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Lausanne and WEAPRI Partnership for Cape Town 2010- your chance to play a part and be involved
WEA Peace and Reconciliation Initiative in partnership with the Lausanne working group on Peace will be among the few groups running a daily week long programme.
Here at the WEAPRI website we will be providing daily updates rom the Congress as well as direct linkages to you through our partnership with the Global Reconciliation Network. BUT YOU MUST REGISTER to get access by going to http://www.reconciliationnetwork.com
Day 3- Friday 22th : Where do we see signs of Hope?
Led by both Lisa Loden of Israel and Celestine Musekura from Rwanda, evidence of hope in reconciliation was examined. Lisa spoke of important engagements for friendships and greater understanding emerging between Israeli Jews and Arabs, both within Israel and Palestine. These were connected through Christian love and faith and were particularly evident in the work of Musuhala. Musuhala is a ministry of understanding and reconciliation based on creating spaces for free discussion of issues and offence. Most successful are the Musuhala retreats into the desert, where as Salim Munayer, who leads this programme remarked ‘ the desert is an environment that requires each person to depend on each other for survival.’ Particular signs of hope Lisa pointed to were those of women crossing the divide, Christian, Jewish and Islamic to meet and share their lives more closely. She also looked to opportunities for children to engage more naturally rather than take on the prejudices of the adult world.
Celestine gave some background then showed a video on the ‘Great Lakes Project’ a peace and reconciliation training programme in central Africa coordinated by Duke University and helping to bring Christian leaders together from around the region with the expressed goal of overcoming tribalism and ethnic tensions through the ministry of the local church.
The whole programme of facilitated by Bill Lowrey, Director of Peace-building, for World Vision, who had the group divide into smaller units and discuss where in our own contexts we saw ‘signs of hope.’ Rather than report back on those, we considered what were common threads or ingredients that promote peace-making. These in included; time and patience, safe-place to share and resolve issues openly, faith that love and justice were stronger than hate and violence, the presence of Christ, the support and resources of the church, truth speaking, lament and forgiveness.
The third day ended with a draft statement on Apartheid being circulated and participants invited to endorse and sign. That is below.
To view signatories and include your affirmation visit www.reconciliationnetwork.com
Statement of Lament for Evangelicals and the Legacy of Apartheid
This Lausanne Congress 2010 in Cape Town gathered in a land which 16 years ago stood in the grip of one of the greatest evils of our time—apartheid.
We regret that this was not named or confessed at the opening of the Congress.
As participants at the Congress we gathered for dialogue sessions and biblical reflection on peacemaking and reconciliation with careful listening to the stories of Christian involvement and resistance to apartheid. We were also encouraged by stories of hope for the future taking place through local reconciliation ministry.
This leads us, with others, to lament our failure in much of the evangelical church both in South Africa and throughout the world who remained silent about or complicit in apartheid.
Yet we also rejoice that there were Christian witnesses who spoke out prophetically and lived faithfully, at great sacrifice.
This invites us into repentance before our Lord Jesus Christ. We reject the theological heresies which undergirded apartheid. We lament the socioeconomic suffering which is apartheid’s on-going legacy.
This calls the evangelical church to not only lament apartheid’s legacy but opens our eyes to see the pain and wounds of the current realities and injustices which the church fails to protest and engage in our own contexts today. We are called to deeds of repentance and to resist injustices. Wherever there is suffering in our world today, we rejoice where the church lives the alternative, and lament where the church remains silent.
We call upon this Congress to join in this spirit of lament and confession.
Thursday October 21st : Pilgrimage Day
A day of Pilgrimage to see the site historical sites of Apartheid and meet with people involved in the struggle was led by Rev Peter Storey, a South African Pastor who stood in prophetic resistance to the Apartheid regime and the apathy of the white church at much personal cost, including the bull-dozing of his church. Places visited included the infamous ‘Section Six’. Section six had once been a thriving multi-cultural neighbourhood but with the regime its inhabitants were forcibly evicted and all the structures levelled. Today, in honour of the memory of that atrocity the land, some o Cape Town’s most expensive, lays waste and undeveloped. A museum on the site retells the story. From there the group travelled to St Georges Cathedral where Bishop Desmond Tutu defied Apartheid by opening his church to all. In the afternoon the group o 35 met with Christian leaders and community activists in the one o the townships and heard not only of pressing economic injustices, but also of hope as community and church mobilise for just development and neighbourhood empowerment.
Below is included the personal thoughts of one our pilgrimage participants, Ken Sande of Peackmakers Ministies.
Dear Friends,
Yesterday was a day of painful pilgrimage. The Reconciliation study group that I’m part of spent the day visiting places in and around Cape Town that are tied to the nation’s struggle with Apartheid. Our guide in the morning was Rev. Peter Story. Dr. Storey was a Bishop in the United Methodist Church in Johannesburg, pastor to a congregation in “District 6” of Cape Town (an area where all Blacks were forcibly relocated), chaplain on Robben Island (where the most influential political activists, including Nelson Mandela, were imprisoned). He was one of the people who was asked by President Mandela to select the members of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. His insights into the struggle to end Apartheid were amazing.
