wfn.org | WCC: overcoming violence

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World Council of Churches
Update Pu-04-06
For Immediate Use
22 January 2004

Faith communities at WSF offer resources to overcome violence * 

Cf. WCC Press Update Pu-04-05 of 22 January 2004
Cf. WCC Press Feature Feat-04-04 of 21 January 2004

"India is going through enormous insecurity because religion is being used
for violence," Siddhartha, a member of an inter-religious group working for
peace and justice in Bangalore, told participants at a seminar at the World
Social Forum in Mumbai. 

At the 20 January seminar on "Religious resources to overcome violence"
organized by the World Council of Churches (WCC), Siddhartha gave some
examples of religious-instigated violence in India. Recently in Mumbai, a
bomb reportedly placed by Muslims exploded, killing scores of people; in 2003
over 2,000 Muslims were "literally massacred in Gujarat in the name of
religion".

For Siddhartha, the ruling majority Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is
propagating a fundamentalist brand of Hinduism and relegating Muslims and
Christians to second-class status. "What will happen if the BJP wins the
election [scheduled for April this year] or is in a coalition where it has
more representation? How can a religion as inclusive as Hinduism become so
exclusive?" he asked.

On a more positive note, Siddhartha highlighted India's potential for peace.
He said that  religious communities in the multi-religious nation of over one
billion people are challenged to work towards a "hermeneutic of hope", that
is, to reinterpret their different religious traditions to lift up the values
of peace and justice in their core messages.

Reviewing the Middle East situation from a Muslim perspective, Mohamed Mosaad
from the Egyptian chapter of the United Religions Initiative (URI) emphasized
the need for religious leaders to give a spiritual dimension to concrete
situations like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and provide spiritual
resources that could help resolve it.

Referring to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the US, he said that
there is an "apologetic Islamic discourse" which seeks to define "who is
right and who is wrong" and to respond to questions being raised in the West
about violence and Islam. 

He cautioned against misrepresentation of the Koran in order to respond to a
secular situation. Mosaad suggested that Muslims should reflect on how a
concept like 'Jihad' (holy war) used to work in the past, and how it could
work now. In his provocative view, while Islam is not a religion of peace and
love, it is a religion of fairness and justice.

The director of the Jerusalem-based Inter-faith Encounter Association (IEA),
Yehuda Stolov, said that like Islam, Judaism is sometimes misused to suit a
political situation. Inter-religious dialogue allows people to co-exist
without hiding their differences, but putting political issues aside. Formed
in 2001 by peace activists, the IEA is dedicated to promoting real
co-existence and peace in the Holy Land and the Middle East through
cross-cultural study and inter-religious dialogue. 

On the topic of violence against women, LWF executive secretary for Women in
Church and Society, Priscilla Singh from India, presented an LWF contribution
to the WCC Decade to Overcome Violence. The document, entitled "Churches say
no to violence against women", presents the results of a world-wide survey on
the issue; it affirms that violence against women is a global reality even
within the church.

Religion, noted Singh, usually treats women as victims, often offering only a
"charitable response" on an individual basis. Instead, churches should tackle
the issue as a whole; to do so effectively, they need to see the image of God
beyond gender, promote masculine models that are nurturing and caring, and
revision and rewrite theology with a feminist perspective.

Singh also called for efforts to go beyond dialogue towards concrete
experiences that allow a new kind of relationship between men and women to
develop. 

Rejecting modern political 'messianisms', Rev. Jairo Suarez from the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia called for strong witness from
churches in the social and political sphere. The fact that fifty years of
civil war in his country have brought the churches together is a paradox, he
reflected.

Ordep Trindade, a Brazilian Candombli priest, stressed the message of peace
as well as the ecumenical dimension of this religion, brought to Brazil by
African slaves.

The seminar was moderated by Dr Guillermo Kerber from the WCC  International
Relations team. In his opening remarks, Kerber suggested that religion has
played an ambiguous role in conflicts at the national and international
levels; while it has often fuelled conflicts, at other times, it has made
important contributions to overcoming violence.

* Ms Pauline Mumia, English editor of Lutheran World Information, the news
service of the Lutheran World Federation, contributed to this article. 

For further information, please contact Juan Michel, WCC  media relations
officer,  tel: +41 22 791 6153, mobile +41 79 507 6363, media@wcc-coe.org  

**********

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly, which
meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in
1948 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary
Samuel Kobia from the Methodist Church in Kenya.

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