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Cf. Press release PR-04-04 of 5 April 2004

"To restore the fragmented humanity of the African people will not only take political institutions that offer an alternative to the normative discourse of the market, but also a new revolution of the heart," Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia told church leaders, theologians and scholars gathered at St Andrew's Church in Nairobi, Kenya on Thursday, 8 April 2004.

During the first day of his first visit as general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) to his home country, Kobia gave the commemorative lecture for the centenary celebrations of St Paul's Theological College, where he began his own theological formation. Under the title "Behold, I create a New Africa", he addressed the question of Africa's destiny and its place in the world.

The continent seeks to discover its destiny in the midst of a situation where "ideological systems" that Kobia defined as "both anti-human and anti-God" promote "hegemonic designs which seek to control global resources and manipulate human relations". However, "the soul of Africa has been engulfed but not destroyed by these hegemonic forces," he affirmed.

Speaking from a theological perspective, and looking specifically at the role of the churches and the ecumenical movement in the project of "reinventing a New Africa", he affirmed that "the mission and calling of the churches together is to usher in a new bountiful dispensation of abundant life".

In the understanding of the WCC general secretary, to respond to this calling requires concrete and even political actions: "As part of its mission and calling, the church is called not only to prepare citizens to participate in national elections, but also to equip them with instruments of discernment and foresight, not only on how to elect, but also how to reject the kind of leadership that is oppressive."

The clear option of taking the side of the oppressed also has consequences for the very being of the churches. "Critical solidarity with the victims of violence and advocacy against all the oppressive forces operating on the continent must inform our theological endeavours towards a new ecclesiology," Kobia said.

In the context of contemporary Africa, the HIV/AIDS epidemic poses a special challenge to churches, whose prophetic vision is "the conscience of society". Given their image as healing communities and their long history of dealing with health issues in Africa, "a coordinated outreach effort by the churches together is eagerly awaited" in the face of the epidemic, Kobia stated.

The call to the churches is also an ecumenical one. According to Kobia, the "critical endeavour" of African churches is "to create the ecumenical space in which [they] begin to reflect and respond in solidarity with one another beyond the colonial moments that produced them".

This space, articulated for instance "through the programmatic vision of the All Africa Conference of Churches," must "reflect the intrinsic value of African theologies of advocacy". Only "a comprehensive theological vision that incorporates the memories of the ordinary experiences and struggles of the African people will succeed in this project of reinventing a New Africa," Kobia affirmed.

Speaking on Holy Thursday, Kobia underlined that it is the Easter experience that sustains churches in their endeavours: "It is in the solidarity with the suffering, determination to live with the dying, and celebration of the resurrection to new life that Jesus becomes for us the living motif of hope in Africa."