Title: Lutherans at Ecumenical Sessions Before 2006 International AIDS Conference ELCA NEWS SERVICE
August 14, 2006
Lutherans at Ecumenical Sessions Before 2006 International AIDS Conference 06-124-JB
TORONTO (ELCA) -- Lutherans came from around the world to participate in an ecumenical pre-conference Aug. 10-11 at the University of Toronto in advance of the 2006 International AIDS Conference, Aug. 13-18 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. The Christian Host Committee (Canada) and the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance, based in Geneva, hosted the pre-conference, "Faith in Action: Keeping the Promise."
"We cannot talk about religious leaders keeping a promise until religious leaders and the faith communities they lead make a promise," said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago, and president, Lutheran World Federation (LWF), in a plenary session. "I believe that our public promises as religious leaders must be spoken with both clarity and humility ... humility because we need to repent publicly of our failure to abide by these commitments," he said.
"As a global religious leader of 66 million Lutherans in the world and the U.S. religious leader of 5 million Lutheran Christians in the United States, I promise publicly to stand in solidarity with you and let the commitments made here and articulated here shape my leadership and my rhetoric," Hanson said.
After making and keeping promises, Hanson said, religious leaders must hold themselves and others accountable to those promises. "We will acknowledge we have power, and we have responsibility to use that power for the sake of justice, mercy and peace. When [global] religious leaders begin to lead by example, religious leaders in local communities will have the courage to lead and follow," he said.
The 500 participants chose to attend as many as six of 40 workshops during the ecumenical pre-conference. Topics followed eight streams: building welcoming communities, delivering on universal access, preventing new infections, engaging and transforming churches and faith-based communities, youth in action for an AIDS-free world, advocating for justice and accountability, developing new tools for biblical, theological and ethical reflection, and building basic skills.
"Are you playing with a full deck?" was the question several Lutherans asked while leading a workshop on tools for incorporating HIV and AIDS ministries into the life of the church. The Rev. Janet B. Grill, St. Andrew Lutheran Church, Pittsburgh; Andrena Ingram, seminarian, Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia; the Rev. Ngandaneni Phaswana, bishop, Central Diocese, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, Johannesburg; and Patricia Zerega, ELCA director for corporate social responsibility, Pittsburgh, led the workshop.
The four distributed a deck of cards to everyone who attended the workshop. Instead of playing cards, the cards had information from the history of the red ribbon associated with HIV and AIDS to Internet addresses for details on specific HIV and AIDS ministry techniques. The deck included blank cards, and participants received pens to add information about their own ministries or other ministries.
"Love doesn't protect you from contracting HIV." This simple truth is not easy for many women to accept, said Sonia Covarrubias, a social worker and health educator from Chile. She made her comments at a session focused on concerns about the impact of HIV and AIDS on women.
"The church should be open to meet with the community and develop programs together," Covarrubias said. "The role of the church is to place itself on the side of the marginalized in order to overcome social injustice," she said.
The LWF brought a delegation of Lutherans from around the world to the pre-conference and International AIDS Conference, including Covarrubias. The delegation also included a dozen young Lutherans.
Emily Freeburg, assistant to the director, Lutheran Office for World Community, said there are many opportunities for youth to get involved in campaigns focused on HIV and AIDS in a faith- based environment. "If you are part of a church, you can use your youth group and there are young professional groups that are active around different development issues." The challenge is "to find a niche wherever you are," she said.
The Lutheran Office for World Community is a ministry of the ELCA and Lutheran World Federation at the United Nations in New York.
"When you have young people dialogue with church leaders, they're the ones who are not going to be afraid to ask the questions," Freeburg said. "They are going to bring up these issues where others are going to pretend they're not there. Young people have the fearlessness," she said. "So I think, wow, the church can really use youth to break the silence that the church structure can't break on its own."
To help increase youth involvement in AIDS campaigns, Helge Andersen, 21, led a pre-conference session called "How Can Youth?" Andersen, a student activist from Changemakers, Oslo, a Norwegian Church Aid youth initiative founded in 1992 that now counts 2,000 members in 20 local groups, described an anti-stigma campaign to distribute 50,000 'Positiv' buttons.
"We got global attention because the Norwegian bishops thought this was a cool idea," Andersen said. "The media just loved it. When you have religion and sex you can get through to the media," she said.
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Information about the proceedings at the ecumenical pre- conference and the 2006 International AIDS Conference is at http://iac.e-alliance.ch/index.php on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog