4
SCHOOL
for ECUMENICAL LEADERSHIP FORMATION 2003
14 September – 8 October 2003
MODULE 1 & 2
15 September 2003
Opening Worship
The Opening
Worship was celebrated with the focus on peace and the true meaning of Life in
Abundance for the ecology and humanity. Each participant brought their symbols
of peace from their own countries as an affirmation of taking up the task as
peace-builders to reverse the oppressions and injustices that surround us. The
Opening Worship ended with a prayer that the SCMs would journey together in
faith, hope and love to witness and fulfil justice and peace in the world.
Community Building
This session
served as an icebreaker for all the participants and was also an intention to
make a checklist of the expectations and anxieties that the participants have
on the programme. The participants were first asked to introduce themselves by
describing a particular thing that represents their character most. Another
game that was played to create more understanding of each other was the
clustering game whereby the participants need to form different clusters by
their similarities. As the participants were more familiar with each other, the
checklist on their Expectations and Anxieties of the programme was made. Each
participant were asked to list down the things that were worrying them at that
moment and what they could do to help each other during this 25-day programme.
5
Orientation
(Programme, Logistics, Formation of Committees)
Orientation
on the 25-day programme was given to the participants in this session and the
formation of the working committees was made to create a sense of ownership of
the programme by the participants. The working committees also provide a
learning ground of leadership to them as they work with each other in the
different committees to ensure the smooth running of the programme. The working
committees in the SELF programme were:
a.
Steering Committee:
i.
to ensure the over-all flow of the programme
ii.
to check the flow of the daily programme and collect the
participants’ comments and suggestions
iii.
to concretise the daily activities of the programme
b.
Bible Study and Worship Committee:
i.
to prepare and arrange morning devotions and bible studies
ii.
to prepare the closing worship on the last day of the
programme
c.
Community Life Committee:
i.
to organise the Cultural Nights and Farewell Party
ii.
to suggest energisers in between the sessions during the
programme
d.
Time-Keepers
i.
to make sure all sessions start on time
ii.
to take care of tea and snacks during break-times
e.
Women & Men Partnership Committee
i.
to plan discussion topics for the women and men’s caucuses
in the evenings
Gender Sensitivity Workshop
The focus of this Gender Sensitivity Workshop was to
create a sense of sensitivity and understanding of gender stereotypes and
discrimination. This short workshop also served as a preliminary for the
session on Feminism.
The workshop
started with an exercise that is called Inside the Box. The participants were
asked to fill up 2 boxes (one foe woman and one for man) according to the
guidelines as follow:
a.
The expectations of the society towards women and men
b.
The defined roles of women and men
c.
The defined images of women and men
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Questions:
i.
What are the rewards given to women and men to stay inside
the box?
ii.
Is it possible for having the Space without Boundaries,
where there are no boxes to confine us?
iii.
What are some of the things/roles/identities etc. you wish
to do/have that is out of the society’s expectations, scrutiny, monitoring,
condemnation or discrimination? Are there any alternatives?
The
participants were given a short discussion on the Social Conditioning that
creates gender stereotypes and gender discrimination in the form of:
a.
Childhood influences
b.
Family influences/up bringing
c.
Education
d.
Culture
e.
Religion
f.
Media
g.
Language
Sexual
Harassment Policy
WSCF AP’s
Policy on Sexual Harassment was introduced to the participants to highlight the
need to understand what is sexual harassment especially in a regional programme
where there are some differences in understanding what constitutes sexual
harassment as the participants come from different countries with different
attitudes and cultural background. The Policy on Sexual Harassment also offers
suggestions to deal with the occurrence of sexual harassment during a
programme, and the participants were encouraged to confide with the organisers
should there be any suspected occurrence of sexual harassment.
MODULE 1
& 2
16 September
2003
Introduction
of WSCF
The history of WSCF was introduced to the
participants to enable a better and deeper understanding of the mission and
vision of WSCF and SCM. The history dated back to 1895 when youth leaders such
as John R. Mott, Visser’t Hooft,
Karl Fries, played a very important role in the settling up of the SCMs and
consolidating them under the umbrella of WSCF. Throughout the 100 over years,
WSCF has always played a key role in the ecumenical and
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secular arenas providing a flow of leaders
and works of justice and peace to the Church as well as in the secular. Till
now, this vision and mission have been carried on by the current generation of
SCMs and it is hoped that the commitment of fulfilling God’s reign on earth
will never ceased.
Personal
History as Social History
This session
enabled the participants to reflect deeply on their personal history and use it
to relate to the social issues and circumstances that surround them. The
participants were required to follow the guidelines below for their reflection
and narration.
Draw a
plant or fruit you like and divide the plant/fruit into the following parts and
write down some of the memorable events that have happened in your life (thus
far):
1.
Roots – representing childhood
2.
Ground – representing teenage years
3.
Body – representing adulthood
4.
Leaves – what is your dream
Some
guidelines:
-
family background and family influence
-
friends, education, part-time/full-time jobs
-
what were one or two memorable events in your life and how
did they impress upon you?
-
when was your first realisation of some of the injustices or
social discrimination around you? How did this happen? How did you feel? Is
there any influence of this incident to how you perceive certain issues now?
MODULE
1 & 2
17 September
2003
Women and
Men’s Caucuses
The women and
men’s caucuses were planned to raise awareness on the
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systems or ideologies that
create gender discrimination and oppression. The discussions and number of
topics were developed by the Women & Men Partnership Committee. There were
a total of 3 caucuses in the whole programme and the first one fell on 17
September, followed by the second one on 21 September and the third on 2
October.
In the first
session, a small exercise was given to the participants to verify their
perceptions on the issues relating to women’s or gender discrimination. The
participants were divided into the group for women and men. 7 statements were
then given to them to make a check of the level of importance to them as women
and as men. The 7 statements were:
1.
You know what is menstruation
2.
God is male
3.
You want to know more about patriarchy
4.
Your children to take on your family name
5.
You are responsible for the education of your children
6.
I help with the household chores at home
7.
Gender discrimination is a very serious problem
The women and
men’s groups then selected one topic for their own group discussion.
The second
caucus was done in 2 separate groups as well but this time both groups
contained women and men. The discussion topic was:
What is one event that makes you realise there has
been an oppression or discrimination either on you, your family, or your
friends, caused by Patriarchy?
The third
caucus was done in the same manner as in the second caucus, with the discussion
topic on:
Is feminism relevant/important to me? My life? My
work? If feminism is relevant to you, what problems will you face at home? In
your community? At work? What kind of support would you need?
Discussion on Sexuality (Optional for the participants)
There was a request from one of the participants to
have a small group
9
discussion on the topic sexuality particularly
on homosexuality to enable a deeper understanding on this issue. This
discussion group was planned on 23 September but was optional for the
participants to attend. Half of the total number of participants attended this
discussion and the issue of sexuality was raised and discussed with each
attendee giving his/her own perception, understanding, family and cultural
background on issues of homosexuality and sexuality.
MODULE 3
18 & 19 September
2003
Reading the Signs of the
Time
Resource Person: Dr.
George Mathew
Questions for Discussion:
1.
What were the traditional images of God that we were brought
up with?
2.
What images of god do we have now?
3.
How does this affect our actions in the social context?
4.
What do we think about the images of god that the resource
person has talked about? Example: Trinity, rice god, slow god, non-violent god.
Do we agree/disagree with different images?
5.
Do we have any other new images of god?
Questions/Clarifications
from the participants:
1. There is a
difficulty in accepting the concept of Trinity in the concept of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit when the Son connotes that Jesus is the only saviour but
neglect the other religions which believe or follow other saviours. Moreover
the Trinity concept tends to inter-link with the family and heterosexist model
that is very much against feminism. This concept is also an influence from the
church dogmas and does not originate from the true form of Christianity itself,
and it has become closely related to the institutional church.