We visited the former slave market in Cape Town, a monument commemorating the slaves’ suffering, went to two churches that fought against Apartheid, and visited Dr. Storey’s former church in District 6. It is now a museum commemorating the community’s suffering, as well as their noble response to the oppression they experienced for decades at the hands of the South African government. During Apartheid, every person in the country was officially “classified” into 7 different racial categories. Those on the low end of the scale, the Bantu people, were severely restricted in their contact with whites, forcibly relocated to rural townships, deliberately under-educated, forbidden to hold most professional jobs, deprived of any political voice or vote, and harshly punished if they crossed any of the Apartheid boundaries.
The battle to overturn this system was long, painful, and bloody. And for far too long, most of the churches in South Africa either directly supported Apartheid with twisted theology, or silently ignored the massive human suffering it caused for millions of people all around them.
Apartheid and its overthrow triggered thousands of violent beatings and deaths. When the system finally ended, the country was faced with the challenge of pursuing both justice and peace. Dr Storey explained that their leaders realized that if they tried simply to ignore the injustice and suffering of the past, it would be like leaving toxic waste buried a few inches beneath their feet, constantly emitting the noxious fumes of hatred, resentment, and bitterness. On the other hand, if they only sought to bring criminals to justice in court, where would they draw the line? With the soldiers and police who arrested and tortured dissidents? With the politicians and generals who gave them their orders? With the rebels who fought back with guns and machetes? With the newspaper editors who fueled racism and resisted change? With the Christians who silently ignored the great evil that was taking place before their very eyes?
Seeking to avoid both of these extremes, the Mandela government established Truth and Reconciliation Commissions to promote peace and healing. Those who suffered could come before the commissions to tell their stories of pain, which were broadcast publicly in summary form so the whole nation could join in the grieving process. As one man said, “The nation cried my tears with me.” And those who committed the crimes were promised amnesty if they would come before the commissions, confess what they had done, and respond to the questions and grief of the families they had impacted. Over 7,000 chose to do so. One of them was the former Minister of Police, who asked to kneel and wash the feet of a man he had ordered to be tortured.
Although the commissions were officially administered as civil processes, Dr. Storey said that most of them were conducted in deeply theological ways, with a strong emphasis on the biblical processes of confession, redemption, and forgiveness. In many cases, when a person broke down while describing the pain they had suffered, the audiences would break out singing hymns and praying words of comfort and encouragement.
The process was not perfect. Many who had suffered never came forward, and many others stubbornly refused to acknowledge that what they had done was wrong. What was most disappointing to Dr. Storey was that the churches in small towns and villages that had no official commissions did not emulate the process on their own, so that the wounded and guilty people in their communities would find healing and reconciliation. But, in spite of these deficiencies, these commissions were a key to promoting peace and preventing perpetual cycles of revenge.
As he wrapped up his comments, Dr. Storey gave this advice for those who want to do something about injustice and suffering:
He then smiled at our group, commended us for our commitment to peacemaking, and said, “Those who give themselves to the ministry of reconciliation have found themselves in the center of the ministry of Jesus Christ.”
After lunch, we drove outside the city to the township of Kukaleto, which is home to over 250,000 Bantu people who were forced out of the city during Apartheid. Although the government is working to improve conditions, many of the residents still live in tiny shacks built from plywood and corrugated sheet metal. Unemployment is over 65%, and at least one fourth of the people are HIV positive. Most homes include one or more children who have been orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
In the midst of this gloomy place, God is working to bring hope and progress through a variety of churches, one of which is the JL Zwane Church. Their pastor, Dr. Spiwo Xapile, described their ministry in Kukaleto, which includes evangelism, discipleship, food programs, education, job training, and advocating for ongoing social reform. It is a marvelous channel of God’s love and grace into a community that could so easily succumb to hopelessness and despair. We were somber as we walked back to our bus. Then our spirits were lifted by the broad smiles and shining faces of the children playing near the church. Hope can still shine forth wherever a church chooses to be a channel of grace.
When we returned to the Conference Center, our group spent quite a while debriefing on what we had seen and experienced today. All of us were sobered and grieved by the suffering and pain we had learned of. While were thankful for the many Christians whom God raised up to oppose Apartheid or heal its wounds, we were all troubled by the fact that so many churches in South Africa and around the world had either directly supported Apartheid or stood silently by and refused to speak and work against it. Several members of our group described how this same pattern of churches aiding or silently ignoring social injustice continues around the world (as my earlier description of the plight of India’s Dalits illustrated).
