LWF General Secretary Noko Calls for Pan-African Lutheran Council
Namibia: “To Be Lutheran Is To Be Ecumenical”
WINDHOEK, Namibia/GENEVA, 13 November 2005 (LWI) – The general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, has called for the establishment of a Pan-African Lutheran council to promote inner Lutheran unity. As an instrument of the African Lutheran communion, it would also enhance ecumenical engagement and inter-faith dialogue.
In his November 9 key note address to participants in the Africa Lutheran Church Leadership Conference taking place in Namibia’s capital Windhoek, Noko said the strengthening of inner Lutheran unity was a priority for Lutheran churches in the future. “To be Lutheran is to be ecumenical,” he said, and cited the October 1999 signing of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the LWF and Roman Catholic Church in Augsburg, Germany.
There are over 80 representatives of African Lutheran churches and partner churches and organizations attending the November 9-14 conference under the theme, “From Isolation to Communion: For the Healing of Africa.” The three Lutheran churches in Namibia jointly with LWF are hosting the meeting.
According to the LWF constitution, Noko explained, full membership in the Federation implied that all churches were in pulpit and altar fellowship, which meant that the pulpits and altars of every member church were open to the ministers of every other member church. “We need to give structure to this commitment and should develop specific procedures by which pastors from sister churches can be recognized in the [clergy roster].”
Noko described the 1947 formation of the LWF in Lund, Sweden, and the historical 1955 gathering of all African Lutheran churches in Marangu, Tanzania as clear signals that Lutheran churches would do whatever was possible to move out of isolation to communion. The delegates of the two African churches present at the founding of the LWF—Madagascar and South Africa—were both Norwegian missionaries. The Executive Committee elected at the 1952 Second LWF Assembly in Hanover, Germany had no African representation, Noko recalled. He noted that the Marangu meeting had made it painfully clear how isolated Lutheran churches in Africa were at that time.
The LWF general secretary expressed the hope that the meeting in Windhoek, which is an occasion to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Marangu conference, would be another milestone on the way out of isolation.
Noko particularly stressed the need to end women’s isolation in Lutheran churches. “Despite elaborate theological reasoning why women should not participate in the vineyard of the Lord, we can’t afford to argue that way,” he said. He reminded the participants how similar biblical and theological arguments were used in the past to justify political and economic systems such as apartheid in order to exclude the black community. “Africans cannot forget this,” he stressed.
He suggested that the church leadership conference consider appointing a doctrinal committee to assist the Lutheran communion in Africa to deal with contemporary challenging theological and ethical issues such as human sexuality.
Another subject for serious consideration was the improvement of working conditions of African Lutheran churches’ employees. Noko said he had encountered “painful situations in churches, where church workers are living under conditions of abject poverty, and pastors and other church employees are unpaid for months.” He proposed the study of models of church workers’ unions in other countries such as Finland in order to find ways of dealing with this issue. (569 words)
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