Amid candid international assessments of US foreign policy US Committee plans next steps for Decade to Overcome Violence
Cf. WCC Press Update PU-04-01 of 13 January 2004
Cf. WCC Press Release PR-04-01 of 7 January 2004
A committee of Christians in the United States has released a 2004 calendar of events to promote the World Council of Churches’ (WCC) Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV), an international Christian movement launched in 2001 that will focus particularly on confronting violence and promoting peace and justice in the United States during 2004.
Describing it as “a work in progress,” the US DOV Committee released the calendar during its 13 January meeting at the Interchurch Center in New York City (see below). The Committee is encouraging churches and other Christian peace advocacy groups to share information and resources for promoting the year-long focus on overcoming violence in the United States.
As the committee contemplated plans for 2004, it received some candid assessments about the United States from international partners who are members of the DOV Reference Group, a standing international committee that is advising the WCC on the decade.
Europeans see hopeful and puzzling signs
“The concept of preemptive war in Iraq has shaken the relationship of Europe to the United States,” said the Rev. Dr Fernando Enns of the Ecumenical Institute at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. “In Europe, the media portrays the church in America as conservative, evangelical, and connected to right-wing parties,” he said. “This is puzzling to European Christians.”
“Many Europeans perceive Americans as merely focused on individual, private religious life,” rather than being involved in public policy or corporate dimensions of faith, Enns reported. “It is important for us to know that there are different voices in the American church,” he said. “We find it a hopeful sign that many Christians in the United States are mobilized against the death penalty, are supportive of international climate treaties, and oppose the way prisoners are currently being treated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,” he added.
“If the United States would only live up to its own values in its treatment of Guantanamo prisoners, that would be a witness in itself,” Enns concluded.
The "two faces" of America
“America seems to have two faces,” said Tale Hunges, chair of Changemaker, an ecumenical youth movement in Norway, who compared the United States to the Greek mythological figure Janus, who had two faces - one focused on the past, and one focused on the future.
“On the one hand, Norwegians see an American "face" that we admire - the "city on a hill", a marvelous democracy, the saviour of Europe in World War II,” Hunges said. “The other face of America is one of an aggressive superpower that has only magnified since September 11.”
“In Norway, the opposition of the churches to the Iraq War was the main reason that our government didn’t participate in the occupation,” Hunges added. She expressed hope that the 2004 focus on overcoming violence in the United States would “help activate and stimulate new grassroots initiatives for peace” in the United States and abroad. “Then,” she concluded, “maybe President Bush will be the face of the past, and the Decade to Overcome Violence will become the face of the future for the United States.”
Relationship of violence and disabilities
“When we think of the vulnerabilities in the natural world, in violent situations persons with disabilities are often the most vulnerable,” said Ralphine Manantenasoa Razaka, who represented the international Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN), initiated by the WCC and based in Nairobi, Kenya.
“We must intensify our efforts to stop violence, particularly with regard to landmines,” Razaka said, noting that women and children are most often the victims of landmines. She also pointed out that wartime casualty reports tally the numbers of dead, but not the disabled. “This is an example of further marginalization and discrimination against the disabled,” she contended. Razaka urged Christian communities to join her organization in exploring the relationship of violence and disabilities.
In Africa: new enthusiasm, new concerns
“There is a new sense of hope and enthusiasm in Africa,” said Professor Tinyiko Samuele Maluleke of the University of South Africa in Pretoria. Maluleke particularly noted the 10th anniversary of democracy in South Africa and positive developments toward peace in the Sudan. However, he suggested that there is a growing sense of concern throughout the African continent for what he called “the cultural imperialism” of the United States.
“In this case, we don’t have the former kind of imperialism, but rather a more subtle form of imperialism characterized by the intrusion of MacDonalds, and Coca-Cola into all parts of Africa,” Maluleke said. “And the conservative Christian televangelists have become the model for many church leaders on the continent,” he said. Maluleke also expressed concern that historic links between Africans and African-Americans are weakening in recent years.
"Deeper theological issues"
In a brief presentation at the meetings, the Rev. Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC), said that member churches and staff have expressed “a lot of energy and enthusiasm” for the US focus on the DOV. He noted that the NCC would soon be filing an amicus brief on behalf of prisoners in Guantanamo, and that strategies were developing for supporting the decade in state and local councils of churches across the country.
As American Christians consider the specific events on the calendar in 2004, they must remember, “to address the deeper theological issues that underlie peace,” said the Rev. Dr Emmanuel Clapsis of the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts, and a US member of the international DOV Reference Group. “Activism without spiritual connections will lead to fatigue,” he added. “Our spirituality will give us power to act.”
The calendar for 2004 events in the US is posted on the Decade to Overcome Violence website:
Photos of a 12 January DOV worship service in New York are available at:
www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/press_corner/us-focus.html
A DOV-US focus poster on "The power and promise of peace" is also available on the DOV website:
Media contacts for the New York meeting are:
WCC-US: Jocelyn Bakkemo, tel.: (+1 212) 870 2470, email: usdov@wcc-coe.org
WCC-Geneva: Juan Michel, tel.: (+41 22) 791 61 53, mobile: (+41 79) 507 63 63; email: media@wcc-coe.org
