Critics force Latin American
council to withdraw mission document
Dissenters say document
represented ‘Pentecostalization’ of the ecumenical movement
by Paul Jeffrey
Ecumenical News International
BARRANQUILLA, Colombia – January
19, 2001 -- A lengthy document outlining the
mission of the church in Latin America during the new millennium has
been withdrawn by leaders of a regional consultation on mission after
several groups – including women, indigenous people, and blacks –
strongly objected to its content.
“The original document was exclusive and racist,”
Norman Bent, a Moravian pastor from Nicaragua, told ENI. “It was
written by white Latin Americans, people with no awareness of indigenous
people or people of African origin. They consider their white power
structure to represent the Evangelical movement in Latin America.”
The document, Theology on the Road, was
prepared over the past two years by the Theology Commission of the Latin
American Council of Churches (CLAI). It was distributed late last year
to participants in this month’s regional Mission Consultation and
general assembly which just concluded in this Colombian port city.
After three days of argument about the text, CLAI’s
president, Walter Altmann, announced on Jan. 15 that the Theology
Commission was retracting the document. Using written commentaries from
the critics, the commission will now spend two months rewriting the
text.
Altmann made the announcement at the end of the
Mission Consultation, which overlapped with the five-day general
assembly. The location for both events is a Presbyterian-sponsored high
school.
Margarita de la Torre, a Quichua indigenous woman who
teaches theology at an Evangelical seminary in Ecuador, said she was
shocked by the original document. “We’re entering a new millennium,
and I’m surprised there are people who still write this way. They are
obviously not involved with people at the grassroots. The document shows
their distance from people at the grassroots, and it’s a big distance,”
she told ENI.
Beatriz Ferrari, a Methodist leader from Uruguay, told
ENI that the document “had lots of errors, and displayed little
sensitivity to women, indigenous, blacks, and youth. And children weren’t
even discussed at all.”
Ferrari was part of a big group of women who discussed
the document before issuing a 14-page rebuttal of its contents.
Other critical reactions were issued by a youth group
and another group including indigenous and black church leaders. The
treatment of homosexuality in the text also prompted many complaints.
“The original was written as if Latin America had
just one culture,” Ferrari said, “when in fact we’re a region made
up of many cultures. The writers chose the dominant culture as if that’s
all there is. The document illustrated that much of our church
leadership sadly continues to see the world from the perspective of
whites and mestizos [mixed race]. They have a very masculine concept of
mission that’s largely oriented toward the interior of the church.”
Ferrari added that discrimination against women was
not limited to CLAI’s written documents. Whereas at CLAI’s last
general assembly, held in Concepcion, Chile, in 1995, women had made up
about 20 per cent of delegates, at the current assembly the proportion
of women had dropped to about 12 per cent.
“I hope God illuminates the people doing the
rewriting of this document,” Ferrari said. “Because our churches are
anxiously waiting for it. If we take it to our churches the way it is,
then once again we’re going to get involved in mission the wrong way.”
Alice Winters, a Presbyterian pastor from Colombia who
worked on the committee that drafted the original document, denied the
writers were insensitive. Winters, a professor of biblical studies at a
Reformed Church seminary here, said technological errors and a lack of
time had contributed to the report’s shortcomings. “The section on
sexuality was written by one person and the comments that others sent
via email were lost by mistake,” Winters told ENI.
“I don’t believe there are irreconcilable
differences. We’re entering into territory that’s new for many
people. We have to sit down and understand what’s at play and try to
understand the other’s positions.”
The six-page critique prepared by indigenous and black
participants complained that the mission document followed a missiology
that “denigrates indigenous peoples and blacks, conceiving of them as
an object of mission, refusing to recognize mission as a space for
encountering the other where a relationship of reciprocity is
established between equals, where all who participate in the
relationship are mutually evangelized. It’s time to let ourselves be
evangelized by indigenous peoples and blacks.”
The critique accused “the culture that until now we’ve
lived inside the churches” of negating the region’s cultural
pluralism and “attempting to culturally homogenize our diverse peoples
...[and] failing to respect their specific values and traditions.”
The indigenous and black group demanded “a wider
understanding of ecumenism that includes a frank and sincere dialogue
with other religious and spiritual expressions.”
Bent said the rejected document resulted from the “Pentecostalization”
of CLAI, which is made up of a mix of Evangelical and mainstream
Protestant churches. “The current general secretary and many members
of the current board of directors support that process,” Bent said.
“Yet the historical churches are worried that CLAI is losing its
prophetic vision in exchange for gaining new member churches, members
without any prophetic vision. As we enter the 21st century, CLAI seems
intent on losing its vision, on becoming just one more of many
organizations."
Bent said he doubted whether Pentecostals genuinely
wanted to participate in ecumenical activities. “CLAI should quit
struggling to get new members and challenge those interested in
ecumenism to work together,” said Bent. “It will do no good to have
more members if you lose your prophetic vision. Are Pentecostals really
interested in ecumenism? I think that rather than wanting to work
together they’re only interested in the money they can get from the
ecumenical movement.”