2. Faith is
dependent on the individuality because the institutional church
10
has always wanted to oppress
individuality to convert it to the majority. The institutional church is not receptive
to go beyond the Christ. Institutional church does not accept theology to be
done individually because we are all taught to follow only one way of doing
theology and expressing our faith through the institutional church teachings.
3. It is important to have the individuality of
perceiving God as we have in our minds many perceptions and images of God.
Therefore inter-Christian dialogue is very important to understand each other’s
perception and understanding of God.
4. We called
ourselves Christian, while those who follow the thoughts of Mao Tse Tung or Karl Marx called
themselves Maoists or Marxists. Why don’t we call ourselves Jesus-ists because we follow Jesus?
Discussion:
For any kind
of praxis, we need to have some concepts to reflect before taking the action.
The reason of using the concept of Social Trinity which is felt to be a better
model is because Trinity has a social, pluralistic, dialogue, ecological,
feminist, non-violent, perspective/direction we can make use of. Trinity is a
communitarian as it connotes interdependency of the Father, Son and Holy
Spirit. It provides a more interdependent perspective as one is not more than
the other. Trinity in the identity of politics gives importance to each person
in the family and each does not form an identity independently from others as
they inter-relate. It forms the social solidarity and identity of individuals,
that is, a group identity as well as individuality, hence it is a form of communitarianism. Each identity has an equal identity that will not
be sacrificed.
The Trinity
concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not to be taken literally in
terms of personhood. It should not be taken too literally as it can become too Christo-centric (only focuses on Son) which will stop all
forms of dialogue. It has to go beyond the Christ, if not, it will become
Christology and not about theology. There are many ways to reach God, we need
to go beyond the Christ as the only saviour and has the only way. The concept
of the only saviour and the only way is an extremely traditional evangelical
way. There is a danger of being in the temptation of Absolutism, which
will
11
become an ideology. There
should be a balance between transcendence (all reality depends on God and has
been created ‘out of nothing’) and immanence (God is present to and involved
with all reality).
Trinity is
not a noun form, it is a verbal noun. The being and becoming/acting of God.
If Jesus is
here today, he might want us to be called Jesus-ists
but Jesus did not institutionalise Christianity. There must be a balance of the
transcendence and historical Jesus Christ, between Christ of Faith and Jesus of
History. There must be an acknowledgement of the historical past and historical
importance of Jesus but we need to also transcend it to become faith to God.
Can we call ourselves as a Jesus-Christian or can we go beyond Jesus as we are
all followers of God?
MODULE 3
20 September 2003
Conflict Transformation
& Resolutions
Resource
Person: Mr. Chan Beng Seng
Questions for
Discussion:
1.
What kind of role can SCM play in terms of Conflict
Resolutions?
2.
What do you need to do (as an entry point) to discuss with
students on Conflict Prevention?
3.
How could this work out in the Macro context/level?
(learning skills in social analysis – important for human rights work)
4.
How do we as SCM effectively approach the root causes of
conflicts? (what are some of the ways we can involve in making solutions?)
Questions/Clarifications
from the participants:
1. Everyone
has their own values and orientations, and even the mediator comes to the
discussion table with these orientations. So what are the guiding principles in
conflict solutions?
2. Do we just
follow the parties’ solutions? Their solutions may be bias, do we follow these
or do we have the solutions from outside/external?
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Discussion:
We cannot and
must not come to the mediating table with solutions because the solutions
should come out from the parties involved in the conflict. We can guide the
parties to come up with the solutions themselves. Hot-peace is giving solutions
from the mediators; hence although there is no conflict, there will also be no
solutions. As long as one party accepts a solution but do not think it is a
just solution, it is not a solution at all
We need to
bring out the feelings, values, and orientation of all the parties involved in
the Process of Story-Telling while not giving our theories or principles. As we
tell the stories, we interact with our experience, our feelings with the
parties so that the stories become very meaningful in everyone’s contexts. The
desire to give a solution is very strong but that is not a true solution.
We then need
to go into the concept of Human Rights. Conflict Resolutions do not work by
itself because it is connected to Human Rights and Social Analysis. At every level of conflict, we need to go
deeply into the issue of Analysis (what, when, who, where, how and why). We
need to transform the level of conflict and deal with the root causes (deep
reasons of the problem: from historical to social, political, economic). That
is why Conflict Transformation is more important than Conflict Resolutions
because there will be no solutions when we do not work on the root causes to
transform the conflict step by step, level by level while understanding each
hidden problem in each level. When we have gone deeper into the reasons of the
problem and understand the causes of it, our values can then come in, as we can
understand what is right or wrong and who is right or wrong, or we can know who
are the main perpetrators of the problem. In conflict management, the
mediators’ values cannot/must not come in but when we go deeper into the root
causes of the conflict/problem, they will lead us to understand the causes. We
will then know who and why it is at fault and creating the problem, and the
issue of values will have its validity: how we can break this chain, how we can
see this is wrong and how we can change the system. This is
called Conflict Transformation – transforming the conflict into another level,
social analysis, so that the parties understand why they are behaving in a
particular way and goes beyond the initial conflict. In order to transform the conflict,
13
the finding out and
understanding (analysing) step by step of each problem in each level is
important. When we arrive at the What level, we can ask: What we can do
about the problem, what they can do about the problem. What we as SCM, can do
about the problem. What our friends in other parts of the world, can do about
the problem. We can then share
information, build up solidarity and have international campaigns. Thus we can
make an action at different levels: the party involved level, the SCM level,
the international circle of friends level.
MODULE 3
21 September 2003
Human Rights in
Resource person: Mr. Chan
Beng Seng
Questions/Clarifications
from the participants:
1. There is a
problem of the human rights education: even while we support a particular
social issue, but when it comes to the personal level, we ignore this issue at
the personal level and do not relate this social issue as our personal issue.
For example, in the issue of workers’ rights, the movement fights for workers’
rights but does not give workers’ rights to its own movement workers.
Discussion:
Human Rights
violation comes when one party does something to impose one’s value to another
or discriminate, or make life difficult for another.
It is up to the person to make the sacrifice and
commitment to make the changes and break the systemic chain of discrimination
or that of violation of human rights. Thus, it is needed to locate oneself to
the level of which one wants to work on in improving the human rights. One
cannot learn justice. When we learn justice, it is only in the forms, in
theory, a form of politically correctness. But this is not internalised, not
personalised and not in the spirit. So we can learn human rights and justice
but contradictions will appear if we do not have the spirit of human rights or
when it is not internalised. If we did not learn the spirit of servant-hood or
spirit of service, we do not know what
14
is giving and helping. Hence, when the issue is
approached in the academic manner, we can talk a lot of it easily, but when it
is approached it in a personal way, it is a different feeling or attitude.
MODULE 3
22 September 2003
Globalisation
Resource
person: Ms. Nicola Bullard
Questions for Discussion:
1.
What do you want out of this input?
2.
How do you see the globalisation in your life?
Response from the
participants:
Globalisation
is:
§ “class” society
developing – gaps between rich and poor – violence – cannot control
globalisation, discrimination and displacement – environment damage – over
consumption – culture/tradition threatened – collapse of middle class - common
global economy - trade of capitalist countries to monopolise the world – global
free market – something constructed by people – it can be changed
Discussion:
The main
characteristic of Globalisation:
§ is economy, a common
market based on economy
§ makes gaps between rich
and poor, workers and bosses/capital, women and men, south and north, rural and
urban
§ the benefits goes to
rich/multi-national corporations instead of to the poor/workers
§ that ordinary people
facing risks in security, job protection and employment.
