wfn.org | ALC Noticias Oct 23 2004 Ecuador Nicaragua Cuba Brazil

[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

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CONTENT

ECUADOR: Financial stability must be inscribed within a context of justice
NICARAGUA: Evangelicals criticize OAS interference in internal affairs
CUBA: The religious theme wins space in Cuban culture
BRAZIL: Lutherans assume commitments and ask Jewish, Black and indigenous
ARGENTINA: Methodists in agreement with sexual education in school
people for forgiveness

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ECUADOR
Financial stability must be inscribed within a context of justice

By Manuel Quintero

QUITO, Oct 22 (alc).- We Churches cannot become filled with enthusiasm about
a notion of financial stability that is based on the current system, said
Argentine Lutheran Pastor Angel Furlan, in the session dedicated to ethical
and theological considerations during the Global Dialogue with the Financial
Sector.

The event took place in Quito, sponsored by Bread for All and the Latin
American Council of Churches (CLAI).

To the contrary, financial stability should be inscribed in a context of
truth, justice, peace and respect for the integrity of Creation, said
Furlan, who is coordinator of the Lutheran World Federation's Action Program
on the Illegitimate Foreign Debt in Latin America.

Beginning with ancient philosophers and citing decisions made by different
Christian councils and the thoughts of Reformer Martin Luther, Pastor Furlan
criticized usurious loans as an "act of exploitation."

"In Luther's philosophy, economic activity is fundamentally an act of
relating with your neighbor and this relationship has only one norm: the
wellbeing of the neighbor," he said.

He said that for the majority of financial institutions "people are not
important" nor is "justice, equity and human rights." In the face of these
attitudes he added "the very least we can say is that ignorance, voluntary
or involuntary, of the consequences of the financial  crisis on the lives of
millions of people is a criminal act under God's judgment."

In the same session, Puerto Rican lawyer Angel Luis Rivera, coordinator of
CLAI's Faith, Economics and Society program presented the John 6 1:15
passage, the miracle of the loaves and fish as a "Biblical paradigm of
sustainability and abundant life."

The metaphor that emerges from this event alongside the Sea of Galilee has
resonance in innumerable Biblical texts, he underlined. And in the light of
this Biblical ethic "those with greater economic possibilities are obligated
to share their wealth with those who were marginalized by the system," he
said.

On the other hand, social criticism on the part of the prophets is aimed at
"the ideology that considers wealth to be a blessing," at the same time as
is "energetically denounces exploitation, injustice and corruption and
demands attention for widows, strangers and the poor," he affirmed.

It is essential to design and implement clear and fair rules for governing
the economy that imply "creating mechanisms of control and arbitration at a
national level that promote codes of conduct that regulate investment,
capital flow and loans," he said.

The event will conclude this Friday with an analysis of the strategies and
actions to coordinate efforts between the financial sector and civil
society, aimed at correcting the causes and factors that lead to financial
instability.

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NICARAGUA
Evangelicals criticize OAS interference in internal affairs

By Trinidad Vasquez

MANAGUA, Oct 20 (ALC) Evangelical leaders spoke in favor of Nicaraguan
institutionalism and criticized the intromission of the Organization of
American States (OAS) in internal affairs that should be resolved by
Nicaraguans themselves.

Officials from the OAS Council, US Luigi Einaudi, who is currently acting
Secretary General and Aristides Royo, have been meeting with President
Enrique Bolanos, Congress representatives, magistrates from the Supreme
Court and leaders from the Liberal, Alliance for the Republic and Sandinista
Front parties.

Royo, after the first meetings, said that the Nicaraguan crisis is harming
investment and the national economy.

Leaders from the Evangelical Pro Denominational Alliance Council of churches
(CEPAD) said that the presence of the OAS officials constituted intromission
in affairs that the government must resolve internally.

William Gonzalez, president of the Evangelical Nicaraguan University (UENIC)
said that the economic and political crisis must be resolved with great
rigor and respect for the law. He said he did not consider it positive that
the OAS had come as, as of October 19, Constitutional order has not broken
down in Nicaragua.

The president of the National Council of Evangelical Pastors of Nicaragua
(CNPEN), Norman Marenco spoke out in favor of institutionalism and called on
Churches to hold days of Prayer so that God illuminate governs and
politicians and stability be re-established.

Marenco affirmed that, according to the Constitution of the Republic, no one
can remove the president. He criticized the fact that the government has
requested the intervention of the OAS because it goes against the democratic
rights we all struggle for, he said.

The head of the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center (CENIDH) Gonzalo Carrion
warned that President Bolaqos must render clear accounts to the people.

He added that the international community, in particular the OAS, must
respect the integrity of the nation because while there is poverty,
illiteracy and low levels of human development there will be factors that
have a negative impact on the consolidation of democracy and without this
there can be no effective exercise of human rights.

According to Carrion, the Nicaraguan crisis is provoked by President Bolanos
for refusing to render accounts before the pertinent bodies. His message
last Monday when he tried to refute the accusations against him was not
convincing. In the end it became a political discourse, said Carrion.

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CUBA
The religious theme wins space in Cuban culture

By Josi Aurelio Paz

HAVANA, Oct 19 (alc).	The religious theme, essentially taboo in
expositions and art shows that were organized in Cuba in the 1980s, is
gaining ground.

The change was sparked by a search for a human response to the viscitudes
brought by the fall of European socialism and the call to the unity of all
Cubans to save the country, no matter what their philosophical perspective.

This created an opening in the art field that has been expressed, over the
years in a discrete by very present fashion in many of the collections that
are exhibited and in the competitions.

Art, in its different modalities, as a manifestation of the inner world of
artists, has sought to express this spiritual need on the part of an
eminently believing people.

