Emma Rauschenbusch-Clough may have been as much an apostle of Social Christianity as her famous brother Walter. Walter Rauschenbusch talked of Christianizing communities and societies. Emma Rauschenbusch was a part of this process and witnessed it in Ongole, India, in the aftermath of a terrible famine in the mid to late 1870s. During this time, she witnessed many horrors, but she also witnessed the conversion of thousands of people in the Madiga tribe. The Madiga were a pariah tribe in India and lived in poverty, ignorance, and under a curse. Why did so many of these pariahs convert to Christianity?
Emma argued that it was because Christianity gave the Madigas a place to belong, whereas they had none in their own society. Education is obviously one if not the most important aspect of a person’s life and their chances to influence society for love, justice, and sustainability. These and other factors combine to what she calls “environment.” She writes, “Outward conditions have been created that make it possible for the Pariahs to become educated and prosperous, even though Sudra and Brahmin regard them as outcasts. But who shall plant in their hearts the desire for advancement? Much power lies in the power of environment; yet a motive within to impel forward makes environment more effective. . . .When Christianity comes to the Pariahs of India, it comes not merely as a religion. If it is true to the teachings of its Founder, it comes to create a new environment.”
But did Christianity provide such a new environment? Emma Rauschenbusch’s answer is unequivocally “Yes.” She concludes her reflection on what she witnessed among the Madigas by writing, “The Madigas say ‘Our ancestress, Azrunzodi, cursed us, saying, ‘Though you work and toil, it shall not raise your condition. Unclothed and untaught you shall be, ignorant and despised, the slaves of all.’ During many centuries the curse rested heavily upon us. Christianity has removed it. It is no more.”
What is the power of Christianity? Emma argued that it was simply the life and death of Jesus Christ, who cries, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30) The power of Christianity lies in the breaking of the yokes of slavery and the acceptance of Jesus’s yoke of rest, justice, mercy and peace.
The power of Christianity is the true fast described in Isaiah 58:6-9:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.”
Emma Rauschenbusch did all of these things a more in India and it created the environment needed for the Madigas to be set free and to live in freedom. May we learn from her example and break the yokes of those who have been beaten down by the current social order and offer them another yoke: the yoke of Christ. The yoke of Love.
Andrew Scott, ABHS research assistant
Source of photograph
