Convocation to celebrate WCCs peace work

Members of the WCC’s Central Committee met on Friday to discuss plans for the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation, which will mark the end of the WCC’s Decade to Overcome Violence when it takes place in Jamaica in May 2011.

The IEPC will concentrate on four key areas – peace in the community, peace with the Earth, peace in the marketplace, and peace among the peoples.

Fernando Enns, moderator of the planning committee of the IEPC, said there would be the opportunity for theological reflection, spiritual renewal and vision setting for the WCC’s peace work beyond the end of the Decade to Overcome Violence.

“It will be a time of celebration of what we have achieved and time of mourning for the many victims of violence,” he said.

The Rev Dr Ofelia Ortega of the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba said the impact of the economic crisis on peace would be high on the agenda.

“There is no peace in the market without justice in the market,” she said. “The economic crisis is affecting our people and sometimes violence comes because of the economic crisis. How we are dealing with that violence today will be central to our discussions at the IEPC.”

The Rev Gary Harriott is General Secretary of the Jamaica Council of Churches and a member of the International Planning Committee for the IEPC. He believes the IEPC will help strengthen churches in their peace-building work in Jamaica, where many communities are caught up in violence connected to gangs and the illicit drug trade.

“People are so afraid that they never report the violence,” he said. “The IEPC will mean a lot for us.”

Rev Harriott said the church worldwide could help ease violence in Jamaica by speaking out against the small arms trade.

“Seventy per cent of violent situations in Jamaica involve guns but we do not make guns in Jamaica. They come from outside,” he explained.

“A drive against small arms is one way the international church could help us deal with this situation.”

Dr Ortega said, meanwhile, that the people in central America had suffered greatly because of the recent coup d’etat in Honduras and that gangs were rife wherever young people faced unemployment and few opportunities.

“For us it’s a matter of faith,” she said. “We need to come at this from our faith and find peaceful solutions.”

Dr Ortega said visits to conflict hotspots by WCC delegations – or ‘Living Letter’ teams – as part of the Decade to Overcome Violence had allowed Christians from outside the affected regions to become better informed and more supportive.

“The visits are important not only to inform us but to [allow us to] be involved in the process,” she said.

Rev Harriott added that the worldwide church could help to resource the peace-building work of churches in areas of conflict.

He said: “Many of these countries lack resources. We have the intention and the will but we lack the resources to make it happen.”