Today’s post is by Ulrich Bachmann, CEO of Connexio hope and develop. The peacebuilding activities of The United Methodist Church, East Congo Episcopal Area, described in this article are supported by Conenxio develop. The article originally appeared on the website of the Swiss United Methodist Church. It has been translated by David W. Scott and appears here by permission.
Peace is a costly and at the same time fragile good. In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the churches themselves are part of the conflict, but also search for ways to overcome it. In any case, people there know exactly what they want when they work for peace.
The year that is coming to an end has clearly shown that peace is in no way a self-evident matter and is not obtained without effort. Peace is costly and at the same time very fragile. Many people on this earth are still denied peace.
A narrowing
In the Western world there is the tendency to individualize peace, like so many other things. Yet peace is not a private matter, but rather it always concerns one’s neighbors in one’s immediate and broader surroundings.
Under difficult circumstances
In South Kivu Province in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, The United Methodist Church is committed to the peaceful coexistence of the various people groups. It is deeply impressive how people employ themselves for peace despite enormous challenges.
Complex causes
Often the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo is portrayed as an interethnic conflict. Even when many conflicts are carried out along ethnic lines, their causes are more complex than the differences that exist between the various ethnic groups. Claims to political power, questions of law, and access to increasingly scarce natural resources mix with regional and international interests into an explosive cocktail.
Moreover, in most cases, the violence is carried out by armed militias that are financed, among other means, through illegal trading of raw materials and by political decision-makers.
Great suffering for many people
Those who end up suffering are the people who live in the region. They are forcibly expelled and lose their livelihoods. They carry the suffering of the many victims that the conflict claims. They are exploited and lose trust in neighbors from other people groups.
Meanwhile, over 1.3 million internally displaced people, who have been forcibly expelled from their homelands, live in South Kivu Province. Women and children are thereby also frequently exposed to increased sexual violence.
Communities with potential
In South Kivu Province, as in other regions of the country, religious communities play an important role in society. Often they are active in the educational and health sectors and make an important contribution to social cohesion. On account of their values and ethics, religious communities are predestined to employ themselves for a good coexistence between the various people groups.
Caught in ethnic violence
The reality is, however, much more complex. The churches are part of the conflict as well as part of the solution to conflict. The chairman of the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church in Uvira says that the churches are also caught in the trap of radicalism and ethnic violence. Ethnic identity does not stop at the church doors. Many churches wear the ethnic labels of their leading figures.
Accepted
A pastor from the vicinity of Baraka, a region that has suffered greatly from interethnic conflicts, confirms that it can be different: “When our village was attacked by armed groups, we fled to Baraka. We were accepted by the Methodist church and accommodated regardless of ethnic affiliation.” With that, he stressed that a critical discussion of the roll of the church in conflict transformation is important. Only thus can the church contribute to the pacification of the region.
Messages against hate
Since 2018, The United Methodist Church in the East Congo Episcopal Region has been engaged in supporting peaceful coexistence in the highlands of Uvira and Fizi. To work against hate messages on social media, journalists from various people groups were mobilized under the coordination of Michel Kizibisha to formulate messages against hate and for a peaceful coexistence. The messages were broadcast over local radio stations.
Building bridges
The radio messages have been well received in his area, says Jacques Muzingwa, a journalist that worked on the formulation of the radio messages. The messages built a bridge between the various ethnic groups whose relationship was very strongly characterized by mistrust.
Michel Kizibisha, coordinator of the peacebuilding program, says that through the radio campaign a large number of people from all ethnic backgrounds can be reached at the same time. It is a good opportunity to build awareness within the population of respect for human rights and the constitution.
Stopping injustice
The absence of functioning government structures and the multi-layered conflict in the region have led to a situation where the population often resorts to a sort of vigilante justice or lynch justice. That heats up the conflict situation even more. It is often young men, without work and without prospects, that resort to vigilante justice.
Strengthening the law
Under the leadership of Michel Kizibisha, representatives from women’s groups, young men, and officials such as representatives of churches have been invited to discuss the problem of lynch justice in order to make a contribution to sensitizing the population to the negative and inhumane consequences of lynch justice. The problem of a missing or biased system of law cannot be remedied in this way. Yet this is an important step towards ensuring that people are not convicted by the public though innocent and without a fair trial and must often pay with their lives. Women in particular, who have often already experienced earlier violence, become victims of this lynch justice.
