Community
Rev. Mathias Peter Singh, INDIA
Vaneetha R. Risner, in her book “The Scars that have Shaped me: How God Meets us in our Suffering” [1], writes that scars are an integral part of human life. Scars have extraordinary power to change us, our outlook, our faith, and our walk with God. A scar is a visible imprint or a hidden emotional memory. People can associate memories with their “scar story.” However, hiding scars and concealing the stories of wounds have been considered as high values of a community. Socially constructed values of a community cause scars, and at the same time community can also be involved meaningfully in the process of healing. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said community is a “web of mutuality”[2] in which people form community for life’s necessities. Community is a safe place. Community is about growing with others, and it shapes our identity. Community, therefore, is essential to human wellbeing. Community challenges our biblical, theological, and ecclesial understanding. This paper is an attempt to explain community as a context of care by locating, problematising and conceptualising it as a space of embrace.
Locating Community
The term community has a power attached to it. It is a natural reflex of the human heart to care and bond. A sense of togetherness and solidarity speaks of how important it is to listen to the collective voice of the members of the community. Community has been traditionally defined as a social unit wherein members share a common network that unites communities of interests, goals, and actions. The term common-unity refers to a community as a group of people together to advocate and support each other. Communities are rich in resources in comforting, guiding, caring and counselling. When we know people different than ourselves we discover other ways of being with others. Community is a system of unity, continuity, and predictability in which individuals and groups are interconnected as interdependent members. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote a book called “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?”[3] in which he tells us that people of different views and faiths can live together with one another in peace and be mutually dependent. We believe that a diverse community is a gift of God and its well-being is a theological imperative for the people of God. Humankind is called to live in a society of diverse communities with mutuality.
Community is the location where one finds the balance between physical and mental fitness. The community supports each member’s unique way of being, knowing that it is in difference that the fabric of community is strengthened. Each member gets to bring his/her entire selves to the mix with care, trust, and respect. Communities can be classified as: Communities of place, Communities of interest, Identity-based communities, Communities of need and Communities of practice. The community that individuals function within can have a significant influence on their identity and connection to others.
In our context, globalization makes the world more interconnected, new types of communities in new and interesting ways have been developed. Virtual communities communicate and connect using the internet and digital media, people form their identities through more dispersed groups than ever before. At the same time a community that is safe, comfortable, and trusting can be so enticing that individuals can forget about the world outside of their community. Problems can arise in any part of a community and come from any aspect of community life. We are becoming an increasingly polarized society and one of the contributing factors to this polarization is the lack of diversity in our relationships. How can we change the perspective of our scars from a symbol of trauma to a symbol of healing?
Problematising Community
Problematising community is essential as community can be either a homogeneous in which all of the members share a similar set of beliefs, values, and demographic characteristics or a heterogeneous in which the membership is comprised of individuals of different races, nationalities, religions, and political beliefs. Both homogeneity and heterogeneity can have a positive impact by unifying a community and at the same time damaging. Homogeneity can promote strong shared values and a sense of security in a community. This can lead to a more supportive, collaborative atmosphere. On the other hand, homogeneity can limit people’s perspectives and can cause “group think,” leading to biased and narrow-minded decisions. Heterogeneity can have its benefits, but too much variation within a group can also cause difficulties. Heterogeneity brings different viewpoints to a group and encourages different kinds of creative solutions. It can create an environment in which individuals can freely express their opinions, cultivate meaningful relationships and foster respect and appreciation for others. Problems can arise in any part of a community and come from any aspect of community life.
Problematisation of community must begin from the family. Family is the building block of a strong community and at the same time a place of conflict in three ways: Patriarchy, Power and Poverty. They are interconnected issues. The stability of the family as an institution has been linked to the maintenance of resources. Family is considered as a producing unit which supplies goods and services, a consuming unit constituting demand for goods and services and a distributing unit which distributes resources. Maria Mies refers to household labour as “production of life”[4] whereas Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen refers to household labour as subsistence production which includes work related to pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, education of children, etc. Thus the major responsibility of the survival of the household sector falls on women who have been faced with the “double burden”[5] of housework and wage labour, which is termed by Joan Smith “double fetishization of women as mothers and as workers”.[6] The cheapness of female labour, their submission at work, sexualisation of skills and other forms of struggles make them vulnerable, and they are forced to involve themselves in any form of labour.
