The seven-member group of church representatives sent by the World Council of Churches as part of its “Living Letters” initiative in solidarity with churches facing situations of violence, visited Kenya from 30 January to 3 February 2008.

The group met with the country’s vice-president Kalonzo Musyoka – as the president Mwai Kibaki was attending the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – and with the leader and presidential candidate of the Orange Democratic Movement, Raila Odinga.

“Kenyans would like to see their political leaders affirming peace and sorting out their differences, for which a political compromise is needed” – was the message from Canon Peter Karanja, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), which hosted the visit.

“It is true that there is no peace without justice, it is also true that there is no justice without peace” – affirmed the head of the ecumenical delegation the Rev Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the Presbyterian Church in the United States and president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.

Although affirming their full commitment to the African Union mediation process led by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, both parties predictably made the case for their own victory in the 27 December presidential election and handed over documents to the delegation supporting their claims.

“We are not here to judge poll results”, Kirkpatrick said. “These documents are unlikely to be helpful to anyone”, Karanja added. “Now it is essential to separate issues of human life and dignity from the search for political justice”.

In turn, the ecumenical delegation made a strong case for those suffering the brunt of the crisis. “Many women and children are amongst the most affected by the violence and as a consequence of the forced displacement”, said Ms Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, general secretary of the World Young Women’s Christian Association.

“Their needs are not only shelter and food, but health care, including access to HIV and AIDS medication, security, including protection against sexual abuse, as well as counselling for the trauma they are undergoing”, Gumbonzvanda said.

Violence broke out along ethnic lines in Kenya following the announcement of Kibaki’s electoral victory, and its rejection by the Orange Democratic Party. Over 800 people have been killed and several hundred thousand have fled their homes and are sheltered in dozens of makeshift camps around the country.

The meetings of the ecumenical delegation with both parties, which lasted over two hours each, allowed for frank and in-depth discussion of the current crisis as well as for moments of prayer.

The delegation made the case for the Kenyan churches to be full partners in the mediation process, but this was met with expressions of disappointment regarding the churches’ role during the electoral process. “Right now in Kenya the churches need to heal themselves first”; “the churches have failed us as they have taken partisan positions.” – These were some of the complaints voiced by both political parties.

The NCCK general secretary acknowledged embarrassment about this amongst church leaders, but affirmed that they have tried to take responsibility. “A deep process of reflection has taken place after the election, and the crisis has encountered the churches united in their call for peace and reconciliation”, he said.

As an example, Karanja mentioned a memorial service for the victims at the burned church in Eldoret, in which bishops from the two tribes involved will take part. It will be held in Kitale on 15 February.

The ecumenical delegation also heard about the deep-rooted historical grievances that underlie the current unrest. Amongst the main issues are inequalities in terms of land distribution and access to state resources and opportunities, as well as perceived or real tribal privileges.

“Kenya would never have a lasting peace without these fundamental issues being addressed”, Karanja said, “but that cannot be done at the time of an election”.

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CCT now represents the broadest ever national table of conversation among Christian churches in the United States, drawing in those not previously involved in ecumenical conversation. Its annual meeting took place from 8-11 January 2008 at the Conference Centre for the Maritime Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

“It is a joy for The Episcopal Church to be a participant member of this broadest ecumenical association in the United States,” said Bishop Christopher Epting, the EP Presiding Bishop’s deputy for ecumenical and interfaith relations recently.

“It is complementary – not in competition with – the National Council of Churches [USA], just as the Global Christian Forum is in relationship with the World Council of Churches. CCT has taken yet another step forward however in agreeing to work together in the years ahead on issues of domestic poverty and evangelism here in the United States.”

The meeting also included a discernment session on the theme of evangelism, the other primary focus of CCT.

In remembrance of the 40th anniversary of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination, Dr Ron Sider of Evangelicals For Social Action, a CCT participant, provided input on “God, the Poor and Us: Forty Biblical Reminders,” 40 biblical texts that highlight God’s special concern for poor people. The document is available here.

Participants heard reflections from representatives of the five church families of CCT (Catholic, Historic Protestant, Evangelical/Pentecostal, Orthodox, and Racial/Ethnic) on the topic of “What we have learned in our struggle to eliminate poverty.”

They also met in small groups to pray and think together about what God might be calling CCT to do as individuals, as churches and as CCT together in regard to poverty and in addition to the “Statement on Poverty” which was released last year, the release said.

Participants decided that the largest part of the next annual meeting – scheduled for 13-16 January 2009 – will be a continued exploration of the convergences and divergences of the participant churches and organizations regarding poverty. The group also decided to press the new US president-elect to make the elimination of domestic poverty a part of his or her administration’s goals.

Also during the meeting, participants met at the headquarters of Bread for the World, a CCT participant organization, where they were joined by 18 seminarians. The group toured the service sites of S.O.M.E. (So Others May Eat) in Washington DC, and Sojourners, another CCT participant organization.

