wfn.org | ALC Noticias Aug 7 2005 Spain Ecuador Cuba Brazil

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

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

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CONTENT

SPAIN : Jimmy Carter heads up Baptist commitment for inter-religious dialogue
EQUADOR: Evangelical Confraternity criticizes IURD for the mechanisms used
to collect funds
CUBA: Fidel Castro offers support to build Evangelical Churches
BRAZIL: Lula installs National Youth Council

BRAZIL: Violence against indigenous people increases and reaches levels
similar to the military period.

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SPAIN
Jimmy Carter heads up Baptist commitment for inter-religious dialogue

By Manuel López

LA CORUÑA,  August 5 (alc). "Decidedly positive" was how Denton Lotz,
general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Congress held in
Birmingham, UK from July 27-31 one hundred years after its founding in 1905.

"It has been possible to see the Baptist movement in its diversity and its
vivacity," he said. "We have prayed, we have discussed, we have
evangelized, we have dialogued," he added, to conclude by affirming that
"this is our mission in the XXI Century."

A record number attended: nearly 13,000 people from 160 countries. The
powerful Southern Baptist Convention's decision to leave the world alliance
last summer was compensated by 200 new Churches in the Baptist World
Movement, many from the United States.

In emphasizing that the SBC's decision was not followed by the Union of
Women from the SBC two of the Southern Conventions, Texas and Virginia
opted to stay in the BWA.

The Congress was not deliberative but was testimonial, like a huge worship
service with vibrant music from every corner of the planet. Unlike the
official version, it is true that there was much less discussion and
dialogue than musical religious show.

The organizers realized this as was demonstrated by the fact that each day
there were more frequent calls on huge screens to have a few minutes of
silence and meditation.

A new and hopeful phase is opened for the BWA with the appointment of David
Coffey as president for the 2005 - 2010 period. In the face of the previous
mandate led by Korean - North American Billy Kim, marked by the progressive
adoption of charismatic positions, the beginning of Coffey's presidency was
marked by ecumenism.

One of the 37 points of the "Message of Birmingham" makes a specific
reference to the ecumenical commitment of this denomination family in more
hopeful terms than can be imagined : it asks forgiveness for having worked
little for the unity of Christians. One of the strategic working groups for
the next five years is "Inter-Church relations" that extends to
inter-religious dialogue that goes beyond the inter-denomination field of
Evangelical Churches.

Jimmy Carter, former US president and special speaker at the Congress made
an ecumenical declaration in favor of inter-religious dialogue. "All of the
great confessions like Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism," he said
"have the basic principle of peace, justice, hospitality, truth and help
for those who suffer."

With this affirmation he was make a call to concentrate on those values and
work together in a common front of religious against terrorism.

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EQUADOR
Evangelical Confraternity criticizes IURD for the mechanisms used to
collect funds

QUITO, August  4 (alc). The Evangelical Ecuadorian Confraternity rejected
means used by the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IURD) to collect
funds from its faithful in their worship services and called on believers
to denounce religious leaders who enrich themselves "using piety or
religion as a source of gain."

In an unusual public statement signed by Pastor Estuardo J. Lopez, the CEE
said that the Church is using the Biblical message as a sales gimmick,
something that motivated the representative body of the Evangelical
community to express its "total disagreement and rejection" on various
opportunities.

Pastor Lopez, president of the CEE told ALC in a telephone interview that
the statement responded to requests made by different Church leaders and
seeks to avoid confusion among journalist as many believe that the IURD,
which in Ecuador is called "Stop Suffering" forms part of the Evangelical
Confraternity.

The IURD was founded by the controversial Bishop Edir Macedo in Rio de
Janeiro in July 1977. Since that time the Church has grown across Brazil
and in more than 80 countries around the world.

In Ecuador, one of the resources it has used is the media, through
testimonies and paid programs on local television channels where it also
announces its meetings and products.

The CEE warns that economic contributions that the Church receives "should
not be obtained through manipulation or by offering special divine favors
to those who invest the most."

The Evangelicals specify that Biblical teachings establish that "love,
forgiveness, healing of the body and in general all of God's gifts are not
merchandise to be offered in exchange for money" and manifested its
opposition to the sale of objects and fetishes that "Stop Suffering" offers
its faithful saying that they were brought from the "Holy Land"

He said that Church reformers like Luther, Zwinglio and Calvin and others
in the XVI Century tenaciously rejected mercantile practice of religious
and taught that salvation and God's forgiveness are only obtained by the
grace of God and faith in the saving work of Christ.

"We Evangelical Churches are to take the message of love and forgiveness in
Jesus Christ," said that statement that calls on pastors and religious
leaders to fulfill their ministry with decorum," avoiding illicit gain and
life styles marked by opulence. Let us not forget that Christ came "to
serve and not to be served," it said.

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CUBA
Fidel Castro offers support to build Evangelical Churches

HAVANA, August 4 (alc). President Fidel Castro will provide facilities to
help Evangelical Churches build new churches and develop their pastoral
mission, said the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC),
Samuel Kobia, who met the Cuban leader here Wednesday.

The interview with Castro, which Kobia described as a "very good meeting"
addressed different issues, in particular Church-State relations on the
Island and the challenge represented by the growth of Cuban Evangelical
Churches in recent years.

According to the religious leader, Castro was positive about his request to
allow the construction of new churches and said that his "government does
not have any limitations on the growth of churches and supports these
constructions."

The Rev. Kobia spoke with the press Thursday in the Jose Marti Airport in
Havana, at the end of a four-day pastoral visit to Cuban Churches, his
first since beginning as WCC secretary general in 2004.

The ecumenical leader placed special emphasis on his organization's concern
about the US blockade against Cuba. "The WCC is emphatically opposed to the
blockade," he said and asked that it be immediately lifted, arguing that it
should be considered "from a humanitarian and ethnical perspective."

He indicated that the new measures decreed by US President George Bush add
other limitations to the blockade such as restricting the number of visits
from relatives of Cubans who live in North America.

He ratified the WCC's condemnation of terrorism but warned that until it is
assumed in its totality it will not be possible to erase it from the world map.

Kobia, a Methodist pastor from Kenya deplored the fact that terrorism is
frequently talked about in a selective matter when it involves some countries.

"We must respond to challenges proposed by terrorism in any of its
manifestations," he said, including terrorist acts against Cuba.

He affirmed that the phenomenon of violence affects all societies in the
world, as domestic violence, violence in the cities, including social and
economic violence and violence against the environment.

"We live in a broken, fractured world. I have visited all the regions of
the world and there is a great feeling of dissatisfaction and insecurity on
the part of all people in the world," he said.

He said that the next WCC general assembly, to be held in Porto Alegre in
February 2006 will address the issue of violence and specifically economic
justice, with an emphasis on economic globalization and its impact on people.

Kobia said that the today's world needs peace more than ever and said that
the time has come for joint work between Christian Churches and other
religious organizations. For this reason, the WCC is focused on
inter-religious dialogue on the issues of peace and reconciliation.

However, he warned that it is urgent to establish alliances between the
Churches, governments and social organizations to respond to the challenges
raised by peace "because we have a debt with future generations to transmit
a world that is more peaceful, more reconciled and more participatory than
the world in which we live in today," he concluded.

During his stay in Cuba Kobia preached in the Presbyterian and Methodist
Churches and met with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, with leaders from the Cuban
Council of Churches as well as with government authorities. His agenda also
included a visit to universities, hospital centers and the Evangelical
Seminary of Matanzas.

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BRAZIL
Lula installs National Youth Council

BRASILIA, Aug 3 (alc). President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva installed the
National Youth Council, which includes 40 members of civil society, 20
federal government representatives and two representatives from the
Evangelical sector.

Proposed by the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) - Brazil Region
and the Progressive Evangelical Movement (MEP), one of the Evangelical
representatives is Sociology Professor from the Federal University of Rio
de Janeiro and coordinator of the Fale Project, Alexandre Brasil Carvalho
da Fonseca, age 33. He is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil.

His substitute is journalism student Thiago Machado da Silva, age 22 from
Regional Team of CLAI's Youth Pastoral Programme. He lives in Belo
Horizonte and belongs to the United Presbyterian Church.

The National Youth Council was instituted by President Lula on February 1,
2005 and is responsible for advising the National Youth Secretariat to
formulate guidelines and policies aimed at young people and to promote
studies and investigations about socio-economic reality facing young people.

When the National Youth Secretariat was instituted in February, its head
Beto Cury invited the regional CLAI secretary and the MEP to coordinate
with Churches and Evangelical movements that work in the area of youth to
designate two representatives to form part of the Council.

The CLAI and the MEP convened youth leaders from Churches and Evangelical
movements to a meeting in the Episcopal Anglican Church Cathedral of
Brasilia on May 9 where they defined the profile and proceeded to choose
the representatives.

During the first Council meeting national youth policy points were
presented and a calendar of activities was drafted along with actions to be
carried out between now and the end of the year.

During the installation of the council Lula criticized the press that only
emphasizes negative news. The president was indirectly referring to
coverage of work being carried out by Parliamentary Investigations
Commissions about recent accusations of corruption surrounding a bribery
scandal.

"We are living in interesting political times. Many times an act like this
has no repercussions in the press," said Lula referring to the installation
of the National Youth Council. He recalled that while he was installing the
council, former Chief of Staff Jose Dirceu was giving his testimony in the
legislative Ethical Commission, which concentrated the attention of the
national press.

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BRAZIL
Violence against indigenous people increases and reaches levels similar to
the military period.

GOIANIA,  August 2 (alc). Violence against indigenous people is increasing
at an alarming rate in Brazil, reaching levels comparable to those that
marked the military  dictatorship (1964-1985), said a message from the XVI
General Assembly of the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI). In the first
half of the year alone 23 Indians were murdered according to data from the
body linked to the Brazilian Bishops' Conference. (CNBB).

"The indigenous policy currently underway is characterized by a return to
the ancient tutelage, confinement, segregation and submission of indigenous
communities," said the message of the assembly, meeting in Luziania Goias
July 25-29. Together with violence, said the text, there is also growing
impunity for people who invade indigenous lands, the majority land owners
linked to agro-business.

According to the CIMI, there are currently more than 50 legal projects in
Congress that seek to annul indigenous rights recognized in the 1988
Constitution. It concluded by saying that "violence, impunity, corruption
and authoritarianism form part of the same process, intrinsically liked to
the neoliberal capitalist system, that affect Brazilian society and in
particular grassroots sectors and indigenous peoples."

Without making a direct reference to the political climate in the country,
marked by a current corruption and bribery scandal, the CIMI underlines
that indigenous peoples and social movements know that the grassroots
historic project "is much more important that those that betray it and
distort it, dazzled by the power of the elites that always govern this
country based on force and coercion.

The CIMI assembly, meeting under the slogan "the strength of the small is
light for the world," emphasized that indigenous people, based on their
forms of society and concept of power, have a great deal to contribute to
the construction of a project of social transformation.
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