Another crucial area is the clear-cut sexual division between "work" and “employment“. Employment is a typically male-dominated sphere, and work, particularly housework, is done primarily by women, unpaid. Even when women are engaged in gainful employment, they still have the responsibility for the unpaid housework. This shows that the household work of women has been considered as informal work because it is believed that household work is unproductive. The irony is that the household work is productive when performed by a paid domestic servant and nonproductive when no payment is made. When the food is cooked and is sold, it is active labour, whereas when it is not, it becomes economically inactive labour. In the same way, those who care for children in orphanages are occupied, but mothers who care for their children at home are unoccupied. The conceptualisation of the various issues raised above suggests a search for a new paradigm. The complex hierarchical system which encompasses sexism, racism, classism, economic injustice, colonialism, ethnocentrism, militarism, and other forms of dominating hierarchies in which the subordination of one person or group to another is internalized and institutionalized.[7] Second is Capitalism. Capitalism is an aggressive pattern that penetrates into all social relations. It aims for maximum production, mass selling, and mass consumption. In this process, it victimizes the already poor and, in search of new profits, recruits young women into the labour market and makes working women “free” to sell their labour and to become fully-fledged consumers.
The nexus of poverty and community conflicts correlate with ethnic and religious diversity, unemployment, and inequality, leading to “horizontal inequalities.” Horizontal inequalities occur when members of ethnic, religious, or other identity groups have unequal access to public goods, opportunities, and resources. Group-level inequalities can generate social and economic polarisation that increases the risk of violent conflicts. Households exposed to violence at the local level are more likely to face long-term poverty and deprivation than those who were spared. Exposure to violence, social stigma, and psychological distress can leave a community economically alienated and socially marginalised.[8] At the local level, this leads to what some call the “conflict trap.”[9] Conflicts exacerbate poverty, slow economic growth, destabilise weak institutions and lead to violent relapses.
In order to understand its nuances on patriarchy, power, and poverty, we need to understand the diverse debates on caste. Caste intersects with class and power. Caste creates different psychological impacts on individuals and communities. In other words, the sense of hierarchy and oppression is very much inherent in the system of caste. Community is the most misinterpreted and misunderstood term. Groups formed on the basis of Caste, ethnicity, language, or denomination are known as communities. Problems are analysed on the basis of communities. Admissions and appointments are given with community considerations. Therefore, communities clash with each other. People with communal interests share their understanding and goals that are beneficial for the community. Also, communal interest can promote narrow understanding and goals. This affects individuals in a community and communities. Both homogenous and heterogenous communities struggle with these issues. Therefore, we need to conceptualise community as a context of care and counselling in which community serves as agents of care, and in this process community is healed.
Conceptualising community as the context of care and counselling
In recent years in India, majoritarian communities have increasingly attacked minority communities. Polarisation of communities demonizes the minority communities, and it has fuelled a disturbing rise in intolerance and violence. Notably, the number of hate crimes against Dalits and Muslims has risen dramatically since 2014. Dalits among Christians and Muslims have become more backward and exhibit “deficits and deprivation” practically in all fields of development they have been deminoritized. Dalits as a community continue to stand at the crossroads of social justice. In such situations, to make community as a context of care, we need to conceptualise in three ways:
Individuals caring for communities
How can an individual provide for community care? Individual is regarded as more important in a community. Ideas of the individual create communities. Ideas build people, build groups, bring values to the real-life communities, and build communities. Therefore, the individual is so vital and important in establishing strong communities. Care finds its roots in the individual. Community development rests in the hands of individuals coming together to take action to improve conditions in their community. In the same way, individual counsellors can play in developing resilient communities for they possess the expertise, experience and training to help communities care and counselling methods necessary for addressing the adverse effects of community events. The more individuals involved in the process of care, the greater the opportunity for creating an atmosphere of unity and growth. Care is an interdependent process and the more persons involved, the greater the opportunities for change. We need individual counsellors to care for communities.
