“Called to Prophesy, Reconcile, and Heal: Creating Sanctuaries of Life for All”

Programme Review and Programme Direction

Two key deliberative sessions during the 15th CCA General Assembly are the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions.

The Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions will both be conducted in three groups relating to the CCA’s programme areas, namely, (i) General Secretariat (GS), (ii) Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF); and (iii) Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia (PD).

Assembly participants will have the option to join one of three groups for both the Programme Review and Programme Direction sessions. For the sake of coherence, the assigned group will remain the same for both sessions.

General Secretariat

The General Secretariat oversees the coordination of programmatic, administrative, and financial activities of the organization. The GS comprises various departments such as church and ecumenical relations, relations with ecumenical partners, finance, administration, and communications, which provide crucial support and services for the implementation of programs and contribute to the overall functioning of the CCA.

Programmes: Relations with member churches and councils, ecumenical partners; advocacy at the United Nations; ecumenical responses to emerging issues in solidarity; income development and finance; and communications.

Mission in Unity and Contextual Theology (MU) and Ecumenical Leadership Formation and Spirituality (EF)

Under the MU programme area, the CCA accompanies Asian churches to strengthen their mission and witness in multi-religious contexts, revitalise and nurture church unity and the Asian ecumenical movement, and develop contextual theological foundations.

Programmes: Asian Movement for Christian Unity (AMCU); Congress of Asian Theologians (CATS); Asian women doing theology in the context of wider ecumenism; contextualisation of theology in Asia and ecumenical theological education.

The EF programme area focuses on nurturing and developing ecumenical leaders in Asia. The programme aims to enhance spiritual formation and theological understanding, enabling people to actively engage in ecumenical dialogue and collaboration.

Programmes: Ecumenical Enablers’ Training in Asia (EETA); Asian Ecumenical Institute (AEI); Youth and Women Leadership Development; Ecumenical Spirituality and Nurturing of Contextual Liturgical Traditions; Asia Sunday

Building Peace and Moving Beyond Conflicts (BP) and Prophetic Diakonia and Advocacy (PD)

The BP programme area is dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and reconciliation in Asia’s diverse contexts. Through training, advocacy, and dialogue, the programme addresses the root causes of conflicts, empowers communities, and fosters sustainable peacebuilding initiatives.

Programmes: Pastoral Solidarity Visits; Churches in Action for Moving Beyond Conflict and Resolution; Young Ambassadors of Peace in Asia (YAPA); Ecumenical Women’s Action Against Violence (EWAAV); Eco-Justice for Sustainable Peace in the Oikos.

The PD programme area focuses on promoting justice, human rights, and social transformation in Asia. Through advocacy, capacity-building, and raising awareness, the programme addresses systemic injustice, empowers marginalised communities, and advocates for prophetic actions and meaningful change.

Programmes: Human Rights advocacy; Migration, Statelessness, and Trafficking in Persons; Asian Ecumenical Disability Advocacy Network; Asian Advocacy Network on the Dignity and Rights of Children (AANDRoC); Ecumenical Solidarity Accompaniment and Diakonia in Asia (ESADA); Health and Healing; Good Governance; Action Together to Combat HIV and AIDS in Asia (ATCHAA).

No preference updated.

01 September 2012
christian conference of Asia, Asia christianity
Statement of the
Asian Church Leaders Theological Consultation
Hsinchu, Taiwan, 22 – 26 August, 2012

Christian Conference of Asia

Preamble

We, a group of 60 Asian Church leaders, representing member churches and councils of the Christian Conference of Asia and other ecumenical and fraternal organizations from 20 countries in Asia, gathered together at Presbyterian Bible College in Hsinchu, Taiwan from August 22-26, 2012, for an Asian Church Leaders Theological Consultation on ‘Called to Prophesy, Reconcile and Heal’ the theme of the 13th General Assembly of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) in 2010. This theological consultation was held in conjunction with the 55th anniversary and the General Committee meeting of the CCA, to explore the emerging trends in Asia today and the consequent challenges for the Mission of the Churches in the region. It was also an opportunity to reflect on the theme of the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), at Busan, Korea in 2013, ‘God of Life: Lead us to Justice and Peace,’ and to identify the distinct contributions of the churches in Asia. The Asian context of religious pluralism helped the ecumenical movement to re-imagine the mission and witness of the Church at the first assembly of the WCC held in Asia (New Delhi, 1961). The Canberra Assembly (1991) further facilitated the ecumenical movement to widen its understanding of mission in the context of indigenous traditions, and public witness in the face of war and imperial aggression. As we welcome the global ecumenical movement once again to our continent after two decades, we urge the Church to listen to the groaning of creation reverberating from our continent to discern the God of life and our ministries of justice and peace.