Further work
Antoine Muganza, a fuel dealer from the region, took part in a seminar on this topic and said that the Methodist church must absolutely work more on this important topic. It also means that the women and young men must be more strongly included in order to make a difference. Antoine Muganza realized how important a functioning judicial system and the presumption of innocence are.
To be able to live without violence
The situation of people in South Kivu Province is shaped by very many difficulties. The hope remains that conflict will be transformed and a peaceful coexistence is possible. Aline Nansukura from Uvira expressed it in very moving terms: “Peace is for the dream of a life without violence.”
Dedicated to fostering conversations about the global nature of The United Methodist Church
Monday, December 19, 2022
Ulrich Bachmann: The Dream of a Life without Violence
Monday, September 19, 2022
Klaus Ulrich Ruof: Working for Just Peace
Today’s post is a translation of part of Klaus Ulrich Ruof’s article “Christi Liebe drängt zur Solidarität,” first published on the website of the Evangelisch-methodistische Kirke, the UMC in Germany. It appears here and on UM News by permission. The translation is by UM & Global’s David W. Scott.
On the last day of the eleventh General Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), held from August 31st until September 8th in Karlsruhe, Germany, delegates adopted numerous documents on different subject areas, about which various committees had met in the days before. The documents had then been brought to plenary sessions for remarks and questions, which were incorporated into the final documents. Statements on peace stood out among those adopted.
Don’t think only about Ukraine!
Already at the beginning of the General Assembly, one of the points of contention was the participation of a delegation from the Russian Orthodox Church, which is after all the largest of the 352 member churches of the WCC. Before the General Assembly, many called for their exclusion. The hoped-for encounter of dialogue between the delegates of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church in the Ukraine, which broke away from it, did not come to pass in the days at Karlsruhe.
Behind the scenes of the event, the leaders of the WCC had contact with both delegations, which was almost “a sort of indirect dialogue,” explained interim WCC General Secretary Ioan Sauca at the final press conference. In critical political or ecclesiastical confrontations there is “a margin between diplomatic negotiations and silence,” explained Petra Bosse-Huber, the foreign-relations bishop of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). For the conflict of these churches, the time in Karlsruhe was “kind of in-between.”
In the end, the statement adopted on this conflict, titled “War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region,” denounced the “illegal and unjustifiable” Russian invasion of Ukraine and renewed the call for a ceasefire and the immediate removal of Russian troops. The statement strongly affirms and reiterates the position that “war is incompatible with God’s very nature.” The “love and accompaniment of the WCC global fellowship of churches” stands behind those affected. “We join in praying for all the victims of this tragic conflict, in Ukraine, in the region and throughout the world, that their suffering may cease and that they may be consoled and restored to lives of safety and dignity.”
At the start of the General Assembly, delegates from other parts of the world had reported that the Europe-centered consideration of the war between Russia and Ukraine distorts reality. It is understandable that a statement would be required, but there are still other regions and churches in this world that are affected by massive confrontations, genocide, and persecution. It is therefore only logical if the WCC also makes statements on these. As a result, there were further, shorter statements on ending the war and building peace on the Korean peninsula, consequences of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, the situation in West Papua, and Syriac-Aramaic genocide.
A compromise formula saves the statement on the situation in the Middle East
In the run-up to the Karlsruhe Assembly, allegations were repeatedly made that the WCC had taken a one-sided position for the Palestinians. The concrete reason for this was aspirations that the General Assembly would declare Israel an apartheid state. The feared scandal did not materialize.
The document adopted in the end formulated a hastily arranged compromise: “Recently, numerous international, Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations and legal bodies have published studies and reports describing the policies and actions of Israel as amounting to ‘apartheid’ under international law.” Then it mentions that some churches and delegates strongly support the use of this term “as accurately describing the reality of the people in Palestine/Israel and the position under international law.” Others, on the other hand, hold it as “inappropriate, unhelpful and painful.”
During the discussion of the first draft of the document, the EKD foreign-relations bishop Petra Bosse-Huber warned in a passionate appeal “in all clarity” against speaking about Israel as an apartheid state. In a written statement, she explained that a deep connection with Israel was “a priceless and unearned gift” for the German church that was developed “out of the ground of unending German guilt, including the complicity of our own churches.” Against the background of “this double solidarity with Israel and Palestine, in the future, we will fight together with our siblings on both sides of the conflict for a lasting and just peace in the Middle East.”
