wfn.org | If the Church "Does Not Embrace Justice," It's an "Empty House"

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26-September-1996 
 
 
96360       If the Church "Does Not Embrace Justice,"  
                      It's an "Empty House" 
 
                      by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
GENEVA--The Christian community must renounce all forms of violence against 
women and acknowledge "the sad truth" that churches are not always places 
where women can find protection from 
violence, a prominent Presbyterian theologian told a meeting in Geneva of 
the World Council of Churches Central Committee Sept. 13. 
 
     Dolores Williams, who is professor of theology at Union Theological 
Seminary in New York and who has a high profile in church discussions of 
the role of women, said that violence perpetrated against women worldwide 
was "an atrocious malady."  
 
 
     The Christian community, she said, "must fulfill its mission by 
renouncing violence against women -- physical bruises, emotional scars and 
spiritual pains." 
 
     When the church "does not embrace justice, peace, love and care, it 
becomes an empty house, not the domicile of God in Jesus Christ," Williams 
told the meeting.  
 
     "Churches should be in agreement that there cannot be holiness and 
unity until the church agrees to combat violence in all its forms and 
especially against women." 
 
     Williams addressed the issue of violence against women -- one of three 
"case studies" presented Sept. 13 -- as the Central Committee prepared to 
conclude a study on ecclesiology and ethics and send 
its report to member churches.  
 
     The connection between ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church) and 
ethics (the moral convictions that drive the actions of the church) has 
been disputed within the ecumenical movement for 
most of the 20th century. 
 
     Bishop John Neill of the Church of Ireland, reporting on a series of 
visits to WCC member churches as part of the Ecumenical Decade of Churches 
in Solidarity with Women, said that "the complicity of the church in 
violence against women surfaced in every visitation report." 
 
     He said the phenomenon of violence against women cut across all 
socio-economic, cultural and geographical lines. "The sad truth is that the 
church is not a place where women can find protection, support and 
advocacy," he said. 
 
     Anna Marie Aagaard, a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
Denmark and a president of the WCC, said, when introducing the session: 
"The basic aim of the current study is to articulate once 
again that being and doing cannot be separated." 
 
     The other two case studies were presented by Gordon Gray, who 
addressed the issue of sectarian violence in his native Northern Ireland, 
where he is a Presbyterian pastor, and by John de Gruchy, a theology 
professor in Cape Town, South Africa, on the relation of ecclesiology and 
ethics in the South African churches' struggle against apartheid. 
 
     While the churches -- Protestant and Catholic -- were not the source 
of the violence in Northern Ireland, Gray said, "divided churches cost 
lives" when they failed to demonstrate unity in renouncing violence. 
"Sectarianism grows in the spaces between divided churches," he explained, 
"and allows those who are bent on violence to do their nasty, destructive 
work." 
 
     De Gruchy said that in the struggle against apartheid, South Africa's 
churches "discovered a unity in the body of Christ that they had not known 
before."  In that struggle they "also discovered ethical implications of 
the gospel that the unity of the church and its struggle for justice are 
inseparable." 
 
     Aaron Tolen, a member of the Presbyterian Church of Cameroon and a WCC 
president, who moderated the ecclesiology and ethics presentation, reminded 
Central Committee members that their churches would be asked to seriously 
consider two questions growing out of the ecclesiology and ethics 
study:  
 
          "How can we practice ecumenical moral formation -- a common 
training for Christian 
          ethical discernment and decision-making -- in our own local 
situation?"   
          "What are the implications of this local ecumenical ethical 
engagement for our global 
          koinonia [fellowship]?" 
 
     The study was set up by the Central Committee in 1992. Consultations 
have since been held in Evian, France, in May 1992, in Ronde, Denmark, in 
February 1993, and in Johannesburg, South Africa, 
in June 1996.  

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