(!) Asian Christians Witness for Peace
Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2005 05:57:12 -0700
Sightings 4/14/05
Asian Christians Witness for Peace
-- Samuel C. Pearson
With a theme of "Building Communities of Peace for All," the Christian
Conference of Asia held its twelfth general assembly in Chiang Mai,
Thailand, from March 31 to April 6. About two hundred voting delegates
from Asian Christian churches conducted business and shared in worship and
fellowship. They were joined by an equal number of representatives of the
World Council, other regional councils, and the Federation of Asian
Bishops' Conferences, as well as ecumenical partners from several European
and North American churches and observers. Young people from numerous
member churches served as stewards. Christian growth is now focused in
areas outside North America and Europe, with Asian Christianity assuming
an ever more important role in the life of the contemporary church.
Conference membership includes churches from Australia, Aotearoa/New
Zealand, and the Philippines, where Christianity is a large and
influential faith community, as well as churches in nations such as Laos,
Cambodia, Indonesia, and Pakistan, where Christianity is a minority faith
community living in a variety of relationships both with the majority and
with their governments. Membership includes very old churches such as the
Mar Thoma Church of India as well as young churches formed in the
nineteenth or twentieth century.
Ethnic and linguistic differences add to the diversity represented by this
regional conference and to the difficulties Asian Christians face in their
ecumenical endeavors. In many of the nations whose churches were
represented at the assembly, Christians are regarded with hostility and
labor under significant restrictions. Yet the mood of the assembly was
positive, as delegates celebrated their unity in Christ and struggled to
define their role in building communities of peace for all.
Committees focused on specific issues of faith and unity, justice and
development, ecumenical formation, gender justice, and youth empowerment.
Given the difficult circumstances under which many of these churches labor
and their striking diversity, recommendations for change tended to be
fairly general in nature, and criticism of forces threatening peace tended
to be more specific with respect to entities outside Asia than those
within. Most decisions were reached without dissenting votes. The one
significant exception came with respect to a resolution naming Asian
nations responsible for violence and threats of violence, which sharply
divided the delegates and seemed to leave the majority abstaining from
vote.
It was encouraging to witness the way in which representatives of many
different traditions and ecclesiologies were able to express their unity
in Christ. Their harmonious relationships with the Catholic Church in Asia
were also apparent. Father Tom Michel, representing the Asian Bishops'
Councils, announced the death of Pope John Paul II, and the assembly
expressed both condolences to the Catholic community and gratitude for the
many ways in which this pope's ministry reached beyond his own church to
the entire Christian community. On Sunday, delegates attending churches in
and around Chiang Mai were welcomed by Catholics as well as Protestants.
Conference business continued with Dr. Prawate Khid-arn, a Thai, being
chosen to succeed Dr. Ahn Jae Woong as general secretary. The presidium
for the forthcoming five years includes representatives from Bangladesh,
Laos, Taiwan, and Timor. The Assembly reached a decision to move its
offices from Hong Kong to Chiang Mai, Thailand, a move that was advocated
largely for fiscal reasons, but that may have other advantages as well. In
that regard, one could not fail to sense the warmth of Thai hospitality
toward the assembly and representatives of the churches of Asia. Thaksin
Shinawatra, the Prime Minister of Thailand, delivered an address to the
assembly on the theme of the meeting. As the political leader of a nation
suffering considerable unrest associated with religious differences, he
clearly had given a great deal of thought to the question of how religious
communities may encourage peace.
Lectures in memory of D. T. Niles, a leader in the development of
ecumenism in Asia, were presented by several speakers. Among the most
interesting and challenging was one by James Haire of Australia, who
offered theological reflections on the role of the Christian in the
contemporary world. The thrust of his argument was that Christianity
sought to replace the kinship relationships of the Graeco-Roman culture
with "a fictive kinship religious community based on identity in Christ in
which membership is voluntary." Noting that this community has sometimes
encouraged and sometimes become an impediment to peace, he then suggested
how Christians might more effectively build communities of peace for all.
With its critical awareness and the hopeful prospects it sketched, Haire's
lecture summed up this conference, which was a testament to the
flourishing spirituality and courage of Asian Christians today.
Samuel C. Pearson is Visiting Professor at the Institute for the Study of
Christian Culture in the
Department of Chinese Language and Literature, the People's University of China.
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The April Religion and Culture Web Forum, featuring "Seeking a Prophet:
How Religion Mediates the Relationship between Black America and the U.S.
Presidents" by Melissa Harris Lacewell, is now available at
http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/webforum/index.shtml.
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