Community caring for individuals
Care of a community to individuals is a community based approach to prevention, counselling and aftercare programms. Caring necessarily constitutes an interpersonal space; an important aspect of healing is to hear the stories of the other. Where people are unable to deal with shame and guilt, they are unlikely to be able to engage in and sympathise with the suffering of the other. Healing must involve the other. Community problems exist precisely because they often resist clear analysis and solution. Handling community problems can be hard work. It takes real mental effort of thinking deeply. Counsellors have to face opposition from and within the community or from powerful forces protecting their own interests. Community problems are complex, therefore problems often call for multi-pronged solutions. Moving from programmes to progress goes further and suggests that the most effective approach of all is one of community development from within.
Community caring for communities
Caring may be understood as a process of community development. Care through dialogue between communities has the potential of being the most effective, inclusive, and cost-efficient tool available in contexts where societies’ most pressing social problems remain unaddressed and where there is a deficit in the culture of participation and cooperation. Dialogue is essential for re-building relationships. Music, art, and dance can be used as helpful to enhance reconnection and relationship-building. The care of a community can uplift other marginalised communities. Communities should encourage each other to create space for processing emotions and talk constructively and peacefully about the issues that affect and divide people publically and privately. In this process of empowering, a shared understanding of the values and priorities are being generated, communities will experience other centeredness that a community is ready to undertake initiatives towards healing, and people begin to take responsibility for the community and to influence the behaviour of others as their awareness increases or grows. In this process as Eric R. Johnson says, “Community counseling is a form of counseling in which different counselors work with families, individuals, couples and also communities in one or the other way. Community-counseling is generally conducted to prevent a problem and assist in setting prevention programs in different communities.”[10]
Challenges
The Church is in an era of confession without commitment, having moved away from the biblical, theological, and ethical tradition of ministry. The transforming force of the Gospel has been made ineffectual and powerless, and Christian witness is being jettisoned for power, profit, and pleasure. Theological discussion must begin in our Churches for empowering and renewing her prophetic witness. For this the church urgently needs to redefine her theology in the light of the community issues of poverty, Social divisions, patriarchy, ecological crisis, and the negative side of corruption in the church and society. A repentant attitude and honest return to the basic foundations of the pastoral ministry is the only possible antidote. Community as a context of care is a theological challenge and an ecclesial imperative.
Theological Challenges
A theology of community in the context of suffering takes the Cross as a paradigm. The Cross is a community-creating event. The Cross reminds us of the excruciating pain and the scars Jesus endured for the community. The Cross is for the formation of a Jesus community that is expected to celebrate the scars. When human beings failed to celebrate the community by strengthening the weak, healing the sick, binding up the injured, and seeking the lost, Jesus declared that he came to heal and give life in its fullness. Like human beings are powerless and vulnerable, Christ too experienced occasions of joy, tears, betrayal, suffering, Cross and resurrection. Cross was part of his life in this world. A theology of the Cross serves as a new paradigm. In Jesus’ community, the cross was not a piece of inspirational religious art but an instrument of suffering and pain. Perhaps the polished crosses standing on church altars disconnect the cross from excruciating pain. C.S. Song says that Jesus is the crucified people. The cross signifies human beings rejecting human beings. In Jesus who is in pain, we are in pain… In the suffering Jesus we witness the suffering people. On the cross, it is not God abandoning Jesus, but rather human beings abandoning him.[11] For Jurgen Moltmann, the cross raises epistemological questions about selfless love. To love means to be vulnerable and by loving Jesus is made vulnerable. Jesus on the Cross is not, therefore an invulnerable God - rather, the Cross is the vulnerability of God: revealing the extent of love by letting us know the extent of God's suffering because of us.[12] Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that if the Cross is a symbol of the pain of God, the voice of this pain is the poor, the sick, the oppressed, and the weak. Forgiveness sums up much of the significance of the cross. Forgiveness “…is the boundary between exclusion and embrace. It heals the wounds that the power-acts of exclusion have inflicted and breaks down the dividing wall of hostility.[13] Miroslav Volf writes, “On the cross the dancing circle of self-giving and mutually indwelling divine persons opens up for the enemy; in the agony of the passion the movement stops for a brief moment and a fissure appears so that sinful humanity can join in.”[14] Paul affirms that Jesus has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility and he put to death their hostility (Ephesians 2:13-18). In Jesus, the significance of the cross appears not only as a powerful symbol that resonates forgiveness but also reconciliation. The cross severs the root of divisions and builds up a community of people of different cultures and ethnicities united in Christ.
