God of Life: lead us to justice and
peace
Report and Reflection on WCC 10th
Assembly in Busan
For me it is really wonderful experience
to have an opportunity, not only to come and visit but also being a part of one
big event in churches life, the 10th World Council of Churches’ Assembly. So I am
really happy and greatful to be in WCC 10th Assembly in Busan. It is a life time
opportunity in my life.
I thank Hanshin University for
giving a chance for Studies in Ecumenism and Social Transformation class being
a part of GETI and WCC 10th Assembly in Busan. I believe with these
chances we learn a lot of things, especially to learn about ecumenism, about
struggle for justice and peace from
many places in the world, about how churches involved strongly in social
issues, and many other things.
Report
: Daily Routine
Day 1 November 4th, 2013. Indonesia
Bible Study: the participants had discussion about the meaning of water in relationship
with mission as main theme of that day. The participants agreed that from the
story from Act 8:26-40 we can learn about inclusiveness. The Ethiopian, a
eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians can not enter
to the Jewish Christian community in Jerusalem. The
action of baptizm was a sign of inclusiveness that shown by Philip ordered by
God. This understanding became a lesson for churches, especially in Indonesia,
to practice inclusiveness among pluralistic life in Indonesia. Also to have
mission work with inclusive understanding and not with exclusive understanding,
only such as converting people become member of church.
Madang Workshop: I attended
Madang Workshop on Christian Minorities in Asia and Interreligious Dialogue:
Life at the Margins. Christianity is still considered as minority in Asia. Many times Christians become victim of the majority in Asia. But as
Christians, we have to stop our feeling being victimized by majority and start
to become “agent of change”. To do so, Christians
have to work together with other minorities in Asia, and also with Muslim (as
the majority in some countries in Asia). It is important for Christianity in
Asia to development their own theology and not just copy from western theology.
Ecumenical Conversation: I attended Ecumenical Conversation on Religions
working together for peace and freedom. Interreligious
dialogue is not just academic matters and exercises, but should be practical.
Doing the interreligious dialogue needs the understanding of common social
struggles in our own context. People have to use “common language” in doing
interreligious dialogue which are issues of human right, ecology, injustice,
demilitarization, etc as similarity and commonality that shared by people.
Day 2 November 5th, 2013. Indonesia
Bible Study: the participants agreed
that church unity should be beyond territory boundries. Church’s unity is more
than memberships, or ethnicity, or just about displacement of membership between churches. Church’s unity is “one in
action” to do missio Dei in Indonesia context. Unity should be understood as
church’s effort, not only given by God (still we have to confess that unity is
gift in Christ through the Holy Spirit). It needs understanding and desire to
serve each others, so the church can serve other people as their neighbors.
Unity Plenary: I was really suprised because Din Samsuddin,
as the leader of one of the largest Muslim organization in Indonesia had a
chance to deliver his speak. He spoke that religions should not fight each
other, but use the communuality task as a common language to deal with poverty,
hunger, crisis on ecology, overcome
violences, and create justice and peace among the people. This plenary focused
on church vision of unity and church journey towards that vision in the
fellowship of the WCC. The plenary reminds us that unity is not our creation
but gift in Christ through the Holy Spirit. That is why we all confess that the
church is one. In Unity Plenary I learned about new understanding of unity as
communal love, as action of giving and receiving love. Church’s unity is a
credible sign to the world that there is still hope from God. Unity is
definetily not uniformity but plurality -
the riches of diversity. So unity is God’s calling to us as church.