§ that 3rd World
countries’ high risk of falling into forced economic policies of structural
adjustment in order to borrow money from the World Bank to develop the country
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Main
institutions of Globalisation:
1.
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
2.
G-7 and World Bank
The
participants were shown a video on the WTO (World Trade Organisation)
Ministerial Meeting in Doha and the campaigns that were rallied against it by
anti-Globalisation activists.
MODULE 3
22
September 2003
Economic
Justice
Resource
person: Ms. Nicola Bullard
Questions for Discussion:
1. What is
Economic Justice?
Response
from the participants:
§ Equal distribution of
resources by society needs without exploitation
§ Equal value and
distribution in resources and using the resource according to the needs
Discussion:
What we can do to deal with justice in economy and reasons
for injustice in economy:
-
Relations between countries (unchangeable policies of
countries)
-
Trying many approaches (Self Determination)
-
Campaigns
-
Working to build up trade unions
-
Stabilising the price of goods and products
MODULE 3
30 September 2003
Feminism
Resource
person: Ms. Yong Ting Jin
16
Ting Jin started the session by asking the
participants to write down what do they think or know about the word,
‘Feminism’, and what do people say about this word.
Some of the
responses from the participants on their understanding of Feminism were:
§ Strange and strong
§ An important concept
§ Consciousness of women
§ Equality and Women’s
Rights
§ There is a doubt on this
word
Some of the
responses from the participants on what they hear/know of other people’s
understanding of this word were:
§ Useless concept
§ Ultra feminist
§ Not my concern
§ Struggle
§ Some care-free women’s
job
§ Extremist
§ Frightening word
Questions
for Discussion:
1.
In view of the various feminist theories and analyses, are
they useful to you? How?
2.
How do you locate and describe the women’s movement in your
country in relation to the various feminist thinking/theories?
3.
How do you place or locate these feminist theories/thinking
in relation to your SCM/WSCF?
4.
What is your view of feminism after today’s session and
discussion? (Compared to before) Has it changed now? How?
Summaries
from the discussion:
-
It is very important to understand the feminist theories as
they help to ground many of our thoughts and reflections on the work we have
been doing in our SCM. As we have a clearer understanding on the feminist
theories, we are able to work better and effectively as we initiate discussions
and dialogues on the issues of women and gender, and particularly when
initiating women and men dialogue with the male participants. These feminist
theories also help us to refer
17
and relate to our daily
actions. There is a concern that these theories can sometimes be too academic
and far away from the social realities of the grass roots and hence making it
difficult to relate to the daily realities that the grass roots need to
face.
-
it is important and interesting to know that the women’s
movement has an early history in Asia, and that it is not a Western influence.
This session particularly helps us to understand this point. The Post Modernist
Feminism theory is very interesting but we need to understand more about this
before applying into our context, hence we need to study more on this theory.
We could start small group discussions in our SCM to initiate deeper and
clearer understanding on the various feminist theories, so that all of us could
be involved in building up a just and peaceful society.
Questions
and Clarification from the participants:
1. Is the
Post Modernist Feminist theory popular? And was it developed 10 years ago?
2. Comment -
there are 2 different groups of feminists in Korea fighting against each other,
one is the Liberal Feminists and the other is the Radical Feminists. The issue
of contention: the Radical Feminists felt that the Liberal Feminists are
betraying the cause of Feminism as they accept donations and funding from the
Multi-National Corporations and thus commercialising the cause of the struggle
against patriarchy. Hence, it was felt that the Liberal Feminists are
supporting the capitalist system, which is a major force of patriarchy.
3. Comment –
WSCF regional programmes to give considerations to the differently able bodied
people and on the issue of Homosexuality.
Discussion:
The theory on
Post Modernist Feminism is a Western concept/phenomenon and it is popular in
the West. Most Asians are still dealing
with issues of globalisation and poverty, hence for many Asian Feminists; Post
Modernist Feminism is not perceived as relevant to the Asian context. Thus many
Asians Feminists are still using the model of Socialist Feminist theory. But
there is a point in that there is no global sisterhood because we are all
different and
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there is no universalism. We
could learn many things from the model of Post Modernist but we are not forced
to subscribe to it.
There is no
concrete history of how the Post Modernist Feminist theory occurs but it
appeared about 10 years ago along with the occurrence of the critique on the
Modernist theory in the West which was deemed to be too focused on universalism
and has in a way become too imposing. In the Post Modernist Feminist school of
thought, some of the Feminists do not use the word/term Patriarchy because
there are many other forces of domination. Up to a certain stage in the
struggle against Patriarchy, we may not have to deal with the question of
Patriarchy anymore but as it is currently, most Asian societies have not
arrived to the stage of non-patriarchy. However, the Post Modernist Feminist
theory is applicable and helpful in the societies of the Pacific such as
Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Homosexuality
is also an issue of justice. Though we might not accept it at the moment, we
are living in the midst of homosexuality in our community. It is good to be
open about it and address this issue because homosexuality is related to the
entire issue of sexuality. Also, it is related to the issue of the image of God
that has been created for all human beings. Our churches have conditioned us
that homosexuality is a sin. But the reality is that there are different sexual
orientations in our community, even in the SCM/WSCF community and hence there
is a need to address this issue. SCM/WSCF has always had a boldness to address
issues which the churches shun, so this is the challenge we need to take.
It is all right to find it difficult to identify
which feminist theories is useful but it is good that there is a willingness to
learn and reflect. Feminism is a dynamic process and is changing according to
the current context. It is good suggestion that a consideration is to be taken
for women and men to engage in Feminist Theology in regional women’s
programmes. On the issue of Homosexuality, if it does not stir emotions and
thoughts that means we do not reflect and be opened to the challenge to search
for answers that are important in our lives. We need to re-read the bible that
interprets texts that are supposed to condemn homosexuality as a sin. We need
to re-read the bible
19
so that we can find
out the real meaning of justice for all human kind created by God.
Hence the what and who is a Feminist is that a
Feminist is not a gender or biological term. It is a characteristic of one’s social-political
position for change and transformation for women’s liberation within the larger
struggle for human liberation. It is also a personal action for one’s
liberation, change and transformation. Hence, if men wanted to be a Feminist
and involved in the struggle to end patriarchy, men themselves need to be
liberated.
MODULE 3
1 October 2003
Ecology
Resource person: Mr. Wong
Meng Chuo
Questions
for Discussion:
1.
Discuss the pro and con of anthropocentric view and
bio-centric view.
2.
Do you agree with precautionary theory?
3.
How would you define sustainable development?
4.
Is there hope to sustain the eco-system? If so, what can
you/we do?
Summaries
from the discussion:
1.
Northeast Asia
Human beings
cannot be wilful/wanton to do anything they want. Anthropocentric view is that
we care more about human and we need to expand. But we need both views to keep
the balance. We agree on the precautionary theory as the world’s resources will
be depleted one day if we do not do anything. Before we could define
sustainable development, we need to question its meaning and its impact on the
ideology of development. We need to cultivate good basic attitudes in our daily
lives to help the eco-system. The Northeast Asia region is often facing wars
and because of this, the eco-system is destroyed, so the anti-war movement is
important to protect the eco-system.
2.
Southeast Asia and Pacific
20
We could
sustain and develop the eco-system. By
changing the trends of the economic system, we could help the eco-system because
though they are distinct by themselves they are not separated from each other.
