04.04.2003
Economic Globalization and the Church’s Healing Ministry Central Issues at LWF Latin American and Caribbean Pre-Assembly
Churches Have Strong Ecumenical Involvement in the RegionGENEVA, 4 April 2003 (LWI) – Questions about economic globalization and the church’s healing ministry especially in relation to the HIV/AIDS pandemic will be central issues at the Latin America and Caribbean region preparatory meeting for the forthcoming Lutheran World Federation (LWF) Tenth Assembly.
The April 6-9 Latin America and Caribbean Pre-Assembly Consultation (PAC) in San Salvador, El Salvador, will bring together 51 participants including 31 of the 33 assembly delegates from region who will be attending the 21-31 July 2003 Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada.
The president of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil, Rev. Dr Walter Altmann, will deliver a key-note address which will introduce the assembly theme, “For the Healing of the World.” The specific situation of the host church – the Salvadoran Lutheran Synod (SLS) - and of the region will be discussed in greater detail by Dr Angel Ibarra from the ecological association Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (UNES), in a presentation of social and church trends and prospects in El Salvador and Central America.
“The Lutheran churches in Latin America and the Caribbean are very well prepared for the issue of ‘economic globalization’ because of their strong ecumenical involvement in the region,” emphasized Rev. Martin Junge, the Area Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, LWF Department for Mission and Development (DMD). “With their decisive experiences from the region,” Junge stated, “they will make an important contribution to the content of the LWF Assembly in Winnipeg.”
The preparatory consultation will be preceded by a meeting of the Conference of Bishops and Presidents of the Lutheran Churches in Latin America (COP), and by an LWF women’s consultation on April 5.
The aim of the preparatory consultation is to prepare the delegates both for the content and the practical aspects of the work during the LWF Assembly. Planning Bible studies from the region and defining regional perspectives for the thematic work in the ten so-called “Village Groups,” which will discuss the Assembly theme will be important emphases during the consultation.
The LWF Latin America and Caribbean region comprises 15 member churches – 13 of them in Latin America and two in the Caribbean – with about 850,000 members. In addition, there are nine LWF recognized congregations. Each church has a unique background, some founded in the 18th century by immigrants mainly from Europe, and others by missionaries from the USA and Europe. Some of the churches have local roots.
The PAC in San Salvador is the last in a series of five such regional preparatory meetings. The first was the North American consultation, January 23-26 in Denver, Colorado, USA; followed by Europe, February 23-26 in Vienna, Austria; Asia, March 2-6 in Medan, Indonesia; and Africa, March 23-26 in Nairobi, Kenya. An international Women’s Pre-Assembly Gathering was held in Montreux, Switzerland, 14-17 November 2002. The last of the preparatory conferences will be a global youth conference in July 2003 at Guelph, near Toronto in Canada.
About 1,000 participants are expected at the Assembly, including 436 delegates from the 136 LWF member churches. The Assembly is the LWF’s highest decision-making body, meeting normally every six years.
The SLS, with headquarters, in San Salvador has about 12,000 members and has been an LWF member church since 1986. Of the approximately 6.15 million inhabitants of El Salvador, about 92 percent belong to the Roman Catholic Church while eight percent are Protestants.
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