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General Secretary Junge Affirms LWF Context in the Global Human Family

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(l/r) ALCLC participants Dr Peter Bartimawus (Bronnum Lutheran Seminary in Nigeria), Rev. Dr Elieshi A. Mungure (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania and incoming LWF area secretary for Africa), Ms Senait Bahta (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea) and Mr Muloko Kongolo (Lutheran Communion in Central and Eastern Africa) © LWF/Peter Kenny

Address to African Lutheran Church Leaders Emphasizes Dialogue, Inclusiveness

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa/GENEVA, 8 April 2011 (LWI) – The last Assembly of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) was a powerful reminder that the life of the Lutheran communion is framed by the fundamental understanding that it is “always rooted in the global human family.”

The Lutheran communion is “here with others, and we are here for others. We are ecumenically embedded, often neighboring other religions. This is the context in which we live as a communion, and these are the relationships within which we are invited to understand our journey as a communion,” said LWF General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge, when he addressed leaders of African Lutheran churches meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, their first regional consultation after the July 2010 Eleventh Assembly in Stuttgart, Germany.

Still on the Assembly, Junge reiterated participants’ appreciation of worship life at the gathering of the highest decision-making body of the LWF. “Eucharistic worship was the center that gathered us, not a demarcation line that divided us by underscoring our differences,” he said. Despite the full awareness of the “centrifugal forces to which we are subjected in many ways,” the Assembly clearly conveyed that the Lutheran communion is growing not only numerically but also “in depth and in spiritual richness.”

Speaking at the opening session of the 4-8 April Africa Lutheran Church Leadership Consultation (ALCLC), Junge said the Assembly action through which Lutherans asked Mennonites’ forgiveness for past wrongdoings toward Anabaptists emphasized that “a worshipping communion that knows about forgiveness and grace and takes from there its strength to witness in the world is best equipped to face challenges.” The assembly, he added, served to remind that as a communion of churches, the LWF was not an entity on its own.

Quoting from Luke 24:17, Junge, addressing African Lutheran church leaders for the first time since he assumed office last November, asked, “What is it that you are talking about as you walk?” He emphasized his eagerness “to hear from you what it is to be the church in Africa, and what it means to you to be journeying together in a communion of 145 Lutheran churches around the world.”

Junge, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile, spoke of the many parallels that exist between the Latin American and African regions. These include an emerging diverse expression of Christianity for which terms like charismatic or Pentecostal are used; and understanding faith holistically while struggling to hold the dimensions of proclamation, diakonia (social service) and advocacy closely together. People from both regions, he noted, also have in common memories of violence and other issues linked to conquest and colonization that still inflict pain.

Conversations and Challenges

The general secretary said that both the calling and the location of the LWF communion—with member churches in different contexts throughout the world—frames substantially the way in which its members envision their dialogue with one another.

He said part of the communion’s discussions that had not been easy focus on the subject of family, marriage and sexuality.

“If we were not in such deep relationships in the communion, we could have easily escaped this discussion. But because of our relationships, the LWF Council in Lund in 2007 recognized that we needed to face it,” he said referring to guidelines adopted to facilitate respectful discussion and dialogue on the topic.

An LWF task force established a timeline for the member churches to come back from their local conversations and to examine how these would influence the way forward.

“The year marked for that conversation is 2012,” Junge explained. He said he had sought advice from the LWF Executive Committee in November 2010, and was now proposing that next year “is not a deadline; it is a benchmark in a conversation that needs to go beyond that year. 2012 is therefore an interim stage, a moment to come together and to discern responsibly where these local, regional and bilateral conversations take us as communion.”

On other LWF commitments and concerns Junge mentioned the political crisis in parts of North and West Africa and the need to provide not only sustainable political solutions but also to assist people fleeing conflict. Citing the work of the LWF Department for World Service, he said the question was emerging again not “only about the moral obligation to protect civilian population but also about the legitimate ways to do so and even about the limits of a legitimate action to protect.”

While commending the churches in Africa for their important witness in HIV and AIDS response, he stated underlying moral questions. “There have never been enough funds for people living with HIV to get access to medication. However, when the financial crisis hit two years ago, suddenly billions appeared almost miraculously, within few days, to protect big and powerful banks from failure. Umbrellas for banks, but no umbrellas for struggling human beings—where is the morality of this development?”

Junge encouraged the churches to continue providing their strong and valuable leadership on these questions, and “to be a presence of hope, a hand of service and a voice of prophetic denouncement.”

The Lutheran Communion in Southern Africa is hosting the ALCLC, attended by 60 participants. The agenda includes discussions on the LWF regional expression on the continent and input to the Strategic Plan 2012-2017. (903 words)

(Written for LWI by Peter Kenny)

Africa Lutheran Church Leadership Consultation 2011

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