wfn.org | ALC Noticias Dec 27 2005 Columbia Argentina Mexico Peru

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

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

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CONTENT

PERU: Religion and politics is a dangerous combination, warned journalist
COLOMBIA: President of the International Charismatic Mission presents
candidates for
Congress
ARGENTINA: Jubilee South organizations condemn the cancellation of the IMF
debt carried
out by Brazil and Argentina
PERU: President of WACC-LA said that Evangelicals are called to actively
participate in society
MÉXICO: A Presbyterian Pastor shines in the movies and on television

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PERU
Religion and politics is a dangerous combination, warned journalist

Lima, Dec 23 (ALC).  "Religión and Politics is an explosive combination that
should be avoided," warned the director of Peru 21, Augusto Alvarez Rodrich
in a recent editorial

The editorial was published after confirmation that the former President of
the Jewish Association of Peru Isaac Mekler was running for Congress on a
Peruvian Nationalist Party ticket. The party is led by former army officer
Ollanta Humala, who has risen strongly in recent polls.

Peru is slated to hold general elections for president, vice presidents and
Congress in April.

The comments were also due to leadership problems widely commented on in the
media regarding two parties linked to the Evangelical Community: National
Restoration (PRN) and Democratic Reconstruction (PRD).

Shortly before the deadline to register presidential slates and alliances
the PRN, lead by Pastor Humberto Lay Sun was shaken after allegations from
its secretary general Walter Alejos that party leadership was supporting
people linked to former president Alberto Fujimori.

Calm apparently returned to the waters after the National Executive
Committee removed Congressman Walter Alejos and backed the questioned
members sustaining that they face no pending legal suits and registered the
presidential slate made up of Pastor Lay Sun, Maximo San Roman and Maria
Eugenia de la Puente y Uceda.

The other group with Evangelical connections, the Democratic Reconstruction
Party is struggling with an internal conflict between two factions: One
sector, led by Ricardo Flores and former Congresswoman Juana Avellaneda that
maintains control over the party apparatus and the legal representation
before the National Elections Board and the other presided by Lawyer Beatriz
Mejia.

Mejia's group said it has the majority of regional committees and accuses
its competitors of "using" the evangelical bases to register the party.

The experience of Peruvian evangelicals in politics is not new. In 1990 they
helped university dean Alberto Fujimori to power, an engineer who did not
have a party base. He quickly forgot his alliance with the Evangelicals,
however.

In the context of the problems emerging in the Jewish community and in
Evangelical parties Alvarez Rodrich said that  "relating politics to
religion is a sure way to disaster and we have enough in Peru to seek
another one."

"Politics is an activity carried out by those who lead public affairs or
aspire to. Religion, on the other hand, is concerned with worshiping God
based on beliefs or dogmas with feeling of veneration or fear" said Alvarez
Rodrich.

According to the editorial, "Trying to associate politics with religion,
with skin color or with your bedmate can only lead to the belief - certainly
erroneous - that the creed, the race or sex make some better than others
which is not only false but dangerous."

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COLOMBIA
President of the International Charismatic Mission presents candidates for
Congress

By William Delgado

Bogotá, Dec 22 (ALC). Three leaders from the International Charismatic
Mission (MCI) were presented by Pastor Cesar Castellanos as candidates for
Senate and the Chamber of Representatives for May 2006 elections.

Pastor Claudia Rodríguez, wife of Castellanos and cofounder of MCI will run
for Senate while Pastor Luis Alfredo Barrios will run for the Chamber of
Representatives for Bogota and Clara Lucia Sandoval for Cundinamarca.

The three are running on a Radical Change ticket of current Senator German
Vargas Lleras, which supports the re-election of President Alvaro Uribe.

Rodríguez told ALC that unfortunately they did not reach an agreement with
other Christian parties for a united front and therefore they had to sign an
alliance with Radical Change in order to obtain a seat. Under new electoral
rules candidates now need 250,000 as opposed to 35,000 votes to reach
Senate.

Claudia Rodríguez has extensive public sector experience, having been
Colombian Ambassador to Brazil January - August 2005 and Senator in the
1990s, representing the National Christian Party (PNC). She also ran as
mayor of Bogota.

Luis Alfredo Barrios, president of the PNC said that under the new electoral
rules there will only be eight parties and the minority groups, like the
Christian parties, will have to merge with other political forces.

During the mass presentation, Pastor Castellanos, president of the
Charismatic Mission challenged the 20,000 people attending the Sunday
worship in the El Campin coliseum to constitute an army of 144,000 leaders
to take all spheres of society and have a positive impact in them.

Castellanos called on the faithful to integrate "the renewing force of
change" at a religious and political level in the city and the nation.

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ARGENTINA
Jubilee South organizations condemn the cancellation of the IMF debt carried
out by Brazil and Argentina

Buenos Aires, Dec. 22 (ALC).  Jubilee South organizations and campaigns
condemned the foreign debt payments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
carried out recently by the governments of Argentina and Brazil and said
that the move ignored the historic, social and ecological debt these nations
have with their peoples.

The organizations said that these presidential decisions were unilateral and
not consulted and that they took place without knowledge of the
constitutional responsibilities of the parliaments and the approval of the
peoples. They propose an exhaustive audit of the debt "prior to continuing
to pay."

They have not taken into account the obligations with thousands of
campesinos, with the indigenous peoples expelled from their lands, with
children who die from hunger every day in both countries, paradoxically
those who produce the most food in Latin America, according to the Jubilee
South networks in a dramatic statement.