The seminarians participating reflected on their experience of that day and shared their thoughts with the CCT representatives. They appreciated the opportunity to be involved and many remarked upon the openness and humanness of these national church leaders, the release said. Likewise, the representatives were impressed with the quality of the seminarians and decided to enlarge this component of future annual meetings, according to the release.

A major part of the meeting was the experience of what were described as “high-quality worship services”, reflecting the traditions of each church family.

Seven new churches and organizations were received into CCT participation during the meeting. They include American Bible Society, the Church of the Brethren, Elim Fellowship, Habitat for Humanity, the Mennonite Church USA, the Polish National Catholic Church, and the Vineyard USA.

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, general secretary of the Reformed Church in America, was thanked for his service as moderator and Father Leonid Kishkovsky, director of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations of the Orthodox Church in America, was commissioned as the new moderator. Dr Richard L. Hamm was installed as CCT’s new executive administrator.

With thanks to the Episcopal News Service – http://www.episcopalchurch.org/

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“I keep on telling my members in my church that my intention is not to make you very good Episcopalians; I would like you to become very good Christians first,” said the Rev Rex Reyes, an Episcopal priest and member of the National Council on Churches in the Philippines.

Reyes was on the writing team that documented killings of more than 800 civilians and the “disappearances” of another 200 in a 2007 report to members of the US Congress and the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

“Christianity is not just a social club,” he said. “It is a movement primarily of people who are concerned that everybody should have abundant life. And clearly in our experience, the reason the National Council of Churches in the Philippines is howling is that its people are howling.”

Reyes is the council’s program secretary for Christian unity and ecumenical relations.

In an interview with United Methodist News Service, Reyes thanked the United States for sending “wave after wave” of supporters to the Philippines, with The United Methodist Church taking the lead.

A delegation from the California-Nevada Annual (regional) Conference traveled to three regions of the Philippines last February to hear reports from church workers and others about the killings and abductions.

“Nothing can match the experience of really talking to the persons, to the bereaved, living in their houses and eating with them, having that communion with people,” Reyes said. “Nothing can match that. They really left entirely different persons than when they came into this country.”

Reyes said he doesn’t understand why governments and leaders keep repeating the same mistakes. He cites President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corrupt and repressive government ran the Philippines from 1966 until his ouster in 1986. Marcos, he said, underestimated the power of the people at the grassroots level. “He suddenly woke up to the reality that you cannot continue punching these people without paying a price.”

Reyes said the Scriptural teaching that all people are created in God’s image is “not an empty statement for Christians. Christian people ought to be bothered when people are getting killed,” he said.

He also reminds that there is power in prayers. “We ask that the Philippines not be forgotten. Pray for not just us but all people who are suffering,” he urged.

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Representatives of churches, the United Nations, and human rights organizations brought their ideas, concerns and hopes together in an effort to forge an alliance to abolish genocide.

There was an honest acknowledgement of the role religion can play and has played in fuelling and legitimating deadly conflict in the world, along with a recognition that it also plays a role in reconciliation and peacemaking.

Analysing the way in which ideology and religion can be corrupted and looking at how to combat this was an important part of the discussion at the gathering.

In his opening prayer Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, the new president of the National Council of Churches USA (NCCUSA), called upon God to “grant rest to all who have perished in genocide.”

The archbishop is the diocesan legate and ecumenical officer of the Diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church of America. He was installed in his two-year elected office the previous night at St Vartan’s Armenian Cathedral in New York City.

“Inspire our leaders with wisdom, compassion and resolution in the face of evil,” the NCC president said concluding his prayer.

“As long as I am General Secretary of the NCC this will be a living concern, not a one-time symposium,” said the Rev Dr Michael Kinnamon, the NCCUSA’s new general secretary, in his remarks welcoming the participants to the all day consultation.

The event was sponsored by the NCCUSA, Genocide Watch, the Center for International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, and the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.

One panel discussion focused on the political challenges to abolishing genocide. The group heard from the Honorable Francis Deng, the United Nations’ special adviser for the prevention of genocide and mass atrocities. A former member of the government of Sudan, Dr Deng described how the politics of identity is now being defined in religious terms.

“The role of religion is shaping identities that become ‘conflictual’,” said Dr Deng. He told of his own experience in Sudan. He grew up in a traditional African family with its own religion, attended a Roman Catholic school and became a Catholic. Some of his brothers attended Islamic schools and became Muslim. Later he lived in a Protestant area of his country and attended a Muslim school.

These different religions describe one another very differently, Deng said, who suggested each faith tradition needs to emphasize with one another their common goodness and not to divide people because of their professed faith.

A second panel took up the complicity of Christians in genocide. The speakers examined how the church participated in Rwanda, Germany, Bosnia and in the United States in the genocide of Native Americans.

