Monthly Archives: July 2007

Building interfaith communities (1)

Posted on July 31, 2007 by | Leave a comment

interfaithgroup.jpgMy colleague Simone Sinn attended a four-week-long interfaith seminar in the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, close to Geneva. Simone is a young pastor from Germany and she works for the Department for theology and studies of the Lutheran World Federation. I thought it is really exciting if young people from many countries and faith traditions work and live together for an entire month. Therefore I asked her, to write something about her experiences in listening to stories of the participants

“Saba from Pakistan explains how it feels to live as a Christian in a country with a strong Muslim majority. Said from Kenya tells his experiences of being a Muslim in a country where Christians are more influential. Szolt, a Jewish Rabbi from Hungary, speaks about a joint celebration of Advent and Channuka with the Christian and Jewish communities in his town.

Shireen, a Muslim Palestinian, talks about the Kibbuz in Israel where she has been brought up: in that unique Kibbuz Jews and Muslims live together, go to school together and work together. Because of that Grennady, a Jew who was born in Russia and now is an Israelian citizen, asks her to translate his comments from Hebrew into English. But then Shireen also translates what Khaled, a Muslim Russian, wants to say from Arabic into English. Shireen is in many ways a mediator between languages, cultures and peoples.

So is Jihad, a Muslim from South Africa, when he talks about African culture to participants from other continents or when he explains Muslim prayer to Christians and Jews. Steven, a black Roman-Catholic from the US, tells the story of how an African-American Christian identity has been formed. Furthermore he helps the group process by explaining some ground rules for group discussion. Atefeh softly whispers translating all that has been said into Persian Farsi so that her colleague from Iran can understand it.”

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Posted in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Church, Ecumenism, Faith, Latin America/Carribean, Life, North America, Youth, Youth participation

World Council of Churches: participating in a commission

Posted on July 31, 2007 by | 2 Comments

Thomas Kang wrote a little piece about his involvement in a commission of the World Council of Churches. I think it is very interesting to get more stories how young people can participate in the Church. So if you have other stories about that, send them to me: It does not matter whether it is the local or the global level.

Here is Thomas’ story:
“Since this is the first time I post something here, let us start introducing myself: my name is Thomas Kang, 22, a graduate student in Economics at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. My parents are both Korean, but I was born in Porto Alegre, where the last Assembly of the World Council of Churches was held in 2006.

It could not be better. The city where I lived at that time was hosting the Assembly and I was accepted to participate in the Stewards Programme. Around 140 youth from many confessions and parts of the world had the chance to live the ecumenical experience and praise and sing and have communion together.

The increasing demand for youth participation in the life of the ecumenical movement led the World Council of Churches to include young people on its consultative bodies. Luckily, some people indicated me and then I got the chance to represent the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB) at the Comission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA).

The CCIA is the consultative body of the WCC responsible for dealing with issues like wars, poverty, development, justice and so on. The next meeting will be held in Geneva from September 11st to 14th. I am looking forward very anxiously since now. It’s a great opportunity not only to travel and to know different people, but to learn and to serve the Kingdom, strengthening our faith and commitment to the Gospel of Christ.

For those looking for experiences like this, take a look at some of the recent posts. Our Finnish sister wrote about her participation in an Orthodox meeting and Roger talked about opportunities to be steward in 2008: great chances to get involved with Christians from all over the world and to work towards more justice and faith.”

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Posted in Church, Ecumenism, Justice, Latin America/Carribean, Life, Youth participation

A Clash of Civilizations?

