Open Letter to the President-Elect of the United States Of America

Sao Paulo, November 2008

To the President-elect of the
United States of America
Mr. Barack Obama

“May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth,”  Psalm 115:15. 

Dear brother in Christ

As members of the Executive Committee of Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches of Latin America (AIPRAL), which includes Protestant churches from Mexico to Chile, we would like to send you our greetings and best wishes on your election as president of your country.

As Christians we feel it is God who calls you and has allowed you to occupy this responsibility and we pray God may illumine and guide you with blessing in the decisions you will have to take. We recognize the difficulty of the situation ahead. It will mean taking decisions which will introduce the change which during your electoral campaign anticipated important steps which bring hope. The world needs a statesperson who with courage will assume the government projects which will bring more justice and respect for life, which will mean more equity in the economy, peace for the world, intense actions to care for the environment and policies which will avoid the suffering of many migrant families.

Together with the people of your country we celebrate these prospects of change, which are also shared by the people of our countries and the people of the world, anticipating a new time of sharing and cooperation.

            Faithfully in Christ

            Rev. Clayton Leal da Silva
            President                              

            Rev. Germán Zijlstra
            General Secretary

AIPRAL
Open Letter

CARACAS — The Executive Committee of the Alliance of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches of Latin America (AIPRAL), at its meeting in Caracas 5–10 November 2008, would like to share this message in times of the economic crisis that lies ahead, and which has it multiple painful expressions for all life on Earth.

Today we must recognize the prophetic role of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and its member churches, taken on over a decade ago when voices were raised opposing the neoliberal system imposed by the Transnational Corporations as the only possible imperial model, which forced states and governments to open their economies, and as a result the life of millions of people were devastated, condemning them to exclusion, the same way as the environment saw its resources reduced to mere commodities.

The Accra Confession (2004) expressed it as follows: This is an ideology that claims to be without alternative, demanding an endless flow of sacrifices from the poor and creation. It makes the false promise that it can save the world through the creation of wealth and prosperity, claiming sovereignty over life and demanding total allegiance which amounts to idolatry (AC, Para. 10)

The exhaustion and failure of this system shows some of the paradoxes such as having to impose protectionist measures which were not even imagined in so much as the invisible hand regulated all aspects. Yet, we see how once again the model defends itself, assigning millions of dollars to save the financial system, initial amounts which could put an end to hunger and poverty in the world.

This crisis emerges as a new opportunity. The world is being called to a transition and the building of a new paradigm. This new economic and social architecture must be sustained on a new ethic and spirituality of the people, called by the summons of Jesus to a life in fullness for all.

In this enterprise it would be important that the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the World Communion of Reformed Churches continue to play a prophetic role and articulate denunciations and new proposals for the defense of life.

The churches which form AIPRAL commit to continue working in the building up of and defense of more spaces of life, articulating together with other social and ecumenical partners, developing active participatory models based on the fundamental values of respect for diversity, solidarity that generates more justice enabling a new environment of encounters and cooperation between people.