Guest Editorial

EditorTheodore A. GILL, JrDeputy Editor and Book ReviewsJane STRANZGuest EditorStephen BROWN This issue of The Ecumenical Review has a double focus: “Peace on Earth” and “Peace with the Earth”. Both themes are linked to the International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica in May 2011, which marks the culmination of the “Decade to Overcome Violence 2001–2011 (DOV): Churches Seeking Reconciliation and Peace”. Issues of war and peace have been intimately linked to the history of the World Council of Churches (WCC); since the 1980s at the latest, there has been a realization that the issues of justice and peace belong together. To talk of “peace on earth” does not mean tackling only issues of international conflict between nations, but also the issues of justice between and within nations that prevent and threaten genuine peace. More recently, there has been a growing understanding that peace between peoples needs to be matched by a “peace with the earth” that includes the whole of creation. The 1910 International Missionary Conference in Edinburgh took place against the backdrop of the increasing rivalry between the Christian powers of Europe that led to the outbreak of the First World War. The World Alliance for Promoting International Friendship Through the Churches was founded at the beginning of August 1914, coinciding with the outbreak of the war. The destruction and devastation left by that conflict, in which at least nominally Christian nations were at war with each other, shaped moves in the 1920s towards Christian unity. A decade later, the ecumenical movement found itself decisively challenged by the rise of Nazism in Germany. This challenge was posed in its strongest form by Dietrich Bonhoeffer in an essay on the relationship between the Confessing Church and the ecumenical movement. During the Second World War, as Margot Kässmann notes in her article for this issue, it was Church of England bishop George K. A. Bell, later the first moderator of the WCC central committee, who used his position as a member of the British parliament to speak out against the carpet bombing of German cities. Already in October 1945, leaders of the WCC “in process of formation” met the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), leading to the Stuttgart Declaration of Guilt and bringing the German churches back into the ecumenical community. The founding assembly in 1948 of the World Council of Churches stated, “War is contrary to the will of God.” However, as Guillermo Kerber notes in his article reviewing debates within the WCC, delegates in Amsterdam were unable to give a unanimous answer to the question of whether war “can be an act of justice”. During the Cold War that followed, the WCC found itself in the sometimes uneasy position of straddling the two military blocs between which Europe had been divided, while numerous hot wars continued in other parts of the world. At the same time, especially since the 1966 World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva and the WCC's fourth assembly in Uppsala two years later, the issue of justice in its political, social and economic dimensions occupied an increasingly prominent position on the ecumenical agenda. This was seen, for example, in the WCC's Programme to Combat Racism and its special fund that disbursed grants for humanitarian purposes to armed liberation movements fighting white rule in southern Africa. By the time of the WCC's sixth assembly in 1983 in Vancouver, there were those who feared that the burgeoning peace movements in North America and Europe would test ecumenical solidarity to its limits by warning of the potential future devastation of nuclear war while passing over the daily injustice faced by those in the South. This led to the challenge posed by Allan Boesak to delegates: “… one cannot use the issue of peace to escape from the unresolved issues of injustice, poverty, hunger and racism. If we do this we will make of our concern for peace an ideology of oppression which in the end will be used to justify injustice.” One result of the Vancouver assembly was the statement on “Peace and Justice”, perhaps the most comprehensive statement of the inherent relationship between the two: “The biblical vision of peace with justice, of wholeness, of unity for all God's people is not one of several options for the followers of Christ. It is an imperative in our time. The ecumenical approach to peace and justice is based on the belief that without justice for all everywhere we shall never have peace anywhere.” Today, this statement could be described as an expression of the longing for a “just peace”, a concern that is at the centre of the 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Jamaica, which marks the conclusion of the Decade to Overcome Violence. The decade was agreed at the WCC's eighth assembly in Harare in 1998, following a proposal by Fernando Enns; in his article in this issue of The Ecumenical Review, Enns notes that the scope of the convocation's concern for a “just peace” encompasses peace in society, peace with the earth, peace in the economy and peace between nations. On the basis of this understanding, Enns goes on to elaborate pointers towards an “ecumenical theology of just peace”. The phrase “just peace”, however, is also a reminder that for much of its history, Western Christendom has adhered to what has become known as the just war theory. Margot Kässmann urges the decisive replacement of the just war theory by actions designed to promote just peace. In her contribution, which takes as its starting point the controversy generated by a New Year sermon in which she questioned German military action in Afghanistan, she urges that priority be given to promoting non-violent ways of resolving conflict. While acknowledging that force may sometimes be necessary, she underlines the need to explore ways of such intervention being more akin to a police action with the explicit mandate of the United Nations. Tobias Winright, in his article seeks to explore further what such international policing actions might mean in practice, and how they relate to the concept of the “responsibility to protect” that emerged from the discussions on humanitarian intervention. Winright sees the just war criteria outlined by St Augustine as being particularly helpful when it comes to setting down the scope and the limitations of “just policing” actions. In his article on Orthodox perspectives on peace, war and violence, Philip LeMasters notes, however, that the just war theory that has proved controversial in Western Christendom does not align perfectly with the experience and teaching of Orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy has neither a crusade ethic nor an explicit just war theory, he argues, but recognizes that the pursuit of peace in a corrupt world may involve the inevitable use of force. Bishop Munib A. Younan of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, and president of the Lutheran World Federation, argues that the three monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have a shared responsibility for finding a just peace in the Middle East that is “just” to two peoples – Israeli and Palestinians – and to the adherents of three religions – Christians, Jews and Muslims. He argues that it is imperative that Muslims and Christians worldwide must begin seeking common ground, and that Christians can also serve as a bridge to common ground with Jews. The Ecumenical Chronicle section of this issue of The Ecumenical Review also contains several commentaries on the Palestine Kairos Document, launched in December 2009, which urges Christians around the world to “take a position of truth with regard to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land” and for non-violent resistance to the occupation. In addition to an introduction to the document by Rifat Odeh Kassis, the coordinator of Kairos Palestine, there are texts by Imam A. Rashied Omar and John de Gruchy, both of whom come from South Africa – particularly appropriate since the Palestinian document was launched 24 years after South African theologians raised their voices against apartheid in their own Kairos document. Esther Mombo underlines in her contribution that it is often women who are both victims of war and excluded by patriarchal structures from efforts to resolve conflicts. She picks up Mary Daly's reference to “the Most Unholy Trinity of Rape, Genocide and War” to show a connection between the mentality of rape and the phenomenon of war. The article by Milton Mejía from Colombia is a reminder that it is often through civil rather than international conflicts that churches are challenged, offering a reminder that such civil conflicts should not disappear from international attention. Guillermo Kerber, in his article, underlines that the process of recognizing “peace with the earth” as being part of “peace on earth” has not been an easy one. Many Christian peace activists have not realized the ecological dimension of their peace efforts. On the other hand, “environmentalists” have not seen their care for the environment as an activity that contributes to peace. A practical example of the relationship between environmental issues and peace can be found in the article by Lucy W. Waweru, which shows how conflicts over water resources at the macro and micro levels threaten peaceful coexistence between countries and communities. Kerber notes emerging ecumenical perspectives, such as those that underlie the IEPC, that open the way to interfaith cooperation through encouraging people of faith from various religions to work at both the personal and the collective levels to contribute to peace with the earth. This is a challenge that Jürgen Moltmann addresses in his contribution in this issue, which argues for the need for a shift in perspective from a world economy to an earth economy, and for world religions to become earth religions, in which the anthropocentrism of the modern world is overcome and humanity is viewed as an integrated element in planet earth as a whole. Carlos Sintado explores how the notion of “social ecology” is able to provide a hermeneutical framework that is relevant for an ecologically sound and justice-centred reading of biblical texts. Underlying several of the contributions to this issue of The Ecumenical Review is a consideration of the theological heritage of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. John de Gruchy reflects on how Bonhoeffer may have seen the “Palestinian question”, while Fernando Enns takes as his inspiration Bonhoeffer's belief that the ecumenical movement requires an ecumenically oriented theological foundation. Margot Kässmann refers to Bonheoffer's address in Fanø in 1934 in which he called for the “one great Ecumenical Council of the Holy Church of Christ” to speak out and to proclaim “the peace of Christ against the raging world”. According to Bonhoeffer, “There is no way to peace along the way of safety. For peace must be dared, it is itself the great venture, and can never be safe. Peace is the oppposite of security. To demand guarantees is to mistrust, and this mistrust in turn brings forth war.” Bonhoeffer's address provided the inspiration for delegates from the German Democratic Republic at the Vancouver assembly to urge the WCC to consider convening a universal Christian council on peace of the sort that Bonhoeffer believed was mandatory in the face of the impending Second World War. This proposal in turn contributed to the call at the Vancouver assembly for a conciliar process for justice, peace and the integrity of creation (JPIC), intended to explore “the links as well as the tensions between the goals of justice, peace and the wellbeing of creation … from biblical, socio-economic and political perspectives”. This JPIC process culminated at the World Convocation for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation in Seoul in 1990. The International Ecumenical Peace Convocation also provides an echo of these earlier voices. Heino Falcke, who played a key role in the elaboration of the GDR proposal to the Vancouver assembly and in the subsequent JPIC process in the GDR and at the global level, provides a very personal account of his own encounter with Bonhoeffer's theology, in which the issues of peace, discipleship and freedom are intimately linked. For Falcke, “discipleship” is a key concept for understanding Bonhoeffer's life. Whoever follows Jesus enters upon a journey and follows a living voice that shows the way. The way leads into different situations and into historical and biographical transformations. Bonhoeffer, writes Falcke, entered upon a journey and remained accountable to this choice. Bonhoeffer's word and his way can only be understood in relation to each another. This coherence of word and life journey is perhaps the secret of the authority that one senses as one encounters him. All those involved in the production of this issue of The Ecumenical Review would like to thank their counterparts on the Ökumenische Rundschau in Germany, and particularly Dr Fernando Enns, for the mutual cooperation and collaboration that has allowed several articles originally written for the Ökumenische Rundschau to be translated and to appear here.

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