wfn.org | ALC Noticias Nov 25 2005 Mexico Argentina Chile Peru

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

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

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CONTENT

PERU: Evangelical leader launches presidential candidacy
PERU: Evangelicals denounce lack of political will to combat poverty in Peru
MEXICO: Biblical Society: Removing the monument to the Bible is an act of
religious intolerance
ARGENTINA: Church and State at odds over sex education law in schools
CHILE: The Church is not being light for the most vulnerable

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PERU
Evangelical leader launches presidential candidacy

Lima,  Nov. 25 (ALC). Peru's National Elections Board (JNE) officially
registered the National Restoration Party (RN), whose presidential
candidate is Pastor Humberto Lay Sun, the first Evangelical leader in
Peru's history to seek the presidential chair.

"The fundamental thing is to put an end to corruption," said Lay in an
interview with ALC. "We have a Government Plan, we have plans to help the
country move forward because we believe that Peru does have a solution, but
the basic thing is to put an end to corruption," he said shortly after
receiving the credentials that he hopes will open the doors to the
Government Palace in 2006.

Lay was a member of the National Anti-Corruption Initiative Group and the
Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His group "National Restoration"
defines itself as an open, non confessional party. "We are a party of
Christian inspiration, a new organization that is different from
traditional parties and has Christian and ethical values," said Lay.

Hundreds of supporters from different districts of Lima and some
departments in the interior waited outside the JNE carrying banners with an
ear of wheat, the party symbol while they chorused "For honesty and
bravery, Lay President."

The first thing we will do if we have the opportunity to govern, said Lay,
is reduce the salaries of high government officials. What is happening is
an insult to the Peruvian people, who are tired of seeing how traditional
politicians use power for their own benefit.

Lay, a successful architect and pastor of the Emmanuel Biblical Church has
the support of thousands of Christian Churches across the nation that have
an estimated population of 4 million people.

In order to register the RN had to gather 250,000 signatures in 81
provincial committees. According to one of Lay's collaborators, the party
has the highest index of valid signatures. More than 85% of the signatures
we have presented have been admitted. This is a record in comparison with
other groups where a maximum of 50% is approved, he said.

The act to turn over the credentials that that officially launched National
Restoration was attended by former Peruvian Vice President Carlos Garcia
and Congressman Walter Alejos, both Evangelical.

"We are going to confront many problems and come up against a lot of
resistance. This is not strange because we want to change old structures
and old customs and above all we want to contribute with Christian values
and honesty to the wellbeing of Peruvians, in particular the most
vulnerable," said Lay in an improvised meeting on the doorstep of the JNE.

He said that his candidacy has the attitude of the Peruvian people in its
favour as they are "tired of so much corruption, so many lies, so much
indifference and so much cynicism," he said.

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PERU
Evangelicals denounce lack of political will to combat poverty in Peru

Lima, Nov. 24 (ALC).  Pastors and lay people from numerous Churches and
Peruvian Evangelical organizations denounced the government's insistence on
applying a neoliberal economic model that oppresses the poor and said that
the State powers do not have the political will to truly combat poverty.

The Evangelicals said they oppose the existence of an unequal social system
that produces corruption and inequality in the distribution of wealth and
affirmed that the foreign debt absorbs most of the national budget and the
Gross Domestic Production to the detriment of a better quality of life of
the population.

Evangelical organizations published a statement from the Evangelical
Consultation on Pastoral Work and Poverty, held November 10 that was
convened by the Micah Challenge Campaign and the National Evangelical
Council (CONEP).

In the "Pronouncement against Poverty and In Favour of Life" document
Evangelical pastors and lay people denounced the lack of objective,
truthful information in the communication media and the indifference
regarding the most vulnerable that is observed "in a sector of Christian
Churches."

The statement calls on the Christian community to lift its prophetic voice
about "existing injustice and immorality" and to create awareness in the
Church for a participation that is more committed to the social reality and
to live the Gospel in a "integral, concrete and visible manner."

Participants also committed themselves to denouncing sin "not only as
something personal, but also as something that is present in social,
economic and political structures that oppress and exclude the majority in
the nation.

Religious and lay leaders participated in the event from the Presbyterian,
Peruvian Evangelical, Anglican, Missionary Union, Nazarene, Assemblies of
God, Christian and Missionary Alliance, Baptist Convention as well as the
Foundation Against Hunger, the Agape Ministry, the Peace and Hope
Association and the Joining Hands Network.

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MEXICO
Biblical Society: Removing the monument to the Bible is an act of religious
intolerance

Mexico, Nov. 24 (ALC).	A bid by Cuauhtemoc Delegation authorities to
remove a monument to the Bible built at the end of October is an act of
religious intolerance, said the Mexican Bible Society.

