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LWF General Secretary Junge Underlines Urgent Priorities

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LWF General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge responds to a question at the Council 2011 closing press conference. © LWF/H.Putsman Penet

Standing Up with the Marginalized amid Increasing Conflicts

LWI Council Press Release No. 20/2011 | GENEVA, 15 June 2011 (LWI) – The increasing conflicts within and between the nations was one of the topics raised by The Lutheran World Foundation (LWF) General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge, at the closing press conference of the 9-14 June LWF Council meeting in Geneva.

People are increasingly trying to resolve such conflicts with military force, he said. The outcome was then usually tragic, and also highly dangerous for a common future.

It was a major, common task of the LWF Communion to show how people could stay together and live side by side despite great differences. “We are called to come together in reconciled diversity,” said Junge, an ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chile.

Advocacy

Junge made clear that the chief priority of the LWF would continue to be standing up for the marginalized. The LWF must give a voice to the voiceless, or help those who had to live in social isolation because they were infected and affected by HIV, he stated.

Looking back over the Council meeting, Junge referred to the keynote presentation by Dr Volker Türk, director for the Division of International Protection for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. He underlined Türk’s view that receiving asylum seekers and refugees was not “an act of mercy alone but something that concerns and commits us all.”

The general secretary particularly stressed the precarious situation around the Nuba Mountains region in Sudan’s South Kordofan state, where more than 100,000 people have reportedly fled their homes as government troops target pro-South sympathizers. A major humanitarian catastrophe is in the making in the region, noted Junge, saying there are reports of ethnic cleansing.

Reformation Anniversary 2017

Referring to the Reformation anniversary year 2017, Junge stated that the aim was for the 500th commemoration planning to be an ecumenical effort.

“We want to approach the Lutheran Reformation as a global citizen. The Lutheran Reformation has gone to all corners of the world,” said the general secretary. “It is no more exclusively northern European. It is going to be a global commemoration.”

The LWF would engage its ecumenical partners in the process for it to be “ecumenically accountable,” Junge emphasized. He pointed out that LWF did not want to “overwrite” the progress made with Roman Catholics in the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, or with the Mennonites in the action asking forgiveness for Anabaptists’ persecutions, he said. “We want to build on this and to speak on it anew. We want to talk to churches in the Reformation and not of the Reformation.”

Junge also mentioned that another LWF dialogue partner, the Orthodox, would hold a symposium on the Reformation in 2016.

Visa Refusal

The general secretary noted with concern that the Swiss authorities had refused a visa to a Council member from Liberia. “If that becomes the rule,” he said, “we will no longer be able to operate. We are a reliable partner and have made that clear in the 64 years since the LWF was founded.”

This refusal of a visa was also taken up by LWF Vice President for the Asia Region Ms Eun-hae Kwon. The other youth delegates would have liked to get to know their Liberian colleague, who had already been refused a visa before the Stuttgart assembly in 2010, she said.

“Unfortunately, today and during the 2010 LWF Assembly in Stuttgart, Germany, we, the youth participants, are and were not whole,” she underlined.

Role of Youth

A student herself, Kwon underlined the strong role of youth in the LWF. In a rapidly changing time it was important to listen to the voice of young people, she emphasized.

Kwon pointed out that with their knowledge of new media and social networks, youth could play a valuable role in improving connections between individual member churches.

She noted that at present 11 of the 50 Council members were under 30 years of age. “We come from the seven regions of the communion, from different walks of life. Some are students, some are working professionals, some are artists [but] we are all Lutherans.”

According to LWF policy, at least 20 percent of representatives in its decision-making bodies are youth. (709 words)

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