Church’s unity is the way of chruch to serve God through serving people
in their struggles
and spreading hope to all human beings. Unity should be church’s action to face
our humanity reality such as poverty, HIV/AIDS, to overcome violence and giving
hope to the world. Unity is a challenge to the church. With its unity church
can answer people’s question about where is God in their struggles. In this plenary, participants being
asked not only to become more familiar with the vision of full visible unity,
but also to contemplate some of the main hopes and challenges that the vision
and pilgrimage experience today, to explore the contemporary contextual
relevance of the ecumenical movement, and to renew church’s shared commitment
to the vision “that all may be One, so
that the world may believe”.[2]
Ecumenical Conversation: I
attended ecumenical conversation about Religions working together for peace
and freedom again. I worked in one of the group that talked about religious
freedom. The participants affrim that religious freedom is essential rights for
every humanbeings and should be respected, and the state protects individuals
religious freedom. The participants acknowledge
as a challenge is the excerise of one’s religous freedom may impact the
religious freedom of another. The ecumenical movement should advocate and lead
at the forefront to promote religious freedom and respects.
I helped my professor, Rev. Drs. Stephen Suleeman, MA.Th, Th.M in
Jakarta Theological Seminary booths with LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bisexual and
Transgender) issues, during the Madang time. And I attended Madang activities on Solidarity to Palestinian
from 18.00 to 19.00.
Day 3 November 6th, 2013. Indonesia
Bible Study: one interesting statement in this bible study was an objection
from Rev. SAE Nababan, former president of WCC from Indonesia. He did not agree
with the word “Just and Peace” that often used by WCC. He emphasized that it
should be “Justice and Peace”. According to him, the word “Just and Peace” have
been influenced by the term of “Just war” that has negative connotation used by
western people. So he suggested that church should use the term of Justice and
Peace, not only “Just and Peace”. About justice the participants agreed that
church have to take a side with people who struggle for justice. Church has to
overcome injustice situations that happened in its contexts. Injustice
situation can be happened because misuse and abuse of power. So there will be a
time that church should face injustice. Church should be like Elia, speaks with
prophetic voices against injustice.
Justice Plenary: the session
began with interesting questions about what kind of world we live today, and
what kind of world that our children and their children children will live in. The fact that now there are many
injustice situations in the world,
like social, economic and ecological injustice, human and ecological abuse,
exclusion and improvement of the vulnerable and the denial of the rights and
dignity of many and particularly of people with disabilities, women, children
and people with HIV/AIDS. Those situations are increasingly seen as inevitable
fallouts in a world gripped by the logic of dominion, growth and greed.
Injustice has always been a part of human history. Churches need to recognize the
moral imperative of confronting injustice as an integral part of “costly
discipleship”.[3]
Without love we can not be righteous and can not do
justice. Love is the reason for doing justice in this life. God is righteous
and because God’s love, God does justice to all creations. Church’s core
ministry should be justice. Fighting for justice is not only NGO’s concern but
should by Church’s concern. Such as justice for people living and affected
by HIV/AIDS, for people who need medical treatment, for people who need food in
their hunger, for eco-system, etc.
For doing justice in its contexts, church can reform the injustice system of
society, advocate justice campaign, always speak out about justice, and do the
justice ministry, come out from church’s comfort zone and stand with the people
who struggle for justice, show church’s solidarity with victims of injustice
systems, side by side with people who fight for justice and always spread the
Gospel of ecolife and justice.
Madang Workshop: I attended one
interesting Madang workshop under topic of SAVE toolkit training. In this
workshop I learn one new approach to have HIV/AIDS training for people. Usually
in HIV/AIDS training people use ABC
toolkit training (ABC stands for Abstinence, Be faithful and Condoms). Now there is new toolkit training called SAVE. SAVE
stands for Safer Practice (include ABC inside), Access for threatment
and nutrition, VCT (Voluntary
Counceling and Testing)
and Empowerment (including educate people about HIV/AIDS). There is
ultimate different between ABC and
SAVE approach. ABC only focus on individual responsibility, but SAVE focus more
on social responsibility and justice. This workshop promotes the SAVE
methodology for HIV prevention, awareness raising and education. SAVE
methodology provides a more holistic way of preventing HIV transmission by
incorporating the principle of ABC while providing additional information about
HIV transmission and prevention, providing support and care for those people
already living with HIV and actively challenging the denial, stigma and
discrimination so commonly associated with HIV.[4]
I attended Madang activity on
Palestinians booth and having a interesting discussion on peace in Palestina. I
got new informations about situation
in Palestina particularly on children condition there. The speakers said that
Israel is the only state in the world that take children in age 12 to military
court, only for throwing stones to Israeli military vehicles. Many children are
now in Israel military camps or jails. They are going to loose their
childhood and opportunity to have education. These kind of information should be heard by people and hopely they can
support freedom for Palestinians, rather than
supporting Israel with their invasion actions.