They also did not consider the workers with their precarious jobs and
salaries and the millions of Argentines and Brazilians who survive in
poverty, according to the document signed by the Dialogue 2000 Argentina and
the Jubilee South Network Brazil - Coordinator of the Citizen Audit, the
Brazil Network on Multilateral Financial Institutions and the Illegitimate
Foreign Debt Advocacy Program of the Lutheran World Federation.

The Jubilee South Institutions accused Argentina of ignoring the Federal
Justice ruling in the Alejandro Olmos case that ruled on the fraudulent
nature of the foreign debt and mandated the National Congress to identify
and sanction those responsible for its criminal accumulation. At the same
time they denounced that Brazil violated the constitutional obligation of
Parliament to carry out an audit of the debt.

Argentina cancelled $9.8 billion to the IMF while Brazil cancelled $15.5
billion. However, the Jubilee South organizations said that that both
countries were in a position "to question the payment demanded by the Fund."

The network deplored that Argentina and Brazil "have put themselves at the
service of illegitimate, immoral, hateful and already paid debts" and
sustained that canceling debt with the IMF only deepens the impunity this
body enjoys, something that ironically both governments have strongly
criticized.

"This decision rewards the IMF, leaving it free of blame while it deepens
the lack of fulfillment of the obligations of our governments in the face of
millions of compatriots who suffer the daily violation of their economic and
social rights through impoverishment," it affirmed.

It accused the International Monetary Fund of impelling a supposed policy to
end debt arguing it will bring more autonomy and sovereignty to our nations
when since the beginning of the Bush administration it has only sought to
recover its solvency.

Jubilee South questioned the argument that the countries who pay will win
freedom in the design of their economic policies because, it affirmed, the
same governments continue to be subject to the supervision and control of
the IMF and will continue its policies of indebtment in financial markets
and with other bodies like the World Bank and the InterAmerican Development
Bank.

"The approval of the Fund is still a requirement for these transactions," it
said.

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PERU
President of WACC-LA said that Evangelicals are called to actively
participate in society

Lima, Dic. 22 (ALC).Evangelical Christians should integrate existing spaces
in civil society with humility and decision, recognizing that they are not
the first or the only ones who want the exercise of political power to be
for common good, said Dennis Smith, president of the World Association for
Christian Communication- Latin American Region (WACC-LA).

"We must participate and contribute to community groups that work in favor
of citizen security, in human rights defense groups, in collectives that
struggle for transparency in public management, combating corruption," said
Smith a Presbyterian missionary who works in the Evangelical Center of
Pastoral Studies of Central America (CEDEPCA) in Guatemala.

"As Evangelical Christians we must defend pluralism and cultural diversity,
encourage citizen participation and lobby for the consolidation of a state
of law," said Smith in an event convened by the Institute of Communication
Studies and the Latin American Biblical University.

This is what we should do, not for partisan ideology or to win members of
Churches or to improve the power quota compared to other religious groups.
We must do it in obedience to the mandate of God, he said.

Smith called on those who aspire to serve society from the political arena
to begin their careers by participating in local political spaces, such as
community organizations, neighborhood associations or in the municipality.

He was critical of confessional Evangelical parties that, based on the
growth of the number of faithful, seek to transform the ethical, moral and
social life of a nation. Political power in our countries is unfortunately
built on a foundation of corruption, lies, violence and impunity and it is
not surprising, he added that many good people whether Evangelical, Catholic
or atheists, end up corrupted by the system.

"We Evangelicals have considered ourselves to be a group of illuminated
people, bearers of privileged knowledge, practicing holiness and justice.
But in practice, our daily behavior we have not managed to differentiate
ourselves from others. In the end, the ethics of the Evangelicals has been
the same as the ethics of the population in general," concluded Smith.

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MÉXICO
A Presbyterian Pastor shines in the movies and on television

By Leopoldo Cervantes-Ortiz

México, Dec 21 (ALC).  Presbyterian Pastor Samuel Gallegos Gonzalez, who
shines as an actor in Mexican television said there is no contradiction
between his artistic and religious life and said it is unfair to discourage
Evangelical youth from developing their artistic vocation.

The pastor, who had a leading role in the film "Carnaval de Sodoma", the
most recent movie by famous Mexican director Arturo Ripstein, denied that
his artistic role is only related to economic interests.

"It is about a personal need for expression," he said.

Gallegos said that many of his artistic companions, when they discover his
religious affiliation, ask him for advice and orientation. "Actors also need
pastoral support," he said.  Also he also said he does not consider it
necessary to "brag about Christian beliefs."

On the other hand, he said he is not in agreement with the so-called
"Evangelical cinema" and criticized its poor quality and said it has not had
the hoped for impact.

Gallegos González, born in Tampico, Tamaulipas, in the north in 1961 is the
son of Presbyter Ezequiel Gallegos, pastor of the Presbyterian Associated
and Reformed Church and  Dalila González. He grew up in the Holy Trinity
Church where he began to participate in theatre.

He became involved in television in 1995. Throughout his career he has been
involved in 40 soap operas, 10 plays and has both acted and directed. He has
also acted in six made for TV movies.

"The experience of working with Ripstein and this group of actors was
unforgettable." Carnaval de Sodoma will premier in early 2006.

He is currently looking for a play that will that will allow him to link up
with the premier of the movie while he carries out his pastoral work and
attends his acting classes.
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