Asia Pulse
PacNews
February 16, 2005
THERE IS HOPE AND HEALING IN THE FACE OF ALL WANT AND INJURY
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND 16 FEBRUARY 2005 SAIPAN (Pacnews) – “Ask the
questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant
sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not
plant it and will not live to harvest. Practice resurrection.” This
is a religious poem that would seek to foster some sort of renewed
faith for people who call themselves Christians. It is also one of
many simple and spiritually stirring phrases and expressions of faith
that don the walls of employees of the World Council of Churches
(WCC) in Geneva, Switzerland.
And everyone talks to PACNEWS about a growing anxiety and uncertainty
marking the dawn of the 21st Century in the world today and how the
Church has had a renewed concern and awareness towards healing as a
major component of its fundamental theological, missiological,
ethical and pastoral duty to humanity.
It’s snowing in Europe, providing a white fleecy blanket over living
and non-living things. It grey and cold and the trees are bare.
Sunshine comes in little rays once in a while. Everyone freezes over
and as one speaks, vapour shoots out of the mouth. There are endless
cups of coffee to keep warm.
At the WCC Geneva headquarters, however, the corridors are abuzz with
fellowship as the annual Central Committee Meeting, a gathering of
150 church leaders from all over the world, commences with a
conviction that the Church in the world today must rediscover its
ministry of healing.
The Central Committee serves as the WCC’s chief governing body
between its assemblies. Meeting every 12 to 18 months, it is
responsible for carrying out policies adopted by the assembly,
reviewing and supervising WCC programmes and adopting the Council’s
budget. The overall theme of this meeting is healing and
reconciliation. It will discuss a range of key ecumenical and public
issues of much concern to the Church today. Opening the meeting at
the WCC Ecumenical Centre on Tuesday morning (local time), Meeting
Moderator, His Holyness Aram I, of the Catholicos of Cilicia,
Armenia, said church leaders all over the world today must discuss
healing as the “transforming, empowering and reconciling missionary
action of the Church”.
“The world in which we live in is broken, a world dominated by evil
forces that are generating a culture of violence and hopelessness,”
he said. “The signs of the times are clear, the HIV/AIDS pandemic,
the genocide in Sudan, the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia – to
give a few examples”.
“Conflict, poverty and injustice have deepened the anguish and
despair of many societies. The world is in desperate need of healing
in almost all spheres of human life,” Aram I said.
And using the painful experience of Armenians, Aram I called on the
Church world wide to rediscover healing as a comprehensive ministry
that “transforms, empowers and reconciles”, saying that God’s mission
calls for a healing church in the midst of a broken, fragmented and
alienated world”.
Ninety years ago, the Ottoman Empire killed Armenians within its
borders. Systematic genocide took up to a million and a half Armenian
lives. By 1923, almost the whole Armenian population of Anatolian
Turkey had disappeared. This year’s meeting sees the Pacific
represented fully in a Pacific plenary on critical emerging issues in
the Pacific Islands today.
At the WCC, the Pacific is represented by at least 17 major church
organisations from all over the region, including Cook Islands. The
Pacific delegation, at this level of consultation at the Central
Committee Meeting, will highlight the work of Pacific churches on
critical issues such as the nuclear compensation for those seriously
affected by the bombings on Northern Pacific territories in the
1940s, climate change and its serious implications on the region’s
smaller atolls, HIV/AIDS, globalisation and trade, women and children
and Pacific concerns in general.
“When the Church speaks in the Pacific, basically everyone listens,”
says Feiloakitau Tevi, executive secretary of the Fiji-based WCC
Pacific Office. “These critical issues are being addressed by the
Church in our region and the Church, with all its widely experienced
leaders throughout the region, is in some ways, drawing us together
as never before to highlight human commonality.” “It is a calling to
everyone involved in trying to control some of the world’s more
keenly fought issues and ills that we all work towards a common goal
– to work together and bringing our faith together for the good of
all.” Speaking at the opening later, Rev. Sam Kobia, WCC general
secretary, called on Christians to be authentic in their spirituality
because it connects them to humanity.
He called on church leaders to address young people’s issues fully,
saying he has heard “over and over again” questions by young people
on morality and spirituality.
Rev Kobia, of the Methodist Church of Kenya, said Christians ought to
have a basic desire to relate and share with one another who they are
as human beings because this would prove sense for Christianity.
“If post-modernity is threatening to rob us of our capacity to be
human, then how can we even claim to be Christians?” he asked. Both
leaders expressed a hope that the Church would maintain its work in
reaching a common understanding of what it means to be human, and
from there move towards consensus on ethical issues.
The WCC’s Mission and Evangelism Programme, one of five main themes
of the organisation, is one great example of the work of the Church
today, and prepares church leaders from throughout the world for a
major “reconciliation and healing conference in Greece in May 2005.
Preparations for the conference include a study of what constitutes
an ecumenical healing and reconciling ministry today, helping
churches to reflect on the way they do evangelism, networks with
evangelicals, Pentecostals and others involved in the evangelistic
aspect of mission, helping poor and marginalised communities to
reflect on reconciling mission and share their insights with churches
and also enabling churches to address the challenge of HIV/AIDS as
part of holistic approach to health and healing.
The Central Committee Meeting ends on Friday.
The WCC is a fellowship and community of churches that brings
together more than 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships
in over 100 countries and territories throughout the world,
representing some 400 million Christians and including most of the
world’s Orthodox churches, scores of denominations from historic
traditions of the Protestant Reformation as Anglican, Baptist,
Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed, as well as many united and
independent churches.
While most of the WCC’s founding churches were European and North
American, most are today in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin
America, the Middle East and the Pacific. (ENDS) (THROUGH ASIA PULSE)