02.05.2005
How Can Cultural Encounters Lead to Opportunities for Transformation?
LWF Study Team Reflects on Upcoming Publication on EthicsCAPE TOWN, South Africa/GENEVA, 2 May 2005 (LWI) - When different worldviews, histories or cultures encounter each other, how can they open up "windows" that lead to transformation? How can moral life be negotiated at such intersections from a Lutheran perspective?
These challenges are the focus of a book being developed through the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) study program on intercultural ethical deliberation, under the auspices of the Department for Theology and Studies (DTS).
At their third and final meeting near Cape Town, South Africa, March 17-22, members of the eight-person writing team discussed their draft articles on topics ranging from transition to democracy in Hungary, to education in Brazil, agricultural technology in the United States of America, and indigenous plants' privatization in Africa.
They reflected on how a meeting point of cultures and traditions, for example, could become a "moral moment" during which choices must be made on what was considered to be ethical. "I must listen to the other in ways that challenge me; that seem very Lutheran!" commented Dr Yuen Waiman, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Hong Kong. Prof. Dr Hans G. Ulrich, University of Erlangen, Germany, emphasized that from a Lutheran perspective, morality was not about right or wrong, "but how we live together aware of each other and in light of what we have received from God."
"We realize we cannot stand on higher moral ground and judge others. If we try to judge the salvation of others, that is sin. But the church must speak out and confront practices that discriminate," pointed out Brazilian theologian Rev. Dr Wanda Deifelt, currently teaching at Luther College in Iowa (USA). Ms Puleng Lenka Bula, University of South Africa added: "For those of us who have been conditioned with ethics as right or wrong, this is really liberating. We should not be judgmental, but we need to name what inhibits the fullness of life for ourselves and our neighbors."
As one group member observed: "We came together as sisters and brothers in Christ, but a deeper sense of community has been formed through the give and take, through dialogue as a creative transformation, or as the Lutherans might put it, 'the mutual conversation and consolation of sisters and brothers.'"
Ethics at the Intersections of God's One World, the book bringing together this work, will be published later this year. It is being edited by DTS Director, Rev. Dr Karen Bloomquist, who is also study secretary for the church and social issues.
(429 words)
If you want to edit this article yourself and adapt it to a given format, follow our editing information