Dr Andrea Bartoli, a Roman Catholic from George Mason University, noted Rwanda was a predominantly Catholic country. He acknowledged the Catholic Church was not only silent but in some places actively participated in the genocide.

The church “failed to convert hearts and minds,” said Bartoli, suggesting those who took part in the genocide “acted not as Catholics but identified as some other” group.

The German genocide of the Jews was viewed by a Lutheran theologian through the lens of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the World War II theologian who wrote and preached against the Third Reich. He was executed in the waning days of the war.

Dr. Christiane Tietz, currently at the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University, said a bad interpretation of Martin Luther’s doctrine of two kingdoms – the kingdom of the world and the spiritual kingdom – led to many Lutherans participating in the laws and actions of the government that let to the extermination of the Jews.

“The church as the community of the saints is a community which transcends and bridges racial and national differences,” said Dr Tietz. “If it does not, then Christ is not the Lord of the church. The church is not there for itself; it has to care for those persecuted. It has to be there for others.”

A Serbian Orthodox priest and former US foreign service officer in the Balkans, Dr Milan Sturgis, reminded the group that the date this genocide discussion took place was the 69th anniversary of “kristalnacht” which began the rounding up of Jews in Germany.

Dr Sturgis related many of his experiences in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo including the loss of cousins, aunts and uncles “who were slaughtered.”

“Religion was perverted into a political identity,” Dr Sturgis said. He told of witnessing Serbian priests blessing Serb militias, Roman Catholic priests blessing Croatian militias and imams blessing Muslim militias.

“We need to be more concerned with forecasting and prevention [of genocide] rather than laying blame,” said Dr Sturgis.

Concluding the panel was Dr. Anne Marshall, a United Methodist and member of the Muskogee Nation. Dr Marshall said Native Americans suffered both a physical as well as cultural genocide.

“Until there is an acknowledgment that genocide has happened here by churches and governments there can’t be healing and wholeness,” said Dr. Marshall.

Dr Antonios Kireopoulos, NCCUSA’s associate general secretary for international affairs and peace, who organized the forum, said the next step is to involved more groups and create a true alliance to abolish genocide. The structure of this forum – prayer, historical record, Scriptural reflection, sharing and a call to action – will be offered as a template to other faith communities.

“God loved us so much that we have been given the power to change the world,” said the Rev Dr Bob Edgar, former NCCUSA general secretary, in the closing “sending forth.” He urged participants to put flesh on their words.

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The resolution put forward by the Rev Arem Jabejian, an Armenian Orthodox priest from Chicago, was passed by voice vote with six persons requesting to be counted as abstaining.

In its business session Wednesday afternoon, the General Assembly also reaffirmed the NCCUSA and CWS commitment to Middle East peace, and received “A Social Creed for the 21st Century” approved in September by the NCCUSA Governing Board.

The Armenian genocide statement as amended and approved by the General Assembly said it is “unacceptable that the United States has yet to officially recognize the Genocide of 1915, which in fact decimated a majority of the Armenian population then living in Asia Minor.”

The statement cited House Resolution 106 “acknowledging this universally recognized historical fact (and) condemning this crime against humanity.” Most historians agree that the slaughter was carried out by soldiers of the then Ottoman Turk Empire.

The House leadership decided not to place the legislation before the House because of objections from the Bush Administration, which said it would harm relations between the U.S. and Turkey, a NATO ally.

“As persons of faith, we express our concern that the truth was not upheld by our elected representatives,” the resolution states.

The statement “strongly urges the leadership of the US House of Representatives to bring forth this legislation before the end of this Congress.”

The General Assembly also passed by unanimous voice vote a “Reaffirmation of Our Commitment to Peace in the Middle East in Light of the 1980 Middle East Policy Statement.

Noting that the Middle East situation has deteriorated since the hopeful days of the 1980 Camp David Peace Accords, the updated policy reaffirms commitments to peace, including encouragement of a responsible discourse in the Middle East; a focus on issues of particular importance related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; concern for the alarming diminution of the Christian community of the Middle East; and appreciation for interfaith sensitivities among Christians, Jews and Muslims, as well as people of other faiths.

“The member communions of the NCC (USA) have a profound connection to the Holy Land,” the statement acknowledges. “It is the place where God was revealed in Jesus Christ through the power of the Spirit … Therefore, we reaffirm these commitments, cognizant of the role our nation plays in the Middle East, to remind ourselves of the urgent need to influence our country to take right and moral actions in the region.”

“A Social Creed for the 21st Century” is an update of the Social Creed of 1908 developed by the NCC’s predecessor organization, the Federal Council of Churches.

“Just as the churches responded to the harshness of early 20th century industrialization,” declares the creed’s background statement, “we offer a vision of a society that shares more and consumes less, seeks compassion over suspicion and equality over domination, and finds security in joined hands rather than massed arms.”

