wfn.org | Challenges to Christian witness in a multi-faith context

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

LWF consultation discusses Christian mission in the Americas

SAO LEOPOLDO, Brazil/GENEVA 11 January 2000 (lwi) - Taking into account
the many challenges to Christian witness in a multi-faith context,
participants in a recent Lutheran World Federation (LWF) consultation
have made a call to fellow Christians in the LWF and beyond to make a
contribution in the reconstruction of what has been destroyed in other
faiths and cultures in the attempt to sow the initial missionary seeds.

Meeting in the Brazilian city of S o Leopoldo from 29 November to 3
December 1999, the 21 Lutheran and one Presbyterian, drawn from the
Americas, Africa and Asia also made a commitment to invite fellow
Christians to converse with "our sisters and brothers" in traditional
indigenous religions and to avoid placing them on a second or third
level behind the conversations with the already recognized leading
religions

Below is the full text of the message from the consultation organized by
the LWF Department for Theology and Studies (DTS) under the theme,
Christianity and Other Faiths in the Americas:

CHRISTIAN WITNESS IN MULTI-FAITH CONTEXTS

      Message from the LWF Consultation held in S o Leopoldo, Brazil
                                      November 29 - December 3, 1999

At the invitation of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), twenty-one
Lutherans and one Presbyterian, principally from the Americas
(Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Guyana, Nicaragua, USA,
Venezuela), but also from Africa and Asia, gathered in S o Leopoldo to
discuss the joys and challenges of Christian witness in a world where
Christianity no longer dominates the religious and cultural landscapes
of the Americas.

As Lutherans, lay and clergy, men and women, we are trying to take
seriously our evangelical and ecumenical tradition, our commitment to
contextual theologies, and witness among the complexities of the diverse
religious, ethno-cultural and socio-economic contexts of life in the
Americas. We prayed and sang together, studied the Bible together,
shared meals and seized the opportunities to learn of each other's home
and walk with God in Christ. Under the consultation theme Christianity
and Other Faiths in the Americas, we read and discussed and exchanged
the following papers:

- Christian Witness in Multi-faith Contexts: Today's Reality
                             (Rev. Dr. Hance A.O. Mwakabana)
- Christianity and Other Faiths in North America: What is God's Desire
  for All of Us Together?
                            ( Rev. Arthur Leichnitz)
- Christianity and Other Faiths in Latin America: The Voice of God in
  Other Faiths: Indigenous Religiosity in Latin America as a Challenge
  for Christianity
                    (Prof. Dr. L. Carlos Hoch and Rev. Dr. Peter Nash)
- Christianity and Other Faiths in the Americas in a Global Context:
   1. Christianity and Other Faiths: The African Experience
                              (Prof. Dr. Isabel Apawo Phiri)
   2. Paradigm Shift of the Theology of Mission Towards a
      Reconciliation of Society: The Asian Experience
                              (Rev. Dr. Thu En Yu)
- Religious Pluralism in the Americas: Its Theological and Missiological
  Implications for Christian Witness in the 21st Century
                              (Prof. Dr. Winston D. Persaud)
- Christian Witness vs Theologies and Ideologies of Hostility
                              (Rev. Dr. Emmanuel Grantson)
- Promoting Religious Harmony: A Case Study
                        (Ms. Lilian Comproe & Rev. Ewald van Ommeren)
- Walking by Faith: Witness and Dialogue in the Multi-faith Americas
                              (Rev. Dr. Carol S.  LaHurd)
- Confessing Christ in a Multi-faith/Multi-cultural Context
                              (Rev. Roy K. Thakurdyal)
- Issues in Pastoral Ministry in a Multi-faith/Multi-cultural Context
                             (Rev. Nancy V. Kelly)

Our host country, Brazil, serves nicely as an example of the
multi-faith/multi-cultural reality that characterizes the Americas.
Brazil embraces the Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Waldensian descendants
of German and Italian immigrants of the south who arrived at the
beginning of the second quarter of the 19th century. Brazil welcomes the
Buddhist Japanese, the Jew from Europe and the Muslim from the Arab and
Turkish worlds. Brazil reveres the Roman Catholic and New Age
descendants of the Portuguese and Spanish conquistadores as well as
cherishing the Candomblistas, Umbandistas, Muslims and Christians,
descendants of Africans who were torn from their homelands and forced to
work as slaves.

In addition, all of the Americas acknowledge with pain and penitence
that within its pluralities, one also finds the religions of the
indigenous population, descendants who managed to survive the successive
slaughters which were frequently carried out with the help or connivance
of the church. It is possible that deep in the forests of South America
there still exist indigenous peoples, with yet other ways of knowing
God, who have not yet made contact with other cultures.

We meet to find agreements in the midst of many apparently contradictory
or mutually exclusive truths. As happens in the story of Abraham and
Sarah (Gen. 17ff.) and Hagar (Gen.16&21) and Keturah (Gen.25) and their
children, we see that there is much to learn from our sisters, brothers
and cousins of other faiths.

We affirm that Christian mission is best served when we know our core
commitments as Christians to approach dialogue in the spirit of Christ
and hold fast to our trust in the Triune God.

We affirm that language of tolerance and the language of acceptance are
sometimes the languages of arrogance. We seek mutual respect and trust
based in genuine friendship and goodwill.

In a spirit of humility we hope to emulate the model of Jesus Christ who
listened with empathy to the Samaritan woman (Jn.4) and commended the
faith of the Canaanite woman seeking healing for her daughter (Mt.
15:27).

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to listen to the other in such a way that when we speak of the
other, they will recognize themselves in our descriptions.

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to be useful in the reconstruction of what has been destroyed in
the other faiths and cultures as we attempt to sow our initial
missionary seeds.

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to converse with our sisters and brothers in traditional
indigenous religions in the Americas and elsewhere; to regard them as
our equals before God; to no longer place them on a second or third
level behind our conversations with the great religions whom we readily
recognize.

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to recognize God's hand in all of creation as it is known
through other faiths and cultures.

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to work together with peoples of other faiths and to live
together in reconciliation and peace in daily efforts to build nations
where justice and fairness allow people of goodwill to not only survive,
but also thrive.

We commit ourselves, and invite our fellow Christians in the LWF and
beyond, to a pattern of interfaith dialogue that includes a recognition
of points of convergence in our understandings about God, our practical
living out of our faith and in our celebrations and commemorations of
God's manifestations in our lives. We understand that this will, at
times, call us to respond prophetically to denounce practices among
Christians and believers of other faiths that assault and devalue life.

We seek to continue to engage in interfaith dialogues that are rooted in
peace. We know that points of divergence exist. When they express
themselves, we seek to insure that we do not allow physical or emotional
violence to grow out of our different religious points of view.

We commend the LWF for its vision in undertaking the task of stimulating
and facilitating our conversation here in S o Leopoldo. In our work
together we have found more questions than answers. We are convinced,
however, that God speaks to other Americans. We return to our homes
understanding better the tasks that lie before us and strengthened to
undertake the next steps necessary, which include: study, definition of
terms, extending and receiving gestures of friendship, establishment of
trust, acts of contrition and receiving absolution, etc. We urge the LWF
and its member churches to make such space available in the future to
continue the work we have begun here.

(The LWF is a global communion of 128 member churches in 70 countries
representing 58 million of the world's 61.5 million Lutherans. Its
highest decision making body is the Assembly, held every six or seven
years. Between Assemblies, the LWF is governed by a 49-member Council
which meets annually, and its Executive Committee. The LWF secretariat
is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

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Lutheran World Information
Assistant Editor, English: Pauline Mumia
E-mail: pmu@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/