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Note #7987 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Churches ponder future role as Liberia emerges from civil war
03452
October 24, 2003

Churches ponder future role as Liberia emerges from civil war

By Chris Herlinger
Ecumenical News International

MONROVIA - As a transitional government takes over in Liberia following a
horrendous civil war, church leaders here are reflecting on the role of
religious institutions in the new Liberia.

In a country where people commonly display their religious faith, many are
asking why religious bodies did not do more to halt a two-decade long spiral
into violence that ended in gruesome conflict.

Their questioning has continued after interim leader Gyude Bryant took office
on Oct. 14. Bryant was chosen by Liberia's warring factions to lead a
transitional government after former President Charles Taylor went into exile
in August.

The Liberian civil war, which is believed to have resulted in 200,000 deaths
and to have uprooted 500,000 persons, pitted two guerrilla groups against the
government of now-deposed Taylor, a Baptist who, some church figures said,
used religion to bolster his rule and repeatedly manipulated religious bodies
for his own purposes.

"Taylor was able to divide and rule," Benjamin D. Lartey, general secretary
of the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), told ENI in a recent interview. "We
were divided and now we have to be united, as one body."

Political divisions did not fall into easy denominational categories: some
evangelical Protestants and Pentecostals supported Taylor, but others did
not; some liberal-to-moderate Protestants and Catholics took a public stance
against Taylor, but some did not.

"Sometimes church leaders took the role of the 'opposition' almost by
default," said the Rev. Kortu Brown, head of Concerned Christian Community
(CCC), a Liberian relief and development agency.

One of those who took a stand against Taylor was Michael Kpakala Francis, the
Roman Catholic archbishop of Monrovia, whose outspokenness has been compared
to that of Oscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who stood up to an
authoritarian regime (and was assassinated in 1980).

In a recent interview with ENI, Francis - expressly eschewing any comparisons
with Romero -- harshly criticized Taylor, describing him as a "pathological
liar" and a "psychopath" who destroyed Liberia.

But while placing the responsibility for the civil war with Taylor, Francis
maintained that the church itself had at best a mixed record when it came to
standing up to the former president.

While some bodies such as the LCC and some church leaders spoke out against
Taylor, "relatively few individual churches stood up," Francis said.

A culture of "passivity" had prevailed throughout Liberian society, including
in the church, he continued, arguing that the problem would have to be
addressed in the coming months and years.

For the LCC's Lartey, church leaders should be a source both of moral support
for the new president and of prophetic criticism of the kind that might have
done Liberia some good in the past.

"It's time," he said, "for the good people of Liberia to stand up."

Editor's note: Chris Herlinger, ENI's New York correspondent, was recently in
Liberia on assignment for Church World Service, a relief and development
agency related to the National Council of Churches and the PC(USA). - Jerry
L. Van Marter

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