Document
MODERATOR’S ADDRESS
1. Yearning for New Heavens and a New Earth
“But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where justice is at home.” This is the ecumenical monthly biblical watchword from 2 Peter 3:13 for the month of November in my country. In the German churches we have these weekly and also monthly biblical watchwords, which have been chosen long before. And yet, these biblical watchwords so often speak to me just at the time I read them.
I have experienced the preciousness of the word of scriptures as a powerful accompanier on our pilgrimage as churches strongly in these past months since we saw each other in Bogota. I have lived from the message, which 2 Peter and so many other passages in the Bible convey: even though empirical evidence seems to speak a different language, we are not moving towards a dark hole in history, but towards new heavens and a new earth, where justice is at home. That is the hope we live from.
Listening to the stories and experiences of our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel at our three-day meeting in the Holy Monastery of Pendeli in Athens, hearing very directly about their decades-long suffering under Israeli occupation, not seeing how the door to a just peace could open anytime in the near future, where Israelis and Palestinians could live peacefully together in the place we so often call Holy Land, was hard. The empirical evidence of the chances for overcoming oppression and violence was depressing.
And then came the US election night. A candidate won who not only through his programme but also through his poisoned personal words and deeds represents a direct counter vision to the preacher who gave us the sermon on the mount. In his words and deeds there were no traces to be discovered of the beatitudes proclaiming the gospel to the poor, to those who mourn, to the meek, to those who hunger and thirst for justice, to the merciful, to the pure in heart, to the peacemakers. And I do admit, my hopes for a better world in the near future were down.
In the morning, when his victory started to become clear, I read the daily biblical watchword of the “Herrnhuter” (Moravians). It was a verse from Romans 8: “Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). These words spoke to my speechless heart and they gave me reassurance that empirical evidence is not what we base our hope on. There is more than empirical evidence. The stories of the Bible remind us of all those moments of history in which God has surprised us against all empirical evidence. So I hold on to God’s promise of the new heavens and the new earth. It gives me new energy for our work as WCC and the witness we are called to give on our Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity.
And it opens my eyes for the empirical signs of this new heaven and this earth that we can experience already today. In my own country, I spoke to many audiences at different places trying to inspire people for the work and the ideas of WCC. Way too many people on the ground know hardly anything about it but are very interested once they hear about it. In Sibiu, Romania I addressed the General Assembly of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe where brothers and sisters are struggling to find a common voice in public issues that divide Europe. In Paris I spoke at the Global Peace summit of the ecumenical community of St Egidio. Several thousand people came together and prayed, celebrated, and engaged in vivid debates on resistance against evil and paths to peace. The interreligious celebration at the end right in front of Notre Dame Cathedral with a peace message handed on to a great group of children. Each one of us as representatives of churches and religions lighting a candle was such an empirical sign of a new world living in peace.
Another powerful sign was my experience at the celebrations of the reconsecration of the Mother Cathedral in Holy Etchmiadzin in Armenia, one of the oldest churches in the world dating back to the 4th century. Invited by the Armenian Catholicos Karekin II, many people came from all over the world to accompany the Armenian people in this deep spiritual experience. I still have the beautiful painting in the church before my eyes and the touching sounds of the liturgies in my ears. Yes, heavens can open when we celebrate our worships! And I felt that what I said in my greeting address for the WCC during the welcome reception became true: that this experience will be a spiritual vitamin shot for the Armenian people going through such hard times after the military aggression by Azerbaijan. This experience was also an important background to the day of prayer for Armenia that WCC celebrated on November 10 with a large outreach all over the world.
How can we give public witness as World Council of Churches? How can we radiate this hope for new heavens and a new earth in a world, in which hopelessness seems to spread? And how can we speak up against violence and injustice?
This is a very relevant question in our daily work. We deal with it when we write up statements in the public issues committee and make decisions about it in the executive committee or the central committee. It is a question to ponder when the general secretary or others in the leadership have to decide whom of the political leadership they want to meet, well aware of the danger of being instrumentalized for propaganda covering up unjust systems. How do we speak to them publicly and also in confident conversations? Should we act as prophets or as pastors? And what do we mean when we talk about prophetically speaking truth to power?
2. The Power of Prophetic Speech
One of the most troubling but also impressive stories of the Bible is the so-called “Nathan Parable” (2 Sam. 12). It is the story of a prophetic witness. After King David’s misuse of power to support his affair with Bathsheba, God sends the prophet Nathan to see David. The prophet tells the king the story of the rich man who has many sheep and the poor man who has only one sheep which he holds “like a daughter.” When the rich man has a visitor, he wants to prepare a sheep to eat with him. And since he cannot get himself to give up any of his own sheep he goes to the poor man, takes his sheep and prepares it for the visitor. When the king hears this, he gets very angry and says: "As the LORD lives, the man who has done this deserves to die.” And Nathan says to David: "You are the man!”
The most challenging and thought-provoking aspect of this story is not the substantial critique of David’s behaviour; it is not even the courage of the prophet confronting the most powerful man of his time. The most challenging aspect is the moral outrage of the king. David is honestly angry and upset about the clearly unacceptable behaviour of the rich man. And he doesn’t even notice the analogy to his own behaviour. It doesn’t come to his mind that his abuse of power in his desire for Bathsheba is of the exact same quality as the rich man’s abuse of power against the poor man.
