Lux lucet in tenebris: motto of the Waldensian Evangelical Church Salvatore Ricciardi, pastor of the Waldensian Evangelical Church in Bergamo, Italy, was a member of the Alliance executive committee until from 1989 to 1997.

When the present committee met in Torre Pellice, Italy, in July, he was a natural choice to speak on this subject.

I've spent the last 40 years of my life as a minister of the Waldensian church. Down through the centuries this church has tried to bear witness to our Lord. Surely, it has not been more relevant, more courageous, or more faithful in witness than other churches. But Waldensians live in an absolutely peculiar situation and face a peculiar religiosity: the powerful Roman Catholic tradition that has become, for better or worse, part of the Italian people's DNA.

This is why ecumenical links have always been vital to us. We need to feel the solidarity of a larger Protestant family and to live in the context of ecumenical organizations like WARC. This helps us very much to realize we are a part of the universal church.

Mission challenges

To whom do we witness? People nowadays seem particularly eager for spirituality. While modern technology promises to fulfil any desire and to provide us with anything we may imagine, people nonetheless seem to have a strong need to be assured and reminded about what, or who, is of more than passing value.

On the other hand, we live in a world that is already largely a global village, and people with very different experiences find themselves as neighbours (think only of the increasing Muslim presence in Europe).

The mutual acceptance of different experiences, although necessary and good, gives rise to the idea that all visions and worldviews are essentially the same and have the same dignity, as they are nothing but different expressions of the same, universal basic need. The supermarket of religions offers a wide range of items among which people pick and choose, creating a "do it yourself" faith to meet their particular desires.

In such a context, what do we make of Paul's statement that "Jews demand signs and Greek desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Cor 1.22-23)? Maybe we don't meet many Jews looking for miracles, but what shall we say to today's Greeks looking for wisdom?

We try strongly to keep our Reformed identity. We believe we have nothing else to offer but the One who, being "in the form of God... emptied himself, taking the form of a slave... born in human likeness" (Phil 2.6-7); the One who shared human suffering and death - in other words, the nonsense of human life. Here we find God's wisdom, which may be considered foolishness but remains nonetheless the only wisdom able to provide salvation, whatever we may mean by this word.

But goods sold in a supermarket normally come with a warranty certificate. If we offer Jesus in the supermarket of religions and want people to buy the gospel we preach, we must provide such a certificate. And what can this be but ourselves, with our clear statement of faith and our way of living? I paraphrase what Paul says about "letters of recommendation": we are letters of Christ, "written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Cor 3.3).

Ethical challenges

Here we have to make every effort to understand people's situations and concrete concerns. We are not entitled to pronounce judgements based on what we believe to be right or wrong. We are charged instead to preach God's love, which is not a blind love, but sees situations as they really are.

How, for instance, can we speak with authority about family if we assume that a Christian family has to be shaped only as it was (officially!) in the past? There are families we may describe as "normal", but there are also single-parent families, broken and enlarged families, and families where no marriage has ever been celebrated in any church or registry office. Which is more relevant - the official "status" of a family, or the love and mutual understanding that link people to each other and make them a real family?

Another example. There are homosexual people who have confessed Jesus and have been received into full membership in our congregations. This has not been easy, I must admit, but we realized and in the end stated officially that people are first of all human beings and have to be treated as such. You may ask whether there are homosexual people among our pastors. My answer is yes. The problem is we have not yet found the time - or the willingness? - to speak openly about this.

We also face major ethical problems such as genetic engineering and euthanasia.

There are people who think they have the Christian answer to all these problems. I can understand their position. What I find difficult to accept is when they pressure the state to have their vision adopted as a law binding on everyone.

Of course, the church - any church - has the right and the duty to make its vision known, but as a Reformed church we would never dream of putting political pressure on the state to have our vision turned into law. Ethical behaviour must spring from inner convictions. It is not to be imposed by law.

Besides, if we confess that Jesus gave his life for the sake of real people and not to support an ideology, we shall put these people at the centre of our ethical reflection. We maintain our Reformed identity by proclaiming that everyone is called to walk the difficult path of freedom and responsibility.

Political challenges

Those of you who are familiar with European affairs know what a questionable start Silvio Berlusconi made to the Italian presidency of the European Union. I look forward to the next six months with great concern, not to say anguish - and with some shame.

For two years this tycoon has played the role of Italian prime minister, and they have been years of deep change. Laws have been approved to block legal proceedings against Berlusconi and his friends, and according to which companies that publish false accounts are no longer considered guilty of a crime. The government's control over the media constantly grows. It hastily labels its political adversaries as "communists". It was of course a "communist" initiative, supported by "leftist journalists", to organize the political incident at the European parliament.

The government's leading idea is to protect our country not just against communists but against all those who may incarnate a danger for our Christian tradition - of course in its Roman Catholic shape.

This is why desperate people from Africa and Asia who reach Italy at heavy cost and often at the risk of their lives are poorly welcomed. This is why laws have been made to endorse all possible police controls on these foreigners and to justify their expulsion from the country.