The orientation of the capitalist system is to raise the consumption level of
people, and over-consumption causes exploitation and abuse of natural
resources. We could start from ourselves, educating ourselves, be
environmentally friendly, do not over-consume and to work with NGOs to struggle
against globalisation. There need to be a development of all aspects – the
development should be based on everyone’s development.
3.
South Asia
There is hope
to sustain the eco-system but the methodology of sustaining the eco-system
should be right. To take the example of the village, San Ti Sook
in Kut Chum of using the local currency system, it
encourages the use of basic necessities and a system of exchange of goods for
our needs so we do not over-consume unnecessary goods.
Questions
and Clarifications from the participants:
1. We need
some form of science and technology development as it could help to reduce the
damage done to the ecology, for example, creating natural gases to be used as
gasoline for vehicles. Can science and technology help to sustain the ecology
or is there an alternative way?
2.
Sustainable development compromises the need to safeguard the ecology for the benefit
of the multi-national corporations; hence there is a lot of critique in using
the model of sustainable development. What do you think?
3. In your
input, what are the schools of thought that these economists represent?
4. Are there
any examples of communities where there is sustainable living?
5. What is
sustainable development, for whom and for what? Does it connect to the poor and
does it benefit the poor? When can we support technology and when not? What are
the alternatives? If the sustainable development concept does not deal with our
living and
21
our status in the society,
but only deals with the technology where it is controlled by the capitalist or
elites, how can we deal with this concept?
6. It is
difficult to relate these concepts of development that can be realised in our
social realities where we are experiencing so many unbalances and injustices.
In our own context, we can see that these concepts cannot be realised and
cannot answer to our needs. So what is the problem and what are the root causes
that sustainable development cannot be realised in our societies?
7. Comment:
sustainable development is a victim of globalisation – this concept is already globalised and leans towards the capitalists. Sustainable
development is consciously or unconsciously serving the needs of the rich and
elites.
8. Please
provide some background information of the invention of this concept:
sustainable development. In what context did the idea come up and by whom?
Discussion:
We need to
have an ethical approach, but at the moment we need to understand who is
controlling the science and technology. It is the big corporations that are
controlling science and technology and these have become their tools for
economic development. The useful science and technology is not reaching down to
the people who need it.
The
academicians quoted in this input are academicians in the debate of ecological
development. It is difficult to classify which schools of thought they are
from; they are not necessary pro capitalist as they raise the issue of
fairness. This input is questioning the dominant powers behind the concept of
sustainable development and that another alternative is needed, for instance
sustainable living or bio-diversity.
We should
look at the 3 aspects of economic, social and environmental development. There
is a need to have at least some balance if not all in these 3 aspects. If it is
ecologically sustainable but not economically sustainable, the development is
not ideal. There could be attempts done at the local level without following
the global level.
22
We need to
look at the term sustainable development carefully. The original intention was
to be inclusive and improve the living standards of people and ecology. The
NGOs were very attracted to the concept and pushed very hard for it to be
materialised. But it evolves to the contradictory and thus has become very
negative to many people. That is why another concept is evolved: that is
sustainable living and building on our own of what should be sustainable.
The concept
of sustainable development was initiated in the Rio Earth Summit 1992 in the UN
level. It was pushed and pressurised by the NGOs because of massive occurrences
of environmental degradation in the world. Some of the Christian organisations like
WCC, CCA and YMCA were also in favour of this concept. All countries that had
signed on this resolution should commit themselves to this agenda that is
called AGENDA 21. But gradually and eventually, more and more power goes to the
corporate elites which abuse this concept and many governments were not
honouring the signatories as well, hence, sustainable development became a
negative impact on the people and ecology.
MODULE 4
2 October 2003
Ecumenical
Movement
Resource person: Dr.
David Suh
Questions for Discussion:
1a. What do
you know about “Ecumenical Movement”?
1b. What do
people say about “ecumenical”?
1c. What do
you feel about “ecumenical movement”?
1d. What
should be “ecumenical movement”?
2a. Do you
think we need ecumenical movement (in your context)?
3a. There are
Christians who oppose ecumenical movements or ecumenical organisations such as
WCC, NCC, etc. Why do they oppose ecumenical organisations or movements?
23
3b. Have you
met or talked with any of your Christian friends who oppose ecumenical
movements or SCMs or WSCF? How do you respond to them? What is your feelings
about those who oppose ecumenical movement?
4. Do you
know the history or histories of ecumenical movement in your country, in Asia
and in the world?
5. What are
some of the Biblical bases for ecumenical movement?
6. What
should be the future of ecumenical movement, in your country, in our region,
and in the world? What should be our work together in ecumenical movements in
all levels?
7. What are
the things you would like to ask or discuss, but we were not able to do?
Summaries
from the discussion:
Group 1
Ecumenical
movement and being ecumenical is – to live and work together for peace and
justice. There is a need to work with the secular groups and other religions.
The church has to function in the multi-dimensional terms of religion, social,
political and economic. It is important but somehow sad because the ecumenical
movement exists only in a word and not in action. Some people perceived it to
be a form of communism, while some churches are against it. Hence the
ecumenical movement should be inclusive, dynamic and practical, to avoid being
institutionalised and go down to the grass root level. There should be praxis
at the local level and to take concrete actions in acting out what is meant to
be ecumenical.
There are
oppositions to the ecumenical movement as there are still many
misunderstandings and lack of knowledge on the meaning of ecumenism. Some
people thought it has no spirituality bases and some link it to the domain
belonging to the Catholics.
There is a
however a positive future for the ecumenical movement but we
24
need to self-reflect
constantly, be open minded, be humble enough to sit and work together and to
avoid making empty talks about one’s own knowledge and actions on ecumenism.
Group 2
Ecumenism is
concerned with finding unity between Christians and is concerned with peace and
justice issues. It should be the voice of the church to the world, and SCM/WSCF
is a part of this ecumenical movement. Institutions such as WCC, CCA, NCC and
WSCF are important in the history of the ecumenical movement. But some people
are suspicious of it and do not approve of the ecumenical movement while others
wonder about the role of the ecumenical institutions nowadays. Hence the
ecumenical movement should be strong and serves as the prophetic voice to the
world.
The
oppositions to the ecumenical movement are largely because of arrogance,
insecurity, different understanding and interpretations of Christianity and
other religions. The future of the ecumenical movement should then have more
inter-faith understanding, and for Christians to be united and work towards
peace and justice, sharing of resources and have deep inter-relations with the
grass roots.
Group 3
Ecumenical
movement is a movement that moves and works together. But some people perceive
it to be impossible while some perceive otherwise. The ecumenical movement
should be a non-bias human movement with mutual understand and respect.
There are
oppositions to the ecumenical movement because the churches and communities are
diverse with different denominations. There are some who feel they are more
superior and this creates many misunderstandings. The churches must work
together with a common purpose, thus there is a need for real ecumenism. Some
people perceive the
25
ecumenical movement as un-holy as
it is involved in the work against unjust social, economic and other
situations. Ecumenism include all religions so it is considered wrong according
to the teachings in the Bible, hence certain teachings in some churches
discourage the involvement in the ecumenical movement.
It is thus
important, to share more about the ecumenical movement and ecumenism to those
who oppose it.
Questions/Clarifications
from the participants:
1. Can you share more about Eco-ecumenism?
Discussion:
People who
are involved in the ecumenical movement are always perceived as purposely being
divisive, communists, radicals, and always challenging the church on issues of
peace and justice. So are we all, communists or people involved in causing
divisions? But is there anything wrong with being a communist or radical?