Ecclesial Imperatives
The Church as a community of communities has to introspect. The Church should not forget the fact that the Church is always the church in the world. As communities struggle with various issues in a time such as this the Church as a pilgrim community must move further and raise the question - how do emerging frames of analysis help us to explore a deeper understanding of community and the issues as a context of care? Understanding the interaction of communities through emotional processes and relational networking is a mark commonly missed by the church. The Church must ensure that communities receive positive and loving relationships and are able to have hope and vision for the future. What are our ecclesial imperatives?
Re-strengthening home as a system of care
The home, as the basic unit of the community, is a place of respite and sanctuary, where we can take refuge from life’s ups and downs. Home takes responsibility for providing care, as the health system struggles to cope with high demand. The largest share of care is provided by family members, always women, who serve as primary caregivers. Studies have demonstrated the importance of the role of home in sharing the burden of care with the formal health care system, as well as contributing to improvement in certain health outcomes. At the same time, it is important to think critically about idealised representations of home because home is often the space where physical, psychological and sexual abuse occurs. This is because home can be a place where dynamics of power can be distorted and subverted by those who abuse. Strengthening a wider family-centered system of care will change an abusive context into a cordial place of living and healing. Re-strengthening the home as a system of care will bring back new ways of living together as a community.
De-defining Gender Identities
This involves respect for others and hospitality to the impoverished, the victims of social oppression, and the migrant communities, the victims of marginalisation and discrimination, and others with different opinions. It has been argued that sexual minority in the community experience stress associated with society’s stigmatization of homosexuality and of anyone perceived to be homosexual. This “gay-related” or “minority” stress is experienced at the hands of others as victimization. Theories of attachment and parental acceptance and rejection, and their implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) person’s identity and health show that they have been stigmatised for their sexuality and discriminated which can have an impact on community. Addressing LGBTQ issues in a postmodern Christian culture is challenging. It involves deconstructing the sexual orientation and gender identity constructs. Tackling such anxiety or negative emotions can foster greater emotional wellbeing can be fostered. New alliances have to be made to understand sexual orientation and gender identity-related disparities.
Re-modeling the ministry of the Church
The digital changes are also opening up new opportunities for inter-denominational, inter-faith collaboration of communities. People are connected with one another beyond time and place, experiencing an acute sense of the universal nature of our Christian faith. Physical and denominational boundaries collapse as we encounter the face of Christ in one another’s virtual devotions and inspirational messages. Online Church is not located elsewhere. It is a reality on earth. Online Care and Counselling programs must be adopted.
Church should persuade people to change their lives and ways, and adopt new ways of seeing, doing and being, and turning from idols like power, profit, property, creed, class, caste, language, gender, technocratic progress and move towards God’s Reign which consists of justice, freedom, fellowship, love, universal compassion and equitable sharing of resources. Walter Brueggemann says, “Shalom comes only to the inclusive, embracing community that excludes none.”[15] So far Churches have taught us that giving to the Church is Christian giving. In reality ,the Church giving to the poor, the marginalised, and those in need is Christian giving. The communion model of the early Church which distributed food at the doorsteps of the needy irrespective of their differences, must be re-formulated as a new pattern of ministry to refashion the Church as an authentic powerful liberative movement. It is a challenge before our practice (PRAXIS) of faith. “The Church is the Church only when it exists for others...not dominating, but helping and serving. It must tell men of every calling what it means to live for Christ, to exist for others,”[16] says Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The church as a “rainbow community”[17] is capable of developing stronger well-being supports for communities.
Church as Eucharistia Communio
This means the Church comes from the Eucharist. Eucharist was eaten in the context of a community. For Euchartist, the early Christian community gathered together often, and they ate their bread with generosity and simplicity; they shared in meals together; they were like a family. It was a community of eucharistia. The early church broke bread door to door with family members, feeding the poor and the destitute women. Samuel Torvend, in his book Luther and the Hungry Poor,[18] explains Martin Luther’s frustration with church practice that separated the breaking of bread at the altar from the Christian call to share bread with the world. Reflecting on the Eucharist, Martin Luther wrote, Learn that this is a sacrament of love.[19] Eucharist must be shared with everyone who is in need, irrespective of their religio-creedal belongings. Community is an organism worshipping together, celebrating life together, and experiencing koinonia.
