Title: New mission context urged for U.S., Latin American churches
Date: May 20, 1999
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Contact: news@cm.disciples.org
99b-39
INDIANAPOLIS (DNS) -- The church needs to "ground God's mission in a completely new context today," said the head of a Latin America ecumenical body.
What the Rev. Israel Batista proposes are new relationships culminating in "jubilee communities" aimed at establishing solidarity and reconciliation between churches of the North and South. Batista is general secretary of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI).
He and the Rev. Walter Altmann, president of the CLAI board, were guests for a May 14 dialogue on church mission and church unity. The event was sponsored by the Latin America and the Caribbean office of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)/United Church of Christ Common Global Ministries Board.
Despite a growing world movement to declare a "jubilee" that forgives the enormous foreign debt now crippling poor countries, for Batista, real jubilee concerns the change of political and social systems as well. He said that change involves not only reconciliation, but restitution. "You cannot have reconciliation without restitution."
Jubilee is a "new moral and ethical paradigm" that dignifies human beings, said Batista. "Jubilee is a movement from possessions to solidarity; from reconciliation to restitution, and from death to life."
The church, according to the CLAI executive, needs to move beyond normal tensions to embrace technological advancements while affirming the past. He advocated, for instance, "combining new technologies and collective memory."
He also cautioned against rampant localism, adding that "small is not always beautiful." Yet the most effective alliances, he said, are "built on the catholicity of the local faith community. The unity of the church is a gift of God to humanity through local churches."
The church, according to Altmann, must grow beyond the current "spiritual" understanding of unity into a new form based on testimony and service. "Ecumenism and mission is not a contradiction," said the CLAI chairperson, but "two sides of the same coin."
According to Altmann, the church's unity is centered on one mission -- alleviating human suffering. "When one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers," he said.
"The way of ecumenism is the way of the cross," said the Rev. Robert K. Welsh, president of the Disciples Council on Christian Unity. "In pain and in suffering is the promise of resurrection."
This kind of unity, according to the Rev. Carmelo Alvarez, allows churches to "do ministry in a pluralistic, wounded society plagued with fragmentation and individualism." Alvarez teaches church history at Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis.
"There is an enthusiasm for mission in our congregations that someone keeps saying no' to," said the Rev. Pat Spier, president, Disciples Division of Overseas Ministries. The institutional church, she cautioned, "may be part of the problem . . . by setting rules that impede the movement of the Spirit."
Unity must "be in double directions," according to the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean with the National Council of Churches in New York. "We need to listen to each other.
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