Ekkesia
May 21, 2006

BRAZIL - Responding to recent appalling reports of gang violence in Sao Paulo, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Dr Samuel Kobia from Kenya, and its central committee moderator, the Rev Dr Walter Altmann, have written to churches in Brazil expressing prayers for the victims and solidarity with Christians as they seek the alternative path of reconciliation and non-violence.

The letter, which also affirms the importance of the global churches’ Decade to Overcome Violence, comes out of the first meeting of the World Council’s governing body since its eighth major assembly in Porto Alegre, Brazil, earlier this year.

The WCC brings together more than 340 churches in over 100 countries and territories, representing some 550 million Christians. It and includes most of the world’s Orthodox churches alongside historic Protestant, Anglican, indigenous and independent churches.

“We are shocked by the news we have received from your country during the last couple of days,” write the two ecumenical leaders. “The unprecedented violence unleashed in Sao Paulo by criminal gangs has resulted in the death of more than a hundred people, including members of law enforcement agencies. Valuable public properties have been wantonly destroyed.”

They continue: “As sounds of gunshots and violence resound, we hope that the call of the churches and civil society for peace and an end to violence will prevail. It is pertinent that churches …have also taken note of the inadequacy of the legal system and the overcrowding of prisons. Reforms have been difficult because of corruption, impunity and lack of political will.”

The letter concludes: “We in the World Council of Churches are concerned at the increase of incidences of violence in your country and in the region. It is precisely for this reason that the focus of the Decade to Overcome Violence for the year 2006 is Latin America. We hope – together with the churches of the region – we can contribute to overcoming this scourge of violence that is destroying our societies.”

The churches in Brazil are assured of prayers for the faith and hope to witness to God’s love “as you come together to promote a culture of peace and non-violence”.

The Decade to Overcome Violence was agreed at the WCC’s previous Harare assembly in 1998, after a telling intervention by German Mennonite delegate Fernando Enns.

The Rev Dr Enns also spoke at the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism gathering in Athens last May, where he told church representatives that in an increasingly divided world marked by religious terror, non-violence in the way of Christ could be a “Christian identity marker” for individuals and communities.

To proclaim the Gospel of Jesus was to announce the path of peace and the author of peace, declared the Mennonite leader. Enns was subsequently elected to the WCC central committee – the first Mennonite to serve on it.

Mennonites are one of the historic peace churches, along with the Quakers and the Brethren in Christ. They were among the initiators of Christian Peacemaker Teams, who came to prominence through the recent Iraq kidnapping crisis, and they are descendents of the radical or ‘left wing’ Reformation in Europe.