Reformed Church Head Urges Members to Fight Economic Injustice
Members of the World Alliance of Reformed Church were urged by the head of the global body to resist conforming and remaining silent to the economic and ecological injustices long established by the world's global powers, and instead "do the will of God" in seeking justice for hard working people.
WARC General Secretary Setri Nyomi spoke to the Synod of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands earlier this week about the dangers of tolerating injustice and the ignoring the biblical call to fight inequality.
"Two hundred years ago churches were silent about the slave trade," said Nyomi, according to WARC. "If we remain silent now, we are failing God. Each individual and each congregation can do something to change their lifestyles and make an impact on economic injustice and global warming."
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In Jamaica, Nyomi pointed to the country's own economic situation as example of injustice. He said that while wealthy people around the world often travel to the Caribbean islands for leisure, just outside of their resorts are people living in poverty that do not have enough to eat or access to clean water, health care or education.
The Reformed Church head warned Christians to not conform to the world where "greed" and "[neglecting] the cries of the poor" is valued. Instead, he reminded the Synod of Apostle Paul's letter to the Romans calling Christians to resist the temptation to conform to the ways of the world.
"We live in a world in which conformity is the norm," said Nyomi. "Christians are afraid to do the will of God. If the world says talking about 'sin' is not politically correct, we refrain from talking about sin."
Specifically, he highlighted rules set by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) for penalizing hard-working people in the South.
"In the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa, there are many hard-working people who are unable to find work or earn a decent living because of how the global economy is arranged," Nyomi said, adding that "economic structural adjustment solutions dictated by institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank continue to render some hard-working people unemployed."
Nyomi's speech was in honor of Madame Doritte Bent, who was present at the gathering, for her decades of dedication to advocating for justice in Jamaica and throughout Caribbean.
"How can we stay silent when the way the household is, leads to death for some people in the household, while 20 percent of people in the world have so much and keep wasting and throwing away what could be useful to others?"
The United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands announced the induction of its new moderator Henley Bernard on May 6. The church's biennial Synod is taking place until May 10.