Posted on July 30, 2007 by | Leave a comment

In three days I will be home again in the states.  My six month long trip has come down to this.  It will be good to be home. As everything comes to a close, I’ve started to think of things I’ve learned while travelling.  I think the biggest thing is that when you travel, meet other people, and experience different cultures, all your stereotypes start to fall.  You start to realize that stereotypes are not true for all people- not all Scandinavians have blond hair and blue eyes, and not all Muslims are named Mohammed.   Studying politics in college, one of the theories that you learn about is the idea of a clash of civilizations- that certain civilizations are headed on a collision course that will only create tension and violence in the future (for example the ‘West’ and ‘Islam’).  This idea has been pushed by many in my own country and government.  And people are buying it.   But people like me who have experienced life in an Islamic culture, and other cultures, quickly find this theory losing ground.  Many Muslims welcomed me into their houses for tea, food, and even to stay.  One hosted me for three weeks in Bosnia.  In Kosovo, one invited me to stay the night at his family’s house, and they cooked traditional food and took me all around the village to sight-see.  In Palestine, one invited me up to Jenin to stay with his family for a weekend- and when I left Palestine, he gave me several gifts!  A shirt in Bosnia summed it up- ‘I’m Muslim- don’t panic!’ This has been the hospitality I have experienced in all the places I have visited.  I have never had anyone hate me because I am an American, and I have never had anyone hate me because I am a Christian.  Almost everyone in this world just wants to live their lives in a peaceful, just society where they can work, have a place to live, and eat.  People just want normal lives!!!  They don’t want conflict, war, and death.  There are exceptions everywhere- we in the USA, with our insane murder rates, know this too well.  But those are by far the exceptions, not the norms.   As Christians I hope that we will not subscribe to this theory of a clash of civilizations.  I hope we can love our neighbors in all civilizations, while not advancing false and harmful stereotypes.  

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Posted in Faith, Life

Harry Potter – read as a Christian

Posted on July 27, 2007 by | 1 Comment

I don’t know how many copies of the 7th and final volume of the Harry Potter series have been sold by now. I only know: I was one of them. And I read it already. Late on Sunday night, one day after the release, I finished the 600-page long book.

And I liked it. It was very suspenseful. In addition, the characters became much more pronounced and gained depth. I am not going to give anything away but I would like to talk about how I read Harry Potter as a Christian. I know there are quite a few people who say that all that talk about wizardry and witches should be avoided by Christians. However, I see the idea of wizards only as a tool to tell entertaining and – I believe – educating stories.

Make no mistake: Harry Potter is not a Christian book. But when I read it as a Christian I discover traits of my faith in it. Let me point that out with two examples

Sinner and Saint

In Harry Potter, only the evil is absolute evil. The good are never absolutely good. All good people have their problems and act wrongly. In some books (particularly the fifth) Harry is bad tempered and his friends are rightfully annoyed. Harry’s father James died protecting his son Harry when he was only one year old. However, as a boy he was mean to other boys and misused his wit and power to humiliate others. Even Dumbledore, the celebrated headmaster of Harry’s school, does not remain without stains. He has set the wrong priorities several times and they haunt him even after his death.
People are not good once and for all. Lutheran theology believes that we are saved not because we are always good people (we are not) but because Jesus Christ has saved us. However, there is certainly a difference to Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, emphasizes very much that the choices somebody makes define her or his life. That is not wrong. But we believe that the choice God has made in choosing us defines our life on the most basic level.

Courage

It is a recurring theme in Harry Potter how people find the strength to confront evil. How difficult that is symbolize in Harry Potter the dementors, a certain type of monster. The dementors don’t hurt the body but they suck all happiness out of human beings and leave only despair. In our reality, I know people who are despaired about all the manifestations of evil that we face: The HI-Virus for example, wars, the horrible poverty that still is not eradicated and we could continue the list. How do we get the strength not to despair but to keep working? One part of the answer has familiarities to Harry’s: Love and friendship. While Harry still has to live through the love of his parents who died defending him, we have much firmer ground. Christians can live by the love of Christ who died and rose again – for our sake.
Secondly, the Harry Potter books stress very much how important friendship is. While certainly friendship itself is crucial we also have the church as a web of support. We don’t necessarily have to be close friends to support each other.

