Peace at risk if U.S. evades law, LWF told

Christian Century, August 9, 2003 by Peter Kenny

The world will not find peace if the U.S. does not respect international law and instead insists on the right of the mightiest to set the world agenda, warned the president of the Lutheran World Federation, a body representing 62 million church members that held its once-every-six-years assembly in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

Christian Krause, the outgoing LWF president and a bishop emeritus in the German Lutheran Church, was addressing the tenth assembly on its second day July 22 in a wide-ranging speech. More than 800 official participants gathered to set common humanitarian and ecumenical goals at the 11-day meeting scheduled to end July 31.

Though Canada honored the LWF with a postage stamp issued to coincide with the assembly's opening ceremonies, Lutheran officials were outraged that 51 would-be participants, mostly from poor nations, were denied visas by Canadian authorities despite last-ditch appeals to the government. About 20 of the people denied visas were from India and five were from Madagascar, according to LWF reports.

Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, was elected to a six-year term as president of the federation. Hanson, 56, received 267 votes against 111 for Susan C. Johnson, vice president of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, on July 28. Hanson, a St. Paul, Minnesota, bishop elected in 2001 as the ELCA's top bishop, said that on behalf of the LWF he would continue dialogue with the Vatican and renew conversations with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, not an LWF affiliate.

Krause, speaking on the assembly theme "For the Healing of the World," contended that when the Soviet Union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, many political prophets mistakenly thought that the end of the East-West conflict would result in lasting peace. "The only remaining world power, the U.S.A., is now militarily so superior that it does not need to fear any military opponent in the world," Krause said. "And it has resolved to use war as a political means when that serves its own interests."

In addition, he noted, the United Nations, whose Security Council had been ready to reject military action against Iraq, was too weak to prevent the war, and protests by millions around the globe had had no effect. "International law cannot safeguard peace if the U.S.A. does not respect this international law," argued Krause.

Krause cautioned that while the East-West conflict has been consigned to history, the conflict between the northern and southern hemispheres is getting worse. Membership in northern churches is shrinking, but churches in the global south are growing significantly, especially those with charismatic congregations and communities. The LWF president said the future of Christianity would mainly depend on whether it is possible to gather together the "historic confessional churches and the charismatic congregations and movements." New ecumenical models are needed, he said, to overcome barriers and search for a "common path of discipleship of Jesus Christ."