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Sunday, July 16, 2006 | E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org - Director: Fernando Oshige
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BOLIVIA: Evangelical leaders pull out of National Education Congress for not being ?taken into account? onsejo de Iglesias de Cuba celebra 65 años [more] BRASIL: Communicators analyze the relationship between politics and religious fundamentalism [more] ARGENTINA: Evangelical specialist says that pastors and Churches cannot diagnose depression [more] DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Evangelicals march for the annulment of the Concordat with the Vatican [more] CUBA: Council of Churches condemns US restrictions to send aid to Cuba [more]
BOLIVIA
Evangelical leaders pull out of National Education Congress for not being ?taken into account?
SUCRE, Jul. 14 (ALC). Evangelical leaders who participated in the National Education Congress, carried out in this city and which was expected to draft a new version of the Bolivian Education Law, walked out July 14 for ?not being taken into account,? according to a statement.
?On July 14 in the morning the delegation from the National Association of Evangelicals of Bolivia (ANDEB), attending the National Education Congress being carried out in Sucre from July 10 ? 14, abandoned the congress,? the statement said.
The short statement, signed by ANDEB President Bruno Ossio and other leaders indicated that the decision was made after the delegates presented the position of Evangelical Churches in the congress and felt they were not taken into account.
?We firmly believe we cannot be a part of and support a document that is opposed to the will expressed by the Bolivian people and goes against our principles and values, denying us the right to form our children according to our faith,? said ANDEB.
The Evangelicals called for the participation of all sectors of the Church that will lead to a change in the new educational system.
?Awaiting your support and backing we ask that all Christian-Evangelical people offer a special prayer time for education in Bolivia, asking God to help us ensure respect for our freedom to form our children and young people within the principles and values established by the Word of God,? concluded the statement.
The Evangelicals pulled out after a series of difficulties emerged Thursday when ANDEB said its proposals had been rejected ?despite being vehemently requested and explained on our part,? they said Wednesday in a bulletin.
The Evangelicals are calling for full and integral freedom of worship, the right of parents to form their children according to their faith, pluralism in schools, the replacement of the term ?lay? for ?religious pluralism? and that Mestizo people be included as a category among the ethnic groups in the country.
Another point demanded by the Evangelicals, which also did not find echo, was the observation that the project is against the will of the vast majority of the Bolivian people as it does not admit the term religion within the educational system. [top]
BRASIL
Communicators analyze the relationship between politics and religious fundamentalism
SÃO PAULO, July 14 (ALC). The president of the Latin American region for the World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) Dennis Smith said that many people find a sense of discipline and self-esteem in fundamentalist religious movements, which allows them to survive in conflictive political and economic situations.
According to Smith, people turn to these alternatives because traditional Catholic or Protestant religious institutions do not meet their needs. He spoke at the annual meeting of the members of the WACC Brazil sub region, held at the Methodist University of Sao Paulo (UMESP) July 7 ? 8.
The Sao Paulo event, which addressed the issue ?Religious fundamentalism, Politics and Communication,? brought together 36 communicators from the Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist Churches.
Smith, a US Presbyterian Missionary who works in the Evangelical Pastoral Studies Center in Central America (CEDEPCA) in Guatemala said it was ?useless? to compete with neo-Pentecostals but emphasized the importance of Churches revamping their pastoral strategies in the light of current times.
Saulo Baptista, a researcher with a PhD in Religious Sciences at UMESP addressed the issue ?Fundamentalism and Identity in the Brazilian Evangelical Field.? According to Baptista, 15% of the Brazilian population belongs to Protestant and Pentecostal Churches. Of that percentage 7 million are traditional Protestants and Evangelicals and 20 million are Pentecostals and neoPentecostals. The ?religions of the spirit? grow explosively despite having less than a century in Brazilian society,? he said.
The researcher affirmed that communication media and society identify Evangelicals as groups that standing out for their ?marketing? and media practices. ?The Evangelical identity has been conquered by neo-Pentecostalism,? he said.
Regarding the growing influence of the Pentecostal Churches, Baptista said that even though these denominations have authoritarian and centralist leaders who manipulate the faithful, they manage to attract the socially marginalized and raise the self-esteem of the followers. [top]
ARGENTINA
Evangelical specialist says that pastors and Churches cannot diagnose depression
BUENOS AIRES, Jul. 12 (ALC). ?Neither Churches nor pastors are prepared to diagnose depression,? clarified Pastor Jorge A. Leon, who questioned an article published Sunday in the daily La Nacion that states that training religious, who tend to be the first to attend the depressed, will be an efficient way to combat it.
