wfn.org | NCC, USA Launch U.S. Focus of Decade to Overcome Violence

["Carol Fouke" <cfouke@ncccusa.org>]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Photos Available: See Link Below

NCC, WCC LAUNCH YEAR-LONG EFFORT TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES AT
SERVICE HONORING DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

January 13, 2003, NEW YORK CITY - (WCC) Representatives from Christian faith
communities around the globe launched a year-long effort to confront and
overcome violence in the United States during a worship service commemorating
the life and ministry of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The service, held January 12 in the Chapel of The Interchurch Center in New
York City, marked the opening of a year dedicated to strengthening and
resourcing churches and movements working for peace in the United States.

Under the theme "The Power and Promise of Peace," the focus on the United
States in 2004 is part of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) Ecumenical
Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV).  The U.S. focus is being coordinated by
the U.S. DOV Committee under the auspices of the U.S. Office of the World
Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches U.S.A.  The U.S. DOV
Committee, made up of U.S. denominational representatives, is meeting in New
York January 12-13.

"We are gathered as peacemakers from various regions of the world to launch
this year-long focus in the United States by lifting up the legacy of Martin
Luther King, Jr., whose work and ministry has inspired peacemakers around the
globe," said Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, archpriest, Orthodox Church in
America, and moderator, U.S. Conference of the WCC, in opening remarks at the
service.

In a multimedia presentation, members of the congregation watched graphic
images of violence, destruction, and war on a large screen as the DOV's
coordinator, the Rev. Hansulrich Gerber, presented the goals of the Decade to
Overcome Violence, which is to be one of "Churches Seeking Reconciliation and
Peace."

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE

"It is a contradiction of life to put peace ahead of justice," said the Rev.
Dr. Otis Moss, Jr., the pastor of the Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in
Cleveland, Ohio, in his sermon. "There will be no international peace until
there is international justice," he said, quoting Israel's first prime
minister, David Ben Gurion.

Dr. Moss, a friend and associate of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.,
urged members of the congregation never to forget the lessons of history as
they pursue both peace and justice. "To forget is exile," he said, "to
remember is redemption."  Dr. Moss warned the congregation to never forget
"the moans and groans of countless millions of human beings" who were
imprisoned on slave ships and "who were fed to sharks if they died on
passage, or served up to slave masters if they survived."

Yet Dr. Moss also cited some redemptive historical developments during the
past half-century, including the passage of the GI Bill in 1944 that opened
educational and career opportunities to millions of disadvantaged veterans.
In addition, he said that the establishment of the United Nations and the
World Council of Churches were important international milestones on the way
to universal peace and justice.

Dr. Moss also pointed to national and international liberation movements -
beginning with the independence of India in 1947 - as redemptive signs. "When
India gained independence, the British Empire had a nervous breakdown and the
rest of western colonialism had a heart attack," Dr. Moss said.

All of these significant historic developments, Dr. Moss said, were the
context in which Dr. King found his prophetic vocation. 

FOLLOWING IN DR. KING'S FOOTSTEPS

"What can we do to follow in Dr. King's footsteps?" Dr. Moss asked. "We must
be about the business of building a new generation of prophets of justice. 
We must be disciples of love, apostles of liberation, teachers of
nonviolence, and ambassadors of reconciliation."

Such endeavors, Dr. Moss said, "will not come automatically, nor without
institutional and individual risks." And, he added, efforts to make peace
would require leaders who "have the courage to lead, to mold consensus, and
to act despite the risk of being persecuted." Quoting Rabbi Abraham Joshua
Heschel, Dr. Moss described King's life and ministry as "a vision, a voice,
and a way." He urged his listeners to "share his vision, hearken to his
voice, and follow in his way."

"WAR IS OBSOLETE" 

Citing the anti-war sentiments of several former generals in the U.S.
military, Dr. Moss asked: "If generals of the army had that kind of insight,
then what is the excuse at the White House, or your house, or my house if the
occupants of those homes do not oppose war?  We must join with those former
generals and declare that 'War is obsolete,'" he added. 

And in a reference to the war in Iraq, Dr. Moss chided the Bush
administration for its search for weapons of mass destruction there, when
there are such weapons in the United States. 

"Where are the weapons of mass destruction?" he asked. "Look around: AIDS is
a weapon of mass destruction," he said. "So is hunger, the denial of health
care to the poor, illiterate and uneducated minds, tobacco and
tobacco-related illnesses, uncared-for children." All these and many other
weapons destroy the fabric of the nation, Dr. Moss contended.

Efforts to pursue peace must originate "in our commitment to break the bonds
of injustice, and to bring justice and peace into our homes, and into our
collective house - the White House," Dr. Moss concluded. "When we break the
bonds of injustice and oppression, then we become God's peacemakers."

At the January 12 service, the Rev. Dr. Wyatt Tee Walker, senior pastor and
chief executive officer of Canaan Baptist Church of Christ, Harlem, N.Y., who
served as Dr. King's chief of staff, was honored for his lifetime commitment
to seeking reconciliation and peace. Dr. Bernice Powell Jackson of the United
Church of and Dr. Antonios Kireopoulos of the National Council of Churches
U.S.A. presented awards from the WCC and NCC, respectively.  The Rev. Dr.
Victor Allen Brown, a Staten Island, N.Y., pastor, received the awards for
Dr. Walker, who is recovering following a stroke. 

MORE INFORMATION ON THE DECADE TO OVERCOME VIOLENCE

After launching the Decade to Overcome Violence in 2001, the WCC focused its
efforts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2002, and on Sudan and Africa
in 2003. 

The DOV's goals:

* Addressing holistically the wide varieties of violence, both direct and
structural, in homes, communities, and in international arenas and learning
from the local and regional analyses of violence and ways to overcome
violence. 

* Challenging the churches to overcome the spirit, logic and practice of
violence; to relinquish any theological justification of violence; and to
affirm anew the spirituality of reconciliation and active nonviolence. 

* Creating a new understanding of security in terms of cooperation and
community, instead of in terms of domination and competition. 

* Learning from the spirituality and resources for peace-building of other
faiths to work with communities of other faiths in the pursuit of peace and
to challenge the churches to reflect on the misuse of religious and ethnic
identities in pluralistic societies.  

* Challenging the growing militarization of our world, especially the
proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

Information on the Decade to Overcome Violence is available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/dov  Photos of the service are available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/press_corner/us-focus.html

-end-

For more information contact:
WCC Media Relations Office
tel: (+41 22) 791 64 21 / (+41 22) 791 61 53
e-mail:media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in more
than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian traditions.
 The National Council of Churches U.S.A. is the nation's leading ecumenical
organization.  Its 36 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member churches count
50 million adherents in 140,000 local congregations nationwide.

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