One in the Body of Christ: Statement in Response to Killings in the Philippines
The United Church of Christ (in North America) (UCC) and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), through our predecessor denominations, have been in partnership for over 100 years, a partnership that was celebrated at our General Synod 23 in 2001 with the presence of Bishop Elmer Bolocon, then General Secretary of the UCCP. This honored relationship has been realized in global church partnerships between the Michigan Conference and the Visayas District Conference, California-Nevada South Conference and the Negros District Conference and Central Mindanao Conference, the Minnesota Conference and the South East Mindanao Jurisdiction, and the Southwest Conference and the Mindanao District Conference.
The United Church of Christ (in North America) (UCC) and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), through our predecessor denominations, have been in partnership for over 100 years, a partnership that was celebrated at our General Synod 23 in 2001 with the presence of Bishop Elmer Bolocon, then General Secretary of the UCCP. This honored relationship has been realized in global church partnerships between the Michigan Conference and the Visayas District Conference, California-Nevada South Conference and the Negros District Conference and Central Mindanao Conference, the Minnesota Conference and the South East Mindanao Jurisdiction, and the Southwest Conference and the Mindanao District Conference.
Today we celebrate the enduring relationship of the UCC and Global Ministries with the UCCP, as our Executive Minister of the UCC’s Wider Church Ministries, Reverend Cally Rogers-Witte, had the joyous occasion to participate in the installation service of Bishop Eleazer Pascua as the current General Secretary of the UCCP in 2006. However, even as we celebrate the fullness of our relationship over the years with joy, we also recognize that we have shared tears over the years in our partnership. We have been called to reflect in this conference on the words of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians that, since we share one body as the body of Christ, we are reminded that even as one member of that body suffers, all members suffer.
The body of Christ in the Philippines, in all its expressions, has been broken by the reality of violence, intimidation, and extra-judicial killings, committed under the increasingly repressive presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, under the cynical pretense of counter-insurgency. We mourn for the tremendous loss of life and leadership in communities across the Philippines that has occurred since 2001, for the murder of journalists and advocates, of labor leaders and community organizers, and including especially the targeted killings as “enemies of the state” of church clergy and lay leaders. We remember these honored victims and count them among the saints and prophets martyred through the ages. Out of our deep and abiding relationship with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, we suffer with our ecumenical partner in particular for the tragic assassinations of dozens of faithful among their flock-innocents as it were slaughtered for speaking the truth and standing with the people in the midst of their need.
The UCCP has articulated in its Statement of Faith that it is called to “participate in the establishment of a just and compassionate social order.” The United Church of Christ in the US continues to stand in solidarity with them in pursuing that objective shaped by the will of God. We further affirm the vision of the UCCP laid forth in its document “Vision, Goals and Mission in the Next Jubilee” as one “where the church becomes a genuine partner of the people in the mission of transforming society toward a truly democratic, truly national and free and sustainable society whose governance is truly pro-people, free from all forms of corruption and any form of foreign domination, where the nation will be able to emerge as an equal among nations.”
At this meeting time, during Lent, we are approaching the celebration of Easter, which marks the resurrection of hope in the wake of despair at Christ’s crucifixion. As the body of Christ was broken that the mission of the Church to minister to the suffering of the world would be born, may the brokenness experienced by our church family today, suffering together with the United Church of Christ and all our ecumenical brothers and sisters in the Philippines as one in the body of Christ, one day soon experience the wholeness of resurrection, enlivened by that vision expressed by the UCCP of a transformed society that is truly “pro-people” and truly free.
In Christ,
Derek Duncan
Program Associate for Global Advocacy and Education
duncand@ucc.org