Enns, Holland and Riggs acknowledge that, “We live in a world pervaded by the culture of violence expressed and experienced in different ways by all people in every part of the world”158. Therefore, the Decade addresses all forms of violence. Moreover, violence is a complex social phenomenon. It is not only physical and visible when death and destruction take place, but is also structural when people are forced into poverty, subjugated, and denied basic human rights on account of unjust social, political, religious and economic structures (as is the case in Nigeria). The WCC Faith and Order Team stressed that, today, violence cannot be seen merely as an expression of enmity or hatred or as a retaliatory act, but also as a means of becoming and remaining wealthy and powerful. Culture, tradition and religion play a role in either aiding or abetting violence in one form or the other. Wars, civil wars, armed conflicts, communal clashes and terrorist attacks on the one hand, and violence within homes and against women, children and young people, racially oppressed groups and ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities, and against nature, on the other hand, overwhelm human life in the world today159. Furthermore, the world also allows itself to be entertained with violence through TV and movies which teach violence to children. Besides, the profits from the weapons’ industries keep the economies of some countries strong160. This should not be the case if we truly wish to overcome all forms of violence.
According to Manchala, “Nurturing Peace: Overcoming Violence” observed that, the overwhelming reality of violence in all its manifestations presents a fundamental challenge to our ways of being church. As the world is broken and divided by poverty, oppression and the structures of domination and exclusion (e.g. patriarchy and globalisation), so also is the human situation in the churches. Most people in our world are denied basic justice and rights. They are
158Enns, Holland, Riggs, Seeking Cultures of Peace, pp. 97-132.
159WCC Faith and Order Team, Nurturing Peace, Overcoming Violence: In the Way of Christ for the Sake of the
World. 1999, pp. 1-11. An Invitation to a Process of Theological Study and Reflection on Peace, Justice and Reconciliation during the Decade to Overcome Violence: Churches Seeking Peace and Reconciliation 2001-2010.
160The Boston consultation was held under the framework of the Programme to Overcome Violence and organised
jointly with the Faith and Order Commission. See also Kässmann, M. Overcoming Violence: The Challenge to the
silenced spectators of their own stories161. The fullness of life promised by God has been diminished and destroyed. The frightening consequences of brokenness bear most heavily on women, children and groups so often marginalised or excluded by the churches that one would have to ask, “Whose church is it?” For example, Yusuf162 observes the role religious leaders played in the shari’a riots in Kaduna, where both Muslim and Christian religious leaders called for peace, reminding adherents of both faiths that their religions prohibited the use of violence in settling disputes that could be settled by dialogue and peaceful means. However, some analysts view these as belated moves, pointing out that religious leaders had, through their provocative utterances and actions, incited the people to adopt violence.
In spite of this reality, churches are encouraged and challenged by the WCC to embark on an urgent process of self-critique and recovery of their peace-making ministry. Christians believe that they are called by the gospel of Christ to build communities characterised by honest, just and transparent relationships with God, one another and with the whole of creation. The presence of Christians in human society in all its messy complexities entails that they keep company with those who struggle to overcome injustice and violence163. The incarnate God is encountered in these hard places, and in communities (within and beyond the boundaries of institutional religion) which seek to integrate all the spiritual and material dimensions of God’s creation164. Therefore, one would argue that the voices of victims and survivors of violence affirm that sanctuary, hospitality, accompaniment, and boldness in naming and confronting the roots and causes of violence are the marks of a faithful church. How then shall churches or Christians seek to transform (in our specific contexts and in partnership with others) the structures, systems and attitudes, which obstruct their faithfulness to God’s vision of shalom for all humankind and creation, as revealed in the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Furthermore, how shall the church be disturbed by love and anger, and energised with the life-giving Holy Spirit, to engage truly with the call to overcome violence? This question is a disturbing reminder for churches to face their
161Manchala, Nurturing Peace, pp.8-36.
162Yusuf, B. “Managing Muslim-Christian conflicts in Northern Nigeria: A case study of Kaduna State”. Journal of
Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, 2007, Vol. 18 (2), pp. 237-256.
163Sheerattan-Bisnauth, P. and Peacock, P. V. Created in God’s Image: From Hegemony to Partnership. A Church
Manual on Men as Partners: Promoting Positive Masculinities. Geneva: World Communion of Reform Churches/
WCC, 2010. Accessed from 5th June 2009(http://www.wcrc.ch/node/474).
164Raiser, K. For a Culture of Life: Transforming Globalisation and Violence. Geneva: WCC Publication, 2002, pp.
complicity in violence rather than prefer to focus on the violent ways of the world. It also challenges churches to repent and be accountable to those harmed both within and beyond the churches165. It should be acknowledged that the Harare Assembly called violence against women a sin166. “Being Church” means Christians must address seriously this sin of complicity in the new ecumenism of local spaces and fellowships.
Enns, Holland and Riggs notably observe that for Christians, the dream of a world of justice and peace is translated into the language of the kingdom of God. In it is founded their deepest hope that violence can actually be overcome, because this hope is part of the reality which came into our violent world with Jesus Christ167. This view changes the way Central Committee of the DOV programme looks at the world. The altered perspective creates the motivation to overcome violence and to take courageous steps against all apparent odds; it opens the way for them to reinterpret their own experiences. The knowledge that it is given to them to be part of this kingdom of God can be a source of comfort and strength that will keep them from flagging in their efforts to break the cycle of violence and to join in building communities of peace.
The WCC sees the Decade as a time the churches of the ecumenical community can look back, remember and evaluate themselves self-critically. Enns, Holland and Riggs say, “None of us was so naïve as to believe that we would overcome violence within ten years”168 but the delegates at the Eighth Assembly of the WCC in Harare/Zimbabwe in 1998 felt the strong calling to face violence in all its different forms, in different contexts. For them (WCC), this was a prophetic step, reading the signs of the times carefully and committing themselves as churches to try to live up to the biblical challenge, “Be not overcome of evil…” (Rom. 12:12).
One understands that Apostle Paul’s point was not to say, “You will overcome all evil!” His demand was based on the faith that in Christ, the reign of God has come to the earth. In Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, the powers of evil are overcome even if they are still present. Therefore, as churches, believers and followers of that Gospel message, we have been freed to live “the good” against all “evil” by the transforming grace of God. The WCC does not believe
165Celam S. Peace: Fruit of Reconciliation. Nairobi: Pauline 2001, p.19. 166Enn, Draft of DOV’s Final Report, 22nd March 2011.
167Enns, F. Holland, S. Riggs, A. Seeking Cultures of Peace: A Peace Church Conversation, pp. 97-132. 168Enns, Draft of DOV’s Final Report, 22nd March 2011.
any longer that there is a redemptive power in violence since it understands that a different reality will be accomplished in the eschaton, not by self-efforts, but by the completing love of the God of all creation. This eschatological vision empowers the WCC to follow that call to become ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5) and the past Decade has been a tool in its hands to try to live by it169.