wfn.org | WCC Moderator Calls Churches to Ethnic "Conflict Prevention"

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26-September-1996 
 
 
 
96359         WCC Moderator Calls Churches to Ethnic 
                      "Conflict Prevention" 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
GENEVA--Characterizing the ethnic conflict-plagued period after the Cold 
War as a "new world disorder," the moderator of the Central Committee of 
the World Council of Churches (WCC), Catholicos Aram I, called on the WCC's 
330 member churches to engage in "conflict prevention." 
 
     The moderator, Catholicos of Cilicia, in Lebanon, of the Armenian 
Apostolic Church, said such activity was "the unique role of the churches" 
and involved "promoting justice, participation, reconciliation and dialogue 
 ... through awareness-building, education and [spiritual] formation." 
 
     Further, Catholicos Aram said, churches must see "the prevention of 
ethnic conflicts as a long-term task ... intended to reaffirm our 
long-standing commitment to a just society, participatory democracy, a 
community of diversities and ethically sustainable humanity." 
 
     The churches must begin, the moderator cautioned, by recognizing and 
repenting "of their own complicity in many cases of ethnic tension and 
conflict."  The credibility of churches had been seriously threatened by 
"the close identification of religion with ethnicity" in some conflicts. 
 
     Acknowledging that ethnic conflicts had occurred throughout human 
history, Catholicos Aram said they all had "a common root cause: the 
intrinsic need for a people to gain security by defending their particular 
identity and by struggling to achieve recognition and autonomy." 
 
     He insisted that ethnic conflicts arose out of injustice. The church's 
role in their solution, therefore, lay in its long-standing commitment to 
justice.  "This has been a sacred ecumenical legacy and should remain a 
major missionary strategy," he said. 
 
     With ethnic identity often defined in terms of exclusion of others, he 
continued, "special effort must be made to develop a common inclusive 
identity based on creative, dynamic and mutually enriching interaction 
between different identities."  
 
     He said that because the church was by definition "a koinonia 
[fellowship] of liberated and transformed identities, a koinonia where 
everyone, irrespective of sex, age, category and color is fully included 
 ... the church has the God-given vocation to draw together the diverse and 
different identities in their full integrity and freedom and renew them in 
Jesus Christ." 
 
     He urged the churches to promote "a dialogue of life" among ethnic 
groups.  Such dialogues should emphasize people rather than ideas and 
solidarity rather than coexistence.  Finally, he said, "the churches must 
recapture the biblical vision of a just society, or a transformed humanity 
in a transformed creation." 
 
     Reflecting on the work of the Council since the WCC's Central 
Committee last met, in September 1995, Catholicos Aram echoed comments made 
by the general secretary, Konrad Raiser, earlier in the day, saying that 
the WCC's current financial crisis "must be dealt with boldly -- tomorrow 
could be too late." 
 
     He reiterated Konrad Raiser's insistence that money troubles were a 
result of long-term trends in giving and "programmatic reordering," and 
said that "the process of program prioritizing and future management 
structures must continue within the context of [the Council's] Common 
Understanding and Vision process," a multiyear study process intended to 
culminate in the adoption of a "charter" by the WCC's Eighth Assembly in 
Harare in 1998.  

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