Despite the adopted compromise formula, the final document also says that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an obstacle on the “path towards a just peace” in the region. The expansion of Israeli settlements “in the occupied territories” is “illegal under international law.” The expansion of settlements and the accompanying heightened Israeli military presence have increased the suffering of the Palestinian society, because their lands and possessions are further confiscated and attacks from the Israeli settlers have increased.
However, the document also says that the situation of the Palestinian population is further aggravated by “the grave failings of the Palestinian authorities, including reprisals against opposition leaders and the lack of legal and democratic accountability.”
The situation cannot ultimately be solved by violence, but rather only by peaceful means in accordance with international law. Therefore, the WCC Assembly affirmed “the rightful place of the State of Israel in the community of nations” and recognized “its legitimate security needs.” At the same time, “the right of the Palestinians for self-determination” was underlined. “We believe that it is only through an end to the occupation and a just, comprehensive and lasting peace settlement that the security of both Palestinians and Israelis can be assured.”
Friday, April 22, 2022
Recommended Reading: Bishop Wenner on World Methodist Peace Prize Winners
Rosemarie Wenner, retired UMC Bishop for Germany and current Geneva Secretary of the World Methodist Council, wrote a recent reflection for the European Methodist Council about the World Methodist Peace Prizes recently presented. Because of pandemic-related delays, prizes from the last several years were all presented in March. Two of the three winners are European, and the third was Wenner's fellow UMC bishop, the late John Yambasu. In her post, Wenner reflects on the work of peacemaking in light of the Methodist tradition and in the context of the current war in Ukraine. Her words are well worth a read.
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Recommended Readings: Ukrainian United Methodists
As the world anxiously watches developments in Ukraine, here are some pieces about the history of the ways in which the conflict between Ukraine and Russia have shaped The United Methodist Church in Ukraine over the past decade.
On United Methodists and the 2014 conflict:
The Present Political Crisis in Ukraine
German United Methodists seek peace for Russia, Ukraine
Ukrainian United Methodists feel strain of war
On United Methodist peacemaking between Ukraine and Russia in 2015 and following years:
Religious leaders from Ukraine, Russia try peace effort
Russian, Ukrainian women seek peace together
Wednesday, June 27, 2018
Peacemaking as a venue for asset-based mission parternships
In recent posts, I have argued that the church should explore more asset-based approaches to mission to help address the problem of money in mission, that peacemaking is a hallmark of African-led United Methodist mission, and that peacemaking and solidarity with the suffering is a key to United Methodist membership growth in the Congo.
In this piece, I want to build on all three of these insights to suggest that American United Methodists should shift their mission thinking from the question of "How can we give charity to suffering Africans?" to "How can we support African-led initiatives to minister in solidarity with those who suffer?"
In the charity-giving understanding of mission, the problem is suffering, and the solution is American money. Yet, as multiple books have shown, this understanding of the problem and solution is both theologically problematic and ineffective for a variety of reasons.
Yet there is effective ministry being done by United Methodists to spread the gospel and to alleviate suffering in Africa. It's largely being done by Africans themselves, drawing on the assets of local communities, not by Americans showing up and giving handouts. In this model, the problem is separation from others and God and the solution is relationship and solidarity.
Americans showing up and giving handouts is a transaction, and one that is too often understood through the lens of patronage and not religion. It is the antithesis of suffering with those who suffer. African church leaders being in solidarity with their people amidst suffering is a relationship and one that testifies in an authentic way to the gospel.
The importance of African leadership in such missional efforts, however, does not mean that there are no roles for Americans in this type of mission. African leadership can use support. Without assistance from and connection to the outside world, there are grave dangers of pastors dying from disease or malnutrition or of entering into despair at having been forgotten about by the broader church. Connection and the right type of assistance can be very important.
To offer that connection and the right type of assistance, Americans must be willing to take a supportive role. That means not having to be the stars or the centers of the narrative. Such an attitude is challenging to American cultural presuppositions, but it follows the humble self-sacrifice to which Christ calls us. Moreover, it is essential to effective ministry work. Africa will be saved neither religiously nor economically through Western charity. It must be saved by Africans, who can call on the support of Westerners at times they choose in ways that they determine to be helpful.