Day 4 November 7th, 2013. Indonesia
Bible Study: Peace in Indonesia language can
be translated into “Damai sejahtera”.
Peace is not only for ours but also for all people and for all
creations, and peace always brings change to life. Peace is
eschatological process. Peace will happen gradually like light that remove
darkness slowly. This is the real struggle for having peace in life. Ecumenical
movement has to bring peace and that means always talks about what and how
peace can be perceived by all people.
Peace Plenary: This plenary shares stories, images and signs of hope that God is
leading us to justice and peace. Peace is a gift and a promise from God, a call
that all can answer, a journey of faith to which all are invited.[5] Peace
is not only “profession” (making peace) but should be passion of every people.
Peace maker always change the situation to become better. Peace is exodus
journey from situation of “war” to better situation. Peace is our ecumenical
journey, and can be started from giving forgiveness to each other, to ourselves
and move to give forgiveness to our enemies. Peace movement is Jesus’ call for
radical discipleship for all of us.
Madang Workshop: frankly at the beginning I assumed that in this Madang Workshop
participants would
talk about inter-faith activities as a new way of
ecumenism. But I was disappointed because this Madang’s class only talked about
Islam phobia in European context. No wonder because this workshop was moderated
by Churches together in Britain and Ireland. I did not have much to learn here.
Day 5
November 8th, 2013. This is a last day of WCC 10th assembly in
Busan, also SEST’s last day in Busan. I attended morning prayer, closing plenary
and sending prayer. After sending prayer, SEST class went
back to Seoul with KTX and arrived on dormitory around 09.00 pm.
Reflection
I want peace[6]
The peace that
is based on justice and respect for life;
The peace that
upholds human dignity and the integrity of the created order. The peace where
nation shall not lift up sword or bomb against nation;
Where people can
live without fear or terror;
Where no one
will live in hunger and despair;
Where all people
can access the resources of the world.
The peace where justice is its foundation. I want peace.
God of
Life leads us to Justice and Peace is WCC 10th Assembly’s
theme. This theme reflects Asian
people’s struggles in general. This theme reflects
Asian people’s struggles for justice and peace, because of human rights violations, military
dictatorship, discrimination among the
people,
inter-religious disharmony,
ecological crisis, economic problems, poverty, lack of women and children’s
rights, north hegemony against south (Asia), global capitalism
and
systematic economy colonialism by multi-national coorporations that dregring out billions tons of
minerals from Asian’s soil like coal, oil, gold and even uranium. With this theme, as an Asian people I realize that
Asian people is being asked to join ecumenical journey together and try to pursue
justice and peace in Asia particularly and whole over the globe as well.
Along with WCC 10th Assembly’s theme I
realize that there is new ecumenical understanding and awareness among
churches. It is not only about unity among churches or denominations, but now
ecumenical movement has broader understanding and awareness which is pursuing
justice and peace for all God’s creations. New ecumenical perspective covers
all aspects of life. Ecumenical struggles and scrimmages for justice and peace
in this new perspective can be elaborated into three sub themes: Life Together
in Faith – Unity and Mission, Life Together in Hope – for Justice, Peace and
Reconciliation in the World and Life Together in Love – for a Common Future.
