June 24, 2010
By Chris Meehan

Fabia Gutierrez is very hopeful that the World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) will decide to accept and work to implement aspects of the Accra Confession.

Gutierrez was a garment worker and union official in a free-trade zone in Honduras until death threats made her flee the area. Her many years in the garment industry taught her that workers in her country were treated as commodities, working up to 18 hours a day for paltry wages and no benefits in order that multi-national companies could sell the garments at a cheap price in stores worldwide.

Arising out of a 2004 meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra, Ghana, the Accra Confession addresses the exploitation of workers in developed and underdeveloped countries alike.

"One of my sons was killed in fights between the union and the government," Gutierrez said at a workshop for the WCRC, which came out of a merger late last week between the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council.

"We will not stop organizing, as long as God allows us to go on," she said. "I'd like to thank the churches for thinking of the Accra Confession. It is important because of the many thousands of workers who need the solidarity."

The Accra Confession is a document that addresses many issues related to globalization and capitalism as a prevailing economic system. The confession has been a significant topic of conversation in meetings throughout the week on the campus of Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. A committee is to bring recommendations regarding the confession before officers of and delegates to the WCRC. The committee has yet to present its report.

In many ways, the confession contains ideas of how the modern economy has developed in a way that benefits a few, while hurting many more.

People experiencing problems related to the global economy are not just residents of underdeveloped nations. Kevin Gregory spoke at a workshop of losing his job after the paper mill in which he worked for many years was sold to a multi-national company. He worked in Maine in the eastern United States.

"Once we became globally owned, we didn't matter anymore," said Gregory. The global company cut pay and benefits and ultimately moved all of the work overseas.

A man from Guatemala spoke of a multi-national company that has started to mine gold in a section of his country. The workers are not only underpaid, they are also getting sick from working with toxic chemicals needed to extract gold.

"These very real stories put the Accra Confession on the agenda," said Karen Campbell, a member of the Unified Reformed Church in the United Kingdom.

"We not only need to endorse it. We need to find ways to make these issues and these stories come alive in our churches so that people can hear the stories and take action."

The report to come before delegates of the WCRC will likely ask that the Accra Confession and the values it represents be central to the life of the new organisation.

Rev. Christian Isso, a Presbyterian pastor and advocate of the confession, says if you read the confession you can see that it predicted the global financial meltdown that has occurred in many countries over the last year or so.

"The Accra Confession tries to interpret the reality of the global economy, and how it hurts millions upon millions of people, from a faith perspective. Economics are a matter of faith," said Isso.

There has been a split at the merger meeting about the confession. Some say it embodies many of the ideals of the new organisation itself. But others say it goes too far and is too stark in criticizing people who have helped run the economies of prosperous nations.

The Uniting General Council 2010 in Grand Rapids, United States (June 18-28) marks the merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Reformed Ecumenical Council to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

Uniting General Council 2010