In addition to being willing to take a supportive instead of a leading role, Americans must also be willing to form solid and equitable relationships with African partners and allow for mutual learning between Africans and Americans. Americans should not presume they have all the answers to African problems. Africans are already tackling their own problems. Yet there is value in having one's own problems reflected back to oneself through the eyes of an outsider. Africans can learn to better engage their own problems, not by learning from American expertise, but by being prompted by American question-asking, observation checking, and mutual discussion. Such mutual learning also allows Americans to learn how best to support African leaders.
Such a model of mission is a significant shift from how a lot of mission currently happens in the UMC. Yet there are good examples of such work going on. Monday's post highlighted one - Friendly Planet Missiology. The ZOE Project has also gotten a lot of attention as an example of the right type of Methodist mission in Africa. The United Methodist Radio Network is an example of a ministry that began with African initiative and has been enhanced by connectional resources. The Congo Women Arise campaign has combined leadership by African women and other church officials with support by American donors and media resources. Global Ministries' practice of mission roundtables seeks to facilitate mutual learning, relationship, and appropriate support. This list is by no means exhaustive, either. The models are out there. I challenge Americans to find them and support them.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Is suffering the cause of UMC growth in the Congo?
Here are two sets of facts:
1. The country of the Democratic Republic of Congo is the site of great turmoil, conflict, and suffering. Moreover, this suffering is not new and was actually greater over the past two decades during the First and Second Congo Wars.
2. The country of the Democratic Republic of Congo is the site of great church growth for the UMC. The number of United Methodists in the country has grown dramatically over the last two decades, and the DRC now has the second largest number of UMC members of any country globally.
Many might look at these two sets of facts and say, "Isn't it amazing how the UMC has grown in the Congo despite all the violence and conflict?"
Yet I would like to suggest that it is possible that UMC growth in the Congo has occurred not in spite of violence and conflict but because of violence, conflict, and how the church responded.
As this blog has shown recently, the UMC in Africa has an excellent history of peacemaking. Nowhere has this been more true than in the Congo. Bishop Ntambo served as a peacemaking intermediary between warring factions during the series of Congolese civil/international wars. He and other leaders of the UMC in the North Katanga Annual Conference and neighboring regions served sacrificially in supporting local non-combatants, suffering with the people, and helping communities survive during the war and rebuild after the war. You can read more about that process in Pamela Couture's We Are Not All Victims.
There were extraordinary costs to this sacrificial choice to support the people. Many pastors died. Serving as a peacemaking intermediary was a dangerous undertaking for Bishop Ntambo. But it also was a strong and authentic witness for the gospel in a deeply hurting situation.
People noticed that witness, and it earned the UMC a positive reputation that helped fuel membership growth in the North Katanga Annual Conference, which is now the largest in the connection. While I in no way wish to condone, dismiss, or excuse the horrific suffering of the Congolese people, it was the UMC's decision to stand with the people that led to growth not in spite of that suffering, but because of the UMC's response to that suffering.
This should not surprise mission historians. In Korea and China, the Christian church grew the most after it had showed solidarity with the people by suffering with them, in the first case under Japanese occupation and in the second case under various Maoist plans.
Yet while this conclusion might not surprise missiologists, it does go against the lessons American United Methodists draw about "African" church growth.
First, as I have said before, we need to be more specific about "African" church growth. That largely means Congolese church growth. The other area of recent UMC growth in Africa is Liberia and Sierra Leone, also places in which the church has stood with the suffering, both during those countries' civil wars and the recent Ebola outbreak.
Second, the reasons Americans give for "African" church growth are usually tied to energetic worship styles or a particular approach to theology. Yet worship is largely a matter of contextualization. Theology is important, and there are worthwhile debates to have about what the church should teach, but successful phrasings of theology are also always adapted to their contexts.
Thus, while US United Methodists absolutely should learn from their Congolese sisters and brothers, we must be wary about learning the wrong things. First, that learning needs to be based on a full understanding of the Congo and the UMC's position in it, not just some simple takeaways from attending a Congolese worship service. Second, it is too simplistic and ignores the importance of inculturation to just say that if Americans incorporate the same worship style and theological phrasings as the Congolese, then the US UMC will grow, too.
Indeed, if the premise of the first part of this piece is right, then the most important thing that the US UMC can learn from the DRC UMC is the importance of standing with and suffering with the poor and suffering
This lesson will not likely be an easy one for American United Methodists, however. American culture exalts the successful, avoids suffering at all costs, and places little value on the poor. These cultural habits have infected the church, both in its liberal and conservative wings. Yet the opportunity for learning and for kenotic suffering remains there for the UMC in the US.
