| ACCRA, Ghana — The integrity of the Christian faith is at stake in the face of the evil of economic injustice and environmental destruction, delegates at the 24th general council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches meeting here said on Thursday.
This was the gist of a message sent to congregations of Reformed churches worldwide at the conclusion of the WARC meeting which is held every seven years.
In a “Letter from Accra,” the delegates on the last day of their two‑week‑long meeting said they wanted to share their experiences and discernment while “worshipping, studying the Bible, deliberating on urgent issues facing God’s world.”
The 400 delegates said their most memorable experience came from a visit to dungeons from where 15 million Africans were shipped during centuries of the slave trade. At the same time as this human trafficking was taking place, Reformed Christians had worshiped in chapels above the dungeons at the forts of Elmina and Cape Coast on the coast of Ghana.
“In angry bewilderment we thought: How could their faith be so divided from life?” the message said. “How could they separate their spiritual experience from the torturous physical suffering directly beneath their feet? How could their faith be so blind?”
Delegates said “today’s world is divided between those who worship in comfortable contentment and those enslaved by the world’s economic injustice and ecological destruction who still suffer and die.” They described the world as living under “the shadow of an oppressive empire.”
“By this we mean the gathered power of pervasive economic and political forces throughout the globe that reinforce the division between the rich and the poor. Millions of those in our congregations live daily in the midst of these realities:
- The economies of many of our countries are trapped in international debt and imposed financial demands that worsen the lives of the poorest.
- Each day, 24,000 people were dying because of hunger and malnutrition, and global trends showed that wealth grows for the few while poverty increases for the many.
- Millions of others in congregations live inattentive to this suffering as those who worshipped God on the floors above slave dungeons.”
The delegates declared: “as those who have met on your behalf in Accra, we declare that the integrity of our Christian faith is now at stake, just as it was for those worshipping in the Elmina castle.”
They said proclaiming faith required opposition to all that denied the fullness of life, a reference to the theme of the council: “That all may have life in fullness” (John 10:10).
“This isn’t mere political activism; we're being called to a spiritual engagement against evil,” the letter said.
Stories from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches about the 24th general council may be found on the WARC Web site: www.warc.ch/24gc
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