wfn.org | ALC Noticias 29 May 2005 Brazil, Peru, Cuba

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

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CONTENT

BRAZIL: March for Jesus brings together greatest concentration of faithful
in Sao Paulo
PERU: Pastors file legal suit against PRD founder and evangelical politicians
BRAZIL: Organizations repudiate portrayal of Indian in Red Globo soap opera
BRAZIL: Theologian analyzes representations of God, man and woman
CUBA: A sector of the Cuban political opposition assumed Church agenda

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BRAZIL
March for Jesus brings together greatest concentration of faithful in Sao Paulo

SÃO PAULO, May 29 (alc).  The March for Jesus brought together more than 2
million faithful in this city, according to the Military Police, the most
significant number in recent times.

Mayor Jose Serra participated in the March and voiced his gratitude for the
social work carried out by Evangelical Churches. "I hope that with this
meeting our spiritual ties are strengthened and our commitment to the city"
said Serra. At the same time, he asked for more support from Evangelicals
to attend the needs of the poor in the city.

A small group of homosexuals, members of the Church for Everyone, that
preaches diversity, was also present in the march. The group, 13 people,
carried a banner from the Church with a rainbow, symbol of the gay
movement, which came out of stylized Bible.

The March for Jesus is organized, in Sao Paulo, by the Rebirth Foundation
of the Apostolic Rebirth in Christ Foundation. It is an international and
inter-denomination event that is held each year in hundreds of cities
around the world.

The first March for Jesus took place in 1987 in London to show society that
the Church is not limited to four walls but is present in society. Two
years later, 45 cities in the United Kingdom held the march, which became a
continental event in the 1990s. In Brazil the March for Jesus took place
for the first time in 1993.

Five years later, more than 10 million people marched for Jesus in 170
nations, as an expression of communion between the brothers of different
Churches.

"We are making a theological declaration. The Church is in movement and is
alive," said the text of the March.

In Rio de Janeiro the March for Jesus took place May 14 under the slogan
"The army of God marching for peace." The event, organized by the Council
of Evangelical Ministers from the state of Rio de Janeiro (COMERJ) brought
together more than 100,000 people.

The coordinator of the NGO Viva Río, Rubem César Fernandes, participated in
a symbolic act during the March. Fernandes destroyed three fire arms handed
over during Disarmament Day held May 21 nationwide. "It is good to see the
Church, the people of God, calling on people to disarm and added that the
Church, that serves Jesus, the Prince of Peace has more to do for this cause."

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PERU
Pastors file legal suit against PRD founder and evangelical politicians

By Fernando Oshige

LIMA, May 27 (alc).  Lawyer Beatriz Mejia and a group of pastors and lay
people from different Evangelical Christian Churches filed charges against
the founder of the Democratic Reconstruction Party (PRD) Ricardo Flores
Chipoco, former Evangelical Congresswoman Juana Avellaneda and Pastor
Antonio Chauca. They were accused of associating to commit a crime, fraud
and crimes against public faith.

The suit was filed May 11 and was presented at a press conference last week
by Mejia and the Commission to Legally Defend Christian People, constituted
by representatives from PRD regional and district committees.

According to the denouncement, Flores, Avellaneda and Chauca, together with
other people, acted jointly to deceive pastors and lay people and to
achieve, with their support, the constitution of the committees (at least
65 at a national level) that each political group must accredit before the
National Elections Board under the new political parties' law.

The pastors had agreed to join the PRD as Avellaneda has assured them that
the party would be integrally made up of Christians and that Pastor Chauca
and Moisés Contreras were the legal representatives. Moreover, she had
assured them that Ricardo Flores, a politician questioned for alleged ties
to Vladimiro Montesinos, former president Alberto Fujimori's advisor, had
turned to Christ and had decided to abandon politics and turn the party
over to the "Christian people."

Last January, Avellaneda and Contreras, supposed secretary of the
Organization, presented the acts containing the signatures of Christians
from across the nation who formed the committees to the National Elections
Board. They also presented the list of legal representatives and members of
the National Executive Committee.

"None of us thought to question the information brought by these two
people. It was at the end of March, after a tense conversation with Juana
Avellaneda, that we discovered that in the documentation presented to the
board Avellaneda, Chauca and Contreras were not named as party
representatives, but rather Flores and people from his circle, said Mejia.

According to the influential Christian lawyer, who defended emblematic
human rights cases during the Fujimori government, Avellaneda, Chauca and
Contreras and Ricardo Flores and others who legally represent the party
before the elections board jointly implemented this fraudulent plan against
public faith.

