As the youngest general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in the past 61 years, Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, a member of the Lutheran Church of Norway, at 48 is bringing his experience as the co-chair of the WCC Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum and his interfaith work to “see one another as fellow human beings.” He is a strong believer that dialogue and work with Islam is particularly important in the current times.
The WCC is a fellowship of 349 churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 110 countries. It represents over 560 million Christians and includes most of the world’s Orthodox churches, many Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, and United and independent churches.
The WCC Central Committee meeting took place in Geneva, Switzerland this week. Highlights included the election of the new general secretary and the selection of the city of Busan, Republic of Korea, for the WCC 10th Assembly in 2013.
The chair of the international committee of the National Council of Churches in South Korea, Dr. Jong-wha Park of the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea shared his country’s joy in welcoming the event in 2013. At the Geneva meeting, he expressed hope that the WCC’s presence could contribute greatly toward peaceful reconciliation and justice on the divided peninsula.
The WCC Central Committee passed several public statements.
According to the WCC, since the government of General Zia Ul Haq, Pakistan has introduced state policies that led to intolerance under the label of blasphemy. Up until then, since 1947 and for 40 years, protection was given to all religious groups on an equal basis. That all changed when General Zia Ul Haq introduced amendments to the Pakistan penal code on behalf of Islamic parties in the country. The new Blasphemy Law section 295C that carries a mandatory death penalty for anyone found guilty of blasphemy for defaming the Prophet Mohammad and life imprisonment for desecrating the Holy Quran, according to the WCC, has been misused, arbitrarily enforced and is enforced without proof of deliberate attempt on the part of the accused. It has led to physical violence, intensified communal hatred, damage, destruction of property and the loss of life within the Christian minority community. According to the WCC, between 1988 and 2005, 647 people were charged under the Blasphemy Law. The WCC has urged the government of Pakistan to repeal the section of the Pakistan penal code.
The WCC has also called on the Israeli government to freeze and begin dismantling settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The WCC has called for an international boycott of products and services from settlements and is encouraging a commitment to non-violence and peace negotiations. They consider some 200 settlements with more than 450,000 settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories to be “illegal, unjust, incompatible with peace and antithetical to the legitimate interests of the state of Israel.” The Committee stated that even as “Israel’s own right to exist in security evokes sympathy and solidarity around the world, its policies of expansion and annexation generate dismay or hostility.” The committee marks a clear distinction “between the legitimate interests of the state of Israel and its illegal settlements.”
In regards to conflicts in the Congo, the WCC has urged all the WCC member churches to publicly condemn the violence against women in the DRC.
The WCC has also called into question the continued discrimination and exclusion of millions of people on the basis of caste. In a statement on caste-based discrimination passed on September 2nd, the committee says that at least 160 million people in India and up to 260 million globally are considered by their own societies as “untouchable.”
Among other statements, on just finance and the economy of life, ecological justice, seeking a nuclear-weapon free world, ending anti-Christian violence, and asking that Sudan “assume full responsibility for the protection of its’ citizens,” regardless of ethnicity or other affiliation, the WCC provided support for the right of conscientious objection and called on member churches to “uphold the right of refusal to bear and use arms” whenever possible. It also urged the Methodist Church in Fiji and Rotuma to engage in dialogue with the interim government of Fiji.
While the Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC, it has promoted cooperation and collaboration through a joint working group over the past 40 years. The new general secretary of the WCC has expressed that he hopes to meet with Pope Benedict XVI, "although not immediately” according to Catholic News. Father James Maasa, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, told Catholic News Service recently, "Rev. Tveit has signaled a desire to deepen relations with the Holy See and to explore avenues of dialogue between Christianity and Islam, which is high on the Catholic Church's agenda."
Rev. Tveit replaces the Rev. Kobia, a Methodist minister from Kenya.
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