WCRC delegates hear from prophetic voices
The Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak was among those to speak about a paper on mission
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Delegates to the 27th General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) heard a series of impassioned and reflective addresses earlier this month as they prepared to discern a Concept Note on Mission.
About 400 delegates listened as four speakers offered perspectives on justice, faith, and the church’s evolving role in a changing global landscape. Listen to the speakers here.
The Rev. Dr. Allan Boesak, who served as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches from 1982 to 1990, said the current age reflects “imperialistic power expressed relentlessly, overwhelmingly and devastatingly violent.”
“If the call to mission is the call to justice, we are right in asserting that God’s self is wounded by every injustice inflicted upon God’s vulnerable children,” Boesak said. “It is God’s woundedness that is the heartbeat of Christian mission.”
Boesak called the situation in Palestine “the fundamental measure of the integrity of our politics, the authenticity of our faith, and the authority of our Christian witness in the world.” He urged “honest, courageous and therefore vulnerable conversations” about God’s mission, adding that missionaries are called “to follow Christ’s example of turning the world upside down.”
Dr. Janneke Stegeman, a theologian at Vrije University in Amsterdam, reflected on the church’s complicity in systems of oppression.
“The church wants to see the world through the eyes of those who suffer, and I believe we mean it,” she said. “But church structures are not outside the structures of oppression; they are part of them.”
She said colonial Protestantism “centers itself as normal, neutral, universal and capable of writing good laws, while all others are limited and ‘ethnic.’” Stegeman added that while the conflict in Gaza highlights the breakdown of rule-based order, those rules “always mainly functioned to protect the interests of white supremacy.”
“We proclaim that mission is disruption,” she said. “My question is, does that also mean we disrupt ourselves, our own structures, even this very Communion?”
The Rev. Dr. Roderick Hewitt spoke on artificial intelligence and its implications for faith and justice, warning that “the Reformed missional critique of this AI imperial era has fallen into a deep sleep.”
“Unfettered capitalism and white supremacy are now fashionable partners with imperial powers terrorizing people on the margins,” Hewitt said. He called for “informed, radical and mature discipleship” to challenge what he described as “the false sovereignty of this imperial AI world system.”
Inatoli Aye, from the Naga Indigenous community spanning India and Myanmar, shared how her people embraced Christianity through their own agency.
“Among the Nagas, the American mission planted the seed, but it was the Nagas who made it grow,” Aye said. “Today, Nagaland is a Christian-majority state not because of missionaries alone, but because our ancestors became agents of the faith.”
She said that when mission learns from Indigenous peoples, it “rediscovers that God was never confined to the church walls but in the borders.” Aye called for courage “to be reformed by those whom history tried to silence,” and for the Communion to become “a place where the wounded can finally breathe, where justice is honored, and where all creation can glorify our Creator and enjoy life in its fullness.”
Boesak concluded the session by offering three proposals:
- That the WCRC recognize and declare Christian Zionism as “fundamentally evil, racist, a travesty of the Gospel and a heresy.”
- That the WCRC proclaim “mission is disruption,” working toward God’s transforming power through justice and peace, and uplifting marginalized voices.
- That the Communion continue its solidarity with the Palestinian people and others suffering worldwide, supporting efforts “towards speaking truth to power.”
Delegates will continue discussions on the Concept Note on Mission in the coming days as the General Council’s proceedings move forward.
The Rev. Jihyun Oh, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, led a PC(USA) delegation to the 27th General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches meeting Oct. 14-23 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Read additional reporting here and here.
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