AGENCIA DE NOTICIAS ALC Correo-e: director@alcnoticias.org
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CONTENT
PERU: Evangelical vote could make a different in a tight Peru election GUATEMALA: Peruvian theologian calls for analysis of missionary contributions and influence of pietism CUBA: Cuban government honors legislators for their ecumenical work GUATEMALA: The "Da Vinci Code" questions the patriarchy of the Catholic Church PANAMA: Religious leaders address protection of children with UNICEF
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PERU
Evangelical vote could make a different in a tight Peru election
LIMA, May 25 (ALC).The evangelical vote, which allowed the National Restoration Party, lead by Pastor Humberto Lay Sun, to obtain congressional representation, could make a difference in the second round of voting for president in Peru on June 4, given that it looks to be a close race.
Lay Sun has met with both the candidates vying for the presidency, former President Alan Garcia, leader of the social democrat Aprista Party and Ollanta Humala a retired military officer who leads the nationalist Union for Peru party.
However, the Evangelicals have not been convened by Lay to vote for one or the other. After the encouraging results in the first round on April 9 Pastor Lay said he would evaluate whether or not his followers would support one of the candidates in the second round.
On the eve of the elections it is still not clear which tendency the Evangelicals will embrace although some comments by Pastor Lay would imply that he is leaning toward García who is considered the "less of two evils" compared with Humala who is accused of being a threat to democracy.
A study by journalist Raul Wienner, distributed by internet, indicates that 98% of local media are supporting Garcia and stepping up their attacks against the nationalist party. To this was added comments by ex-president Alberto Fujimori's former spy chief, currently jailed, who accused Humala of forming part of the Fujimori re-election campaign in 2000.
Humala, who has run for office for the first time and whose party is less than a year old, won the first round with 30 percent of the valid votes, winning in 18 of Peru's 24 regions. Garcia and his Apra party, a party with more than 70 years of political tradition and who governed from 1985 to 1990, won 24 percent of the vote.
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GUATEMALA
Peruvian theologian calls for analysis of missionary contributions and influence of pietism
By Antonio Otzoy
GUATEMALA, May 25 (ALC). Peruvian Baptist theologian Samuel Escobar called on participants at a Theological Workshop to analyze the missionary contribution in different stages of the life of the Church and the influence of pietism in the Evangelical culture in Latin America.
To analyze these contributions is very important to enrich the mission of the Churches, he said on May 23 at the workshop convened by the Central American Theological Seminary.
In addressing "Evangelical Thought In Latin America, a generational approach," Escobar emphasized the influence of pietism in the missionary work transmitted to Evangelical Churches in the region.
Pietism is a Protestant religious movement that began in Germany by Philipp Jakob Spener (1634-1705) as an Evangelical reaction against the dominant intellectualism and formalism of the Lutheran and Calvinist Churches. It is characterized by its rejection of reason and defense of the intuition of God and is based on religious experience centered on feelings and moral rigorousness as opposed to external practices and doctrinal formulations.
Escobar, former president of the United Bible Societies said that it is urgent to carry out studies of a Christology for current times, after affirming the lack of this theme on the agenda of the greater writers. "Many missionaries defined their message and strategy with a Christ-centric emphasis," he said.
He called on those who make theological reflections about indigenous people to "review their understanding of them because perhaps our comprehension does not capture the reality that is present there."
Escobar warned that the theological approach to the demands of Evangelical indigenous, while they call the attention of all those who do theology, they are a challenge to the contextualization of that theology "because this reality and this need cannot be ignored."
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CUBA
Cuban government honors legislators for their ecumenical work
HAVANA, May 26 (ALC). The Cuban government honored three legislators from the National Popular Power Assembly for their work in favor of "ecumenism and in defense of the right to freedom, sovereignty and social justice" in a ceremony to commemorate 65 years since the founding of the Cuban Council of Churches, in the Jose Marti Memorial in the Revolution Plaza in this city.
During the ceremony the State Council gave a National Culture award to the Rev. Sergio Arce Martínez, member of the National Assembly, while legislators Raúl Suárez Ramos and Pablo Odén Marichal, received recognitions signed by President Fidel Castro for their ecumenical work and work in favor of social justice. At the same time, they gave diplomas to the former presidents of the Cuban Council of Churches, founded May 28, 1941.
