Reformed Churches Told to Speak out on Economic Injustice

The head of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has urged its member churches around the world to break their silence on economic and ecological injustice.

WARC General Secretary, Setri Nyomi, was speaking at the Synod of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands on 7 May when he told them to turn around economic injustice by changing their own lives.

"Two hundred years ago churches were silent about the slave trade. If we remain silent now, we are failing God," he said.

"Each individual and each congregation can do something to change their lifestyles and make an impact on economic injustice and global warming."

In his Synod address, at Ocho Rios, Nyomi said that the commitment to church unity and mission within the Jamaican church had inspired many churches within WARC.

He challenged the Jamaican church to speak out on economic injustice on behalf of the poor.

"We live in a world in which conformity is the norm. 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," he said.

"If the world's economic systems value greed and neglect the cries of the poor, many Christians uncritically follow suit."

Nyomi recalled the teaching of Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans to resist the temptation to conform to the ways of the world.

"If we examine the state of the world today by the measuring rod of our faith, do we believe that we can sit quietly back in satisfaction because everything is consistent with God's will for life?" he asked.

Nyomi criticised the current economic system which has left millions of people around the world to survive on subsistence wages, without enough food to eat or access to clean water, good healthcare or a good education.

"Some countries like Jamaica and the Cayman Islands have become wonderful vacation spots for the wealthy from other lands while large numbers of nationals are suffering within miles of the beautiful resorts."

He also criticised the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation for setting economic rules that were leaving many people in the South hard pressed.

"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 and because economic structural adjustment solutions dictated by institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank continue to render some hard-working people unemployed," Nyomi said.

"How can we stay silent when the way the household is, leads to death for some people in the household, while 20 per cent of people in the world have so much and keep wasting and throwing away what could be useful to others?"

Nyomi gave his address as a tribute to Madame Doritte Bent, an outspoken advocate for justice in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean for several decades. She was present for his address.

The Jamaican church's biennial Synod ended 10 May.