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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 17.11.2002 |
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| LWF Vice President Underlines Women’s Role in Transforming Society |
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“For the Healing of the World”: First Pre-Assembly Gathering
MONTREUX, Switzerland/GENEVA, 17 November 2002 (LWI) – The first preparatory consultation toward the 2003 Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Tenth Assembly officially began on November 15 with a call on women to recognize their significant responsibility in effecting change of attitude and transformation in a world in which the weak and voiceless are increasingly being marginalized by the powerful.
“God has created a beautiful world order but we have turned it into a market place for profits and losses,” said Rev. Dr Prasanna Kumari, LWF vice president for the Asia region, when she addressed representatives from the Federation’s member churches attending the November 14-17 Pre-Assembly Women’s Gathering that took place in Montreux, Switzerland.
Kumari, New Testament Bible scholar from the Arcot Lutheran Church in India, cited challenges such as globalization, poverty, hunger, HIV/AIDS and violence on all levels of society, and urged women to recognize that the role they play in effecting change in their local situations is as important as that of world leaders. “We [women] can do something about the gloomy world situation that we live in today.” “We can plead for life,” she said in her Bible study presentation focusing on healing in interpersonal relationships.
The women’s pre-assembly is the first in a series of seven such consultations – five regional ones in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America, and a global youth event – that will take place before the July 21-31 Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada. Deliberations are based on the Assembly theme, “For the Healing for the World.”
Kumari stressed that there is not part of life that does not need health and wholeness in the world today. In their genuine efforts to create a safe haven, human beings have created more sickness and pain, both in interpersonal relationships and society, and women know this only too well since they experience on a daily basis the “suffering, violence, abuse, silence and oppression.”
For Kumari, a former executive secretary of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India – a body of ten Lutheran churches – the Assembly theme, decided on two years ago, is even more apt today. “September 11 was the day when the hopes and aspirations of the victims and their families came to ground zero,” she said in reference to the 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States in which thousands were killed. She noted that this was one event that testified to the reality that hatred and violence are at their peak.
The LWF vice president questioned justification for the US-led war against terrorism, especially after the terrorist attacks. “Under the guise of eliminating terrorism, hundreds of thousands of Afghan people are either killed or made homeless,” she noted. In Iraq, the west’s economic sanctions imposed during and after the Gulf War in the early 90s resulted in the death of over half a million innocent children. “The number of children killed in the effort to make Saddam Hussein powerless are more than those who died in Hiroshima [1945 atomic bomb],” Kumari said. She wondered if the purpose had been achieved when efforts to eliminate weapons of mass destruction have ended up eliminating the “holy innocent children, widowed women, disabled many men, and left ordinary Iraqi’s today a suffering and dying people, suffocated in silence.”
Kumari recalled her encounters with Palestinian and Israeli women working for an end to the ongoing conflict and restoration of peace in their region. “They cry out for peace and communal harmony in the midst of the loud noises of the tankers and firing. They are pleading to let the children live.”
Religious intolerance is on the increase and many have lost their lives, human dignity and rights for the sake of their faith, Kumari noted, mentioning Africa, India and Indonesia among other places, where Christians are persecuted for their faith.
Kumari also noted that while economic globalization has a positive impact for the big multinationals it suppresses the weaker sections of society. The marginalized continue to raise their voices “against the new rules of our global economy that are governed by competitive logic that constantly seeks out ever lower production costs. This race is profit-oriented and not life-oriented.”
Women can make a difference in restoring health and wholeness, and building a global community of equals, Kumari told the pre-Assembly participants who included around 60 representatives from LWF member churches worldwide. Her biblical reflection was based on the story of Nabal’s wife Abigail, who averted bloodshed in her community by playing the role of a peacemaker (1st Samuel 25: 1-42). An opening worship of the Pre-Assembly Women’s Gathering took place November 14 in the evening.
As a member of the LWF Executive Committee and Council – the governing body meeting annually - Kumari is chairperson of the Standing Committee for World Service and a member of the Program Committee for Theology and Studies. The Assembly, comprising delegates of all LWF member churches, is the highest decision-making body of the Federation. It is normally held every six years.
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