wfn.org | Accra Confession a Hot Topic at WCRC Meeting

["Daphne Martin_Gnanadason" <Daphne.Martin_Gnanadason@warc.ch>]

Uniting General Council 2010                                    

>News Release 
>24 June 2010

>AccraConfession a Hot Topic at WCRC Meeting

>By Chris Meehan, news editor

Fabia Gutierrez is very hopeful that the World Communion of
Reformed Churches (WCRC) will decide to accept and work to
implement aspects of the Accra Confession.

Gutierrez was a garment worker and union official in a
free-trade zone in Honduras until death threats made her flee the
area. Her many years in the garment industry taught her that
workers in her country were treated as commodities, working up to
18 hours a day for paltry wages and no benefits in order that
multi-national companies could sell the garments at a cheap price
in stores worldwide.

Arising out of a 2004 meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches in Accra, Ghana, the Accra Confession addresses the
exploitation of workers in developed and underdeveloped countries
alike.

“One of my sons was killed in fights between the union and the
government,” Gutierrez said at a workshop for the WCRC, which
came out of a merger late last week between the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council.

“We will not stop organizing, as long as God allows us to go on,”
she said. “I’d like to thank the churches for thinking of the
Accra Confession. It is important because of the many thousands
of workers who need the solidarity.”

The Accra Confession is a document that addresses many issues
related to globalization and capitalism as a prevailing economic
system. The confession has been a significant topic of
conversation in meetings throughout the week on the campus of
Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A committee is to bring
recommendations regarding the confession before officers of and
delegates to the WCRC. The committee has yet to present its
report.

In many ways, the confession contains ideas of how the modern
economy has developed in a way that benefits a few, while hurting
many more.

People experiencing problems related to the global economy are
not just residents of underdeveloped nations. Kevin Gregory spoke
at a workshop of losing his job after the paper mill in which he
worked for many years was sold to a multi-national company. He
worked in Maine in the eastern United States.

“Once we became globally owned, we didn’t matter anymore,” said
Gregory. The global company cut pay and benefits and ultimately
moved all of the work overseas.

A man from Guatemala spoke of a multi-national company that has
started to mine gold in a section of his country. The workers are
not only underpaid, they are also getting sick from working with
toxic chemicals needed to extract gold.

“These very real stories put the Accra Confession on the agenda,”
said Karen Campbell, a member of the Unified Reformed Church in
the United Kingdom.

“We not only need to endorse it. We need to find ways to make
these issues and these stories come alive in our churches so that
people can hear the stories and take action.”

The report to come before delegates of the WCRC will likely ask
that the Accra Confession and the values it represents be central
to the life of the new organisation.

Rev. Christian Isso, a Presbyterian pastor and advocate of the
confession, says if you read the confession you can see that it
predicted the global financial meltdown that has occurred in many
countries over the last year or so.

“The Accra Confession tries to interpret the reality of the
global economy, and how it hurts millions upon millions of
people, from a faith perspective. Economics are a matter of
faith,” said Isso.

There has been a split at the merger meeting about the
confession. Some say it embodies many of the ideals of the new
organisation itself. But others say it goes too far and is too
stark in criticizing people who have helped run the economies of
prosperous nations. 

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States
(June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed
Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World
Communion of Reformed Churches. 

>Contact: Kristine Greenaway
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Communion of Reformed Churches

UGC News Room – Calvin College - Hoogenboom Center Room HC 204
Cell phone: 1-616-826-5540 or 1-616-826-8636
News Room: 1-616-526-7885
email: kgr@warc.ch
web: www.reformedchurches.org (
http://www.reformedchurches.org/#_blank )