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Posted in Faith, Life

Youth participation at a grand level – whether 25%-50%, youth need to talk to each other

Posted on July 25, 2007 by | 1 Comment

Every four years the YWCA has an International Women’s Summit, where they share information and vote.  I recently returned from this meeting in Nairobi, where I met many young women.  The YWCA has a commitment to 25% of its delegations under 30 years old, and they have recently amended their constitution to require that 50% of voting delegations be under 30!   This is not going to be easy for an organization that is old and has many older members.

 

At the conference there was a special young women’s pre-meeting.  Though there was this high commitment to youth participation, I think there still could have been more young women as the speakers and leaders of workshops, as well as more time for young women to meet each other share experiences.  Like what often happens, the youth meeting was “over-programmed” – it served as a space for the key note people deliver separate speeches to the youth audience.   It is so much work to bring young people together; when we finally get together we need to talk directly! 

 

But the summit overall was an exciting convergence of ecumenical organizations, and it was nice to be in a faith-based majority at a meeting about women’s rights.  The theme “Women and HIV” is crucially important – it cuts across many issues facing women, reproductive rights and access to care and information, poverty, sexual violence and discrimination.   As we know young women ages 15-24 are the fastest growing population to be infected with the virus.   Good for the YWCA for bringing us together on this theme, I hope the faith communities keep addressing it head on.

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Posted in Life

Meeting youth in Kenya and Rwanda

Posted on July 25, 2007 by | 2 Comments

I just returned from a three-week trip to Kenya and Rwanda. I had planned to blog throughout, but its not easy getting an internet connection. I visited Lutheran churches in Kenya, went to the YWCA International Women’s Summit in Nairobi, and helped the Lutheran Church of Rwanda plan a youth conference. All throughout, I talked with African youth about what they do in their churches and communities, and what issues they care about.

I met Fred, a social worker with the KELC (Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church), who is passionate about educating young people about HIV and AIDS. He organizes groups that go into the slums and rural areas talk to youth about HIV testing. Sometimes they bring mobile VCT centers. He says if he had more resources to pay for transportation he could go more often and bring more youth with him, and he could pass out educational materials. I am always advocating for youth empowerment and participation and here was a young person doing great work, Fred has so much energy and capability. I wondered, how can we get the church to help him do more to help his fellow youth?

I was impressed by the range of income generating projects youth are part of. Two groups of youth I talked with in Rwanda have made CDs of their choirs (their choirs are amazing!) and used the money to start other projects, like a salon in Kigali. I was amazed that both the groups I talked to (one Presbyterian and one Lutheran) have the same problem /goal. They each visit people in hospitals or who are bedridden, and sometimes they find that they have no money to buy medicine or food or clothes. So then the youth go back to their church and ask for money to help them. But they are tired of always asking the church for help and they want their own fund.

In Rwanda and Kenya the church pews are filled with youth, they are the majority, it is a very young country.
I’ll share a bit more later.

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Posted in Africa, Church, HIV/Aids, Justice, LWF, Poverty, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation

A youth camp in a different language

Posted on July 24, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Polish LakeFor a few days, I had an email discussion with Ewa Issel, an Polish university student. She is very active in the Lutheran Church in Poland and was steward at the last meeting of the LWF council in Lund.

She is now heading off to a children’s and youth camp in the Southern Poland. The unusual thing: The camp with all Polish kids will be led by a group of Americans and fully conducted in English. The Polish volunteers are there to interpret if there problems understanding something. Other than that: All stories and bible studies are in English and even the discussion groups. Ewa said, they have done three times already and it went very well.

I was a little bit concerned that if the kids listen to stories about God and Jesus in a foreign language that faith might remain foreign for them, as well.

Ewa replied: “I understand your fear, it was also our fear, so we (the Polish staff) decided two years ago to have also devotion time /sharing time with children right before they go to bed in their rooms, in Polish. We just answer some questions then and tell about our faith. Also right after the lectures every day, some from the Polish teachers (that’s how we called ourselves) give testimony in Polish. One evening, we have worship and evangelization also in Polish. We know that it is not the same, to hear it in Polish all time but maybe God seems to be more familiar because of that.”

I think it is quite an interesting way of doing youth ministry. What do you think?