The ecumenical movement began with a history of the
church movement. It was initially an idea to have all the different
denominations to work together and come together as one unified church by the
Protestants. In the period before 1930, there was no communication and relationship
with each other, hence the organised councils such as NCC, CCA, etc. came
together to start a movement for working together. Secondly, the ecumenical
movement was initially related to the missionary movement and its purpose was
to enlarge the Christian community around the world. The expansion of the
Christian churches was connected with colonialism – so church and politics came
together. Because of this, the colonial churches gravely misunderstood the
meaning of ecumenical movement. In the period between 1930-40, Asia came
together to contradict the colonial churches; the purpose of the Asian
Ecumenical Movement was to work for justice and peace in Asia and in the world
and to release Asia from colonialism. The ecumenical movement in
26
Asia is now being understood as working together in the social and
economic transformation in
Some of the
reasons that pose oppositions to ecumenism and the ecumenical movement are:
§ The ideology and practice
of church centeredness (individual church): this means it is the church and
nothing else, and hence the creation of church individualism. The rationale
behind this ideology came from the sole concern for the numerical growth of the
church. To many churches, as long as the church is getting bigger, it does not
care or show concern to the other churches. This ideology mainly derived from
the missionaries with the mission of the 3 Self’s advocacy. The 3 Self’s was
developed by the missionary who went to China, John Nevius
who advocated that the components of the 3 Self’s are: self-propagation,
self-government, self-support.
In Mainland
China, the present government now is exactly advocating this 3 Self’s ideology
for its church. The 3 Self’s makes the church very individual. The Ecumenical
Movement is exactly the opposite of this 3 Self’s ideology as its motivation is
to bring the churches together. Those who oppose the Ecumenical Movement are
those who are self-centred and are insecure because there is a fear of losing
power and money once they collaborate or work with other churches as the
Ecumenical Movement encourages sharing and balancing of resources among the
collaborators.
§ Church and State:
politics and religion. To many Christians in their perception of Christianity,
it has nothing to do with politics. As Christians, the focal need is to save
the individual souls for the other world (heaven and hell) – salvation. In the
ecumenical movement, the focused work is for the here and now in this world.
There are so many oppressed people in this world hence this world is as
important as the other world, thus there is a real need to change the present
world. However, those who oppose the ecumenical movement argue that
27
this is involvement in
politics and Christians should not be involved in politics as salvation attainment
means not being involved in politics.
§ Right-Wing Christians who
think they are the real Christians and that their Christianity is authentic.
These Right-Wing Christians have a tendency to perceive people involved in the
ecumenical movement as un-holy, their Christianity as un-authentic and they do
not follow the teachings of the bible. But we need to question and challenge
these Right-Wing Christians and ask why do they feel so confident about their
Christianity? We may also need to deeply understand our faith and study the
bible more profoundly.
Some examples
of Jesus’ mission that could be related to the need for the Ecumenical
Movement:
1. Luke
4:17-18. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has chosen me
to bring good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim liberty to the
captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed”. If
we are followers of Jesus, we need to follow this mission statement of Jesus.
Preaching alone is only following one part of Jesus’ mission, we need to take
practical action as well.
2. Matthew
5: 1-13. For those who are being accused for acting out the mission of
Jesus, the people involved in the ecumenical movement are the salt and light of
the earth. We are working on the basis of the bible and we are working on the
basis of Jesus’ mission.
3. John 1:
1 & 16. Jesus was in the beginning with God and God came to the world
as a human being, that is termed as incarnation. God did not stay in heaven but
came down to the world, so if we are followers of God/Jesus, we have to come
down to the grassroots or to the people and live with them. That is the
Incarnation of the world.
4. Philippians
2:5. This verse talks of the Kenosis of Jesus (emptying the self, give all
the love to the world). The churches must empty themselves and give money and
love to those in need. But many churches are not doing that, they do not empty
themselves and they do not give. But Jesus emptied himself, gave up all power,
glory and became a humble being.
28
5. Revelations
21: 1. The ecumenical vision is the new heaven and new earth: God will wipe
away all tears, death shall be no more, no mourning, no pain, because old
things will go away – this verse is not about an individual who will have this
vision/salvation for him/herself, but it is a vision for everyone. God’s will
to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Thus, it is
important that we understand deeply and know profoundly on the mission of
Jesus. The above are some examples of the mission of Jesus that implies the
transformation of the oppressed society. The people involved in this
transformation will be persecuted but eventually there is the urgent need to
work towards the ecumenical vision of the new heaven and new earth and that
God’s reign is here on earth.
On the
question of Eco-Ecumenism, Eco-Ecumenism is not only about peace but also about
working with the natural world for the peace in the world. The church does not
talk about the ecology because the church’s perception of salvation is meant
only for humans and that does not include other creations in the natural world.
In the past, the church did not include women in the world of salvation as
well. The church has its beginnings with a focal point on men-centred and
human-centred. But at this present era, it needs to include women and nature
because the whole world needs to be in God’s salvation. In Genesis 1: 26, the
word used in this text, ‘rule over – dominion’ – is deemed ruling over nature
is cultured, human beings rule over nature to create culture, therefore,
civilisation is meant for human being’s victory over nature, hence there is a
clear division between nature and culture. This notion carries a very heavy
colonial mentality. But in the mentality of Asia/Oriental, there is more emphasis
on nature, human is in the nature and it is does not dominate the nature.
Eco-ecumenism is to live with the nature and we have to let the nature live.
Life is more important than civilisation, hence if we believe in peace, we need
to believe in Eco-Ecumenism. For those who are actively involved in the
ecumenical movement, there is a need to create a new world order. But before
that, we need to question what is wrong with the old world order? And what
should be the new world order? These are important questions and reflections as
we work towards creating a world of peace and justice.
29
MODULE 4
3 October 2003
Interfaith Dialogue
Resource
person: Dr. David Suh
Questions
for Discussion:
1a. What do you know about traditional Asian religions other than your
own religion?
1b. Have you ever been
involved in other religion than your current religion?
1c. How do you feel about
other religions?
2. What is your faith in
Christianity? What can you say about your own religion, when you are asked to
talk about Christianity?
3. As a
Christian, what is your views or theology of other
religions?
“Other religions are all
superstitious and idol worship, therefore they should be condemned and converted
to Christianity.”
“All religions other than
Christianity are ‘preparations’ for becoming Christianity. So, we can have
patience and wait for their coming to Christ.”
“All religions are the
same; we all have more commonalities than differences. So, mission is
meaningless.”
“Christianity is the one
and unique religion superior to all other religions in the world: the only true
way to God.”
“Learning about other
religions and mixing with people of other faith is betrayal to your own
religion and heretical.”
Discuss the above positions and come to your
theological position (refer to Wesley Ariarajah’s Seven
Affirmations, page 12,13. And Visioning New Life Together Among Asian
Religions (CATS III), CCA, 2002.
4a. We, as Christians,
hear about “inter-faith” or “inter-religious” dialogue(s). What do you think
about it? Have you been in one of these “dialogues”? What do they do in a
dialogue?
4b. Who would oppose
inter-religious dialogue? Why do they oppose it?
4c. Is learning about
other religions “heretical”? What do these words mean to you: “fundamentalism”,
“orthodoxy”, “religious right”, “liberalism”, “syncretism”, “liberation
theology”, “feminist theology”,
30
“womanist
theology”, “eco-feminism”?
4d. What do you think a
dialogue ought to be? What do you think needs to be done for the desirable
dialogue with people of other faith?
5. How do you relate
inter-religious dialogue with ecumenical movement? Would you include
inter-religious dialogue in your work for ecumenical movement? If so, why? If
not, why not?
6. Given the needs for
inter-religious dialogue, and what would be your vision of Christianity in you
faith, life and work? What would be the role of Asian traditional religions in
the future of Christianity in Asia?