The SBM is embroiled in an administrative dispute with this delegation from
the Federal District, currently in the hands of the Democratic
Revolutionary Party (PRD). The authorities sent a team of workers to remove
the monument a few days after it was built, arguing that it had not been
built on an authorized site.

The SBM, in a statement signed by its director general Abner Lopez said
that the governors were acting based on their phobias and ideological
prejudices and that it is worrying to imagine how they act in positions of
greater responsibility and power. The monument to the Bible is in the Gante
Stree, close to the Methodist Church in the historic centre of the Mexican
capital.

The Evangelicals said that the arguments presented by the authorities are
tendentious and contradict the official documentation generated by the
office that granted the permit, after a long process of resistance and
discussion.

Religious intolerance has many faces and our Evangelical-Christian
communities are well aware of this, said the SBM. This intolerance takes
lives, separates communities and it warned that these attitudes are
expressions of a "lack of respect, marginalization and the discretionary
treatment that religious minorities suffer in our country."

The SBM calls attention to the zeal demonstrated by the authorities
regarding this monument when "the city is full of altars and religious
monuments are affect the safety of pedestrians and vehicles" and other
magnificent works that "only are aimed at honouring strange alliances and
conserving particular interests to the detriment of important sectors of
society."

"The bible is a source of life and freedom. As a result, if the authorities
decide to remove the Monument to the Bible it will say a great deal about
them and their political project," the statement said.

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ARGENTINA
Church and State at odds over sex education law in schools

By Hilario Wynarczyk

Buenos Aires,  Nov. 23 (ALC). Contrary to what the polls say, the sexual
education law in schools bill has been rejected by parents in several
demonstrations who believe that their beliefs are being threatened, in a
similar reaction to the Pro Life movement in the United States and Spain.

However, according to a survey published November 13 in the daily Pagina
21, 90 percent of those surveyed believe in the benefits of sexual
education and 91 percent are in agreement that birth control methods should
be explained in schools.

Approximately 75 percent to 90 percent do not believe that sexual education
increases promiscuity, the loss of family values, early sexual initiation
and homosexuality. Some 600 people over the age of 18 in 65 parts of the
country were polled by Enrique Zuleta Puceiro's studio, contracted by the
daily.

Other limits of the public strength of the Church became visible after the
recent statement from the Argentine Bishops' Conference about its social
doctrine sparked acid comments from Argentine president Nestor Kirchner.

The document entitled "a light to reconstruct the nation" provoked a harsh
response from the president against Catholic Bishops. Kirchner said that in
the military dictatorship in the years 1976-1981 there were priests who
confessed the torturers.

The Catholic Church maintains that it is necessary to transmit the truth
about that period to young generations. According to the document, crimes
committed by the guerrilla forces certainly terrorized the population and
contributed to the mourning of the nation but in no way are they comparable
to the State terror.

It also affirmed that the religious life of the Catholics can suffer
pressure about their freedom to teach and practice their own doctrine, in
reference to sexual education and abortion.

The Catholic document stated that the growth of inequality and a breakdown
of the grassroots culture of work, aggravated by a lack of dignified and
stable work, the reiteration of unattended demands and increasing strike
action, could facilitate social conflict.

However, the Executive branch sustains that the way it is taking is
precisely the opposite.

While these contradictions are taking place, the believing people practice
their Catholicism without turning to the philosophical mediation of the
social doctrine. For the poorly paid manual workers and the unemployed and
the heads of households who seek bread, health and work, it is much clearer
and simpler to pray in the sanctuaries and hope for some help from the
government.

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CHILE
The Church is not being light for the most vulnerable

By Hector Carrillo
Concepción, Nov. 22 (ALC). "The Evangelical Lutheran Church has lost its
prophetic voice and is not being light for the most vulnerable," charged
the pastor and secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile
(IELCH), Oscar Sanhueza Rodriguez in the Second Workshop on "the Social
Policy of the Church," held last Thursday in this city.

The Lutheran leader said that the current neoliberal system is "a virus
that has been globalized and that the majority of dependent countries are
suffering from it" and called on the Church to "make its denouncement and
announcement of grace."

The system seems to be so cruel that even when a businessman wants to pay
dignified wages he cannot because the competition will devour him. The
system annuls him and bankrupts him as a businessman he said, referring to
the economic system in the country.

Sanhueza affirmed that capitalism is not an individual or a group of
people, but a doctrine. "For this reason, the Churches are witnesses of the
implacable logic of financial capital, denying peoples the fullness of
life," he said.

He specified that Christian communities work among the poor with a
foundation of solidarity action with those who suffer hunger "because we
stand before a system that acts without compassion, that lacks heart and
produces death," he said.

It is power at the service of the greater accumulation of power, said
Sanhueza while urging Chileans to become aware of the reality of the country.

In the workshop, carried out in the Educational Social Project Center
Piececitos de la Candelaria, was attended by nearly 100 educators, social
workers and theologians.
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