In a more hopeful application of the conclusions of this piece, while the continued suffering in the Congo is deplorable and something that the international community must take steps to end, it is also likely that the UMC will continue to grow in the Congo because of how it responds to that suffering. I would expect that the next area of significant growth will be in the Eastern Congo Episcopal Area, site of some of the worst suffering in the Congo currently, but also site of some of the best UMC ministry going on in the Congo right now.
Monday, June 18, 2018
Recommended readings: African UMC peacemaking
Zimbabwe UMC and other churches march for peace
Sierra Leone United Methodist Men preach political unity
UMC, ecumenical partners preach Christian unity to Congolese women
Teaching Muslims and Christians for peace in Cote d'Ivoire
UMC promotes peace and unity in the DRC
Church offers peace training to young people in DRC
United Methodists preach peaceful Sierra Leone elections
UMC churches in Congo pray for peace and condemn attack on protestors
UMC prays for peace in Zimbabwe
Liberian United Methodists asked to pray for peaceful elections
Kenyan UMC promotes peaceful voting
UMC promotes peace between Pygmies and Bantus in DRC
Note that in all these cases, peacemaking means directly addressing pressing political issues, including those related to ethnicity and religion. That doesn't mean that the church necessarily takes sides in political debates. It does, however, mean that the church is not "apolitical" in the sense of avoiding or ignoring politics. Peacemaking involves the church speaking God's word for peace in the midst of political conflicts.
Friday, March 23, 2018
Kale Yu: Mission and Trump's Pivot to North Korea
As a Korean American, I have tempered optimism about Trump’s decision to meet North Korea's supreme leader, an unprecedented event for a sitting U.S. president in the post-Korean War era.
Prior to the Korean War, my grandfather took his children (including my father) and fled Haeju, his hometown in northern Korea to flee invading communists that were persecuting and executing Christians. My grandfather in the north had seven brothers but only he and his family fled because he became a Christian, specifically a Methodist (since that region was marked by Methodist missionaries). Little did he realize at the time that his conversion to Christianity literally saved his and family's life. Although he fled to the south penniless, he credited God for his deliverance and, as a way of giving thanks, became a Methodist pastor in the south and later superintendent of Sunday Schools.
The rise of communists in the north forced many, especially Christians, to flee to the south. Pyongyang was dubbed "Jerusalem of the East" after the Great Pyongyang Revival of 1907 that made Pyongyang the vibrant center of Korean Christianity but, just like the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D. that pushed Christians outside Palestine, the communist invasion pushed northern Koreans to the south where they started some of the most well-known Korean churches, such as Young Nak Presbyterian Church, started by Han Kyung-Chik who received the 1992 Templeton Prize.
For most refugees who fled to the south, they thought their situation was temporary. The assumption that they would be able to return to their homes in the north was shattered when the conclusion of the Korean War created a permanent line of division between families in the North and South.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the last remaining communist nations, such as Vietnam and Cuba, showed signs of engagement with the West except North Korea. Trump’s pivot from threats of raining “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on North Korea to agreeing with meet Kim Jong Un whom Trump called the “little rocket man” marks a pace of rapprochement that no one anticipated.
However, there are potential pitfalls that could result from the meeting. In the worst case scenario, U.S.-North Korea relations deteriorate to the brink of war that destabilizes the region. The best case scenario would de-nuclearize North Korea and lay the groundwork for North Korea’s opening to the world. A formal peace treaty would be signed (a cease-fire armistice, not a peace treaty, concluded the Korean War in 1953), ending sixty-five years of estrangement and antagonism. Furthermore, a successful summit could reshape the international geopolitical map far beyond the Korean peninsula.
Trump’s spontaneous agreement to a summit meeting with Kim comes less than two weeks of China’s Xi Jinping amending the Chinese Constitution to remove term limits, an act that effectively permits him to remain in power indefinitely, allowing Xi to cast China’s global vision for decades to come. How would a successful rapprochement with North Korea reshape the geopolitics in East Asia with Japan, South Korea, and China? How would peace on the Korean peninsula redefine America’s relations with China? From a Christian perspective, how would warmer relations with South Korea affect China and North Korea's receptivity to Christianity?
