Land, Water, Education and Gender Justice Constitute Africa’s Prayer for Daily Bread

Final Message from the LWF Africa Pre-Assembly

ABUJA, Nigeria/GENEVA, 6 April 2010 (LWI) – The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches in Africa affirmed their commitment to ensuring access to land, water, and education and attainment of gender equity as urgent priorities for the continent’s people.

In the final message from the Africa Pre-Assembly and Church Leadership Consultation held 24-28 March in Abuja, Nigeria, representatives of the 31 LWF member churches on the continent said the Eleventh Assembly theme “Give Us Today Our Daily Bread,” was “both most relevant and urgent within our context and other parts of the world because it is a matter of survival.”

The pre-assembly, called to prepare delegates for the July 2010 LWF Eleventh Assembly in Stuttgart, Germany, focused on delegates’ participation in the assembly itself, and on the theme’s implications for the work of the church in an African context today.

The Africa Pre-Assembly participants affirmed that the continent was “the most vulnerable, most affected, yet least capacitated to cope with the effects of climate change, resulting in food insecurity and hunger, internal displacement and conflicts over land and water.” They called the church’s attention to the trend of a new wave of colonialism in Africa involving the purchase of land by wealthy nations and multinational corporations to produce food and other agricultural products for their home countries while local communities were rendered landless and further pushed into perpetual poverty.

Reaffirming the critical role of diakonia in bringing transformation in church and society throughout the Lutheran communion, the pre-assembly participants urged the LWF to intensify efforts and collaboration in addressing systems and structures that perpetuate injustice, poverty and deprivation.

On gender justice, the participants expressed concern that some LWF member churches in Africa “still do not heed the voices of women in the region crying for inclusivity within the church structures, leadership and in the ordained ministry.” They urged churches to fulfill their commitment to gender justice by putting in place concrete steps to address these issues.

Similarly, some churches had not fulfilled the commitment to the 20 percent LWF requirement for youth representation and participation in leadership and decision making processes. The Africa pre-assembly pointed out that “the risk of not implementing this resolution is that member churches may lose the gifts that young people bring to the life of the churches and may lose them to other emerging churches as a result of frustration.” The participants called the attention of member churches in the communion to increasing levels of unemployment and underemployment among the youth and the phenomena of child poverty.

The final message reiterated the African churches’ concern for contextually relevant theological materials, the urgent need to share available resources, and to increase networking between the region’s theological seminaries.

On the issue of marriage, family and human sexuality, the LWF member churches in Africa said they affirmed their position at the 2007 LWF Council meeting and Church Leadership Consultation in Lund, Sweden, that “marriage is holy, ordained by God and is a relationship between a man and woman.”

In the pre-assembly message, the continent’s LWF member churches said they “are extremely disturbed and deeply regret the recent developments taking place in some member churches of the communion who have taken unilateral decision on same sex marriages, disregarding the strong sentiments expressed by other members of the communion.” They noted that such unilateral action had “negatively impacted our life together as a communion, something which could have been avoided.

“We pray for the Spirit of discernment and for the grace of God to abound as we seek to resolve these issues,” stated the final message of the Africa Pre-Assembly.

The Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria and the Lutheran Church of Nigeria jointly hosted the pre-assembly, attended by around 90 participants, including 70 delegates from LWF member churches in the region. (650 words)

Journey | Africa Pre-Assembly Consultation

Africa_Pre-Assembly_Message.pdf [PDF, 162KB]

06.04.2010

Land, Water, Education and Gender Justice Constitute Africa’s Prayer for Daily Bread

Final Message from the LWF Africa Pre-Assembly

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