Report from WCC Slogans abound at convening of WCC General Assembly By Parker T. Williamson The Layman Online Wednesday, February 15, 2006 PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL – "Free Palestine" T-shirts abound on Porto Alegre's Pontifical University campus as some 3,000 visitors gather for day one of the World Council of Churches' 9th Assembly. Garnished with doves and olive branches, the shirts showcase "peace and justice," a well-worn theme of the WCC. The history of this council – dating at least back to its Nairobi meeting in 1975 – is replete with passion for liberationist causes. Driven by a belief that human beings ("indigenous peoples") are inherently good and that sin resides in socio-economic structures, the WCC has preached a gospel of revolution. Salvation is achieved by overthrowing unjust, primarily capitalist, systems. The Africa Campaign In Africa, the WCC invested heavily in anti-colonialist warfare. Spending $3,401,045 on that continent between 1970 and 1986, the WCC poured generous "anti-racism" grants into the African National Congress, the South West People's Organization and the Pan Africanist Congress. In 1978, the WCC gave $85,000 to Robert Mugabe's "Patriotic Front," an alliance of tribal guerrillas that toppled the biracial government of Rhodesia. Shortly after that gift was made (much of it originating from a Presbyterian Church hunger fund), Mugabe's forces shot down a civilian plane and slaughtered its survivors, including several Christian missionaries. Mugabe's victorious troops changed the country's name to Zimbabwe and annihilated rival tribes that might oppose his one party state. After the carnage had run its course, Mugabe thanked the World Council of Churches for its "commitment to the principles for which you and we have struggled together." Asian Liberation Africa was not the only continent on which the WCC supported wars of liberation. In Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, WCC officials weighed in on behalf of communist insurgencies, condemning interventions by the West while ignoring killing fields, assassinations and other Marxist atrocities. After Saigon fell, WCC General Secretary Philip Potter said, "The experience of the Vietnamese people has inspired all who fight for their liberation." Liberation for Latin America The Porto Alegre assembly is a homecoming of sorts for the WCC, providing a first-hand look at the fruits of its efforts to liberate Latin America. It was on this continent that WCC officials hailed a revolutionary coup by Marxist dictator Daniel Ortega. The ecumenical organization – with vigorous support by Clifton Kirkpatrick and some of his Presbyterian Church (USA) "missionaries" – invested in massive efforts to assist Ortega in consolidating power over his people. Defending the presence of Soviet and Cuban troops on Nicaraguan soil as a necessary interim step, WCC officials insisted that later, when free and internationally monitored elections were held, Ortega would win by a landslide. When those elections finally came to pass, Ortega was voted out, accompanied by loud lamentations from Louisville and Geneva. Having believed their own propaganda, promoted incessantly during denominationally sponsored "fact-finding tours," officials at WCC and Presbyterian Church (USA) headquarters were astounded by the results of that election. A few years later, when the Soviet Union fell and its adventures in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America ceased, the WCC's liberation program suffered a serious setback. Lacking superpower support and falling income from its churches, the WCC has had to pursue its course virtually alone, with dwindling resources to underwrite its efforts. This, of course, does not prevent the organization from continuing to talk the talk, but its liberationist language – while still passionate – appears increasingly hollow. Few government policymakers heed the WCC's foreign policy suggestions. Many are choosing free-market development over the empty rhetoric of utopian dreams. "What can we do," asked a reporter from East Germany during the Porto Alegre assembly's first press conference, "to help the WCC regain the attention of the world's press?" The reporter's question proved more comment than query. Increasingly, when the WCC speaks, no one seems to be listening. A Familiar Theme Springs of Living Water, a Bible study distributed to assembly delegates, encouraged them to adopt a method of reading Scripture "in which you may read the message behind the words and beyond the words." Doing this, says the study, "It becomes possible to recover the vitality of the narrative, beginning with the stance taken against the structures that imprison and oppress people." In the book's final chapter, the author reads this message behind and beyond the words of Scripture: "In our region [Latin America] and in the world, the force of the economic system that marginalizes large sectors is anti-grace, is dis-grace." The author suggests that Brazilians who live under the shadow of the United States are "faced with a dehumanizing market, political schemes with no credibility, a judicial system that favours the powerful, systemic corruption, a loss of values breaking up our families, communities and societies." Welcome to Brazil/Latin America, a magazine distributed to assembly delegates on their arrival in Porto Alegre, purports to be a fact sheet on Latin America. Beginning with demographic statistics on population and church growth, the magazine's authors then venture into an account of the region's history: "America, a rich continent, only impoverished its inhabitants and enriched the metropolis. Until today, it continues being a rich and unjust continent, with concentration of property and income in the hands of a few and continually bled by unjust relations on the international market, be it in the exchange of merchandise, be it in the payment of exorbitant interest in the international financial system." T-shirts worn by this meeting's delegates may appear somewhat benign. After all, what possible foreign policy impact might be made by students on the campus sporting "Free Palestine" slogans and PLO-type scarves? Measured by bloodshed during the WCC's previous attempts at liberation in Africa, Asia and Latin America, one might well be persuaded to take these slogans seriously. It remains to be seen if the Israel/Palestine conflict and other global hot spots will earn balanced and thoughtful reflection during the course of this assembly. Even at this early stage, it appears that assembly planners have something more than T-shirts in mind. Middle East discussions have been scheduled, and a policy statement may be in the wings.

Respond to this article

Home · Archives · The Layman · Subscribe to The Layman · PLC Publications Presbyterian Lay Committee · Online book reviews · Feedback · Links