"They deceitfully convened Christian citizens and hid the true
representatives of the party to achieve their objectives," she said.

Recently those who control the PRD presented the party and pre candidates
for the presidency to the public and the act was presided by Flores. "They
have changed their strategy and now they have no problem that Flores
appears publicly as president as the party has adapted to the new law and
the Christian people were used for this purpose," said Mejia.

She denounced that Flores now wants to illegally modify the Statutes naming
himself "life long president of the party" with the power to name members
of the executive committee, to approve alliances and mergers with other
parties, etc. This, given that no party congress has been convened, would
reveal a serious case of corruption with the participation of electoral
board authorities, she said.

The Legal Defence Committee is confident it will be able to resolve the
political controversies by convening an extraordinary congress, while the
criminal accusations are dealt with by the judicial branch.

In an interview with ALC Avellaneda said Friday that she never proposed
that the PRD be a party uniquely made up of Evangelicals, that she did not
affirm that Flores would leave the party and that the problems of legal
representation would be resolved in the upcoming months in a national plenary.

She attributed the problems to the electoral frustrations of Beatriz Mejia
who, she said, aspired to be a PRD presidential candidate. She did not
agree to be a pre-candidate, as did Chauca and Marco Alcalde, she said.

She also denied that a dissident sector had control of the regional
committees, she said, adding that the PRD has 194 committees at a national
level, 125 more than it did when it presented the signature to the
elections board.

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BRAZIL
Organizations repudiate portrayal of Indian in Red Globo soap opera

CUIABÁ, May 27 (alc).  The Indigenous Children's Pastoral, the Group to
Overcome Hunger and Misery and the Indian Museum at the Federal Mato Grosso
Faculty published a statement repudiating the soap opera "A lua me disse"
(The moon told me), broadcast by Red Globo and directed by Miguel Falabella.

The note accuses the soap of presenting a caricature of Bumba, a Nambiquara
Indigenous girl who is a domestic worker abused by her bosses. Among other
things, critics argue that Bumba is not an indigenous name.

"The Nambiquara Indian, in the soap opera is condemned to the lowest level
of society, almost as if she were an exotic, fun animal that causes
laughter. An image that is not totally foreign to our reality, where
prejudice legitimizes the exploitation, the expropriation and the
abandonment of the public power," the statement said.

The group of entities from Mato Grosso emphasized that for their history of
resistance and suffering, the Nambiquara people deserve the profound
respect of all Brazilians. It recalls that the television, a public
concession belonging to the State, must promote education and contents that
stimulate culture, science and the formation of citizenship.

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BRAZIL
Theologian analyzes representations of God, man and woman

Micael Vier B.,

SAO LEOPOLDO, May  26 (alc). The X Feminist Theology Meeting, organized by
representatives from diverse theology institutes in the state of Rio Grande
do Sul, debated the "Images of God and gender relations" May 20-22, with an
emphasis on the question of masculinity.

Doctor in Theology and speaker at the event Andre Musskopf manifested that
the aim was to look at the way that masculine images of God are related to
the current discourse about masculinity.

Musskopf emphasized that at the same time that the images of God are
"deconstructed" it is important to "deconstruct" the dominate discourses
about what it means to be a man, taking into account the establishment of
equal gender relations.

"The hegemonic image of God throughout the Christian tradition is that of
the Father God," said the Lutheran theologian.

Meanwhile the Bible presents diverse feminist forms of God, including God
as woman giving birth, God as a mother hen protecting her chicks, a well as
God as an expression of wisdom. "These are the feminist forms of speaking
about God," she said.

In order to work on different discourses that consider the images of God,
of men and women and to analyze the consequences of these discourses on the
construction of gender relations, Musskopf presented three popular
Brazilian songs and the Lutheran Hymn "Castillo Fuerte."

In one of the songs, entitled "Querencia Amada" of Teixeirinha, a famous
traditionalist composer from southern Brazil who has passed away, Musskopf
said that the man is considered a macho, warrior subject, while women are
only given the adjective "pretty."

The theologian noted that the song mentions important national politicians,
including Flores da Cunha, Getúlio Vargas and Borges de Medeiros but makes
no reference to any women from Brazilian politics.

In the song, "Masculine and feminine," Musskopf said that in suggesting
that the man has no difficulty manifesting his emotions, the song by
composer Pepeu Gomes creates a strong duality between the masculine and the
feminine.

