The second day of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) has begun energetically this morning. The one and a half hour daily plenary was held as the day’s highlight with over 600 delegates gathered to focus on certain topics related to the conference theme. Wednesday's theme plenary is "Called in Christ to be reconciling and healing communities."
A theatre performance prepared by young participants, as well as by narrative and reflective theological explorations with special attention to the role of the church and the local congregation in mission, was first presented to mark the theme.
Following a personal testimony from Latin America, Coordinator of the WCC's Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network (EDAN) Samuel Kabue from Kenya shared how the Network viewed the "healing" or "reconciling" character of the local community.
Born blind, Kabue gave a moving speech on what is meant by "healing" for disabled people. He suggested that the church needs to define healing in the widest possible sense, "disability is a social construct and healing is the removal of social barriers."
Kabue criticised that some churches closely relate disability with illness and sin and they tend to blame the disabled people for having no faith in God when prayer cannot help them. However, Kabue said the true curing comes from the endless love and embrace that Christ has showed to those who are sick in the Bible.
"What was and still is most important in our reconciliation message is the acceptance, inclusion and restoration into the mainstream of the society," he said.
Participants were then given time to share their experiences in small groups. At the end, Dr Athanasios P. Papathanasiou the Professor in the Higher Ecclesiastical School in Athens talked on the topic, "Reconciliation: the major conflict in post-modernity. An Orthodox contribution to a missiological dialogue."
Papathanasiou called churches and mission bodies at the CWME conference to encourage the understanding that "authentic existence" is when "otherness is not something parallel or opposite to [one's own] identity", but an element of it.
He also said that the history is illuminated by the light of the last times, so the church must give witness to the hope of resurrection and of the transfiguration of the whole world.
Therefore, according to Papathanasiou, the Church can be "neither an association of individuals nor a secular organisation," but must give a clear testimony to the Holy Trinity communion. This way being in communion is neither an undifferentiated "global-village" nor a simple juxtaposition of unlinked single local human contexts.
This afternoon, the delegates will continue to discuss the theme during the synaxeis.
Eunice K. Y. Or
eunice@christiantoday.com
Christian Today Correspondant