During the delegation’s address to the caucus, the Rev. John L. McCullough, executive director and CEO of Church World Service, highlighted that Africa is the most underdeveloped continent in the world and African religious leaders should not be “sidelined” in discussion about African issues but rather be “recognised as persons who have a substantive contribution to make in the discourse on human rights and oppression of people as they seek to live their lives in what, in our perspective, God intends for us.”
McCullough summarised the concerns to be addressed during the Interfaith Summit including poverty, water, natural resource, displaced persons, food security, and the role of women in society.
“There is a recognition that the needs are so fundamental, so basic, it doesn’t require 37 billion dollars,” said McCullough, referring to the recent donation of Warren Buffett, the world’s second-richest man, to The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Using 5 million dollars and using it much more effectively will achieve a far greater good than simply throwing money at a problem.
“So from the perspective of this community, it is of utmost importance to try to find the ways and means for policymakers such as those in the United States to have a direct engagement with the people to really be able to hear from the people what they understand to be their most basic needs, and to hear their ideas about how the crisis and the situation they confront can be resolved.”
Other high-level African Christian leaders present were His Holiness Abune Paulos, patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; the Most Rev. Njongonkulu W.H. Ndungane, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa; and Rt. Rev. Dr. Nyansako-ni-Nku, president of the All Africa Conference of Churches which is made up of 135 churches with a population of about 130 million Christians.“Today, you are all to listen to us because we live in the problem,” said Paulos, following the delegation address to the Caucus. “So everything that we say is something useful for your own decisions.”
Masango, who also believes church and state cannot be separated, concluded, “Actually, it is not very possible in a traditional African society” to separate church and state.
“And we have realised, unfortunately, when we have traveled to the West where this has been fully applied, that it has led more to the decline of modern person and we don’t think it is something good for us to imitate,” he said to the applause and laughter of the African religious leaders and U.S. Human Rights Caucus members.
Michelle Vu
Christian Today Correspondent
