WCC NEWS: To combat racism “agents of discomfort” in churches are needed

[WCC media <noreply@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News

TO COMBAT RACISM “AGENTS OF DISCOMFORT” IN CHURCHES ARE NEEDED

For immediate release: 23 June 2011

Church leaders from across the Americas and the Caribbean are meeting in
Managua, Nicaragua, to discuss the violence of racism, and the challenges
it poses for churches and ecumenical organizations.

The conference is sponsored by World Council of Churches (WCC) in
partnership with the Latin America Council of Churches (CLAI) and brings
together people working with Afro-descendent and indigenous communities
across the region.

Dr Rolf Malunge of Brazil opened the first panel discussion with a
presentation on the reality of racism in Brazil, where thousands of mainly
young people have been killed in violence in recent years.

“Many more black people are killed than white people, and many of them
are killed by the police,” he said. “This is systematic,
state-sponsored, and it is year after year, the statistics show it.”

“Racism isn’t just about violence though, it is also about
opportunities”, Malunge added. “Many more white people go to
university than black people in Brazil. Some people say that this isn’t
a race issue, but a class issue, but the fact is that the lower class in
Brazil is predominantly black, so in actual fact it is both a race issue
and a class issue.”

“The question is what should we be doing? We are not prepared to deal
with racism as churches. In Brazil, at least, the theological colleges do
not offer courses on ethnicity or race or racism,” Malunge said.


“Seek the kingdom of God”

The Rev. Alfredo Joiner, CLAI regional secretary for Central America and
the organizer of the event, says that this meeting “is an exchange of
experiences between church people who see racism on a daily basis. We
understand that there are racist and discriminatory attitudes and
behaviours and practices, even policies, right across the region.”

“We have been called primarily to seek the kingdom of God and its
justice. But there cannot be justice while racism continues, so we have to
do something about it,” he said.

“The idea is to come together, to unite forces and build up our struggle
against racism. This is an ongoing struggle, and to be successful we need
to be united and strong. We want to build a network among our churches and
organizations, to strengthen each other and to strengthen this
struggle.”

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, minister for ecumenical and interfaith
relations at the United Church of Christ in the USA, says that “there
are many threats that connect the plight of Afro-descendent people
globally. The systems that created racism are the same across the
Americas. We share a lot of history, and that informs our present.”

“I want to see those who are here name what is happening to them, and see
from wherever we are in the world how we can connect, how we can
coordinate together against racism.”

The Rev. Dr Deenabandhu Manchala, programme executive for the Just and
Inclusive Communities programme at the WCC asks how we can deal with
racist attitudes and values in the churches, and he questions what we have
done recently in our churches to combat racism.

The WCC has a history in the struggle against racism worldwide. One of its
founders, J.H. Oldham, wrote the foundational 1924 text “Christianity
and the Race Problem”, and the inaugural WCC assembly in 1948 recognized
“prejudice based upon race or colour” and “practices of
discrimination and segregation” as “denials of justice and human
dignity.” During the 1970s and 1980s, the WCC Programme to Combat Racism
coordinated many churches’ opposition to apartheid in southern Africa as
well as cultures of racism found elsewhere.

Manchala affirms that “we should continue to be agents of discomfort in
our churches. We need to be troublemakers. We need to work constantly to
destabilize oppressive structures and cultures.”

The next two days of the conference will receive presentations on racism
from countries including Colombia, Peru and Honduras. Working groups will
give deeper consideration to the implications of racism for the churches
and ecumenical groups and will make proposals for follow-up work. A
publication bringing together the presentations, conclusions and
recommendations of the meeting will be produced with the aim of
strengthening the struggle against racism.

WCC activities to promote just and inclusive communities (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=afb02ec896cf88377c08 )

See also the WCC document A Theological Challenge to the Persistence of
Racism, Caste-Based Discrimination, and other Exclusionary Practices
(Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=504c24b4218eeb5c221a )


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.



You receive this information as a subscriber of our media list. You are 
registered as Worldwide with the address wfn-editors@wfn.org.
Click here to unsubscribe or change your distribution settings 
(Link: http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=eb052aed792aba018475 ).