It is challenging for us today because it directs our attention to those injustices that are so much part of our daily behaviour that we do not even notice.
It is obvious that this has manifest consequences for political life. It is no coincidence that it is a king who is addressed in the story. It is certainly also a story about two individuals, but behind that, it is definitely a story about the relationship between church and state raising urgent questions for today: how can the churches critically accompany political processes? When should they speak up to power in ways which are more shocking than comforting and sustaining? And when should they cultivate a relationship to people in power which is characterized by support and encouragement? The answers to these questions are highly contextual. But it is helpful to ask these questions no matter what our context is.
The way we speak to people in power as churches must take different dimensions into account. What weight each one of them gets is, again, highly contextual. However, I see seven dimensions, which should be part of our considerations.
3. Prophecy and Prudence – Seven Dimensions of Speaking to Power
1. Prophetic speech is characterized by the passion for justice. Its goal must be the actual improvement of the situation of the most disadvantaged. The strongly biblically-based concept of the “preferential option for the poor” has emerged originally from Latin American liberation theology in the 1970s. I have most learned about it from Gustavo Gutierrez who just died a few weeks ago (22 October) at the age of 96 after a long and blessed life. I will never forget the weeklong seminar I had with him in 1985, in which he inspired me for my whole life. When we reflect upon what we say to people in power, the preferential option for the poor must guide us.
2. Prophetic speech to people whose hearts and mind you want to win, in biblical perspective, is “connected criticism” (Michael Walzer). It is based on relationship, on respect, maybe even love, for those to whom it is addressed. The addressees usually sense very well whether the critical passion of a prophetic voice is generated by love for people or whether it is generated by disgust of people. King David to whom the prophet Nathan speaks is only listening and in the end even repenting because he feels being seen by the prophet. If the prophet had just wanted to express his anger without still seeing the human being behind the unjust king, there would not have been any conversion. I am sure that our general secretary can tell quite a few stories about that not being always easy. I want to thank him all the more for his tireless effort to meet political leaders no matter whether it is a joy to meet them or the opposite. This is exactly speaking truth to power in the context of relationship.
3. Prophetic speech must always include prudence. It must reflect upon its consequences for the potential of political change in favour of the poor and disadvantaged. Radical statements are not automatically prophetic witness in the biblical sense. They must always be in the service ofGod’s will to overcome injustice and suffering, especially of the most vulnerable. Therefore, we must always ask ourselves: is our speech really in the service of God’s call to make a difference? Or is it only an expression of one’s personal anger?
4. Prophetic voices need not always be constructive. Their primary task is to call for repentance and change of mind and attitude. They can passionately criticize injustice without already knowing a clear workable path towards justice. Yet deconstructive prophetic voices cannot claim any moral prevalence against those approaches which work towards justice in little steps in the daily political process. There is a time for both and both can even be elements of the same statement. Prophetic speech is misunderstood if it comes from a moral high podium to those in politics who have a good will but need to make concrete decisions in moral dilemma situations. Seeing their dilemma situations and giving guidance in these situations can strengthen prophetic witness. Prophecy and prudence are siblings.
5. Prophecy has a special role in dictatorships in which fundamental criticism, delegitimizing the system, is the most appropriate mode of achieving change. In democratic societies prophetic speech must be related to the “ecology of consciousness” of a dynamic civil society. If prophetic speech can help to change basic attitudes, it is morally requested. If it blocks changes of mind in the public realm, it can even be morally questionable.
6. In a democratic public with many voices but unequal possibilities of getting public attention, prophetic action, creative forms of protest and civil disobedience in morally crucial situations have an important function. But they must be related to free discourse and the exchange of arguments about the best way to achieve moral goals. If prophetic witness blocks such exchange of arguments, it is an obstacle for change.
7. The churches have a special function as agents in civil society. They know about the indisputable moral truths on which a society depends such as the dignity of every human being and the preference of the poor for which the biblical prophets stand. At the same time, they see the world as a whole reconciled by God in Jesus Christ and therefore stand for the inclusion of each member of society into a commonwealth based on those moral truths. Their mode of action in democratic societies is therefore an “inclusive prophetism” based on biblical truths and supported by good arguments in the public discourse. Therefore, in our public witness, we need “bilinguality,” that is, strong biblical witness and at the same time good arguments that make our stands plausible for all people of good will, even beyond religious communities.
4. Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity; Accompanying Each Other on Our Pilgrimage
I found many of these dimensions in the witness we gave at our last executive committee meetings. In Nigeria we heard the voices of those who are – as Christians – victims of terrible violence in some regions of the country. And we encouraged governments to do everything in their power to protect them. In Colombia we heard about the violent conflicts between government and guerrillas with so many destroyed lives. And we encouraged both government and guerrillas to move forward on their way to lay down arms and find a way to peacefully live together. Now, we have come together in Cyprus, an island painfully divided into two territories, due to the Turkish invasion which led to the complete partition of the island and resulted in thousands of lost lives, and one-third of the population displaced.
We will listen to our brothers and sisters here to understand the situation. We will search for ways to support paths to justice, reconciliation, and maybe at some point unity of the people of Cyprus. And we will try to express our support for these paths in words, nurtured by prophecy and prudence.
Let me end with a word of great gratitude to our hosts here. It is an honour and a privilege for us to be able to meet on this beautiful island. Thank you for your wonderful hospitality. May God bless this island and all those who live on it.