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Posted in Church, Europe, Faith, Life, Spirituality, Youth, Youth Ministry

World Council of Churces is looking for Stewards

Posted on July 23, 2007 by | 3 Comments

©LWF/Jani LipponenIt is a special experience to be at an international Ecumenical Meeting. There are many different people with different cultural understanding. The worship services bear the spirit of the ecumenical community. One gets to know about why are issues controversial even though the solution seems so easy.

The next Steward’s program of the LWF is going to take place in June next year. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has one already in February. Everybody can apply there. The deadline is already on September, 20. So visit this website and apply for the WCC Stewards’ Program.

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Posted in Church, Ecumenism, Youth, Youth Ministry, Youth participation

Human Cruelty

Posted on July 23, 2007 by | Leave a comment

Since 1986 killing whales was forbidden, since then still 25000 have been killed. Some countries doesnt want to stop killing them claiming cientific reasons. Some others die as victims of collisions with big ships, trauma, starvation. The truth is that they are disappearing, and soon our children will met them by pictures only.

Things like these happens not only to whales,but to sharks, monkeys, turtles, the Andes condor, etc. Even a traditional Spanish “sport”, uses bulls in a very cruel and bloody way as an “entertainment event”. Its hard to me to understand what kind of people enjoy seeing a brave animal dying, who is able to defend himself in his original environment, but inside a bull ring can only wait for a stab wound. I know about people who trains their dogs to fight and bet money. The same happens with fighting cocks.

When I read sad things like these on the newspapers, I think to myself what can I do for them ? Am I able to fight against those whale killers, who doesnt care about animal life ? Can we as young people do something to defend animals who can not defend by themselves? How can we help them to understand we have a huge responsability to take care of them and use them with justice for our benefit ? Do we need to make them suffer before they die? I think we can make many things, but not to stay quiet, when we can establish our desagreement.

Many people like to treat monkeys, squirrels, guacamayas, as pets. They think these animals can adapt themselves to a house or little apartament as well as a dog or a cat.

Five years ago I was walking for a street near to my house, when I saw a little monkey wearing a chain around his neck, he was holding from a kitchen window bars. I wrote the addresses, and the exactly location of the house and reported them to the DAMA ( Environmental Manage Department), they have a place to help animals to readapt to their original environment. They asked my ID, name, address, phone number in case they will need some more information.

Some weeks later I saw a squarrel on a cage, it was putting its teeth against the bars.

After two weeks the DAMA sent me a “recovery notification”, they found the little monkey and the squarrel, both were sent to the rehabilitation center.

We can do many things to help a defenseless animal returning home. Just dont stay quiet, when we have the chance to report any bad treatment, not only wild animals, but all kind of life.

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Posted in Enviroment, Justice, Latin America/Carribean, Life

Back home!

Posted on July 20, 2007 by | 3 Comments

I got back home a few days ago from the second orhtodox Youth Conference in Istanbul. I was a delegate of the LWF there.

The whole week was very interesting and inspiring. Listening to the internal depate of the Church made me understand better orthodox people and way of life. To many participants, my role in the conference was not clear at all. I explained many times, that I was there just to get to know people, and that inviting “observers” from other churches and ecumenical bodies is a part of the ecumenical ethiquette.

In many parts of Europe, the relations between the Orthodox and the Prostestans are very complexed and full of misunderstandings on both sides. Sending lutheran people to orthodox events and inviting Orthodox observers to our international (and national) events is one way of trying to solve these issues. I spent a lot time with my fellow Finnish (Orthodox) people there and I hope we were a good exsample to some.

If you feel like you would have wanted to be in Istanbul too, don´t worry. There’s a lot of possibilities for getting international experiences. Apply for a stewardship for World Council of Churches Central Committee meeting, stay online and find out what possibilities LWF will offer you in the future, get in contact with the Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe and apply for a training course, apply for a internship etc. There is a lot you can do!

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Posted in Ecumenism, Enviroment, Faith, Life, Youth participation