The religious explosion in the 1990s both among religious of African order
and in the Catholic and Evangelical world on the Island, has also taken the
expressions of human agony before the dilemma of the Cross to canvas, wood
and metal.

In 1993 the Cuban Council of Churches convened the First Art Exhibition with
a Christian content, with the participation of artists from several regions
of the country. The event was inaugurated on the Day of Cuban Culture, in
the Kairos Center in Matanzas.

The National Popular Art Fairs, which are celebrated every two years, also
reflect this trend.  The most renowned painters do not discriminate against
the theme, considering it valid within the complex psychological world of
the Cuban.

However, the Church, like a social entity, must further empower art that
reflects its task and stimulates those believers who want to express their
commitment to God through a physical representation of full spirituality,
according to some young people with artistic concerns within the ecumenical
movement.

October 20, the Day of the Cuban Culture, in commemoration of the first time
the music was showcased that would become the National Hymn in 1868 in the
city of Bayamo, is a good occasions to express this sentiment.

Many congregations, not distant from the humanist sense that challenges
them, dedicate their worship services to exalting the values of the identity
of a people that was formed, essentially but two opposing cultures, but with
a fierce religious sense, such as the Spanish and the African, they said.

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BRAZIL
Lutherans assume commitments and ask Jewish, Black and indigenous people for
forgiveness

SAO LEOPOLDO, Oct18 (ALC) - Upon commemorating 180 years of presence in the
country, Lutheran Evangelicals committed themselves to assuming their public
responsibility with greater strength, contributing to making Brazil a more
just country, marked by solidarity, which is able to overcome poverty and
misery.

At the same time, they promised to continue struggle for peace, justice and
the integrity of creation, to work for social inclusion and to combine their
ecumenical commitment with the missionary task.

These commitments are contained in the declaration signed in the XXIV
General Council of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in
Brazil (IECLB), which met October 13-17 in Sao Leopoldo, state of Rio Grande
do Sul.

It was this city that received the first German immigrants who arrived in
Brazil in 1824. The central theme of the Council was "Along the ways of
hope," and it congregated 130 delegates from 18 synods in the IECLB, as well
as ecumenical guests from Brazil and abroad.

The declaration recognizes the Church and theological legacy brought by the
immigrants as well as the relationships and help from Churches and
missionary societies in Germany and other countries.

"The IECLB has progressively developed as a multi-cultural and multi-ethnic
entity, committed to the promotion of citizenship and community spirit,
although in a slow process, both because of our cultural burden and because
we consciously renounced proselytist practices," affirmed the document.

The text recognizes that the immigrants occupied, in different senses, the
place that indigenous communities could have occupied who lived on this
lands and the Black Brazilian communities, for which they ask forgiveness.
The communities that developed here are an involuntary part of the history
of injustice and the lack of social equity in our country, it recognized.

After mentioning the 100th anniversary of Jewish immigration to Rio Grande
do Sul, the declaration recognized that during the years that Nazism ruled
in Germany "we were not totally immune to the ideology of the Arian racial
superiority" and asked forgiveness from God and any who were offended.

The document contains a historic, sober and realistic analysis, which is not
marked by triumphalism, of how they lived the Christian faith within the
social, political and cultural circumstances of the times. "It helps us to
understand that in the present we have a faith marked by contradictions,"
declared the second vice president of the IECLB, Rolf Sch|nemann.

  Based on this reality, the document points to key challenges facing the
confession, emphasized by the first vice president of the IECLB, Homero
Severo Pinto. The call for forgiveness is pertinent, as frequently people
believe that the  prejudices are true, added pastor Teobaldo Witter of
Cuiaba.

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ARGENTINA
Methodists in agreement with sexual education in school

BUENOS AIRES, Oct 22 (alc) - The Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina
(IEMA) said it agrees with a Project that parliament is debating in the
autonomous city of Buenos Aires to introduce a sexual education course in
schools in the capital.

In an Open Letter, published last Thursday the IEMA said "We consider that
there is a need for an education where the human being, in all its integrity
is at the center." The declaration was signed by Pastor Nelly Ritchie,
bishop of the IEMA.

The position of the Methodist differs from the one expressed last week by
the Christian Alliance Federation of Evangelical Churches in the Republic of
Argentina (FACIERA) who are opposed to the creation of this course, alleging
that the sexual education of children should take place within each family,
based on their beliefs, without State interference.

FACIERA maintains that this course will teach people that the behavior of
homosexuals and lesbians is normal and that Christian schools will be
obligated to impart this teaching because it will be law.

The IEMA recalls that Evangelical Churches have been pioneers in Latin
America "in the struggle for an open, free and public education" and
characterized the ignorance, superstitions and vices as enemies to be
defeated.

"Many of our missions took schools to places were the State did not reach,
in an attitude of humble service and fully respecting everyone's beliefs" it
emphasized.

According to the declaration, Methodists did not shy away from a primary,
free obligatory and lay education. Rather it promoted a non confessional
education that would illuminate awareness. From faith we were going to take
responsibility in our Churches and in the family of believers, complementing
and enriching the school's education, it said.

Faithful to this spirit "we support the possibility that sexual education is
included in Argentine schools as a space for information and
clarification.creating an opportunity to develop attitudes and behaviors of
healthy life together, and as one more exercise of understanding and respect
for differences."

We are sure that from our identity of faith we can contribute elements and
values for a rich, positive and purposeful discussion, about sexual
education in our schools, stated the IEMA.

In this spirit we place ourselves at the disposition of all our Evangelical
brothers and sisters in the first place and all our people to continue
collaborating in citizen and educational processes with full transparency,
for a better life together, concluded the Methodist statement.

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