News
By George Martinson *
Free photos available - see below
Cf. Press Update 28-04 of 13 May 2004
For the World Council of Churches (WCC)-based secretariat of the world-wide Urban Rural Mission (URM) movement, a consultation needs to be "people-driven". Allowing delegates the time and space to tell their own stories contributes to that goal and plays a vital role in answering the real needs of the poor.
This principle was put into practice at a recent (1-7 May) URM meeting in Ghana that brought over 50 members of this world-wide movement from Africa, Asia, Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Europe, Canada and the USA to Abokobi, a small christian village near Accra. There, stories - of human rights being violated, of injustice, of violence, but also of liberation from bondage - dominated the agenda.
Told during group discussions and prayer times, some of the stories elicited shock, fear and sadness. But at the end of the day, these emotions were transformed into a new resolve among the participants to re-affirm their commitment to working with the poorest of the poor and the most marginalized, and to protect and promote their interests.
The participants also re-affirmed their commitment to work with the churches, and through people, irrespective of their religious beliefs; a final communiqué from the meeting called for efforts to prevent the commodification of human life that economic globalization seeks to perpetuate.
A day before the consultation, participants visited Cape Coast, the former capital city of the colonial Gold Coast and bridgehead of the infamous trans-Atlantic slave trade. Evocative as it was of past human suffering and injustice, the visit was an appropriate introduction to a consultation on "Mission from the Perspective of People in Struggle" due to begin the following day.
God's preferential option for the poor
Opening the consultation, Mrs Justice Sophia Adinyira from Ghana called on Christians to continue their prophetic role "as the conscience of society" and to champion the cause of the less privileged.
Pointing to growing inequalities between rich and poor, Adinyira, who is vice moderator of the WCC central committee and an appeals court judge in Ghana's Supreme Court, expressed concern over the silence of religions on this issue."The church cannot afford to see the worsening human conditions without taking action," she warned.
Adinyira also called on African governments to seriously address the huge gap between the rich and the poor that, she said, has been an underlying factor in conflicts on the continent.
Deploring poverty levels in the less developed countries, the general secretary of the Christian Council of Ghana, Rev. Dr Fred Deegbe, called for positive action from Christians. "As the salt of the earth, we must do everything possible as a church to bring relief to suffering humanity," he emphasized.
Cesar T. Taguba, a Filipino URM member living in the Netherlands, noted that although globalization is supposed to be an economic process, its "other face" is economic militarism, and that this is destroying human lives and values and accelerating the struggle for the survival of the fittest.
For Rose Johnson Mackey, a URM moderator from the US, "globalization is disrupting the natural path of our everyday life, forcing us to follow a path we are not ready for or would ever want".
Reflecting on the understanding and practice of mission today, WCC programme executive for Urban and Rural Mission Rev. Fr. Kwame Labi spoke of "a discernible shift in theological and missiological perspectives … towards a more holistic understanding of mission that emphasizes God's preferential option for the poor, and thus a need for the churches to be in solidarity with the poor."
But, according to Labi, "This shift in thinking has not always been reflected in practice." For Labi, there are "continuing attempts to keep or return to a narrow view of the evangelical calling of the church", to preserve a dichotomy between the church's social mission and evangelization rather than to see mission as solidarity. "How have the churches responded to new ways of perpetuating marginalization and poverty? What has been their role in it?" he asked.
"There needs to be an understanding and practice of mission that brings the church of Christ back to where she belongs, to the poor and the outcast, that enables the marginalized to reclaim the church as their own. This," Labi argued, "can only be achieved when mission is done with the poor, when it can be an enterprise of the communities of the poor themselves, when it is the perspectives of the people in struggle that are shaping the agenda."
Violence and restorative justice
During the consultation, several participants broke down while listening to their fellow URM members' stories about violence in their countries. Rev. Rose Lala, for example, told heart-breaking stories of murder, rape and sexual slavery, and the use of rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
"Over 80,000 women were raped by the rebels who occupied five regions of my country from 1998–2003, during the civil war. These women often found themselves in sexual slavery over a long period, serving as mistresses, cooking and performing all sorts of chores for the rebels, who took turns to sleep with them. Many of these traumatized women, sad to state, have since become victims of HIV/AIDS," she reported.