While as a student at Princeton Theological Seminary, I was fortunate to know Professor Samuel H. Moffett who was born in Pyongyang to missionary parents in 1916. He considered Pyongyang his hometown and he told me how saddened he became as a young man when his ship carrying him to his college in the U.S. left the Korean port and he could no longer see Pyongyang in the distance. At the age of 81, he and other former missionaries returned to Pyongyang in 1997. Moffett told me he was determined to find his old home in Pyongyang as it was forever etched in his memory but the passage of time under modern Pyongyang made it impossible. Like Moffett, my grandfather longed to return to his hometown in the north but never did.
Would warmer relations with North Korea once again open its doors to friends and families? Would it enable missionaries to return there to re-kindle the light of Christ that burned brightly over a hundred years ago?
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Kwok Pui Lan: Feminist Theology from the Global South and the Church’s Mission
Since the 1980s, feminist theology from the Global South has been developed through various women’s networks. In 1988, the Asian Women’s Centre for Culture and Theology was formed and began publishing the journal In God’s Image. In 1989, the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians was established as a forum for promoting theological works by African women. Latin American feminist theologians also began to include gender into their theological analyses, and the Con-spirando Collective was formed in Santiago, Chile, in 1991 to promote ecofeminist awareness.
The first intercontinental gathering of feminist theologians from the Global South took place in Oxatepec, Mexico, in 1986. The papers presented at that gathering were published in the book With Passion and Compassion: Third World Women Doing Theology (1988). Since then, I edited a sequel entitled Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women’s Theology (2010).
Feminist theologians from the Global South have spoken against the negative impact of globalization and the neo-liberal market economy on women. In some cases, women are absorbed into the global labor market, but many of them still work in precarious working conditions. In other cases, women’s subsistence economy and livelihood are threatened by transnational companies. In Southeast Asia, women’s sexual labor has been exploited in order to bolster the economy. Feminist theologians have pointed out that the free-market economy is gendered and biased against women. They remind us of the Biblical mandate to care for the poor and the marginalized among us.
Cultural criticism is another concern for these feminist theologians. Some African and Asian male theologians have argued for the indigenization or inculturation of theology in their specific cultural contexts, but African and Asian feminist theologians argue that some of the indigenous cultural elements are deeply patriarchal and harmful. Kenyan theologian Musimbi Kanyoro used the term “cultural hermeneutics” to describe the analysis of cultural ideologies regarding gender roles and power, and of cultural violence against women.
Gendered violence and sexual assault are critical issues facing women in the Global South. The kidnapping of 200 schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria in 2014 was a blatant example. War, violence, and religious and ethnic conflicts often lead to rape, sexual abuse, and gender-specific violence. Feminist theologians in Africa and elsewhere have challenged the Church to speak out against gendered violence and to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which affects many African countries.
But women in the Third World are not just victims. They have provided food for the family, cared for the sick, taught the young, and resisted violence and oppression. Indigenous women have protected the environment and fought against the exploitation of their lands and waters. Indigenous feminist theologians speak of a spirituality of resilience and resistance. Many Christian women in the Global South have looked to women in the Bible for inspiration, and have created songs and liturgies to sustain their work for justice.
If the Church’s mission is to proclaim God’s kingdom and to work for justice and peace, the Church must stand in solidarity with women in the Global South. In the past, Christian mission has been criticized for its assumptions of cultural superiority and participation in colonization. Today, Christian mission must be understood as partnership and accompaniment. Properly understood, mission is a two-way process, and each partner will learn in, and be enriched by, the collaboration. Christian women in the Global South and indigenous women have much to teach the Church about resilience, hospitality, and care for God’s creation.
The mission of the Church must include the denunciation of an unjust economic system that benefits a transnational capitalist class at the expense of the poor—the majority of whom are women and children. Through its global networks, the Church can facilitate the sharing of information and resources and build relationships. By working with grassroots groups, the Church can help train women leaders and provide support in their fight for justice.
As a reaction to the forces of globalization, religious fundamentalism and extremism of all kinds have emerged and intensified. Religious fundamentalisms tend to treat women as subordinate to men, and often prescribe strict female codes of conduct. The Church needs to challenge these fundamentalist claims and to promote interreligious dialogue and learning in order to foster mutual respect and understanding. Religious leaders can—and must—work together to address gendered violence in their communities and protect the vulnerable in society.