7. Do you
have other questions which you wanted to discuss in relation to inter-faith
dialogue?
Summaries
from the discussion:
Group 1
While some
group members felt that Christianity is more superior to other religions such
as Islam, and Islam contains some negative practices such as ‘polygamy’ or
‘jihad’, some group members felt that Christianity is a religion that
‘destroys’ other religions and traditional cultures. In some societies where
there are many religions co-existing together, it is not an uncommon or
un-tolerated sight.
For those
members who felt that Christianity is more superior, it points to the biblical
verse of John 14:6 that Jesus died for our sins and is our personal saviour. To
believe in Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. However, to other group
members, it is the faith in God that saves us, not necessarily through Jesus as
implied in Mark 5:25-34. We should not judge other religions as this makes us
become overly subjective; instead we need to empty (kenosis) ourselves for the
love of humanity. God will eventually be the judge, not us. Salvation is
multi-dimensional and may appear in many different forms and in different
religion that we may need to appreciate and learn.
31
Group 2
Christianity is not more superior to other religions
as all religions teach towards the good for humanity, hence we cannot condemn
other religions. Mission is meaningful as the positive meaning of mission is to
share our religion with people of other faiths, but not impose our own religion
onto them. Thus it is not a betrayal of our own faith when we learn and
understand more about other religions.
Group 3
People are all searching for their own God, hence if
God allows other religions to exist, why can’t we? There should not be any
discrimination to other religions, as we cannot compare the different ways of
teaching and living, as the objective of all religions is to develop human
lives. God is divine and more than what is offered in the material world. We do
not need to go to the institutional church to receive the spirit of Christ, we
do not need to follow the church dogma but instead our care and focus should be
put into our relationship between God and ourselves. We need to define the
meaning of ‘mission’ as the traditional meaning of ‘mission’ means ‘conversion’
which has a negative connotation.
Discussion from the summaries:
It is right for the ecumenical movement to be engaged
in the Inter-faith Dialogue. If we could dialogue between different Christian
faiths, we could dialogue with different religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism,
Confucianism – all these came from Asia – so it is actually about Asian
cultural dialogue for mutual understanding and respect.
Some
understanding on the different religions:
a. Hinduism -
Like many other people, we do not know that in Hinduism, there are a multiple
of Gods (Krishna, Vishnu, Ganesh etc.) and in the
lives of many Hindu Indians, they are all living in the midst of Gods! There is
a belief in Hinduism in Re-Birth that connotes there is no end to a human’s
life, there is eternity and the soul never perishes. To be released from the
endless cycle of life, human beings need to be born
32
and
re-born again and again to finally get away from the bad life at the present
moment. The concept of salvation in Hinduism is to receive salvation for this
world and not in the next world. Hence there are the questions of the
persisting caste system in India and that women in Hinduism are not given equal
status as men because women are unclean. Thus for them to be saved in the
Re-incarnation, women first need to be incarnated as men.
b. Islam – in
contrast to Hinduism where there are many Gods, in Islam, there is only on God
(Allah). It is similar to Judaism where there is one Yahweh. Historically, the
concept of many-Gods was dominant prior to the religion of Christianity. This
concept could be found in religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. But after
the coming of Christ, there came Islam and Judaism whose concept of One and Only
God became dominant, hence many conflicts were developed because of this
difference.
The 5
principles of Islam are: pray 5 times a day, believe only in Allah, to give
alms to the poor, the pilgrimage to Mecca (Holy City), and practising the
Ramadan (fasting at least once per year). Islam believes in prophets and Jesus
is one of the many prophets but Mohammed is the only greatest prophet of Allah.
To be a true Muslim one needs to give alms to the poor and to pray 5 times a
day. Jihad is the extreme of this religion in the belief of killing if one does
not believe in Allah.
c.
Buddhism – the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism:
1.
Everything and everyone is suffering
2.
We suffer because everyone has desires
3.
In order to overcome the suffering, we need to end the
desire
4.
When we have ended the desires, we need to achieve the 8
ways of practice (right view, resolve, speech, action, livelihood, effort,
mindfulness, meditation)
Salvation
from the suffering is Re-incarnation (samara) and human beings need to live
through many samaras before we could be liberated from them. That means, human
beings need to suffer in many samaras and in each samara, there is a need to
make one samara better than the previous one. Hence human beings need to
overcome in each samara and practice the ending of desires. Thus to be
liberated from the samara, we need to achieve nirvana. But there is
33
no Yahweh or Vishnu because
everyone can become Buddha or human Buddha. Buddhism is basically about the
material salvation – the salvation of life at present.
However,
there are so many practices of patriarchy in the different religions:
-
Women are the worshippers, and men are the monks.
-
Religion is for men and secular is for women
-
In Judaism, only men could worship to the Yahweh
But do you
really think that is God’s wish? And in the question of salvation: how will we
be saved? How do we feel about the religions?
Therefore, we
always need to question and reflect ourselves honestly in our religion; what
kind of God do we worship, and what are the ethics?
Hence, do we
really understand the other religions before we could make any comment on which
religion is more superior to others? There are many people who will ask: what
is wrong with missionary work? We need to challenge the perception of
missionary work, what does missionary mean.
If God came
down as human being – that is incarnation. In Buddhism and Hinduism, there is
this incarnation concept as well. The cross is unique in Christianity and in
the Roman Empire then as it meant execution of criminals. The cross is symbolic
only in Christianity; hence we must talk about the meaning of the cross in
Christianity, as it is an important symbol. But if we think we only could seek
salvation through the cross, there is a lot of doubt.
There is
diversity within the group of SCM. People have different ideas about other
opinions on the different religions, and about Christianity as well. How can we
come together in one theology when we have different attitudes about the
different religions?
Discussion:
Fundamentalism:
Christian fundamentalism began in 1920 in USA. The 5 fundamentals in
Christianity:
34
1.
The bible is the word of God: written by the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit. (ie. biblical fundamentalism)
2.
Jesus is the saviour
3.
Jesus was born by the Virgin Mary
4.
The miracles and healing by Jesus or in the bible are
factual, true, and they happened
5.
The second coming of Jesus will judge all people who do not believe
in Christ
There is
actually no Muslim fundamentalism, only Christian fundamentalism. There are so
many different kinds/shades of fundamentalism we need to be very careful what
are the fundamentalism talking about: just biblical fundamentalism or in the
extreme: kill all the Muslims. We need and must be careful to define who is the
fundamentalist, and to define what kind of fundamentalist this person is
(political or religious right wing).
What is
Liberalism? The basic understanding of Liberalism is that the bible is word of
God but the bible has been written by human beings as well. For example,
Genesis has been written by different groups of people. The Ten Commandments
was not written by God but is on the understanding of how to behave in a particular
society then. In the New Testament, some books are the same, some are so
different from each other. It was perceived that Gospel of Mark was the first
to be written, followed by Matthew, Luke and John. Mark was written 20 years
after Jesus had died, and John, a hundred years later. Thus, is the bible
written by people who knew Jesus or who had only heard about Jesus? Some groups
of people got together in different times and started drafting the bible; hence
in the New Testament there are opinions, hearings, and confessions. So did God
write the bible? No, it was written by human beings whose confessions and
opinions in their belief of what God is. Within ourselves, we need to dialogue
with our own faiths before we dialogue with other religions.
We need to
read the bible in our own contexts, and understand our bible in our own
situations. Jesus is so powerful that we have a hope in humanity: that is new
interpretation. In the past Jesus was so powerful he could heal
35
and do miracles, but in our
own context of living with the marginalised, Jesus was powerful in that we have
a hope in our struggle to end the oppression of humanity.
