The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXXI, Part 1-2, 1983 - Khamkoo

REVIEWS 259
the ethics of peace by Wolfgang Huber, Political Ethics in Europe (a summary of a
European dialogue), Morality, politics and violence: a Latin American interpretation
by Orlando Pals Borda, Aspects of political ethics in the Middle East, Towards an
ecumenical ethics: a marginal American view by Alan Geyer and political ethics in
Vanuatu by Fred Timakata. There are added also two other articles as appendices
on "Towards a method in political ethics" and "Report of the Advisory Committee on
0
"The Search for a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society", 1979.
Ecumenical political ethics, as .one can observe on the title of all the contributed
papers mentioned above, has no universal definition. Approaches and methodology
may be common, but its "content" must depend on or have relevance to the context.
It is thus commonly understood in principle that the search for such political ethics has
to move through several areas of inquiry such as the interpretation of the world political
situation, the understanding of the biblical tradition~ the approaches to political ethics
and the forms of Christian political witness. These seem to be very important points
of the consultation. Though shortly reported, these are the core of the whole discussion.
They are statements which inspired all the following discussions. Given such a
condensed report, it would be inadequate to make any other summary. In the short
term, one may compare it with the contextual theology, Catholic theology in Third
World countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. It comes from the internal
reflection of Christians today. We talk of theology since most of the participants of
the consultation are church leaders or engaged in church· activities. Theology, a
contextual one, is a reflection of the Christian faith in a given context. A statement
of wee as quoted in the introduction says:
"The churches live in the midst of injustice, oppression, waste,
poverty and deprivation. Very often these evils appear in organized
forms or are the products of social systems. Very often too Christians
and Christian communities have become involved in them. But today
the peoples of the world cry for deliverance. They long for justice and
freedom. They desire that the world's resources be shared more justly
and freely. They want to care for the earth and its resources for life
"abundant" so that it will sustain them and the generations yet to be
born." (p. x)
Being Christian today, as ever, one has to bear witness, which must be integral.
Integrality of witness means that one must not exclude any aspect of life or separate
on~ from others. Political witness is a duty. "Because the churches are part of the
political reality, they cannot escape their accountability in the exercise of their own