Senior US church leaders to meet UK Archbishop and Chancellor
-28/06/05
Leading radical Christian activist Jim Wallis and Mennonite academic Ron Sider (whose book ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ put social justice on the evangelical map in the 1980s) are among 15 senior US church leaders who will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer today and tomorrow, ahead of the crucial G8 summit in Edinburgh next week.
Lambeth Palace, Dr Rowan Williams’ headquarters and residence, is hosting a two-day forum of 35 church leaders from the UK and the US. Part of the agenda will be the Make Poverty History campaign. Those gathering include prominent evangelical, Catholic and ecumenical representatives.
Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and Call to Renewal USA is also due to preach at a service at St John’s Church in Waterloo, Central London, this evening. Mr Wallis has been named by the influential Time magazine as one of the fifty most important religious leaders in the US. He is a voice of progressive Christian opinion in the political arena, but his approach is rooted in biblical thinking rather than conventionally liberal ideology.
The Lambeth forum comes just days before the high-profile G8 meeting in Gleneagles, 4-6 July, where leaders of the eight richest nations in the world will gather. As the host of this vital conference, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been urged to press on the other world leaders the need to take concrete steps towards achieving the United Nations millennium development goals. In particular there will be a focus on remission of unpayable debts for the world’s poorest nations (who took them on at the behest of wealthy banking institutions).
The trans-Atlantic church delegation is expected to meet with British Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has championed the anti-debt cause. A press conference at Lambeth Palace will follow the ecumenical forum hosted by Dr Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of England.
The US church leaders’ delegation includes Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christians. Many of their churches cooperate through Churches Together in the USA, a broad consultation group, and some also belong to the National Council of Churches USA.
Part of the purpose of the visit is undoubtedly to impress the concerns of American Christians on Tony Blair, in the hope that he in turn might have some influence on US President George W. Bush.
The American president, though a self-professed Christian, mostly refuses to meet mainstream church leaders. Instead he courts all the representatives of the religious right, who endorse his foreign policy and show little interest in world poverty and the environent.
The ecumenical movement in the US is dismissed by the religious right as a left-leaning minority. But with the World Evangelical Alliance, the (US) National Association of Evangelicals, World Vision and Evangelicals for Social Action included in its roster, this delegation will be harder to ignore.
Those taking part from the USA are: the Rev David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World; the Rev Rich Cizik, Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals; Mr Robb Davis, Director of the Mennonite Central Committee; Commissioner William Francis,International Secretary of the Salvation Army; the Rev Wes Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America; Mr Mark Lancaster, Coordinator, Presbyterian Hunger Program; Dr Glenn Palmberg, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church;
the Rev Ron Sider, President and Founder of Evangelicals for Social Action; Father Andrew Small, Policy Advisor, US Conference of Catholic Bishops; Mr Rich Stearns, President of World Vision USA; the Rev Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Coordinator/CEO, World Evangelical Alliance; the Rev Jim Wallis, Executive Director of Sojourners and Convener of Call to Renewal; Bishop Peter Weaver, President of the United Methodist Church Council of Bishops and Bishop of the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church; and
Bishop Peter Rogness, Bishop of St Paul Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Senior US church leaders to meet UK Archbishop and Chancellor
-28/06/05
Leading radical Christian activist Jim Wallis and Mennonite academic Ron Sider (whose book ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ put social justice on the evangelical map in the 1980s) are among 15 senior US church leaders who will meet with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the British Chancellor of the Exchequer today and tomorrow, ahead of the crucial G8 summit in Edinburgh next week.
Lambeth Palace, Dr Rowan Williams’ headquarters and residence, is hosting a two-day forum of 35 church leaders from the UK and the US. Part of the agenda will be the Make Poverty History campaign. Those gathering include prominent evangelical, Catholic and ecumenical representatives.
Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine and Call to Renewal USA is also due to preach at a service at St John’s Church in Waterloo, Central London, this evening. Mr Wallis has been named by the influential Time magazine as one of the fifty most important religious leaders in the US. He is a voice of progressive Christian opinion in the political arena, but his approach is rooted in biblical thinking rather than conventionally liberal ideology.
The Lambeth forum comes just days before the high-profile G8 meeting in Gleneagles, 4-6 July, where leaders of the eight richest nations in the world will gather. As the host of this vital conference, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been urged to press on the other world leaders the need to take concrete steps towards achieving the United Nations millennium development goals. In particular there will be a focus on remission of unpayable debts for the world’s poorest nations (who took them on at the behest of wealthy banking institutions).
The trans-Atlantic church delegation is expected to meet with British Chancellor Gordon Brown, who has championed the anti-debt cause. A press conference at Lambeth Palace will follow the ecumenical forum hosted by Dr Rowan Williams, the head of the Church of England.
The US church leaders’ delegation includes Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christians. Many of their churches cooperate through Churches Together in the USA, a broad consultation group, and some also belong to the National Council of Churches USA.
Part of the purpose of the visit is undoubtedly to impress the concerns of American Christians on Tony Blair, in the hope that he in turn might have some influence on US President George W. Bush.
The American president, though a self-professed Christian, mostly refuses to meet mainstream church leaders. Instead he courts all the representatives of the religious right, who endorse his foreign policy and show little interest in world poverty and the environent.
The ecumenical movement in the US is dismissed by the religious right as a left-leaning minority. But with the World Evangelical Alliance, the (US) National Association of Evangelicals, World Vision and Evangelicals for Social Action included in its roster, this delegation will be harder to ignore.
Those taking part from the USA are: the Rev David Beckmann, President of Bread for the World; the Rev Rich Cizik, Vice President of Government Affairs at the National Association of Evangelicals; Mr Robb Davis, Director of the Mennonite Central Committee; Commissioner William Francis,International Secretary of the Salvation Army; the Rev Wes Granberg-Michaelson, General Secretary of the Reformed Church in America; Mr Mark Lancaster, Coordinator, Presbyterian Hunger Program; Dr Glenn Palmberg, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church;
the Rev Ron Sider, President and Founder of Evangelicals for Social Action; Father Andrew Small, Policy Advisor, US Conference of Catholic Bishops; Mr Rich Stearns, President of World Vision USA; the Rev Geoff Tunnicliffe, International Coordinator/CEO, World Evangelical Alliance; the Rev Jim Wallis, Executive Director of Sojourners and Convener of Call to Renewal; Bishop Peter Weaver, President of the United Methodist Church Council of Bishops and Bishop of the New England Conference of the United Methodist Church; and
Bishop Peter Rogness, Bishop of St Paul Area Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.