It is not easy to understand how the conservative parties and movements of the Forza Italia coalition can so strongly support the Vatican's pleas to have the Christian tradition, if not the very name of God, expressly quoted in the new European constitution. Will this be sufficient to overcome all injustices? Has the third commandment anything to say here?

One political challenge particularly affects all Protestant churches in Italy.

The synod hall in the Casa Valdese, Torre Pellice Since 1984, some of them have succeeded in concluding with the state the agreements foreseen in the 1948 constitution. Thanks to these agreements, the restrictive Fascist laws of 1929/1930 have been annulled. We would like to see other churches and other religions as well brought within the framework of these agreements, which seem to have been forgotten.

Instead, our parliament is discussing a new and unnecessary law "on religious freedom" to cover all churches and religions other than Roman Catholicism. "Non-Catholic religions" seem to be at once classified and tolerated... but what happens to those who claim no religious allegiance at all? Again, the law speaks not of "ministers" but of "spiritual guides". It seems that ministers appointed by their own church will not be recognized as "spiritual guides" unless they are also approved by the government. Which would be the criteria for such approval? All churches seem to be authorized to spread their message "provided it be not in opposition to the laws of the country". What would this mean where such problems as genetic engineering, euthanasia, or discrimination against homosexuals are concerned?

Social challenges

The Berlusconi administration has continued and reinforced the policy of privatization already started by the previous government. In important fields like health and education, it is rapidly resigning from its own responsibilities and handing them over to private associations and companies. This has already happened to the railways, motorways, telecommunications and so on.

The main reason, we are told, is the great lack of money the government has to face. But if you wonder why all the money the government spends on public education is used to support private schools, 95% of which are run by the Roman Catholic Church, you will hardly find a logical answer. The constitution clearly states that any person or association or church is entitled to run a school at their own expense, but never mind. No doubt important lobbies and companies feel encouraged to support the government politically.

Since the care of the sick and assistance to lonely old people have proven to be big business, no wonder public provision of hospitals and homes for the elderly has been reduced and religious homes and hospitals are less supported by the state than they used to be. Private initiatives are encouraged and preferred. After decades of highly appreciated activity, the Waldensian church has been compelled to hand over the hospitals of Torre Pellice, Pomaretto and Turin to the Piedmont regional administration. We found ourselves in a kind of nutcracker, squeezed on the one side by the regional authorities, which have failed for years to pay the contributions that were legally required, and on the other side by the banks, which have decided not to give us any more credit. To transfer our hospitals to the Piedmont region became the only way to ensure continuity and to safeguard the jobs of all the people working there. For how long will this last? Nobody knows. But it can be said that our church has been prevented from performing a significant "diakonia" and deprived of half of its witness.

Ecumenical challenges

Outside the Waldensian church in Prali

As Italians living next door to the Vatican, we are particularly alert to what happens in the Roman Catholic church because it affects the life of our country intimately. We cannot help noticing that in spite of his apparent openness, the present Pope continues to affirm a Romanocentric vision of ecumenism. Consider, for example, the Jubilee indulgence, the reaffirmed role of the papacy, or the recently reaffirmed link between the eucharist and the (episcopally) ordained ministry. The present ecumenical situation is not easy. This does not mean that we give up on ecumenical relations or seeking mutual understanding. It only means we must be modest and careful. We cannot dream of ambitious goals that can quickly or easily be achieved.

Our Waldensian and Methodist churches have just finished a first phase of theological dialogue with many of the Pentecostal churches in Italy. We have written a report, published by the Claudiana press in Turin, describing our agreement on the triune God, the person of Jesus and the work of the Spirit, and passed it to the local congregations to get their reactions (not many, for the moment). We will then evaluate whether we should move forward to deal with (a) issues we disagree about in the framework of a shared faith, and (b) issues where we find our churches divided from one another.

Global and multicultural challenges

To look forward is a typically Christian attitude, oriented as we are to the coming kingdom. We look forward to an earthly human society that is global and multicultural. Thank God, this is already happening in our church. Many congregations share their worship and other activities with African people - mostly Ghanaian - who live and work in our country.

Rev Cephas Omenyo from Ghana has been my colleague in the international Pentecostal-Reformed dialogue, and I took the initiative of inviting him more than once to visit my congregation in Bergamo and to meet the Tavola Valdese [the leadership of the Waldensian church]. Papers were exchanged between the Tavola and the Presbyterian church in Ghana, as well as between the Methodist churches in both countries. As a result, Rev George Grant Ennin, a Ghanaian Methodist minister, has come for four years to work with us in Italy. He is a member of our pastoral body and he visits the congregations where an African presence is found.

The aim is to avoid the creation of separate ethnic churches and to help the Italian churches to make room for foreigners so that they can become their churches as well. This means that we need to rethink and reshape liturgies and perhaps theologies, but we look at this as at a blessed opportunity. It is a sign for our society, which also needs to become multicultural.

Salvatore Ricciardi, Waldensian Evangelical Church