WCC Media media@wcc-coe.org> 15/11/2007 03:29 PM >> ( mailto:media@wcc-coe. org> ) World Council of Churches - Update Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 15/11/2007 03:18:55 PM
GREED, OVERPRODUCTION AND OVER-CONSUMPTION ARE SINFUL, SAY AFRICAN CHRISTIANS
[Free photo available, see below] A severe reminder "of the wealth that was built and sustained on the continued extraction and plunder of Africa's resources as well as on the exploitation of Africa's people" was addressed to Christians in the global North by the participants in the African ecumenical consultation "Linking poverty, wealth and ecology" last week.
At the 5-9 November gathering in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, some fifty women and men of faith from Africa and beyond - youth, activists, theologians and church leaders - worked on ecumenical strategies and actions for addressing the interlinked problems of poverty, excessive wealth, and ecological degradation.
Structures of domination and exploitation based on class, gender, or ethnicity are sinful, they declared, citing the woeful heritage of slavery and colonialism alongside negative consequences of neoliberal globalization .
"Neoliberal trade policies and patent systems that force Africa to produce cash crops for export" and bar poor people from access to medicine and healthcare, as well as reduced chances for young people in privatized educational systems are concrete grievances named in the final statement. It also denounces "desperate economic conditions produced by systemic trade deficits, external indebtedness and structural adjustment" that abet ecological destruction, insecure labour, human trafficking and violent conflict over resources.
The Dar es Salaam gathering was the first of five regional church encounters to be held by the members of the World Council of Churches (WCC) on different continents during the next six years. The regional consultations, and the study process they feed into, continue a WCC project that became known as Alternative Globalization Addressing Peoples and Earth (AGAPE).
A high-resolution photo is available on the WCC website at : http://www.oikoumene.org/uploads/pics/AGAPEgroup.JPG
Full text of the final statement by the Dar es Salaam consultation: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4824
More photos and impressions by consultation participants: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4819
More information on the WCC and Poverty, wealth and ecology: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3117
This material may be reprinted freely.
Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 347 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.
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