Eco–Justice as an Emergent Liberative Mission

Abstract

This paper aims at the liberative mission of the church and seeks out the role of the Church in the struggle for liberation. The approach of this presentation is missiological and pastoral in application. The mythology is expository and synthetic. This paper deals particularly with the ‘Liberative Mission of the Church’. In the existential situation of the Dalits, Tribal’s, women, degraded morality and religious pluralism in India, the Church is challenged to a renewed determination to face the issues of social and ecological justice as well as the promotion of a just society. The cry for true liberation is a reality to which the Church cannot cover her ears. In the context of Dalits in India the immediate response to the cry of poverty, inequality, oppression and discrimination, is part of the mission of the church. The mission aims at integral liberation among Dalits and their environment. The Church by her very nature is missionary. In the contemporary world, the mission of the Church has become complex. The mission of the Church is none other than the mission of Jesus himself who sent into the world by the Father, and who sends the Holy Spirit to continue and complete his liberative work. The church is not motivated by an earthily ambition but is interested in one thing only – to carry on the work of Christ under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for he came into the world to bear witness to the truth, to save and not to judge, to serve and not to be served.