The National Council of Churches USA is the ecumenical voice of 35 of America’s Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches. These NCC member communions have 45 million members in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.

Church World Service is the relief, development, and refugee assistance agency of these same communions, working in 80 countries around the world to eradicate hunger and poverty and promote peace and justice.

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A letter calling for an increase in funding for conservation programmes in the farm bill was also delivered to Senate offices from a broad spectrum of Christian organizations.

Through its ‘Faithful Harvest Campaign’, NCCUSA’s Eco-Justice initiative has been encouraging Christians for over a year to speak out to uphold the principles of justice and sustainability as Congress crafts a farm bill.

In addition to the legislative advocacy work, the Faithful Harvest Campaign has produced two agricultural-themed resources to be used in congregational worship and study.

“Our Daily Bread” and “Everyday Thanksgiving” are both available for free download on the NCCUSA Eco-Justice Programme website: http://www.nccecojustice.org/faithharvestworship.html

The House of Representatives passed its version of the farm bill on 29 July 2007. In the coming weeks, the Senate has the opportunity to pass a bill that will provide sufficient funding so that all farmers who wish to participate in conservation programmes may do so.

The National Council of Churches USA is the ecumenical voice of 35 of America’s Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches. These NCCUSA member communions have 45 million members in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.

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The Rev Michael Livingston, president of the National Council of Churches USA (NCCUSA), this week joined Jewish, Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical Christian leaders in a telephone news conference.

“It has become clear that global warming is having and will continue to have devastating impacts on those living in poverty around the world, particularly those in least developed countries,” said the NCCUSA’s Livingston, who is also executive director of the International Council of Community Churches.

“These communities are facing the devastating consequences of global warming including floods, disease and food insecurity,” said Livingston in remarks prepared for the event.

“However, we can and must do more and we look forward to working with the Senators to ensure adequate and appropriate support for affected communities,” he added.

The news conference was arranged by the National Religious Partnership for the Environment.

The National Council of Churches USA is the ecumenical voice of 35 of America’s Orthodox, Protestant, Anglican, historic African American and traditional peace churches. These NCC member communions have 45 million members in 100,000 congregations in all 50 states.

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This is the full text of the letter from the Rev Michael Livingston, President, National Council of Churches USA

I am here today representing the 35 member denominations of the National Council of Churches in the USA with over 100,000 congregations and 45 million members. They are protestant and orthodox, rich and poor, urban and rural, big churches and small, white, black, brown, yellow and red, republican and democrat and while not all of them agree on much, we do agree on the need to protect God’s creation while working for justice for all of God’s children.

It has become clear that global warming is having and will continue to have devastating impacts on those living in poverty around the world, particularly those in least developed countries. From the island of Shishmaref off the coast of Alaska that is literally falling into the sea to the coastal communities of India that are being flooded by rising seas and the rural communities of Africa that can no longer ensure food security for their families and their children, global warming is wreaking havoc on God’s people. This will only continue as the climate reacts to the greenhouse gases we have already emitted and continue to emit.

As people of faith we are called to work for justice. The U.S. has created more than 25% of global warming pollution and it is our responsibility to not only answer this call but protect and provide for those who will be forced to bear the burden of our actions. The scientific community has told us time and time again that global warming will hit those living in poverty and developing countries the hardest through floods, droughts, an increase in disease, lack of water and civil unrest. Many of these families and individuals are part of the National Council of Churches communities but more importantly they are part of our global community and God’s creation.

As a result of these devastating consequences, there is a clear need for adequate resources to empower these individuals and ensure justice for the most vulnerable among us. As Congress continues to discuss and develop climate legislation, they must provide financial support to those living in poverty abroad. In addition, we must continue to assist in the development of adaptation plans for particularly vulnerable communities while also participating in technology transfers and ongoing assessment of the needs of vulnerable communities around the world. These provisions are key elements of any climate legislation as they will ensure the development of international relief, adaptation, and mitigation programs for those impacted by climate change. The Lieberman/Warner climate bill has provided initial support for impacted communities and we commend Senators Lieberman, Warner and Boxer for their work and dedication to addressing these moral issues, particularly our responsibility to protect and provide for our brothers and sisters abroad. These communities are facing the devastating consequences of global warming including floods, disease and food insecurity. However, we can and must do more and we look forward to working with the Senators to ensure adequate and appropriate support for affected communities.

In our efforts to curb global warming and its catastrophic impacts from taking place, we cannot overlook those individuals who are already being affected by the changes we have forced upon God’s creation. We must work to allow these individuals and all of God’s people to live in God’s abundance and with dignity ensuring that basic human needs are provided for in the future. We must provide financial support and the resources necessary to enable our brothers and sisters to eliminate the devastating impacts that global warming will have around the world.

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