inspiration and perspectives.
The Christian Contribution
I would like to say a special word about the possible Christian contribution. I have said above that the two sacraments that Jesus specially bequeathed to the Christians are Reconciliation and the Eucharist. Reconciliation had a social dimension. When an individual did something publicly to hurt the sentiments of the community by doing violence to one or more members of the community, it expelled him/her for a period and readmitted him only after that person had made public amends. But unfortunately, it has lost its public dimension altogether. Now individuals go and whisper to a priest their sins and are forgiven. The social dimension of reconciliation and the consequent building up of community is totally lost. Similarly, the Eucharist was the celebration of community. The Acts narrates to us how the first Christians pooled their wealth and lived a common life of sharing and expressed this fellowship in the Eucharistic meal, thus making it sacred. (cf. Acts 2:44-47) When economic disparity interfered with such experience of community in Corinth, Paul condemned them strongly. (cf. 1 Cor 11:17-33) It is in this context that Paul also speaks of the diversity of the gifts of the Spirit, of how they are the body of Christ and how love must be what makes them one community. (cf. 1 Cor 12-13) But over the centuries, the Eucharist is seen more as a sacrifice to God than a meal and the community symbolism is not that strong. The vertical dimension is stronger than the horizontal, whereas the horizontal should have led us to the vertical. It is when we become one with each other in love, that God in Christ bodily becomes one with us. But in India, in some plaaces, especially in rural areas, caste discrimination is practiced in various ways in the very celebration of the Eucharist, undercutting its social meaning. If the social dimension of the two sacraments are restored, they can be used to reinvigorate the Christian community and make it a model to the others.
By actively promoting practices like inter-caste marriages, which prophetic leaders like Periyar had encouraged, the Christians can become a prophetic community at the support of a social movement that reaches out to everyone beyond itself. In this way the Church can contribute to the building up of a Kingdom community in the world. I think that the Church today is too much inward looking. A lot of efforts go into the celebration of the sacraments. There is insistence on individual morality. But there is no conscious effort to build community both within the Church and in the world. This cannot be done without a wider social transformation. For this Church needs to collaborate with all people of good will, whether openly religious or not.
Broadening our Perspectives
When the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences met for their first assembly in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1974, it described the mission of the Church as a threefold dialogue of the Gospel with the many poor, the rich cultures and the living religions of Asia. Most people take the option for the poor seriously and go out to help the needy, the refugees, the marginalized, etc. But they do not seem to know the real implications of the dialogue with cultures and religions. The dialogue of the Gospel with Indian culture is not only to make the Church more Indian. This is necessary so that the Church in India can be a more effective witness and not marginalized as ‘foreign’. But the Gospel, in dialoguing with Indian culture, must aim at transforming Indian culture, purifying it from whatever not in conformity with the Gospel, like caste discrimination, the oppression of women, the dowry system, consumerism and corruption. These are not primarily religious issues, but socio-cultural ones. Where are the social movements tackling these problems today?
Similarly, dialogue with religions is not merely being friendly with the believers of other religions or engaging in intellectual discussion, though these may be necessary. It is also to reform religions, where necessary, like the karma theory or our way celebrating the sacraments, and to collaborate with them in transforming society and culture through appropriate motivation and inspiration. A minority religion like Christianity will not be able to bring about any social transformation without the collaboration of other religions and other people of good will. Sometimes there may be people, who are not believers in any religion, but who are interested in social transformation in terms of social justice and equality. A social movement then becomes the living context in which the triple dialogue of evangelization takes place in a meaningful way.
As I had said earlier, the life and work of the Church today seems to be limited to two areas: promoting the participation of the people in religious celebrations through the sacraments and popular devotions and caring for the poor in various ways. The Church seems very little involved in promoting socio-cultural reform, through an active dialogue with cultures and religions. Yet, without this we cannot build up Kingdom communities in the world. Some enlightened NGOs may be doing something in this field. But it is high time that we get involved in socio-cultural and religious reform movements if our Christ-given goal is to start building up God’s Kingdom on this earth. Only then will our daily prayer: “Thy Kingdom come!” will be meaningful.
M. Amaladoss, S.J.