WCC NEWS: Peace and justice gain momentum, says WCC general secretary

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World Council of Churches - News

WCC GENERAL SECRETARY: PEACE AND JUSTICE GAIN MOMENTUM

For immediate release: 14 September 2011

This past February the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee
announced that the theme for the Tenth WCC Assembly in 2013 in Busan,
Korea would be “God of life, lead us to justice and peace.”

In May, nearly one thousand church leaders and peace activists gathered in
Kingston, Jamaica for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation
(IEPC) where they released a statement calling for deeper church
reflection and involvement in peace and justice.

The theme of peace and justice is on the global church agenda with new
energy at a time when more and more societies are experiencing conflict,
intense poverty, drought and injustice.

“Let me, as I report to you, share how I see that we are already on our
way towards a deeper reflection and a stronger commitment to justice and
peace,” said the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit in his report to the WCC
Executive Committee meeting this week in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. “We now
have a new momentum given through the moment we had together in
Jamaica.”

In his report delivered on Tuesday 13 September, Tveit spoke at length
about an emerging discussion on the role and commitment of the churches in
peace and justice. He also reported on the ongoing work of the WCC and his
visits and interactions with member churches around the world over the
past six months.

According to Tveit the WCC is moving in a definitive direction with member
churches around the world calling for Just Peace.  And that movement is
more than a slogan. It is a real move toward changing how the church
interacts with the world and addresses issues of justice and peace.

Member churches’ voices come from the Pacific region, the Middle East,
North and East Africa, South and East Asia, the Americas and even
Tveit’s home country, Norway, which experienced a deadly terrorist
attack in July.

“As churches, our focus should be not on legitimizing actions of war, but
on how non-violent actions can replace the use of military force, how we
can build peace from below and from within, and how we can give political
leaders moral support and standards to protect their own citizens without
using violence,” he said.

“But we also need to work, to act and to create Just Peace in all places
as we go on with our reflections and discussion, and also give the
reflections realistic and constructive inputs and direction,” he said.

Tveit acknowledged that the ecumenical movement has been debating the role
of the church in peace and justice for decades. “It is an unfinished
debate which will not lead to easy answers disconnected from the
day-to-day realities in which many churches wrestle with their Christian
calling to justice and peace,” he said.

While the concept of Just Peace needs more reflection, Tveit said, the
concept “can be understood properly only if we realize that in concrete
situations there needs to be a dynamic relation between, on the one hand,
the struggle for justice and, on the other, peace-building.”

“Peace without justice will not last long,” he said.

A broader understanding of peace

While peace and justice issues are often focused on the cessation of war
and conflict, the IEPC broadened the WCC understanding of what it means to
work for Just Peace. Their focus was on peace among peoples, peace in the
marketplace, peace with the environment and peace within communities.

During his regional visits of the past six months Tveit saw that churches,
in places as divergent as Samoa and Germany, were engaged in a strong
church movement for peace with the earth, “to the extent that I believe
we are part of processes that are changing policy,” he said.

Tveit pointed out the significance of the Executive Committee meeting in
Addis Ababa. “We are close to areas of the world where people now are
suffering from new and drastic changes of climate, starving from drought,
and we see that we need to be firm in our call for a binding and
sustainable international protocol that will effectively reduce emissions
causing climate change.”

“Christian reflections should not only be on moral and political
standards, but also on how we deal with the fact that there are victims of
this misbehaviour which we have to address as sin against other human
beings, nature and against God the Creator of all,” he said.

In his report, Tveit also discussed in detail the work of the general
secretariat and the WCC as a whole in Africa and other regions of the
world where churches are under stress due to conflict, poverty and rapid
change. He drew particular attention to pressures being felt by Christian
communities in the Middle East.

When reporting on the planning for the 2013 Assembly to be held in Busan,
Korea, Tveit announced that two WCC Central Committee members from Korea,
Hae-sun Jung and the Rev. Dr Seong-won Park, have been appointed to work
full time on assembly preparations.

The Executive Committee meetings end Friday 16 September.

Full text of the general secretary's report (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=2f0e69032179f2453ebb )

More information on the Executive Committee meeting (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=5b4cceaa38150563323c
)

More information on the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation:
www.overcomingviolence.org (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=0754b37fe60145736c70 )

WCC work of for climate justice and peace with the earth:
www.oikoumene.org/eco-justice (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=ee10869917da9e7e0f95 )


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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