 

Prophecy
Call to prophesy is a faith journey embodying righteous indignation in the face of structural sin and injustice which invites us to analyze and evaluate our social structures in the light of God’s justice, and to proclaim God’s judgment on unjust practices and systems discerning God’s will. Our prophetic critique of the prevailing order stems from our faith in the possibility of a beyond of the present promised by God and inaugurated in the life and praxis of Jesus, the Christ. Call to prophesy in Asia today is an invitation to critique the dominant consciousness, and to build alternative communities of resistance envisioned by the vision of the Reign of God. In a continent of hunger, exclusion, and destruction, prophetic vocation begins with a deeper engagement with the groaning of the victims.
The continent of Asia is the land of more than 60% of the world’s hungry people, and climate injustice further worsens the situation through growing food insecurity and water shortage. Asia is in the process of becoming the world’s largest refugee camp as a consequence of climate injustice, war and violence, and neo-liberal development projects. Indigenous communities—the original inhabitants of the land have become landless people on their land. Migrant workers, internally displaced people, and stateless people expose the futility of the dominant rhetoric of human rights. Violence has become a perennial reality in the lives of ethnic and religious minorities including Christians. In the name of national interest, progress, integration, and growth, voices of dissent are suppressed, and illegal arrest, detention, and torture have become legitimate practices of law and order. Ideologies and practices of social exclusion such as casteism, and patriarchy, with religious legitimization, unleash a regime of hegemony and violence in the lives of women and children, Dalits, indigenous communities, and LGBT friends. The tragic experience of Fukushima has not deterred our nations from their obsession with nuclear weapons and reactors. Occupation of communities and war on them, continue unchecked with the blessing of religions and super powers, resulting in genocide and ecocide. Colonization of our commons such as water, forest, and land and the subsistence communities is justified in the name of Gross Development Project and shared good.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation, informed by the prophetic critique of the victims, is the resilience not to reconcile with the prevailing order. Any attempt to coerce or persuade the victims to accept unjust conciliatory proposals in the name of religious, ethnic, and national interests, is not Christian reconciliation, it is SIN. Guilt, repentance, remembrance, apology, forgiveness, restitution, and reparation are central to Christian reconciliation. Call to reconciliation is hence a call to be eternally vigilant about unjust reconciliations. In Asia today, we witness partial blossoming of reconciliation when communities at the margins and their social movements, supported by civil society organizations and churches and other faith based groups, engage in historic struggles to bring about reconciliation between communities and the wider community of creation. Manifestations of reconciliation that we witness hopefully in Asia today are:
  • the campaign for a nuclear free Asia
  • the initiative for the reunification of Korea
  • the release of Nobel Laureate Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the journey of Myanmar into democracy
  • the potential in a renewed articulation of the Tamil struggle for dignity and self determination, some signs of organized civil society resistance and growing globalsolidarity for the journey from authoritarian governance to democratization
  • the advocacy of human rights in West Papua
  • the struggles of the Dalits, indigenous people and other socially excluded communities for dignity, self-determination, and identity,
  • the advocacy of, and mission and hospitality to migrants, refugees and asylum seekers,
  • the innumerable protests against global capitalism and its beastly incarnation in the lives of Asian communities and our commons
  • the bold refusal of women to be adapted passively to the patriarchal structures, and
  • the rainbow communities (inclusive human communities) that welcome the strangers, the stigmatized, the disabled, the elders, the children and the other.
We recognize the partial yet committed attempts of the Asian Christian communities to become the Gospel of reconciliation in our context through their public witness and presence in the public sphere.
Healing
Healing, embedded in God’s love for the fullness of creation, is the journey toward the restoration of the entire creation as a manifestation of God’s love for life in its abundance. The realities of Asia today unveil the ongoing death-oriented practices that deny God’s promise for life. The sanctions imposed on countries such as Iran, as political weapons, often deny the rights of people to their basic needs of food, medical care and shelter. The ever-widening gap between the rich and the poor challenges our faith claim of God’s generosity amidst scarcity in world resources. Religious plurality presents new challenges to our construction of Christian identity in the context of the rising of religious fanaticism and the denial of religious freedom. The aftermath of violence that overlaps with the endless groaning of creation, mirror the paradoxical challenge to our missional vocation to be a community of wounded healers. Witnessing to the wounds within us summons us to engage prophetically with other healing practices in the journey of healing the wounds of others. The continuing ecological and human destructions, unhealed memories of survivors of violence, and the composition of lyrics, rhythm, voices of lamentation, and our celebration of sacraments, intertwined with authentic efforts for healing across boundaries of differences, reflect the life-long journey of embodying shalom in our broken humanity and broken world of today. We affirm that our ministry of prophesying, reconciling, and healing is imperative in creating sanctuaries of life for all as manifestation of God’s hospitality which is God’s heart that is open for all to reside in the promise of life.
Hsinchu, Taiwan
25 August 2012