In general I acknowledge that being in ecumenical
journey and movement means translating God’s mission in this world through
active actions of the churches pursuing their unity. Just like Paul said, “So
there are many parts, but one body.” (I Co 12:20). Unity is no uniformity.
Unity is respecting differences as one body of Christ. Unity is respecting
other traditions in church life and together living as body of Christ. Unity is
only for one main purposed that called to do Missio Dei in this world.
Secondly ecumenical journey and movement means
translating God’s mission in this world through active action of the churches building
good relationship with other as their neighbors. It means it is important to
have inter-religious and inter-faith dialogue between churches and other
religions and faiths. It is important for churches and other religions and
faiths have common languages in this world as neighbors. It is not an easy work
but still it should be done by all people because we share same world and
humanity. One of the important elements in inter-religious and inter-faiths
dialogue is the important of religious freedom as form of religious justice and
peace.
Thirdly ecumenical journey and movement means
translating God’s mission in this world through active actions of the churches
involving in social issues, locally, regionally or globally. Churches should
put their attention not only to rituals, but also to social issue in their
contexts. Churches have to deal and against gender injustice, discrimination
among people based on race, cast, economy, education or sexual orientations.
Churches have to put their attentions to help people in their poorness, to help
people have their own dignity, to humanize people with love and dignity.
Churches have to raise their prophetic voices against injustice situation,
including ecological injustice[7] and
seek for peace for all people and all creations.
Through those there reflections above, I understand
that ecumenical journey and movement is not only a discourse, but real action
from churches as body of Christ. Churches have their life and salvation from
God of Life who is the Sources of their life. Churches have to pray to God of
Life to lead churches pursuing and seeking for justice and peace, not only for
them self but also for all creations. An ecumenical journey and movement is an
action from the churches answering people questions about churches existences
during their suffering life, even answering earth questions while experiences
injustice from human’s injustice actions.
I will close my reflection with poetic prayer written
by Bishop Reuel Norman O. Marigza from United Church of Christ in the
Philippines.[8]
God of Life leads us to act.
God of life, lead us to justice and peace. You are
very Source of our very lives. You created us in your own image with dignity
and worth. You gave meaning and purpose for life. Without you we cannot achieve
full justice and peace.
God of life, lead us from injustice and un-peace to
justice and peace. Lead us to see injustice in Asia and in this world of people
against people, of people against nature, of structures and systems that
dehumanize and ravage creation. Lead us to realize that there can never be
peace where injustice exists.
God of life, lead us to do justice and peace. You
chose to call out a people to witness and manifest your will, awaken us to the
truth; that we are to work together with you to bring about justice and peace,
that we are not just to pray but also advocate and do, and work for total
salvation which you worked out ahead for humanity and for the world.
It can be fulfilled start by answering Jesus’ prayer, “Ut Omnes Unum
Sint” in John 17:21, through our ecumenical journey together.
[1] Information was taken from WCC 10th Assembly document number PLEN 4 Mission:
a Call to life-giving witness.
[2] Taken from WCC 10th Assembly document number PLEN 5 on Unity in Christ:
the journey of the fellowship
[3] Taken from WCC 10th Assembly document number PLEN 6 on God of Life,
lead us to do justice in today’s world!
[4] World Council of Churches, WCC 10th Assembly Handbook, Geneva:
WCC, 2013, 113
[5] Taken from WCC
10th Assembly document number PLEN 7 on God of life leads us to build
peace in today’s world.
[6] Short poem from Rev. Rev. Connie Semy P. Mella’s reflection in Asian
Plenary. She is is an ordained Pastor of The United Methodist Church presently
serving as Associate Dean at Union Theological Seminary, Philippines); in Asian
Plenary, she was one of three women that gave reflection on Asia situation.
[7] Sometimes it
does not seem to be fair to push third world countries to stop cutting down
forest in their land, while most first world countries in the north are the
highest energy user in the world. It should be balance and justice. Churches
through WCC for instance have to suppress first world countries to reduce their
energy consumptions.
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