Churches in Sudan challenged on future work after civil war 

by Fredrick Nzwili
Ecumenical News International 

NAIROBI — A meeting of Sudanese Christian leaders in Nairobi has ended with a warning that churches risk being marginalized if they cannot draw up a clear strategy after an agreement by the Sudanese government and rebels to end a two‑decade‑long civil war. 

      “Sudan is at the most dangerous stage now,” said the Rev. Mvume Dandala, general secretary of the Nairobi‑based All Africa Conference of Churches, which hosted the two‑day meeting that ended on Feb. 8. “The churches must unite to fortify the peace.”

      The 21‑year‑long civil war, in which predominantly Christian and animist southern Sudanese struggled for autonomy from the mainly Islamic north, also led to the formation of two ecumenical church groupings for the country.  

      The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), based in the capital, Khartoum, formally represented all of the country’s churches, but the civil war meant it was unable to operate outside government‑controlled areas.  

      A separate body with headquarters based in Nairobi, the New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC), was set up for the south of Sudan.  

      Still, leaders of the two groupings cautioned against hasty action to unite the two councils. 

      “It could confuse communities at this critical juncture,” said Haruun Ruun, executive secretary of the New Sudan Council of Churches in Nairobi. “It therefore calls for a gradual and smooth approach.” 

      The general secretary of the Khartoum‑based church grouping, the Rev. Paul Chol Deng, said churches were united even with two groupings to represent them. 

      Melaku Kifle, an official of the World Council of Churches, said the Sudanese churches needed to articulate a clear vision of how they would work together in the future or risk marginalization. 

      “The major challenge is how to further strengthen our ecumenical working relationships at the local, national and continental levels,” he told Ecumenical News International.  

      Isaak Kongur Kenyi, executive secretary of the justice and peace commission of the Sudan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, urged churches in other parts of Africa to provide support to Christians in Sudan. 

      Solidarity from African churches was lagging behind that received from Europe and North America in the wake of the Sudan peace agreement signed on Jan. 9. 

       The conflict between the largely black, Christian and animist South and the Muslim North displaced up to five million people. The peace agreement does not deal with the unrelated strife in western Sudan’s Darfur region, where tens of thousands of people have died of malnutrition and disease in the past year and hundreds of thousands have been made homeless.