Sweden elects country’s first female archbishop; The China not many people hear about; Churches advocate upholding human dignity of migrants; Global Hunger Index falls 34 per cent since 1990
Sweden elects country’s first female archbishop
The Church of Sweden says it has elected the country’s first female archbishop, who will join a growing number of female church leaders around the world.
The Lutheran church says Antje Jackelen, 58, secured 55.9 per cent of the votes among 325 members of local church boards.
While the Roman Catholic Church doesn’t allow the ordination of women, it is not uncommon among some Protestant churches. The church of Norway is led by a woman, Helga Haugland Byfuglien, and the Episcopal Church of the United States is headed by Katharine Jefferts Schori.
The German-born Jackelen, who studied at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, has been the bishop of the city of Lund in southern Sweden since 2007.
The China not many people hear about
Michael Perrau of the Bible Society writes – Long queues of people waiting to go to church, sermons broadcast on loudspeakers in a busy public place…these are two of the many extraordinary things that I witnessed on a recent visit to China.
I travelled there with Bible Society colleagues from 7 different countries at the invitation of China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA). It was an important official visit to cement our already good relationship with SARA, which has enabled us to work closely with the Church in China to print more than 100 million Bibles at the Amity Printing Press in Nanjing since 1987.
From Beijing to Nanjing and then onto Shanghai we spent time talking to officials from SARA and meeting key Chinese Church leaders from the Three Self Patriotic Movement/China Christian Council (China’s Protestant Church) and the Catholic Church. It was fascinating to hear about the incredible growth of Christianity in China, in part fuelled by the wider availability of Bibles.
Incredible!
But the most memorable thing for me was to see this for myself. I’ll never forget the sight of queues and queues of people waiting to enter one of the 6 Sunday services at Haidian Church in Beijing. Located in a busy IT area of the city, the church attracts around 1,000 people to each of its services. Around 600 people can fit into the main church service on the first floor, while the overflow – another few hundred people – sit in the basement, watching the service on a large screen. Even this is not enough – many more people sit or stand outside to listen to the service, which is broadcast on loudspeakers. To me this was incredible – there, in a busy IT area of China’s capital city, the Gospel is being broadcast in a public area!
It was also moving to see Chinese Christianity in action in another way through the Bible and medical van ministry. Bible Societies have provided these vans in several Chinese provinces but it is local Christian volunteers, including nurses and doctors, who go into poor communities to offer free medical help. Hundreds of people in Baoding City in Hebei Province queued up outside a tent whose banner read, ‘Health checks and medicine from Christians’. And the delighted look on the faces of those who received Bibles at a local church said it all!
A fact that may surprise many
During our visit to the country’s national and largest theological seminary – Nanjing Union Theological Seminary – I heard an interesting fact that may surprise many people: the campus and buildings, where 500 future Chinese church leaders, pastors and teachers are in training every year, was paid for by the Chinese government, to the tune of US$16 million! That’s a side to China that not many people hear about.
And as I travelled home from China I reflected on this and gave God thanks that he is truly at work in this nation that not so long ago was closed to the Gospel.
Churches advocate upholding human dignity of migrants
Migrants are reduced to mere commodities, traded and exchanged in the global market, according to a declaration issued by churches calling for an end to this gross violation of human dignity.
The declaration was issued on the occasion of the Second United Nations High Level Dialogue on International Migration and Development (UN-HLD) in New York City, USA.
The declaration, produced on 2 October, was part of a 17-point advocacy paper developed by 100 representatives of some 60 churches, ecumenical groups and migrant organizations gathered for the 4th international consultation of Churches Witnessing With Migrants (CWWM4) in New York. The theme of the consultation was “The ‘Other’ Is My Neighbour”.
The consultation stressed that UN-HLD should increase the participation of migrants in their sessions, saying that “a true and meaningful dialogue includes migrants as subjects of their own destinies and puts primacy to their human rights and welfare.”
Participants strongly urged all UN member states to ratify the UN International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and the International Labour Organization Convention 189 concerning decent work for domestic workers. They also appealed to stop classifying migrants as threats to national security.
At the consultation, Dr Deenabandhu Manchala, programme executive for the Just and Inclusive Communities Programme of the World Council of Churches (WCC), encouraged churches to expose abuse of migrants by giving visibility to the reality of forced migration.
“‘Neighbour’ in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is not our next door friend, family member or work colleague, but the nameless and faceless victim, beaten and bruised, and left abandoned by the roadside,” said Manchala.
“Christian love for neighbour, if only demonstrated within circles of familiarity, ignoring those considered ‘others’ and ‘inferior’, betrays the essence of Christian calling,” he added.
Reflections on migration
Garry Martinez, chairperson of the organization Migrante International in the Philippines called forced migration an anomaly. “Ours is now an era of modern-day slavery where governments, in need of hard currencies, continue to subject migrants and their families to most cruel conditions, while greedily buffeting their domestic economies with the hard-earned money remitted by migrants,” he said.
“There can be no human rights if migration is by necessity and not by choice. Migrants are human beings first before they are workers. They are not mere statistics to buttress a country’s gross domestic product,” said Martinez.
Rev. Liberato Bautista from the Philippines described the issue of migration as a significant concern deeply embedded in biblical, theological and ethical understanding of churches.
“Our advocacy for justice, sustainability, human dignity and the human rights of migrants comes out of our witness with and among migrants and their organizations – a witness of God whose hospitality is profuse and radical and whose love is unbounded and unconditional,” he said.
Bautista serves as assistant general secretary for the UN and International Affairs for the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church.
The CWWM was initially conceived by the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and Migrante International, later engaging the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation, Baptist World Alliance, All Africa Conference of Churches, Latin American Council of Churches, Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants and the Alliance International Migration Services. Among other partner organizations which support the CWWM are the Karibu Foundation in Norway, the United Church of Canada and the WCC’s Global Ecumenical Migration Network.
WCC publication The “Other” Is My Neighbour was also launched at the consultation. The publication is a theological statement produced at the end of the WCC’s year-long study process on migration.
Global Hunger Index falls 34 per cent since 1990
Nineteen countries have been identified as suffering from alarming levels of hunger.
http://www.thejournal.ie/ghi-global-hunger-countries-1128662-Oct2013/