Bishop envisions united world
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil – “God has a dream,” South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu told the press at the World Council of Churches Ninth Assembly here. “The World Council of Churches is a crucial instrument to enable us to realize God’s dream that we are one family, the human family. That’s it,” he said.
In an address to the assembly on Monday, he said, “A united church is no optional extra” but “is indispensable for the salvation of God’s world.” He relished gathering at the assembly with all sorts and conditions of men, women and youth as a “foretaste and glorious foreshadowing of what will be.”
Now 12 years since South Africa became free, Tutu offered some perspective. He affirmed that freedom from the “ghastly awfulness of apartheid” would have been impossible without support from the international community, with the WCC and its members as prominent players in the process. “The Program to Combat Racism was controversial but quite critical in saying our cause was just and noble, and that those who as a last resort opted for armed struggle were not terrorists but freedom fighters. Nelson Mandela was no terrorist even if the British prime minister said he was,” Tutu said.
When Mandela left the prison, he “amazed the world with his magnanimity,” rejecting retribution and revenge to walk the path of forgiveness and reconciliation.
“Today, that former so-called terrorist has become the world’s most revered statesperson, a beacon of hope for those lands torn by strife, emerging from oppression and a violent past,” said Tutu.
“We overcame apartheid through the crucial help of the united world church,” said Tutu, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches. “Apartheid continued so long in part because the church was divided.”
Tutu believes no one is an outsider.
“All are held in a divine embrace – all. God has no enemies. My enemies are not God’s enemies. Bush and bin Laden belong; gay, lesbian, straight, all belong, are loved and are precious,” he said.
But, he said, knowing that the human race is all one family, “how can we spend such obscene amounts on budgets of death and destruction, when we know that a small fraction of these budgets would ensure that all God’s children everywhere would have enough to eat, clean water to drink, affordable health care, decent homes and a good education.”
Tutu asserted that the war on terror will not be won as long “as poverty, squalor, ignorance and disease make God’s children – members of our family – desperate.”
“We can make it only together – be safe, survive, prosper and be human only together,” he said.
Among others speaking at the press conference on church unity was Archbishop Anastasios of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania.
Anastasios said church unity has been the deep desire of Christians always. “In this period of globalization, it is our duty, and a necessity,” he said. “It would be a scandal for the church to remain isolated,” he said, “to say good words without efforts for unity. We need a miracle, and as churches we continue to believe in miracles. The WCC is not a dream. It has been a reality for 58 years and has accumulated a pool of experience in overcoming racism, overcoming violence and working for unity. It is a forum for love and hope.”