It would appear that there are some manifestations that are particular to
men and others to women, as if both cannot freely express what they feel,
he said.

The Lutheran pastor said just as the feminist movement reconstructed the
image of what it means to be a women, it is now up to men to elaborate new
forms of being men and based on those, re-evaluate gender relations.

The X meeting commemorated the 15 years of the Feminist Theology Faculty in
the Theology School and 35 years of theological formation of women in this
study center. The next event will take place in Porto Alegre, May 19 - 21,
2006.

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CUBA
A sector of the Cuban political opposition assumed Church agenda

By Enrique López Oliva
monitorhavana@enet.cu

HAVANA, May 24 (ALC). A segment of the Cuban political opposition that
belongs to the "Assembly to Promote Emerging Civil Society" publicly
assumed the agenda of Cuban Churches and demanded full religious freedom in
the country.

This took place during the first opposition meeting of this type since the
establishment of socialism in Cuba, held in a small estate on the outskirts
of Havana from May 20 - 21. More than 100 delegates from the entire island
attended, although they were expecting 300. According to organizers, some
were apparently detained or abandoned the country.

While organizers said that the meeting was successful, Osvaldo Paya,
coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement and a propellant of the
Varela Project, that seeks to democratize the country, said it was a
"fraud" and "provocation" orchestrated by the Fidel Castro regime and the
extreme right of Cuban exiles.

"Its leaders have sabotaged all civil projects with slander, provocation
and lies," said Paya. Other groups that declined to participate were the
"Arco Progresista" social democratic coalition," "Cuban Change," the
Democratic Solidarity Party, as well as several human rights groups,
including the Cuban Commission for Human Rights, which alleged that it is
made up of human rights observers and not political activities.

Cuban authorities expelled or impeded the entry of a group of European
political figures invited to the meeting. Two Italian journalists, three
Polish journalists, a Czech Senator, a German legislator, two Polish
members of the European Parliament, two former Spanish Senators and a
Polish human rights activist are some of the people who were expelled. The
European Union, from Brussels, reacted strongly and several Cuban
Ambassadors have been called to the respective foreign ministries.

However, the meeting attended by the Chief of Mission US Interests Section
in Havana James C. Cason, as well as diplomats from Holland, Poland, the
Czech Republic, Japan and the European Union representative in Cuba.

Along side the presidency of the event was a huge wooden cross and an image
of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, national patron of the Cuban people.
Participants agreed to begin each session with a prayer and call for the
unconditional freedom of all jailed "compatriots."

Commission No. 12 addressed "religious affairs" and was presided by Ricardo
Santiago Medina Salabarria, self identified as an auxiliary bishop from the
Orthodox Catholic Byzantine Diocese of Cuba, without legal recognition.

He explained that the Church has been present in Cuban since 1923, brought
by a Jamaican missionary and for many years was known as "The Church of the
Americans" because its services were in English. It was registered in the
Registry of Associations in the Eastern Zone in 1940 and is currently
recognized by the Cuban government.

He said that in 2000 it had 13 chapels but it currently only has one, which
is being restored in Havana. He alleged that the authorities had closed the
other 12 chapels. He said that they have 5,000 Baptized members but only
around 30 meet.

According to Medina, the commission's meeting was "very fluid as we had
previously analyzed the document in working sessions, leading up to the
Assembly." Catholic faithful participated, people from the Church of
Christ, the United Pentecostal Church of Cuba, Baptists and some people
with no religious practice. There were! no participants from Cuban
religions of an African origin.

He insisted that "more emphasis was made on the work of Christian
denominations because those are the one that suffered the most from Cuban
totalitarianism." He emphasized that the main points included striking Law
54 (known as the Law of Associations) and all "legal dispositions" that
"prohibit, limit or encumber" the "good operation" of religious and
fraternal organizations on the Island.

He underlined the aim to "take the peace of Christ to every Cuban",
demanded the abolition of the death penalty in Cuba. Participants agreed to
work with the "spirituality of our society, impoverished in more than four
decades under an atheist culture."

The commission called for "a Christian pedagogic system," the opening of
libraries and book stores where it is possible to obtain religious
literature. They also called for authorization for Churches to visit jails
to give spiritual help the inmates and that all Churches situated in Cuba
be legalized and that the construction of new temples permitted.

One key point on the agenda was the demand for authorization to open radio
and television channels with a "religious and Biblical programming."
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Latin American and Caribbean Communication Agency (ALC)
P.O. box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
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