The
Liberation Theology came from Liberalism. Liberation Theology implies that God
is the God of Liberation especially for the oppressed people. Liberation
Theologians argue that Praxis (action) is more important than rhetoric.
Feminist Theology is mainly a western women theology and Womanist
Theology came from the black women theologians because black women have 2 major
problems: they are black and they are women (oppressed among the oppressed).
Syncretism implies the mixing of the bible and the culture of one’s own
context. All religions are syncretism and all Christian practices are
syncretism. We put our faith in context, we have our way of interpreting
theology and we all have our ways of syncretism.
We need to
have a clear understanding of our faith and improve our understanding of our
faith; hence we need to dialogue within ourselves and to read more so as to
understand what Christian theology is before we could have inter-faith
dialogues. There are 2 important things that we need to pay attention to: 1. We
need to have faith commitment to our own faith; 2. While we understand our
faith profoundly, we need to have critical openness to other thinking, other
theologies, and to syncretism, at the same time. Before we learn, we need to
have critical openness so we could enter into an inter-faith dialogue.
The
alternative understanding of the meaning of critical openness means even if we
have the commitment, but when there are some disagreements, we are ready to
change our minds to accept the disagreements. And conversion means SCM people
need to convert the churches, so missionary work is still relevant. Missionary
work is one work of conversion, but through dialogue and not through force. We
need to make others change their minds as much as we need to change ours when
it is needed. Therefore, for inter-faith dialogue to take place, there is a need
for us to:
-
we need to improve our own faith before we have inter-faith
dialogue
-
learn more about other religions, so that our understanding
of own
36
faith will improve
-
consider giving up on your own
religion if the other religion is better. The most important thing is to have a
strong faith commitment in whatever religion you have
All religions are human production throughout history
in different contexts. Therefore, all religions are created by and for
humanity. We have different ways to approach God, and religions are created to
understand and reach to God. But God is a mystery, how do we know God? How do
we know the real God? If we know who/what God is, God is no longer God. Can we
call God the Ultimate Reality, Supreme God, God above Gods? So do Christians
know God? We have limited knowledge on who/what God is. We need to have the
faith commitment, but that does not mean we need to force others to have the
same faith commitment as ours. This is the basis of the inter-faith or
inter-religious dialogue.
We have to
keep making attempts to understand the mysterious God. There are so many
mistakes made by Christians but in spite of human mistakes and violence, the
Christian religion has been a religion that saves and liberate by practising
Christian love. Thus we need to have commitment, faith and hope. We need to
have the love, openness and the heart to have conversations with different
people. The Christian commitment is the love of Jesus and the love of God.
MODULE 5
4 October
2003
New
Alternatives – Collective Presentation by Participants
Question for discussion:
Analysis of
Socio Political and Economic, SCM and Church situations in your sub-region.
What New Alternatives are there? What can be done in Personal, SCM, National,
Sub-regional, Asia Pacific and International Levels?
37
South Asia
Common Issues
Social
Issues:
1.
Class, Caste Problems (Power Capturing)
2.
Religious Conflicts
3.
Violence against Women
4.
Unemployment
5.
Interdenominational Conflict (Misunderstanding)
6.
Environmental Pollution (Illiteracy)
7.
Poverty (Unequal Distribution)
Economical
Issues:
1.
Globalisation
2.
Capitalism
Political
Issues:
1.
Political Unrest and Communal Violence
2.
Violating Human Rights
3.
Dictatorship
4.
Fascism
What Can We
Do:
1.
Campaigning
2.
Human Rights Workshop
3.
Build up Ecumenical Movement
4.
Gender Sensitivity
5.
Equal Power Distribution
6.
Awareness for Sustainable Development
7.
Interfaith Dialogue/Respect for other religions
8.
Communication with others
Northeast Asia
Common Issues
1.
Americanisation
a)
Destroy our own culture (value)
b)
Losing our own opinion (diversity)
c)
Individualism (No community/family value)
38
d)
Health Crisis (fat/McDonalisation)
2.
Confucianism
a)
Hierarchical Social System (Patriarchy)
New
Alternatives
1.
Filtering
2.
Re-conceive the concept of Human Rights
Southeast Asia and Pacific
Common Issues
Strengths:
1.
Human Resources
2.
Natural Resources
3.
Leadership (SCM)
4.
Spirituality
5.
Pluralistic Society
6.
Ecumenical Movement
Weaknesses:
1.
Dictatorship (some countries)
2.
Unemployment/Poverty
3.
Social and Ethnic Conflict
4.
Increasing Crime
5.
Economic Gap
6.
Human Rights Abuses; State Terrorism
7.
Increasing Corruption
8.
Patriarchal Society
Opportunities:
1.
NGOs and People’s Movement
2.
International Community
3.
Education (including training and workshops)
4.
More Equal Gender Relations
5.
Technology
6.
Increasing Global Networking
7.
Interfaith and Inter-religious Dialogue
Threats:
1.
Increasing Poverty
2.
US Military Intervention
3.
Intervention of Foreign Countries
39
4.
Consumerism
5.
Control by Multi-National Corporations
6.
Environmental Damage
7.
Red Baiting (Accusation of being Communist)
8.
Fundamentalism (Church)
New
Alternatives:
1.
Environmental Sensitivity and Sustainability
2.
Strong Local Economies and Culture
3.
Abolishment of
Dictatorship Democracy
4.
Fair and Just International Agreement
5.
Reconciliation among ethnic groups
6.
Strong and harmonious Spirituality
7.
Equality between women and men
What Can We
Do:
1.
SCM and WSCF AP can support and provide leadership
2.
Self-reflection and change (Action/Practical)
3.
Networking with SCM (sub-regional, WSCF AP, WSCF) and other
NGOs
4.
Think Globally and Act Locally
5.
SCM’s role in Critiquing government
policies
6.
Exchange programmes/internships (sub-regional) within SCMs
7.
Educate others
MODULE 6
6 October 2003
Reflexive Learning and
National Projects
A. SCM Aotearoa
Project: SCM Handbook
Project Description
·
To create a comprehensive handbook for prospective and
current SCMers
40
·
Will include history and background of SCM/WSCF, plus wider
ecumenical movement
·
How to set up and run and SCM unit
·
How to run campaigns
·
Introduce articles on globalisation, feminism, environmental
issues, human rights, peace issues, inter-faith dialogue, gay & lesbian
rights and theology
·
Listing of useful resources (NGOs, websites, books)
·
Short articles from previous SCMers
about their involvement (including attendances at WSCF programmes)
Time Frame
2004
People Responsible for the Project
National Secretary and a working group set up to compile the
handbook
Project Requirements
Appropriate information found, compiled and written. Photocopying/printing costs. Process/set up to update each
year
B. SCM
Project:
Goals
1. To build a
strong ecumenical movement
2. Youth
empowerment
3. To enable the youth to understand the ecumenical movement
4. To promote relationship with people of other faiths
5. To promote
relationship within the church
Activities
§ Awareness workshops and
seminars
§ Training programme
§ Inter-faith dialogue
41
Time Frame
November 2003
– December 2008
Target Group
Students and
youth in SCM and church
C. SCM
Project:
Eco-theology and Ecological Ethics
Goals
1. To empower deeper understanding of ecology
2. To transform our attitudes and mindset on our daily
practices that harms the ecology
Activities
·
To seek resources from other religious groups such as
Catholics and Buddhist that has good practices and philosophies on ecology
·
To hold workshops, ecological meditations, eco-theology
studies and ecological masses together with these different religious groups
·
To hold exchanges and discussion groups with secular
movements interested in animal rights and other ecological issues
Responsible People for this Project
SCM staff and Exco members
Resources
Catholic groups
Buddhist groups
Secular Ecological Movements
Time Frame
2003 – 2004
Target Group
SCM students, Christian NGOs members, church youth
42
D. SCM
Project: Violence of Cultural
Nationalism – Youth’s Response
Goals
1. To introduce and encourage the ecumenical movement among students
and youth
2. To give importance to human rights
4. To build up a peaceful society with justice
Activities
§ Training programme
§ Inter-faith dialogue
§ Develop an ecumenical
youth group
§ Knowledge and awareness
of human rights
Time Frame
2004
Target Group
SCM India and NCC India students and youth, church youth
E. GMKI (SCM
Project
1: Inter-faith
and Inter-religious Project
Goals
1.
