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FOREWORD
This issue of INSiGHT is specially dedicated to providing an in-depth overview of The Onesimus Project, its ongoing work, and its future direc�on. It comes with informa�on on various ac�vi�es of the CWM, news of the member churches and ecumenical organiza�ons.
Council for World Mission (CWM) has been in the process of addressing its legacies of slavery for the past three years. As it is already known, some of the missionaries sent by the London Missionary Society (LMS), the forebearer of the CWM, were involved in the slave trade, aiding the colonial rulers, and even owning the enslaved people, especially during the Trans-Atlan�c Slave Trade. Some of the mission prac�ces of the LMS ignored or were benefited by this evil system of enslaving humans and trading them for profit.
Reflec�ng on the history of the LMS and embarking upon the journey of transforma�on as CWM, we realize that the transforma�on history is not complete unless we address the legacies of slavery. Also, recognizing that the colonial slavery system has been mutated into various forms of modern-day slavery and embedded into numerous structures of society, we realize that we need to address the modern slavery by systema�cally decolonizing the forms of educa�on that tend to preserve the systems of slavery. We also realized that alone, we cannot do this behemoth task and need the accompaniment of other ecumenical, missional as well as social organiza�ons through transforma�ve ecumenism. All these four areas of the project are comprehensively explained through the viewpoint ar�cles in this issue of INSiGHT.
In the first ar�cle, Anthony G. Reddie clearly explains, with the help of Jesus’ conversa�on with Pon�us Pilate, how the colonial framework of exploita�on and transatlan�c slavery emerged and how the Black theology influenced research funded by CWM has been commi�ed to cri�quing and challenging the legacies of slavery. In the second ar�cle, Michael Jagessar crea�vely and profoundly puts together an imagined conversa�on of brother Quamina with Paul reading the Onesimus story from the epistle to Philemon and uncovering various layers of emo�ons by crea�ng a sense of urge to highlight some of the issues before us, as well as the demands and the opportuni�es that the Onesimus Project offers.
Roderick Hewi�, the chair of the Onesimus Project core group, provides an outline of the project’s four major areas of focus, explaining how the Legacies of Slavery project has been expanded into the Onesimus Project and the future plans. Together with this, the ar�cles of Deenabandhu Manchala, who explains about the Transforma�ve Ecumenism and how it is important in bringing the other ecumenical, missional and social organiza�ons, and peoples’ movements. Sudipta Singh, the CWM Deputy General Secretary-Programmes, explains in his ar�cle on a call to end modern-day slavery.
With all these ar�cles and informa�on, I truly hope that this issue of INSiGHT will serve as a reference to what the CWM has been doing and will be doing to address the issues of both legacies and modern-day slavery through the Onesimus Project. May the God of libera�on empower CWM’s struggle for the emancipa�on of all the people who have been systema�cally and structurally oppressed by the various forms of slavery!