The use of violence as a means of resistance and fighting oppression was condemned by most URM members as un-Christian. Some, however, thought that violence is justifiable as a last resort. But the former group insisted on the use of alternatives, such as political, diplomatic and religious interventions or dialogue.
Ron Tramblay, a participant from New Brunswick, Canada, had a story of oppression and de-humanization to tell, and laid the fault for his tribe's woes squarely at the door of the early missionaries. "My people, the Wolastuks, a minority ethnic group in Canada, have over the years been decimated by ethnic discrimination, sexual, physical and emotional abuse from colonialists holding Bibles who invaded and stole our lands.
"Already before 400 BC, we had a peaceful and progressive community with a unique culture and tradition. Today, we have lost our culture, language and spirituality, and our society has become vulnerable to drugs, violence, domestic violence and poverty. Christianity is what put us where we are today. We therefore ask the church, 'Where are you?'"
In discussing the concept of restorative justice, participants agreed that as a means of eventually reconciling people who have suffered deep injustice with the perpetrators of those injustices, it can succeed only when the perpetrators or the oppressors accept guilt and repent. It is only through such action that any authentic process of reconciliation and possible reparation can be considered.
"It is clear that reconciliation is difficult, if not impossible, when people are unable to repent, and let that repentance be followed actions that change situations," suggested WCC Mission and Evangelism programme executive Rev. Jacques Matthey.
"The term restorative justice hints at the need to give back what has been taken away or stolen. While that may be a condition sine qua non in some places, in others one can not come back to a status quo ante. In such situations, one must find a way to imagine and create a new community. Reconciliation processes always aim at healing memories, and at creating a new future," he said.
URM and the churches
The consultation emphasized the importance of URM's relation to the churches. URM is "in the trenches" with oppressed people in struggle, organizing, counselling, and empowering them to rise up from poverty ignorance and disease. But it relies on the support of the churches, the participants said.
For Matthey, "to involve the church and transform its mission towards solidarity with the poor is one of URM's main objectives… URM channels the voice of the poor to the churches in order to influence their way of practising and thinking of mission… The relationship is both complementary and contradictory, one of solidarity and also of critique. URM is 'in between' the churches and the poor," he suggested.
At the same time, participants felt that being "an invitation to the feast of life", mission goes beyond the church into diverse religious and social confines. The interreligious character of URM was affirmed and in part experienced, but, says Matthey, "must be reflected upon in a much more serious way". The movement characterizes itself as Christian, but with an open attitude and cooperation with others. There is a clear involvement in URM of people from other faith communities. "How that should be embodied in the spiritual life and theological language of the URM community remains an open question," Matthey suggests.
A URM coordinator with the National Council of Churches in India, Rajesh Jadhav argued that the church can only succeed in efforts to do mission from the perspective of people in struggle when it sets a good example in the community in which it lives. "Christians are a minority in India, and for us to be effective, we have to extol our biblical values in a more practical way. Don’t forget many Indians may not be Christians, but are very spiritual, and that must be the fusion point."
This view is accepted by most URM activists. URM Africa coordinator Abdul A. Sy said that this is why the movement is training people in Sierra Leone, for example, to go further into the field to create awareness, counsel and empower communities through practical training to undertake projects that will raise their standard of living. “We train a few who serve as a nucleus of trainers. These then move into the communities to further train others in literacy, mobilize them into cooperatives and support them to undertake income-generating projects,” he reported.
* * *
By exploring contemporary missiological challenges from the perspectives of people in struggle, the Ghana consultation was able to fulfil its main aim, which was to review, renew and sharpen URM's vision of mission in anticipation of the forthcoming conference on World Mission and Evangelism in Athens in May 2005.
"Our objectives were achieved, and this gives us the right focus for the 2005 world mission conference and for the future planning of Urban Rural Mission activities," Labi said at the close of the consultation.
By ensuring safe and sacred spaces where the stories and insights of those in struggle could be told and heard, the Abokobi consultation was able to create a community and space where participants could struggle together to discern the mission of God in their own place and time. It was able to inspire and energize them with new vision, renewed hope, fresh insights and the tools and skills to bring a holistic mission imperative alive again.
* George Martinson is the editor of the Christian Messenger, the periodical of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana.
See full text of the URM conference communiqué
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/mission/accra-urm2004.html
Free high resolution pictures are available at:
