wfn.org | WARC Youth Electrify Council with Call to Love

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

19-August-1997 
97315 
 
     WARC Youth Electrify Council 
    with Call to Love, Greater Involvement 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
    World Alliance of Reformed Churches Newsroom 
 
DEBRECEN, Hungary--Bearing large masks decorated with symbolic 
representations of their understandings of peace and justice and swaying to 
the reverberating strains of a Xhosa-language South African hymn, 
"Unomnganga," nearly 100 youth participants in the 23rd General Council of 
the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) electrified delegates and 
observers assembled at the Great Church here. 
 
    Though the presentation style of their report to the Council was far 
from the customary oratory, the multimedia message of the youth delegation 
was simple and powerful. "The opposite of injustice is not justice, it is 
love," said Japhet Ndhlovu, the 34-year-old moderator of the Reformed 
Church in Zambia.  Speaking directly to the theme of this General Council 
-- "Break the Chains of Injustice" -- Ndhlovu said, "Only through the 
expression of Christian love -- unconditional and unprejudiced -- can we 
begin to break the chains of injustice." 
 
    The youth report to the Council was repeatedly punctuated by 
"Unomnganga," a hymn sung in the style made popular worldwide by such 
performing artists as Ladysmith Black Mombazo from South Africa.  The 
singing was led by Nombeko Nonxuba, a delegate from South Africa.  She said 
the song, which does not translate easily into English, was "about 
encouragement, being able to listen to your conscience, your inner voice, 
so you can do the right thing.  Unless we can do that, we go nowhere and 
fail to achieve any kind of unity in the church or societies." 
 
    The youth report, for the first time in WARC's history, emerged from a 
Reformed Youth Forum held Aug. 5-7, just prior to the Aug. 8-20 General 
Council here.  Rodger Nishioka from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), an 
adviser to the Forum, told a group of international journalists after the 
presentation that the purpose of the Youth Forum was "to provide youth a 
safe opportunity to share their stories and develop their own voice within 
WARC ... and to begin to identify issues young people face" where they 
live. 
 
    "It is remarkable that the struggles everywhere are very similar for 
young people, though the degree of struggle varies widely from place to 
place," he noted.  "But as youth [and women] gain their voice, the 
structures of church and society will begin to change," Nishioka added. 
 
    In their report, the youth identified "a number of chains of injustice 
we have encountered as young people" -- namely, unemployment, exclusion 
from education, political corruption, discrimination and barriers to women, 
exploitation, unjust distribution of wealth, persecution of Christians 
where they are a minority and systems that discriminate against the 
participation of young people. 
 
    Some of the solutions they suggested are "to allow our faith in God to 
empower us through hope for the world," prayer, evangelism, the practice of 
reconciliation in churches and societies and continued efforts to "network" 
youth organizations around the world. 
 
    The youth representatives called upon WARC and its member churches to 
take more seriously the role of young people in their structures, giving 
higher priority and funding to the empowering of youth in the churches and 
church structures.  "It is not enough to say that young people are the 
church of tomorrow, they are part of the church as it exists today," their 
report concluded.  "Their witness to the goodness of God already enriches 
the church as a whole." 

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