justice, peace and creation news
| A new beginning - new challenges - new hopes! |
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The Justice, Peace and Creation team is concerned with economy and ecology, ecumenical social thought, Indigenous peoples, racially and ethnically oppressed peoples, women, youth and people with disabilities. A small internationally diverse group of staff carry responsibility for the programme. Let us meet them now.
Even as I write this piece, Marilia Schüller has just concluded a workshop in Cuba of the Women under Racism network on gender and race; Martin Robra is in Driebergen, Netherlands, for a meeting of the advisory reference group on climate change, (this project is staffed part-time by a consultant, David Hallman, with the support of the United Church of Canada). We are also preparing for a consultation in Sri Lanka on theological perspectives on violence and non-violence; Freddy Knutsen and Maria Koutatzi are in Greece for the evaluation and restructuring of the World Youth Projects programme; Samuel Kabue, who will work from Nairobi with the support of the National Council of Churches in Kenya, has been in Geneva to put the finishing touches to a programme for strengthening the network of people with disabilities; Eugenio Poma has been discussing creative ideas about continuing the work with the WCC's Indigenous constituency with a small group of Indigenous Peoples, even as he prepares to set off to India with Bob Scott to continue liaising with the network of Dalit Solidarity Peoples. I am finalizing a pastoral women-to-women team visit to the women and children of Indonesia in the context of the recent political and religious turmoil in that country; I am also preparing a meeting of women staff of Regional Ecumenical Organizations (REOs) that will work on how now to challenge the churches to move from solidarity to accountability to women. In all this, we are ably supported by Alexandra Pomezny, Susie Harrison, (who plays a key role producing ECHOES) Marise Pegat-Toquet, Janet Thomas and Marina Biarge-Thurre.
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In the midst of all this, we have been privileged to receive the visit of Dr Susan George of the Transnational Institute in Paris to speak to us about the movement to cancel the debt of the poorest nations of the world in the context of globalization and unjust international financial and trade relations. While she was here, 100 farmers, representing farmers from around the world in Geneva to raise awareness on the impact of globalization on agriculture, on the earth...on their life also visited the WCC. |
The commitment to issues related to justice, peace and creation has been with the WCC under different guises since its inception. However, it was the VIth Assembly of the WCC in Vancouver in 1983 which identified "Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (JPIC)" as inter-related concerns. A world convocation in Seoul in 1990 called for a conciliar process on JPIC, and made ten affirmations calling the churches to act on a wide spectrum of concerns. In our new post-Harare programme structure, the small JPC staff team, with advisory groups to back it, will ensure that these interlinked concerns stay on the WCC agenda.
It will continue to courageously and creatively affirm an alternative worldview and new models of being the church. It will help create ecumenical spaces for genuine dialogue and reflection. While advocating for the participation of the constituencies we represent in the church and the ecumenical movement, the team will attempt to ensure that the often muted minority voices are also heard. We know we have something new to offer to the church and society...and offer it we will!
