BREAK THE CHAINS OF OPPRESION AND THE YOKE OF ...

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Western neighbor countries. Due to their situation as a minority church and
their size they simply do not have the same capacities to engage in the discussion
sparked in Accra to the same extent others might do. Besides this reason located
on a mere organizational level two further reasons shall be named which voice
concerns that should not be overheard in the ecumenical discussions. Post-communist
countries in Europe have benefited largely from the Eastern European
expansion of the European Union accompanied by the economic system. This
surely might be a reason for the skepticism of a fundamental critic raised by concept
of ‘empire’. 1 Closely connected to this reason is a second reason located in
the heart of the Accra-Confession often rather regarded as a ‚declaration’. It is the
“ideological color” and political „overtone” of the semantics used in the text. The
responses of the churches here voice a concern deriving from their experience of
recent history. Having suffered greatly under the actual existing communism
there is a high sensitivity concerning any kind of political contextualization of
the Gospel and especially any kind of „communist” reading of it. In spite of
these general and theological concerns that have been voiced concerning the “Accra-Declaration”
and their perception, the general issue of justice in economy
and on earth is widely shared and there have been various implementations of
the covenanting process. Therefore we find astonishing work and projects being
done there, dealing with the particular problems globalization has imposed on
the people in this part of Europe. Due to the current economic downturn the
“young” European economies in the East are severely suffering form the implications
of global economy and their by comparison smaller influence on society
and politics.
A last perspective should not be lost out of sight since it also reflects the plurality
and especially �the inequality � �of regions and �countries �on
this continent: a few
sister-churches in the south east were merely available by contemporary communication
such as email and fax.
After this first step of a more or less structural analysis it is possible to state a
clear tendency within this common effort of the covenanting for justice process.
The churches in countries with the largest economies in Europe have embraced
the issue profoundly. In other words: especially in the context of societies, which
under a simplified perspective could be described as the actors among the globalizing
world, many different projects were launched on national, regional and
1 Especially in the European context the concept of ‘empire’ has been broadly discussed
and the standpoints have been highly controversial. However the Globalization-Project
(cf. Chapter 12) and profound analysis (cf. Wasserloos-Strunk, Chapter 8) have lead to
a fruitful progress in the understanding by keeping all sides of the discussion from
falling back into old paradigms. Cf. also the Message of the Global Dialogue Meeting in
Johannesburg 2009.
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– EUROPE’S ROAD TO JUSTICE – 53