To create and promote an ecumenical cadre among GMKI members
2.
To develop solidarity among inter-religious Youth Movement
in
3.
Address and strengthen inter-faith and inter-religious
dialogue in the
(inter-faith: inter denomination in internal GMKI;
inter-religion: 5 religions through youth movement of Protestant, Catholic,
Islam, Buddhist and Hindu)
5.
To minimise the denomination barriers in internal GMKI
(branches and national level)
Activities
§ Ecumenical Leadership
Education (Workshop and dialogue in branches
43
and national level)
§ Course for National
Cadres (GMKI and Youth Movement on other religions)
Time Frame
October 2003 – October 2004
Target group
GMKI members and Inter-religious youth movement in
Project 2: New Alternative Style of Leadership Concept
Goals
1. To provide a module on new alternative style of
leadership
2. To produce a good leader/cadre with broad perspectives
and insights, and is open minded on many issues related to Christian
Spirituality
3. To reformulate the curriculum concept of GMKI leadership
training
Activities
·
Reformulate the curriculum/module leadership training and
implementation (capacity building)
·
Disseminate information about current issues via websites,
bulletins etc. in order to build awareness and sensitivity on social,
political, economic, ecology, globalisation, feminism
·
Develop Focus Group Discussion in branch level to receive
input on Leadership Module reformulation
·
Finalise curriculum concept (working group/committee) in a
comprehensive manner (the contents according to basic, intermediate, advance
levels)
·
Testing of Module and evaluation by working group
·
Develop a group of Trainers for Training on the new module
Time Frame
Long Term
Project: 2003-2008
44
Target Group
GMKI members
(branches and national levels) and selected participants from each branch for
the group on Trainers for Training
F. Japan
SCM
Project: Gender Sensitivity
Programme
Goals
1. To make fellowship among the members as one community to
share ideas, feelings, experience on gender issues
2. To empower and encourage each other so that each member
can be more aware and sensitive to women’s and gender issues
3. To
reflect on our daily lives and take action to practice our reflection
Activities
Basic Level -
To learn the basic socialisation of
gender and sex in the domestic/daily life
To read books and
share experience and self-reflection
Small-scale
exposures on women’s issues
Intermediate
Level - To learn about the
system and history of feminism in the national level
To understand the
issues on marginalised women in
Small-scale
exposure
Advance Level
- To analyse women’s issues in the
context of
To study on
feminist theories, theology; and womanist theology
Exposure in
Exposure List
§ Liturgy of Women
(Ecumenical Liturgy)
§ Bazaar Café (Fair Trade
and Migrant Workers)
§ Saya Saya
(NGO café: workers are victims of Domestic Violence)
§ Women’s Plaza (library
and information on women’s issues)
45
§ YWCA HELP (shelter for
abused women)
§ Slow Café (women,
eco-feminism, fair trade)
Time Frame
§ 2-3 times meeting in a
month with 2 hours of discussion, study and sharing, bible study
§ Within 1-2 months for
exposures for basic and intermediate levels
§ Within 1-2 years for
exposures in
Target Group
Students,
senior friends and church youth
G. KSCF (
Project: Youth Empowerment
Goals
1. To enable and encourage students and youth to become
peacemakers, reconciliators and Minjung
(grass roots) based on the human rights ideology in all forms of social aspects
2. To encourage the students and youth to self-reflect
3. Empowerment for KSCF and church youth
Activities
§ Analysis of personal
her/history using the concepts of human rights
§ Analysis of the social
political and economic issues using the concepts of human rights
§ Exposures to rural areas
or areas in conflict:
- Needs Assessment
- Action with Minjung
- Evaluation
§ Group discussion on
social analysis based on personal analysis using the human rights concepts
Responsible People for this Project
KSCF student desk, national staff and senior group
46
Resources
a. KSCF senior friends
b. Church youth (Ecumenical Youth Council in
c. Human Rights NGOs
d. WSCF AP
Time Frame
School vacation in
Target Group
KSCF members, church youth
H.
Project:
Goals
1. To enable youth to become good leaders, peacemakers and reconciliators for the future development of the country
2. Youth empowerment towards better understanding and sharing
among different ethnic groups
Activities
§ Awareness workshops and
activities
§ Network building among
all students from
§ Exposures for social
analysis
Responsible People for the Project
Myanmar SCM committee members both from
Target Group
Students and youth, youths of other ethnic groups
47
I.
SCM
Goals
1. To strengthen the ecumenical youth movement that is
deeply linked to the grass root struggle for peace based on justice
2. To organise and mobilise the number of student and youth
for the advancement of people’s democratic rights and welfare
3. To consolidate the membership of SCMP and build strong
relationship with other denominational youth organisation
Activities
§ Basic ecumenical course
(national, regional)
§ Ecumenical Youth Forum (EYF)
development
§ Basic masses integration
(semester break and summer)
§ Education festival
§ Ecumenical youth camp
§ Women’s issues: organise
activity together with women’s organisation
§ Chapter organising and
leadership training seminar
Time Frame
October 2003 – July 2004
Target Group
Church youth, SCMP members and chapter leaders,
out-of-school youth, women
J. SCM
Project: Gender Sensitivity
Project
Goals
1. To have a
strong gender issue group and strengthen the current gender group in SCM SL
2. To develop
small regional groups to work on the gender issues
3. To publish
a book/magazine on women’s issues
4. To encourage more male members to join in the current
gender group
48
5. To enable
the current gender group to form other smaller groups to discuss gender
sensitivity
6. To
encourage more women leaders in the SCM SL who will develop the women’s issues
in SCM SL
Activities
§ Organise gender
sensitivity programme/workshop/seminars in the grass root level
§ Exposures on women’s
issues
§ Analysis and discussion
on women’s issues
Responsible People for the Project
Current
gender group in SCM SL
Time Frame
2 years
Target Group
University
students and high school students
K. Taiwan
SCM
Project: Raising students’
social responsibility through Christian Spiritual awareness and reflection
Activities
§ Bible Study and
Theological Camp
§ Taiwan SCM Leadership
Training Programme
§ Spiritual
cultivation/awareness camp
§ Issue Discussion:
a. Human Rights
b. Feminism
c. Globalisation
d.
Ecology
§ Exposure
Time Frame
2003 – 2004
49
Target Group
-
SCM Taiwan staff and members
-
Senior Friends
-
Church youth
-
Other denominations
-
NGOs
Closing Worship
The Closing Worship was held on the last day before
the participants depart to their own respective country the following day. The
worship was organised by the Worship Committee and it began with a request to
all the participants to make a drawing that symbolises their feelings at the
moments and their hope for their SCM upon the completion of this programme.
This was followed by a short reflection on the drawing by each participant and
a candle was lit at the end of the sharing to symbolise the guiding light to
hers or his praxis. After the sharing, the participants prayed for each other
in their commitment and work in the SCM. At the end of the worship, the SCM
Solidarity Song was sung with hope and dreams of the future of the student movement
working towards peace and justice in the world.