World Council Of Churches To Meet In Cleveland To Tackle Racism

By Michael O'Malley / The Plain Dealer
Religion News Service

CLEVELAND (RNS) Members of the World Council of Churches, representing more than 560 million Christians in 110 countries, will gather in Cleveland to discuss how to expose and combat racism around the globe.

The four-day seminar, which starts Thursday (Aug. 26) and will include about 30 people from churches around the world, will be hosted by the Cleveland-based United Church of Christ.

"We'll review what's going on throughout the world," said the Rev. Linda Jaramillo, executive minister of the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries. "We need to address the underground, systemic issues of racism."

That includes racial imbalances in prison systems and public schools and economic inequities in job markets, she said.

The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, the UCC's minister for racial justice, said racism is a more difficult target today in the United States than it was during the times of slavery and Jim Crow laws.

"One of the challenges is how to focus our work while the overt structures of racism are no longer there," she said. "We know it still exists, so how do we direct our energies toward dismantling racism in its forms of the 21st century?"

The group will draft a report to present to a peace-and-justice conference the WCC will hold in Jamaica in May.

The council is comprised of most of the world's Orthodox churches, a number of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches and many independent churches. The Roman Catholic Church works with the council, but is not a member.

Comments

[Caru]

10:00 AM on 08/30/2010

Racism is a byproduct of slavery/indebtedness. When the Slavs were enslaved, their enslavers made them out to be racially inferior to justify the slavery. When the Irish were enslaved, their enslavers made them out to be racially inferior to justify the slavery. When Africans were enslaved, their enslavers made them out to be racially inferior to justify the slavery.

[Clevelandinwi]

12:07 PM on 08/26/2010

The racists probably won't be there - they hate facing themselves because they can't stand what they see.

[chipdavis01]

10:20 AM on 08/26/2010

Wow the anger that this article caused. You would have though it was a bunch of teabaggers commenting on an article about building a mosque at ground zero!

[chipdavis01]

10:10 AM on 08/26/2010

Wow, at the anger that is generated by a group of people who want to find a way to help fight racism. You would have thought it was a bunch of right wing tea baggers commenting about an article written in support of a mosque being built at ground zero.

[dpm428]

08:30 PM on 08/25/2010

I'm offended at the idea of religious leaders working to end racism. It is religion that is the root cause of racism. God is a racist, homophobic bigot. Read your stupid bible!

[FlGlades]

08:34 PM on 08/25/2010

So God calls you a sinner so he a bigot by the way homosexuals arent a people or even a race they are mixed up individuals who got their wiring backwards

[Laws456]

09:20 PM on 08/25/2010

LOL. Check this story out about the hypocrisy of the Catholic church, such fools.

http://www.alternet.org/belief/147836/women_fight_exclusion_in_catholic_priesthood

Women should never become priests and shouldn't take active roles in fighting for civil rights of gays and what not, but these same priests who feel this way do absolutely nothing to the molesters and pedophiles in their ranks. @$$holes.

[Bob Wood]

08:19 PM on 08/25/2010

Perhaps the World Council of Churches should first figure out exactly how ancient mythology and superstition is relevant in the 21st century. Religion separates and divides people more than racism does...and historically, it has been more violent. Just an observation.

[FlGlades]

08:28 PM on 08/25/2010

God doesnt change just people do

[Bob Wood]

08:51 AM on 08/26/2010

Based on available evidence, there probably isn't a god. If you have evidence...we'd all like to know about it.

[chipdavis01]

10:03 AM on 08/26/2010

Bob its not religion thats violent its the people who are violent. We are all imperfect sinners that need God. I can't provide you with the evidence you need to see God but God can. Ask him and he will reveal himself if you want him to.

[Bob Wood]

11:09 AM on 08/26/2010

Chip, Study history. Religion has caused otherwise good, loving, caring people to commit the most horrific acts imaginable. This has been true since history began with Babylon.
In the year 342-343 AD Christians killed more Christians than the Roman Empire did in it's entire history...all because they thought differently. Add the crusades, the reformation, counter reformation just to name a few and the numbers become really big. All of this because of mythology and superstition. It was understandable when people were mostly uneducated, but is just sad today. Most of the time mythology and superstition is benign, but as recent Islamic terrorists illustrate...when it is not benign it is terrible. In the past people could recover from the turmoil but modern weapons make this less and less likely.
As I said above, based upon available evidence, there probably isn't a god. There is just as much evidence for trolls living under bridges. What is needed today is reason, not mythology and superstition.

[hyjanks]

08:17 PM on 08/25/2010

I hope to read this headline in HuffPost one day: World Council of Atheists to Meet to Tackle Superstition, Tax Breaks for Believers in Ghosts, Spooks, Gods and Talismen, and the Threat of Religious Oligarchy.

[syntax facit saltum]

10:36 PM on 08/25/2010

Wasn't that called the Soviet Union?

[Ajita]

01:01 AM on 08/26/2010

Nope, you're thinking about dictators, not atheists.

[saami]

07:06 PM on 08/25/2010

Are they all old men? And just who is there constituency? Who cares what they think?

[chipdavis01]

10:06 AM on 08/26/2010

Well clearly you do. You clicked the link, read the article, spent a minute thinking of something witty to write, wrote it, and now are looking to see if someone responds. Looks like a whole lot of caring to me.

[saami]

12:47 PM on 08/27/2010

I do care about racism but doubt that this crew can or will be able to do anything positive about it.