Arce Martinez is a recognized Presbyterian Theologian, former dean of the Evangelical Theology Seminar of Mataznas and leader in the 1960s and 1970s of the Christian Conference for Peace. Baptist Pastor Raul Suarez has been director of the Martin Luther King Memorial Center and former president of the Cuban Council of Churches while Pablo Odén Marichal is a minister of the Episcopal Church and was also president of the Cuban Council of Churches.
The Cuban Council of Churches gave President Fidel Castro a plaque recognizing his "work for the unity of our people in the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Council of Churches," according to the Monitor news agency.
The documentary entitled "A Cuban Church for Cubans" was shown. Ricardo Alarcon, president of the National Assembly of Popular Power, Minister of Culture Abel Prieto and the had of the Religious Affairs Office Caridad Diego, former member of the Cuban Council of State, attended the event.
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GUATEMALA
The "Da Vinci Code" questions the patriarchy of the Catholic Church
Guatemala City, May 24 (ALC). The "Da Vinci Code" which opened this Friday in this city is fiction but what is true is that the Catholic Church, throughout history, has experienced processes that suppressed the voice of women, said US Presbyterian Pastor Karla Ann Koll.
The pastor, with studies in Theology and the History of Christianity, said that the author Dan Brown seeks to question the patriarchy of the Catholic Church. However, the fact that he named Mary Magdalena as Jesus' wife is an example of the limitation of the patriarchal imagination in a bid to include the active role of women in Jesus' movement, she said.
Koll is a professor of History, Mission and Religion at the Latin American Biblical University, based in San Jose, Cosa Rica and is a member of the Pastoral Studies Center in Central America (Cedepca) in Guatemala.
The work assumes that many people do not know the history of the Church and the participation that women had and perceive Jesus more as an apparition than a full human being with sexual impulses and the possibility of having had a family. "This scares them," she said.
The primitive Church sought to dishonor the memory of Mary Magdalena. "She disappears, she is not present in the Acts but is the only one who appears in the four Gospels," she said.
The implicit criticism of the Catholic Church in general and Opus Dei in particular, contained in the work, is interpreted by Koll as a vision that is not very favorable. In her opinion, Opus Dei is a very big, powerful, rich institution, a very conservative group that considers its self to be the moral guardian of society.
"The problem is that the book is just a novel", she said after rejecting criticism that categorizes it as "stupid." It s a novel and its purpose is to entertain not to teach history.
Koll suggests asking the Catholic Church what it is doing to teach history and considers that it has a major public relations problem, in particular Opus Dei which she said has "always been a semi-secret organization but with a very committed political agenda."
She admits the opposition suggested in the book between Peter and Mary Magdalena. According to the theologian there are texts from the II Century that propose this and consider that Mary Madgalena had greater leadership than Peter. The four Evangelicals affirm that she was very important in Jesus' movement. However, her disappearance in the Acts indicates an interest in moving her aside, said Koll.
She said that the church seeks to hide the diversity of its origins. She quotes historians who affirm that Peter was the first Pope but said there is no historic evidence of this. "We do not know anything about Jesus' family, whether he was married and had children. But we do know that Peter had a wife, because he had a mother-in-law. The first pope was married?," she asks.
Brown's "Da Vinci Code" has sold 50 million copies since 2003 in the framework of an extraordinary publicity campaign of the film based on the book, a movie that has sparked the rejection of Catholic leaders.
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PANAMA
Religious leaders address protection of children with UNICEF
PANAMA, May 22 (ALC). The World Conference on Religion and Peace will hold a Consultation of the Latin America and Caribbean Council of Religious Leaders with the UNICEF Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (UNICEF/TACRO) in Panama on June 20-21
The objective of the event is to renew and develop the alliances between UNICEF and religious communities in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote and protect the rights and wellbeing of children in the region, according to the Meeting of Religious Leaders held in May 2002.
It will also seek to involve religious communities in the region in follow-up to the UN study about Violence Against Children and to build skills linked to the Latin American and Caribbean Religions for Peace Council and UNICEF.
The World Conference of Religions for Peace is the largest international coalition of representatives from the world's great religions who are dedicated to achieving peace. Respecting cultural differences while celebrating our common humanity, Religions for Peace is active on every continent and in some of the most troubled places on earth, creating multi-religious partnerships that mobilize the moral and social resources of religious people to address their shared problems.
At the previous meeting of leaders, held in May 2002 in New York, leaders from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism expressed their commitment to improve the lives of children around the world.
These conclusions include supporting UN goals in favor of childhood, promoting greater resources for children, supporting the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its protocols about the participation of children in armed conflict, about the sale of children, child prostitution and the use of children in pornography.
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