Conclusion
It is out of this ethic of love and just-peace an infinite search must be initiated by the Church for the possibility of a new world order that seeks a more equal, compassionate, and humane world. Miroslav Volf suggests a “theology of embrace” as the way of loving and reconciling with the other that makes well-being of communities. He suggests a process of opening of arms as a sign of hospitality, closing of arms as a sign of acceptance, and again opening that will make the embrace.[20] This open arms spirituality transforms the other members of the community. This integrated theology of community spirituality will make community as people of equal partners who share God’s unconditional love and demonstrate the love of God to others. The beauty of embrace lies in the relational engagement. The physicality of it can be expressed in different ways but the essence cannot be other than a dynamic relationship between the other and I. Embrace as a dynamic relational process of a community.
[1] Vanetha R. Risner, The Scars that have Shaped me: How God Meets us in our Suffering (Desiring God, 2016).
[2] Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail and the Struggle That Changed a Nation: Library Edition, Accessed on 1 October 2023, www.goodreads.com/quotes/432654-in-a-real-sense-all-life-is-inter-related-all-men
[3] Beacon Press, 2010.
[4] Maria Mies, "Capitalist Development and Subsistence Production: Rural Women in India," Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars 12, 1 (Jan.-Mar.), pp. 2-14. 1981 The Social Origins of the Sexual Division of Labour (The Hague: Institute for Social Studies Occasional Papers No. 5).
[5] Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, The Sexual Division of Labour in Capitalism, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Accessed on 1 October 2023,
https://repub.eur.nl/pub/18787/wp8.pdf
[6] Joan Smith, “The Creation of the World we know: The World-Economy and Re-creation of Gendered Identities”, in Identity Politics and Women: Cultural Reassertions and Feminisms in International Perspectives, ed. Moghadam, Valentine, M., Boulder,Co: Westview press, 1994, p.57.
[7]The term was coined by Elisabeth SchüsslerFiorenza in 1992 to describe her theory of interconnected, interacting, and self-extending systems of domination and submission, in which a single individual might be oppressed in some relationships and privileged in others. See her book But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation.
[8] Annan, J., Blattman, C., Mazurana, D., & Carlson, K. (2011). Civil war, reintegration, and gender in Northern Uganda. Journal of Conflict Resolution 55(6), 877-908, 2011, Accessed on 2 October 2023, www.chrisblattman.com/documents/research/2011.CivilWarReintegrationGender.JCR.pdf
[9] Hegre, H., Nygård, H.M., Strand, H., Gates, S., & Flaten, R.D. (2011). The conflict trap. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, September 2011, Accessed on 2 October 2023, folk.uio.no/hahegre/Papers/ConflictTrapPaper.pdf
[10] Eric R. Johnson, Community Counselling, accessed on 2 October 2023, www.slideshare.net/AbubakkarSidhiqSa/community-counseling-136960738
[11] C.S.Song, Jesus, the Crucified People, Augsburg Fortress, 1996.
[12] Jurgen Moltmann, The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation of Christian Theology (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 64.
[13] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York: Macmillan, 1959), 99.
[14] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, Accessed on 2 October 2023, edwardkim.wordpress.com/2002/09/10/exclusion-and-embrace-by-miroslav-volf/
[15] Walter Brueggemann, Living Toward a Vision, Biblical Reflections on Shalom, rev. ed. (New York: United Church Press, 1982), 16.
[16] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and papers from Prison (Princeton University Press, 1951), 382.
[17] George Zachariah, Church: A Rainbow Community of Hospitality, Fellowship, and Solidarity, accessed on 12 May 2022, ttps://www.academia.edu/6774394/Church_A_Rainbow_Community_of_Hospitality_and_Solidarity
[18] Samuel Torvend, Luther and the Hungry Poor: Gathered Fragments, (US:Fortress Press, 2008).
[19] Cited by Amy McCreath, Eucharist and Food Justice: Eucharist and the Hungry Poor: Breaking bread & sharing food in a world full of need, Martin Luther, Luther's Works: Word and Sacrament 1, (Fortress Press, 1960). Accessed on 12 May 2022, aplm2013.blogspot.com/2014/02/eucharist-and-food-justice.html
[20] Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996).