[DrBlizzardo]

06:27 PM on 08/25/2010

Oh, that'll work...yessir, let "pray" for an end to racism...I'm sure god'll get RIGHT on it, yessir, everything gonna be better in a jiffy, now. Prayer, yup, that's the answer.

[hyjanks]

08:18 PM on 08/25/2010

The current top of the heap god in this country, good 'ol Jesus, has been at it for 2000 years and has failed miserably. I think it's time to vote him out of office.

[sypin]

03:38 AM on 08/30/2010

Y'know, make fun of religion and christians all you want- it's all good... but the WCC actually do some good work. I've had the privilege of working with them on several sub-saharan initiatives on gender empowerment and sustainable agribusiness, which they have been doing for years... And quite honestly, very, very few NGOs risk working in such areas- especially being western, and/or having a christian background. Their Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples programme even tries to protect Indigenous theologies and advocacy!

I'm not a fan of samaritans, who do aid work to score goody points with Jesus- but this is not it. I'm not saying you should support them or anything- but don't put all the eggs in one basket-

this isn't a group that "pray" for results. You could not be more wrong!

[Lou Kavar]

06:18 PM on 08/25/2010

As an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, I am very proud that my denomination is hosting this event. For the last two years, we (as a denomination) have undergone a great deal of dialogue about racism. Racism limits all of us from experiencing others for the individuals. It's a social ill which, while seeming to benefit some, actually demoralizes us all.

[hyjanks]

08:19 PM on 08/25/2010

Tell us all how successful your god has been at tackling ANY problem of man over the last 2000 years.

[FlGlades]

08:32 PM on 08/25/2010

Very Successful the Catholic Church saved thousands from the concentration camps in WWII read Rabbi David Dalin wrote a wonderful book titled "The Myth of Hitler's Pope How Pope Puis II and His Secret war against Nazi Germany"

Rabbi Dalin explodes the resurrected, widely accepted, yet bankrupt smearing of Pope Pius XII, whom Jewish survivors of the Holocaust considered "a righteous gentile." With devastating scholarship and unblinking honesty, he sets the record straight in a book that should shame haters of the pope, inspire conservative Christians, and sound a warning about the deep roots of Islamofascism.

[Lou Kavar]

12:46 PM on 08/26/2010

Since you asked: my comment wasn't about God but about my denomination. While people have done a wide variety of things in the name of God, for good and for ill, I value the contributions that the UCC (and the historic denominations which we grew from) worked actively against abolition beginning in 1700 and helped later helped established several of the historical Black colleges; ordained the first man of African descent in 1785, ordained the first woman as clergy in the US in 1853, and in 1972 ordained the first openly gay man in our denomination. In 2005, as a denomination, we began to work to support gay marriage in the United States. Whether you agree or appreciate the faith we share or not, the historical evidence demonstrates that as a Christian denomination, we have been active and progressive for a very long time.

[Ryan Delnick]

04:44 PM on 08/25/2010

Religion fighting racism. Irony at it's best.

[hyjanks]

08:20 PM on 08/25/2010

It would be even more ironical if the headline had read: Religion Fighting Superstition.

[OlHippie]

02:33 PM on 08/25/2010

Oh yeah, 30 guys "representing" 560 million Christians, meeting in Cleveland. That should put an end to racism once and for all.

[DocMo76]

02:11 PM on 08/25/2010

"We know it still exists, so how do we direct our energies toward dismantling racism in its forms of the 21st century?"

How about dismantling Superstitions of the 21st century.

[Kathryn Maver]

01:22 PM on 08/25/2010

The World Council of Churches is just a big do-nothing machine. They fly around the world and meet to discuss things. Then they write reports. Then . . . they fly around the world again and discuss something else, so they can write another report. Really. That's pretty much what they do. What does that accomplish?

[dpm428]

04:05 PM on 08/25/2010

They sound like politicians!

[ThinkCreeps]

05:22 PM on 08/25/2010

It's way ahead of stirring up the flock to get their firebrands and pitchforks out and go pick on some other tribe.

[Kathryn Maver]

11:02 PM on 08/25/2010

No. Don't think so. These are egg head types totally lacking in fire. If you gathered everybody in the WCC together you'd be hard pressed to find even a little wooden match.

[ScapeGoat]

12:50 PM on 08/25/2010

“MARJOE”, this film will tell you what these evangelists are all about $$$$$: Marjoe Gortner is a former revivalist who first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s when he became the youngest ordained preacher at the age of four, and then outright notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in an Oscar-winning, behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching. Under the pretense of making a documentary detailing a viable ministry, Marjoe assembled a documentary film crew to follow him around revival meetings in California, Texas, and Michigan during 1971. Unbeknownst to everyone else involved — including, at one point, his father — Marjoe gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers in between sermons and revivals, explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. After sermons, the filmmakers were invited back to Marjoe's hotel room to tape him counting the money he collected during the day. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the 1972 Academy Award for best documentary.

[Kathryn Maver]

01:25 PM on 08/25/2010

The World Council of Churches is not a part of the evangelical movement. These are mainline protestants and Orthodox and Roman Catholics. Evangelicals, for the most part, do not even know the World Council of Churches exists. They could not be further removed from Marjoe. Really, the WCC might as well exist on a different planet from the bible thumpers.

[syntax facit saltum]

07:39 PM on 08/25/2010

Actually Roman Catholics are not part of the World Council of Churches. Only Eastern Orthodox and mainline Protestants.