WCC ecumenical team member says ‘gods’ to be found in world
The Layman Online, August 16, 2000
A member of the ecumenical team of the World Council of Churches incorporated polytheism and earth and sun goddesses into a speech she made to a group attending the recent special session of the United Nations General Assembly in Geneva.
“For us, the world is a place where gods, sacred places, big rocks, great rivers, mountains, plants and animals are to be found. This is where the sun raises, with the solar rays fertilizing the Earth so that she can give life,” Esther Camac Ramirez said in a speech that is posted on the WCC’s web site.
Ramirez spoke to a group of people who were monitoring the UN’s special session on the social development of people. One of the key issues promoted by the WCC and its ecumenical team was the cancellation of debts of countries the WCC deems economically deprived.
Ramirez’s role as a representative of the WCC, through its ecumenical team, deviated from the WCC’s founding purpose: to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. Her speech had no references to anything that could be remotely described as Christian.
While its membership is restricted to Christian denominations, the WCC has broadened its organizational structure to embrace non-Christians through adjunct groups such as the ecumenical team. For membership purposes, ecumenical means Christians from different denominations. For its witness in the world, the WCC includes non-Christian faith groups.
Ramirez’s speech was titled “For a Genuine People’s Social Agenda.”
“I first want to affirm that indigenous peoples’ rights are human rights,” Ramirez said. “These rights are embodied in our collective yearning in defense of our identity, our lands and our territories, our resources, our spirituality, our scientific and other knowledge inherited from our ancestors, our cosmic vision of a balanced and close relationship with our Mother Earth, for we understand that we are intimately linked to her and our very life depends on her.”
“Our re-encounter with Mother Earth is central to our identity, it helps us formulate the concepts of autonomy and self-sufficiency in relation to nature and the cosmos. We find our self-affirmation in the indigenous cosmic vision, which is a vision of the balance between nature and human beings, and we affirm that this balance starts at home, at the level of the political organization of our struggles as peoples, and in our belief that our Mother Earth is a woman who gave birth to us, and from whom we receive the gift of life.
“Indigenous peoples are also to be found on the Earth, being part of nature. And nature belongs to the gods; and we are but its keepers and stewards; and the Earth is our mother so that it is impossible for us to exploit it or negotiate with it.”