WCC NEWS: Challenge injustice and violence to find unity

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World Council of Churches - News

CHALLENGE INJUSTICE AND VIOLENCE TO FIND UNITY

For immediate release: 07 June 2011

Wealth and property shape a “false reading” of human value, World
Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said
recently at a Protestant convention in Germany.“Property and possessions
have purpose in as much as they help us to live as the people God called
us to be and no more,” Tveit said in a Bible study at the German
Protestant Kirchentag which met in Dresden 1-5 June.


Every two years the Kirchentag gathers over 100,000 Christians in Germany
for common worship, celebration, discussion, rededication and renewal. In
Dresden there were more than 7,000 international participants at the
event.


Tveit was speaking on the Bible text  - “For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:21).  This was also the motto
for this year’s Kirchentag, which gathered over 120,000 participants.


“This is a text for societies, for alliances that think that the more
wealth, the more weapons and more security that they possess, the less
anxiety they have,” said Tveit.  “Letting our fear about security
narrow our perspective means that we are not available to be participants
in God’s mission in the world.  And this has far-reaching implications
for justice, peace, equality, unity.”


Tveit  arrived at the Kirchentag after attending the International
Ecumenical Peace Convocation (IEPC) held in 17-25 May in Kingston,
Jamaica. The event, which was sponored by the WCC, the Caribbean
Conference of Churches and the Jamaica Council of Churches was the
culmination of the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence, launched in Berlin
in 2001.


In Jamaica, the some 1000 participants had listened to the “often painful
stories of those who experience oppression and violence and injustice,”
Tveit recalled.
At an earlier Kirchentag event on the IEPC, Tveit underlined the need for
justice and peace to be at the centre of the search for Christian unity.


“If this is not at the heart of the ecumenical movement and if this is
not at the heart of the churches we cannot give a credible witness to the
world,” he said.


In the Bible study Tveit said “we cannot speak about this passage from
Matthew only in a spiritual way, for we know that sustainability and
survival is an urgent reality for far too many in our world.”


“Wealth and property and the power that comes with them are things which
divide people and communities and offer a false reading of human value.
This is instead a universal message calling on us to reject materialism as
a measure of value or security,” he underlined.


Tveit said  that really to be in community and to express visible unity
within the church “means that we must successfully challenge injustice,
violence, greed, arrogance, corruption and all other threats to fullness
of life for each person.”

For more information about the German Protestant Kirchentag:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=0a32c259dbb123b8e4d7 (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=2687264337bfd8a0a081 )


The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness 
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of 
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant, 
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million 
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman 
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, 
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.



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