My heart was heavy as I walked back to my hotel, thinking of the pain and suffering that is going on every minute in this fallen world. But as I prayed and thought of all the ways I’ve seen God bringing justice and reconciliation over the past 30 years, I regained a sense of hope. I recommitted myself to doing all I can to maximize Peacemaker Ministries’ effectiveness in fulfilling all three elements of the vision God has placed in our hearts:
Families together for life Churches together through Christ Communities together in peace
Please pray that the presentations and discussions of the remaining days (we close on Sunday afternoon) will strengthen this commitment and produce new strategies and alliances for pursing the conference theme, “God in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.”
Wednesday October 20th – Day Two: Shaping a Biblical Vision.
The focus of day two asked – “ What does a faithful Biblical and theological framework for reconciliation look like?” The session was opened by Rev Moss Nthla of the South African Association of Evangelicals by taking us through a snapshot of the history and development of Apartheid. At its roots lay an heretical interpretation of scripture that used the Bible to assert racial and cultural distinction to the point of separation or apartness – what the word apartheid means. Moss spoke of the need and struggle to reclaim a just biblical narrative and the importance of never loosing it.
Co-presenter Rosalee Velloso from Brazil spoke from the passage of the Prodigal’s Son and carefully considered each character and circumstance in the story so as to frame the small group discussion question of how we can contextualize the story and have it speak to us in our own histories and place.
Once again remarkable biblical insights into the text from the group process emerged. These were taken in notes and will be posted when they have been edited.
Tuesday October 19th – Day One: Lament and Hope
Our first dialogue session focused on stories of lament and hope. Led by Celestine Musekura from ALARM there was a deep and very open time of people speaking out from a variety of contexts about facing injustice and oppression. The room was filled to well over capacity, with each person having rich stories and in many instances very painful experiences to speak out. These were shared together in small groups; offence at not being able to feel respected in speaking in their own indigenous language in predominantly white churches, assaults, sexism at work, abduction and kidnapping, imprisonment for human rights and Christian advocacy, rape, murder and genocide. Yet, as traumatic the retelling, these were also accounts of hope and reconciliation and the turning of bitterness into renewal of spirit. In one case there was an account of a victim whose family was murdered, now working together with one of the perpetrators in a ministry of conflict resolution and peace-making.
As Celestine said at the beginning of our first dialogue session; without lament there is no healing, forgiveness or true reconciliation.
Sunday October 17th. Planning Day
WEA Dialogue session met for the first time with our group of just under 40 who will journey together over the coming week. As we met and shared our stories for the first time one couldn’t help but feel there was a group assembled who understood Reconciliation in real life and not just theory. Stories of courage, pain and deep reconciliation and forgiveness were abundant. I felt humbled by the stature and character of those who came to be part of the Journey. It is very special to working so closely with my co-leader Chris Rice, a man of grace and experience, as well as our planning team of Bill Lowrey, Grace Murillo, Lisa Loden, Paula Fuller, Rosalee Velloso-Ewell and. SeongHan Kim. Great too to have Dr Rick Love, Michael McGill and my Kiwi Brother Sam ( Haami )Chapman from the Pattaya group together.
Travelling around Cape Town I am struck by a country deeply divided if not by racial apartheid, but economic injustice. The wealth and shear glamour of parts of this city, with luxury homes and expensive cars and enviable leisure lifestyle are just a few kilometres away from townships where people languish in abject poverty, hunger, Aid’s. The result is that a divided nations still exists and is remains deeply in need of lasting social reconciliation.
Today, Tuesday October 19th marks the beginning of or first dialogue session: Reconciliation as the Mission of God: Christian Witness in a World of Destructive Conflicts—Sharing Our Stories of Pain and Hope”
This dialogue session will focus on open and transparent discussion on the challenge of reconciliation based on the experiences of those presence. It will focus on the realities rather than the theory. It will consider God’s lament about broken relationships and hope that we have been given through the power of Christ’s reconciling grace working through us who choose to accept the call to be peace-makers.
Tomorrows continues with the theme Reconciliation as the Mission of God: Christian Witness in a World of Destructive Conflicts—Shaping a Biblical Vision”
Make sure you also visit the Lausanne website as well as our partner Reconciliation Network site for more updates.
Please take a moment to visit the Lausanne sitehttp://www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010
and read Dog Birdsall’s ‘Why Cape Town’
http://www.lausanne.org/cape-town-2010/why-cape-town-2010.html
The week long programme is made up of four Dialogue sessions with one field extention day and is led by a team of eight who include Chris Rice, co-chair, U.S., Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation; Steve Tollestrup, co-chair, WEAPRI; Sam Barkat, U.S., Institute for Collaborative Engagement; Bill Lowrey, U.S., World Vision International; Celestin Musekura, Rwanda, ALARM; Lisa Loden, Israel, Musalaha; Paula Fuller, U.S., VP multi-ethnic ministries, Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship;Grace Morillo, Columbia, IFES and core participant and delegate team of thirty.
Our programme will available with daily feeds and resources on our WEAPRI website www.weapri.org and linked also through tohttp://www.reconciliationnetwork.com/ . Even though you maybe not there you will be able to follow progress, events and add comment along the way.
