The Role of Christian Education in Social change

The Role of Christian Education in Social change

Introduction: Christian Education is an integral part of Christian ministry which is grounded in divine involvement in the world. The Christian education takes place in the Christian communities.  Christian education involves two movements-the movement of grounding and the movement of out-flowing (Samson Prabhakar). In other words, Christian education involves the deliberate activities of faith formation and transformation. The movement of grounding involves providing systematic grounding in the teaching, history and traditions of faith-community and to facilitate participation and involvement in the holistic ministry. The role of Christian education in bringing social transformation will be briefly discussed in the following.

(a)    Christian Education: An activity of faith formation and social change

Christian Education takes place in the family, school and in the church. The main thrust of Christian education is for faith formation of an individual as well as to bring changes in the society in the social, economic, political and religious lives of the people. Further, education is for faith formation for transformation and the system take place in the community. Hence, Christian education which is faith-learning must care for transformation. It should enable the learners to transform their ways of looking at the world. It should enable the learners to transform the way they respond to the challenges of faith-life. It should enable the learners to transform the way they respond to the Creator, to other human beings, especially to those who are different from themselves and to creation as a whole. In other words it should enable the learners to transform their spirituality.

Christian education takes place in the family and in community; it does not take place in a vacuum. Christian education is learning in community, both the immediate one and the community at large. Hence, the church is a community that have important role to play in the task of faith formation for transformation, and the family would be the agent of this task for the sake of transformation. The family-centred education should address other issues that are arising as a result of the impact of changes in other social institutions like political and economic. One such change is growing individualism. Whether individualism is by-product of westernization and globalization is debatable. Nevertheless the community believed that individualism is influencing all aspects of our social and religious lives.  But there are some implications for education in individualism.

Individualism is caused by the so called distant families, in which members of the nuclear family are separated temporarily for the sake of education, better job opportunities abroad. Another change that is taking place is the sex role. Changes in the status of women and emphasis on the human rights of children are influencing the life-style of families in general and in Indian families in particular. Rapid changes are taking place in the realm of media. Children are outgrowing their parents not only in intelligence but also in their outlook. These changes have positive advantage in equal participation, in economic stability etc.

Therefore, the kind of Christian education that seeks to move towards an inclusive community cannot ignore the concern for the integrity of the whole creation. Faith education must have the goal of transformation in all aspects of human life and must have common search for inclusive community. Christian education, therefore, has to be an intentional activity of faith-education for transformation.

(b)   Christian education: An Activity of empowerment of people

Empowerment is defined as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power in people for use in their own lives, their communities and in their society, by acting on issues they find as important. One essential dimensions of the overall aim of Christian education is the appropriation of the gospel of the reign of God by empowering and promoting social transformation for the increase of freedom, justice, and peace.

Education is an activity of empowerment. Christian education is an activity of learning to live a faith-life and an activity of empowerment. This challenges our common perception of the church, society, and systems of education as systems of domination, characterized as mechanism of control. Learning as an activity of empowerment also challenges our understanding of human relations as multinationals, military alliances and economic system controlled by the so-called “powerful.”  The logic behind such perception is that they come together to take control of the powerless what they should be doing. This happens both in the global and local level.

Christian education that is based on domineering and controlling instead of transforming the world for inclusive community is conforming to the world strategies.  Christian education that seeks to create an inclusive community shall be based on the principle of solidarity and sharing. The solidarity it seeks should not be compromising and adjustment but an outcome of genuine sense of mutual respect, recognition, acceptance and mutual trust. The solidarity and sharing for inclusive community stems from the vision of the oikos (home or household) or a global family in which the powerless, the poor, the lame, the leper, and the marginalized find a “home” (Samson Prabhakar). Such a vision expresses its solidarity with the “groans” of the whole “inhabited earth” as envisioned by the Prophet Isaiah (11:6-8).

Christian education as an activity of empowerment of people envisages doing away with all the forces, prejudices, ideologies and beliefs that alienate people from their cultural kinship. It attempts to facilitate people to be rooted in their local cultural heritages. The activity of empowerment seeks to make the people aware of their human rights and empowers them to participate in the divine task of liberation. Thus Christian education should seek to be an activity of empowerment becomes an activity of responsible-disobedience (Samson.P).

Christian education that seeks to empower people must see the plights of the downtrodden in the society.

(i)                 Children: Millions of children in the world are involved in force labor or even in bonded labors. In India there are around 50 million working children. Children are exploited in both prostitution and pornography and left in inhuman conditions.

(ii)               Women; The plights of the female children has attracted much attention in recent years. At birth they are considered second class citizens. Domestic violence against women is rampant in some states of India.

(iii)             Dalits: Dalits are those who are regarded as outcast and untouchable and they are the victims of the caste ridden society of India.

Christian education as education for empowering people should take inclusive community spirit and perpetuate the dignity of all human.

(c)    Christian Education: An activity of mutual-critical enrichment:

Christian education is faith education for transformation and without concern for the empowerment of people it becomes partial and similarly these two becomes partial without the concern for mutual –critical-enrichment. The Indian context is of pluralistic context with plurality of religions, cultures, ethnicity, histories and ideologies. The changes that are taking place because of the communication explosion, technological advancement and liberal economic policies are challenging to our narrow identities. Plurality whether we like it or not poses certain challenges to our faith-life in a community.

Instead of the fact of some of the effect of plurality resulted under the colonial rule in the third world countries with the unpleasant memories of domination we underwent, we as a groups and communities should strive to accept the reality of plurality and differences and use them as resource for the mutual enrichment. Looking at “others” in opposition to “ourselves” and seeing “others” as  threat to our own identities would lead to racial prejudices, religious prejudices, communalism and even violent conflicts, which are contrary to our vision of mutual enrichment. Our Christian education should embrace plurality as an opportunity for mutual enrichment rather than a threat to the security and narrow identity of the community.

Like the plurality of ideologies experience in the pluralistic context of our country in particular and in third world countries in general, plurality of religions also is to be seen not as a threat to faith-formation, but as an opportunity for mutual-critical-enrichment. There is life negating aspects in the practice of all religions. Christian fundamentalism is as dangerous as Hindu fundamentalism or Muslim fundamentalism (Samson Prabhakar). Therefore, being mutually critical is as important as mutual enrichment. Plurality of religions is to be seen as an opportunity for “learning-together-as-one-community” by critical partners of each other in the common quest fro fullness of life. Christian education that seeks for social transformation should focus on developing an “attitude of openness towards those who are different” and an attitude of tolerance towards those who see life and its ultimate goal differently. It should foster awareness in the learners that “the others” are fellow travelers in our journey in search of the mysteries of life.