News Release

Peace Building in Asia

In the Third CCA Ecumenical Lectures Series, Dr. Judo Poerwowidagda speaks on the role of the Ecumenical Movement in Conflict Transformation towards Peace Building in Asia.

Reflecting upon the pertinent issue of conflict and peace, Dr. Judo Poerwowidagda, a theologian from Indonesia, delivered three lectures under the theme, 'The Role of the Ecumenical Movement in Conflict Transformation towards Peace Building in Asia' during the CCA Third Ecumenical Lectures Series held at Eastern Theological College, Jorhat, North East India from October 28 to 29, 2002.

The person, Dr. Poerwowidagda held various key positions both in the national and international arena. He served as an Executive Secretary Asia/Pacific Desk of PTE-WCC (now ETE) for nine years, the President of the Asian Christian Art Association, President of two Universities in Indonesia, etc. Currently, Dr. Poerwowidagda serves as the Director of Crisis Center of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia. He is deeply committed to promote reconciliation and peace process in the conflict torn world, particularly in Indonesia, and took the risk to involve himself in the present position. He now claims himself to be an NGO Activist working for empowering reconciliation and peace.

To drive home the message about the vital need and urgency of peace building in the world, particularly in Asia, Dr. Poerwowidagda begin his first lecture by terming this century as 'An Age of Conflict' and dealt quite exhaustively on the issue of conflict. 'There is no more secured place in the world', he stated. He cited various events to say that, be it in the countries of world's super power USA, Afghanistan, Middle East, Sri Lanka, India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia etc, lives are terrorized and violent conflicts persists. 'These and many other armed conflicts continue to mark and to characterize the world events as the twenty first century progresses,' he stated.

He explained that conflict is a normal thing and by nature dynamic and stressed that, lives without conflict is abnormal. He said that the root causes of conflict generally springs from 'unjust or unequal distribution of resources', 'different interests and needs', 'conflict of values, information, human relationship', and 'unjust social or organizational structures'. He also mentioned of horizontal conflict (conflict between communities) and vertical conflict (conflict between a local community and government) as two types of conflict.

'Negotiation, conciliation, mediation, arbitration, litigation and legislation' were some approaches he mentioned to bring solution to conflict and said that mediation can be the best approach to solve a conflict as it involves both the parties in conflict. He suggested that the steps toward reconciliation and peace building begin with conflict resolution, which of course does not last long. Further to that is conflict management, peace-keeping, then conflict transformation or peace building which is the end or the goal of the conflict intervention.

The second lecture contained a chronological sketch of the Ecumenical Movement's involvement in Peace and Reconciliation work beginning from the Mission Conference in Edinburgh (1910) culminating on the formation of World Council of Churches in 1948. Talking about the ecumenical movement and its strive for 'unity', he raised the question on 'what form of visible unity are we (Churches) seeking?' and cited the decision of the last WCC Assembly held in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1998 as one significant decision which decided the adoption of the Decade to Overcome Violence as the WCC overall concerns.

In turning the attention to Asia, he talked of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) formed in 1957 formerly known as East Asia Christian Conference, as the Ecumenical Movement in Asia. Throughout the 45 years history of CCA, the churches in Asia faced so many problems, which involved not only the ecumenical concerns such as unity of the church, mission and witness etc. but with other issues like war, poverty, development, human rights violations etc. It seems that Asia continues to be in such situation where the above issues will constantly be present, he said.

One question that kept appearing in the lecture was, 'what is the role of the Churches/ecumenical movement in transforming conflicts toward building peace in Asia?

The third lecture finally provided answers to the questions that came up again and again under the subject, 'The Ministry of Reconciliation and Peace'. He suggested first of all to look for a better theological understanding of the nature, function and the task of the church. He said that the task of the Church is not just to preach the good news or work for the unity of the Church, but it also includes being agent of reconciliation, as peacemakers and peace builders among the nations of the world that is rampant with violence and conflicts. He proposed peace education as the first step for churches to teach members of the congregation, especially young children. He cited the working methods of the Crisis Centre of the CCI as an example to start with.

He concluded by saying that peace building in Asia is a task that we must all be seriously concerned with. However risky the task is, it is a mandate that the Lord our God has called us to bear and to witness. God through Christ Jesus has "committed to us the message of reconciliation." (II Corinthians 5:19).

Along with Dr. Poerwowidagda, Wati Longchar, ETE Consultant for Asia and Pacific, also spoke on the topic, 'Challenges for Ecumenical Theological Education in Asia: Towards a Common Strategy and Mechanism'. Quoting from Simon Oxley's, Creative Ecumenical Education, Wati stated that Ecumenical Theological Education is much broader than institutional collaboration. 'It involves equipping the whole Christian Community for multiple forms of ministry in the Christian community and wider human society', he added.

Wati highlighted that the three main problems that theological community in Asia faces are financial viability, lack of sufficient interaction between the church leadership and theological institutions and male biased theological education with males representing 80% theological students; 90% teachers; 95 % members of the governing members.

In order to tackle the problems, Wati proposed a common strategy and mechanism to facilitate ecumenical theological education in Asia by promoting federated faculty in the region, share resource, education of congregation to mobilize resources for theological education, and provide equal opportunities to both male and female particularly in the theological field.

The third CCA lecture series ended with a penal talk based on the theme, 'Ecumenism in North East India: Needs, Problems and Prospect'. There were four panelists to speak on this issue. This discussion ended on the note that the actual understanding of ecumenical movement must be made known to the Churches in the grass root level in North East India and work towards promoting inter-denominational fellowship among the Churches. There was also a great emphasis on the need for peace education in the region.