MARKET SERVICES IN THE CHURCH AS A An Ecological Perspective
By the Rev. K. Devanand Subuddy, Presbyter, Rayalaseema Diocese
The word “Market” has a wide spread suspicion in the church as a mission priority by those ways of globalisation that makes the poor poorer and rich richer. There will be a great hostility towards categorising or defining the term “market” as one of the services in the mission because the global market creates an eternal gap between the rich and the poor. Therefore, it also sounds very much ‘unchristian’ to a common member of the church with the scripture, where Jesus cleanses the temple by driving out the market with a whip saying “stop making my [Father’s] house a market place”.
However, there is a paradox with the services in the development of church properties with shopping complexes that ironically serve as a “market overt”. The Church sanctions by its law or custom a place open to the public for selling and buying, in which, the rich occupy those places and become rich every day making poor poorer. The church satisfies with mere rental economy gained by her properties and fails to create a market that reduces or removes the gap between the rich and the poor.
Market in general is a place for selling and buying goods and also earning and spending money. While the market is made only for the rich to sell and earn, only rich become richer whereas the poor become poorer because they only buy and spend. If the market is made for the poor not only to buy and spend but also to sell and earn then the process makes the market to become the saviour of the poor.
For the studies of ethics and economics, Thomas E. Woods Jr, brings out his book, The Church and the Market: A Catholic defence of the Free Economy. The book was reviewed by the critics that he has not sufficiently worked on the community-based agriculture and the alleviation of poverty through market. Community-based agriculture is very necessary for healthy products for life because the market today also degrades the environment and the natural resources. The agriculture in the hands of the poor strives for economic justice and become helpless to prevent the ecological degradation of the soil with chemical fertilizers. Thus there is a great need for the promotion of the market for the poor so as to preserve and protect the environment.
The structure of the Church is appealing to create a market for the poor with its magnitude of 4 million members in the church of south India
Therefore, primarily this paper understands market democracy for the poor in Lincoln
Market Democracy in the Church for the poor
The majority of the poor in the church are the agricultural labours and skilled workers. Their produce and their products in the market can never be without a good demand. But the markets today are not made by them themselves but by the rich capitalists. The poor become poorer and the rich become richer in this process because the investment of capital strength of the poor only gets wages and not gains for their produce and their products.
When the poor get only the wages and the capitalists get all their gains, it can not be possible to remove the gap between the poor and the rich. It is because, the market tries to OFF the poor, FAR the poor and BUY the poor. Only when the market is purely OF the poor, FOR the poor and BY the poor, there shall be a hope for the richness of the rich to be transferred into the accounts of the poor and reduce the gap between the poor and the rich.
The church could make the poor to preserve the environment only when the poor are qualified as the masters of the market. The church not only should engineer a market but also should provide a productive space that shall be eco-friendly and environmentally balanced. Therefore, the mission of the church engages in organic farming with market services as a priority and a preferential option for the poor.
Potentiality of the Church
The local pastorate committees of both urban and rural congregations are always engaged in enhancing enormous funds for developmental activities like building community halls, prayer towers, guest houses, compound walls and several buildings in the church campuses for children, youth and women. The expenditure is always more than necessary. However this shows the impact of the potentiality in the church to raise any kind of funds for the development.
One rupee from each member of the church is not only four million rupees for the church to create a market but also four million customers to sustain the market of the poor with gains. Every local church is potential to create a productive space for agricultural land and organise community based agriculture for the poor to get employed and get both the share in the gains and wages for the labour. This will not only transfer the richness of the church but also other customers’ money into the accounts of the poor to reduce the gap.
Most of the church campuses are depicted in the main business arena and are found as the right places to develop a market overt. The churches do develop the buildings and shopping complexes but not the market for the poor members of the church in villages. Every village church is very much able to organise the community based agriculture for organic food products if the urban churches give them a supporting hand as good Samaritans in the journey of earning together.
Creation of the Market as a Service
When church can arrange capital investments from the urban churches for the village churches to organise community based agriculture and produce organic foods along with shopping places and complexes in the urban centres. Then, there will be a stock of organic food products from the village lands into the markets in the urban areas that can be a service to all as a market cooperative society. The definition of service for the mission, here is not only by the urban churches to serve the poor but also the village churches to serve the urban church members to get clean, green and healthy organic foods.
The church should understand the mission from the life of Jesus not only from the time of baptism but also should refer the days from the childhood to the beginning of the ministry. There is a historical support understand the life of Jesus involved as a farmer, carpenter and business person. From baptism of Jesus one finds only preaching, teaching and healing as the mission services of Jesus. Therefore the church cannot confine the mission only to those but also should extend to market services as Jesus very well knew the market from his childhood.
In the beginning, the missionaries did not concentrate on market services because the educational, ecclesiastical and medical services were sufficient to provide jobs and livelihood for the poor in the churches. Today the situation is very much demanding for the market services as a mission priority to provide the economic security for all and make everybody to live honestly and modestly.
Market in the Eco-mission
In the ecological crises the exploitation for the market plays an important role. Until and unless there is a promotion of market justice there shall be no place for bringing the ecological justice. One cannot green wash the eco-mission mere with planting of trees, making environments green and the acts of refuse, reduce, reuse and recycle. It only becomes romanticising the eco-mission than operating the eco-mission.
The operation of the just-market therefore becomes the axis for the eco-mission to balance and prevent degradation of the environment. To refuse plastic, to reduce GHG emission, to promote recycled products are based upon the decisions of the market. How can the plastic products are refused, when the market keeps selling it. How can the GHG emissions are reduced when the market wants more and more factories. How can the recycling process succeed when the market wants to be innovative always? Thus the market in the church as a service could be only solution not only for eco-justice but also for the starting point of alleviation of poverty.
