"For half the world's population the brutal reality is this: you'd be better off as a cow. The average European cow receives $2.20 (£1.40) a day from the taxpayer in subsidies and other aid. Meanwhile, 2.8 billion people in developing countries around the world live on less than $2 a day."¹

"That all may have life in fullness" is the theme of our 24th general council (Accra 2004). In a world where people are better off as cattle, and even the cattle go crazy,² what does it mean to have life in fullness?

Karl Barth famously urged us to travel through life with the Bible in one hand and our newspaper in the other, but in today's world the tension between the reality captured by the media and the promise conveyed by scripture becomes acute.³

This double issue of Reformed World, published in English, French, German and Spanish, contains the study texts and Bible studies for participants in the 24th general council, but should attract a wider readership.

The Bible studies invite us to accompany Naomi on her journey from Judah to Moab and Ruth on the return trip - a highly symbolic itinerary if ever there was one.⁴ The study texts survey some of the contemporary threats and challenges to life, then reflect theologically on the meaning of life, and finally consider what our theme implies for us as Christians and our Reformed and United churches in mission, covenanting and spirituality. Philippe Kabongo-Mbaya's study on Jn 10.10 first appeared in English in our December 2002 issue on life in fullness in Africa, but we reprint it here for the convenience of participants and in four language versions.

Most of these materials were drafted in 2002, reviewed at a consultation in December, subsequently reworked by their authors and further edited by the Geneva secretariat. Each piece is rightly attributed to its original author, but all are the product of individual and collective effort.⁵ We send them forth in the hope that they will be widely used, by Accra participants and others, for personal and communal study. Good reading!

Páraic Réamonn

Contributors

Dale A Bisnauth is a minister in Guyana Presbyterian Church. He is the moderator of his church and the minister of labour, human services and social security in his country’s government.

Douglas L Chial is a lay member of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is a member of the Accra general council coordination team.

Peter Cruchley-Jones is a minister in the United Reformed Church (Great Britain). He is a lecturer in St Michael’s Training College and a research associate in Cardiff University.

Philippe Kabongo-Mbaya is a minister in the Presbyterian Community in Congo. He is the representative of the Reformed-Alliance of Congo-Kinshasa.

Kim Sung-jae is a minister in the Korean Christian Church in Japan. He is a lecturer in Meijigakuin and Rikkyo Universities as well as the seminary of his church.

Septemmy Lakawa is a minister in the Protestant Church in Southeast Sulawesi (Indonesia). She is a lecturer in Jakarta Theological Seminary.

David Lawrence is a minister in the United Reformed Church (Great Britain). He is the editor of Reform, his church’s monthly magazine.

Páraic Réamonn is a minister in the Church of Scotland. He is the Alliance’s secretary for communication.

Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth is a minister in Guyana Presbyterian Church. She is the Alliance’s secretary for partnership between women and men.

Ofelia Ortega is a minister in the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba. She is the president of the Evangelical Theological Seminary, Matanzas.

Vuadi Vibila is a minister in the Church of Christ in Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo). She is a lecturer in the Protestant University of Congo.

Ebénézer Mamia Woungly-Massaga was a minister in the African Protestant Church (Cameroon), responsible for the external relations of his church. He died in a car accident on October 14 2003.

Jerry L Van Marter is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is the director of his church’s news service.

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Notes

1. Charlotte Denny, "Cows are better off than half the world", The Guardian, August 22 2002.

2. Bovine spongiform encephalitis or encephalopathy (BSE), one of Britain's more recent contributions to progress, is popularly known as mad cow disease.

3. Provided, of course, that the media do not simply feed us propaganda, a trend that grows globally as they more and more become the plaything of corporations and conglomerates.

4. That all things come from God and return to God is the structuring principle of Aquinas' Summa of theology and Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and, indeed, of scripture itself.

5. A model, then, of what we would like the churches of the Alliance to be: a fellowship of common life and action.