The WCC 10th Assembly in Busan, Republic of Korea, in 2013 adopted the document Together towards Life: Mission and Evangelism in Changing Landscapes (TTL) presented by the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. The document identified and affirmed Mission from the Margins as one of the four ways the Holy Spirit is at work within the mission of the Triune God. The document declared that “marginalized people are agents of mission and exercise a prophetic role which emphasizes that fullness for life is for all” and that “marginalized, oppressed, and suffering people have a special gift to distinguish what news is good for them and what news is bad for their endangered life” (TTL, para.107).
As an intentional and embodied expression of that statement, WCC identified Mission from the Margins as a critical programme area within the CWME whose specific role and emphasis is to facilitate theological reflection on mission from the margins. Mission from the Margins is a theological activity that begins at, on and from the margins with Indigenous Peoples, people with disabilities, and those who have been discriminated against and excluded because of their gender, race, ethnicity, disability, class, caste, sexuality, religion or age.
Mission from the Margins means affirming the agency of those who are marginalized, participating in their struggles and sharing their hopes, overcoming the marginalizing tendencies, and resisting and confronting forces of marginalization and exclusion in our specific contexts of the world. Thereby Mission from the Margins facilitates shared theological reflection and analysis, advocacy, action and communication at, on, from and beyond the margins with the hope of encouraging and transforming churches and societies to be more just, responsive and inclusive.