Leon, the author of ?Pastoral Psychology for all Christians? and another 15 books about the issue affirmed that depression is not a spiritual state but is an illness caused by diverse factors and which is presented in so many different ways that frequently even doctors are not willing to diagnose it and prefer to use the backing of a team.
According to Leon, a Cuban and a resident in Argentina for many years, rising depression around the world is due to the situation of tension that currently exists, although he warned that the factors that contribute to the increase of depression vary from one country to the next.
He admitted that faith can ?help lower the level of depression in many cases? but faith is not a panacea, he said. ?Every attempt to substitute science with religion is a foolish pretension to move history to its medieval phase,? he said.
The La Nacion article indicates on the other hand that pastors and religious will be in a condition to diagnose the depression of their faithful if they are trained in a community extension program.
The project that is carried out by a team of psychiatrists from the Medical Investigation Center and Clinical Investigations (CEMIC) seeks to give tools to religious people who work in communities that will allow them to identify those who could be depressed and refer them to adequate institutions for their treatment,? Dr. Pablo Rozic, head of Psychiatry for CEMIC told this daily.
He said that in mid-September, some 40 Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Evangelical people will participate in the first of these education programs, developed by the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO).
?Many people often consult a religious person prior to a doctor. One unique characteristic is that this approach is not stigmatizing, unlikely what psychiatry means to many people. The contrary, it has a high social value,? said Rozic. [top]
DOMINAN REPUBLIC
Evangelicals march for the annulment of the Concordat with the Vatican
SANTO DOMINGO, Jul. 12 (ALC). Carrying the Bible and singing religious songs, dozens of Evangelicals marched Tuesday to the Supreme Court, demanding the end of the current concordat between the Catholic Church and the Dominican State, signed under dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, more than 50 years ago.
?This is not a war on Catholic Church; what we are seeking is equality among the different religious manifestations,? the head of the National Coordinator of Evangelical Churches Domingo Paulino Moya told journalists.
Different Christian organizations filed an unconstitutionality suit against the Concordat Law before the Supreme Court, arguing that it violates the Magna Charter and is ?illegal.?
The concordat was signed between the Vatican and the Dominican State in 1954, in the midst of the Rafael Leonidas Trujillo dictatorship (1930 ? 1961) in order to guarantee resources for the Catholic Church and recognize it as the official religion in the country.
Evangelicals protested the discriminatory treatment against non Catholic Churches such as Pentecostals who receive no support from the State, something the Catholic Church does enjoy, said some participants in the mobilization.
Pastor Moya explained that the concordat is the reason why governments have been earmarking resources for the Catholic Church since 1954. Since the signing of the concordat, the State has invested in the construction of ?luxurious temples, donations and support for Catholic social works.?
Tuesday?s march was the first step in a series of measures that Dominican Evangelical Christians will take to demand the abolition of the concordat and repudiate the aim to allow same-sex marriages, the Evangelical spokesman said. [top]
CUBA
Council of Churches condemns US restrictions to send aid to Cuba
HAVANA, Jul. 10 (ALC). The president of the Cuban Council of Churches (CIC), Rodhe González, condemned recent regulations recommended by the Commission for Assistance for a Free Cuba, of the US administration, to stop the World Church Service from sending humanitarian aid to the Cuban people.
?We believe that we will be capable, as we have always been, of overcoming all situations, because the relations between the Churches of Cuban and the United States are historic,? said the Rev. Gonzalez, who said that no human circumstances ?will be capable of distancing us as Churches.?
The commission that advises the US government regarding policy on Cuba and which is presided over by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, sent a report to President George Bush recommending that regulations to ship humanitarian aid be tightened to ensure that the aid does not go to ?regime administered or controlled organizations such as the Cuban Council of Churches.?
The Rev. Pablo Oden Marichal, director of the CIC Studies Center and rector of the Episcopal Parish ?Faithful to Jesus? of Matanzas discarded the argument used by the United States, accusing the CIC of being an institution controlled by the Cuban government.
?I have been president of CIC for five years and I have never felt controlled,? said Marichal, who underlined the solvency of the relationship between the US National Council of Churches of Christ and the CIC. ?It is a very old relationship,? he told Enrique Lopez, Monitor correspondent.
The aim, said Marichal, is to try and ?kill the ecumenical movement in Cuba, which is one of the strongest in Latin America,? after calling both the CIC and the CNIC to ensure that that their right to maintain independent relationships with Churches from both countries is upheld. [top]
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