Beloved of God, the earth our home is gravely threatened. Humankind must accept the blame for this. We have not acted with the modesty that, as one of earth's many species, we should have shown; nor have we exercised the kind of responsibility of which we are capable. In relation to one another, in our dealings with other forms of life, and in our use of the planet's land and resources we human beings have behaved in foolish and prideful ways. And it is all the more tragic that, as a rule, we have been less wise and caring the more our circumstances made it possible for us to live responsibly, as stewards of what belongs to another.

Today, in an age of big technology and increased human demand upon earth's limited capacities, we are experiencing some of the dreadful consequences of human habits that have developed over the centuries. These consequences are to be seen particularly in three kinds of global problems: gross injustice, with many human beings doomed to lives of unending poverty and oppression; violence, wars, and the threat of nuclear holocaust; and the destruction of nature under the burden of human greed and carelessness. Though we shall have to separate these problems to be able to speak about them with you, they are in fact inseparable. They are parts of a large and complex web of evil which, if it is not recognized and tackled today, will only grow worse tomorrow.

That tomorrow is your future. That is why we are addressing this statement to you. We do so first because we know that we are part of civilizations that have plundered the earth, squandered its gifts, and engaged in hostilities that continue to haunt the world. Though we ourselves inherited many wrongs, we have done too little to right them. Despite the noble efforts of some members of our generations, there is amongst us - and especially in the richer nations - a sense of futility and apathy about the fate of the earth.

We fear, then, that we have left you a future that will contain much suffering. Already forty thousand of you, it is said, are dying daily from hunger related causes alone. Many of you know the secrets of the torture chambers. Some of you are victims of Aids, the drug traffic, and other forms of suffering that are caused by forces of evil greater than your own wills. Significant numbers of you are young soldiers who find yourselves in uniforms without knowing quite why. Others amongst you have chosen the harder path of conscientious objection, with its accompanying loneliness and deprivation. Many of you, though young, have been denied the joys of youth: you are old before your time. Only with shame, almost with despair, can we consider the anguish that must be borne by young minds and bodies that have had so little time to develop the courage that is needed even to face life's smaller anxieties.

We know that we, who write to you from the heart of this ancient and divided land of Korea, have a share in the factors that have brought all this about. Not only through our deeds and our failure to act, but also through our words and our thoughts we have contributed to this "futureless future". Even our "Christianity" must be examined again; for we suspect, more than ever now, that we have frequently misunderstood and misrepresented our own "good news", equating Truth with what was most pleasing to us and least demanding of us. Will you one day forgive us for our failure to bequeath to you a more hopeful future?

Yet we address you also for this reason: that we cannot and will not accept the conclusion, which too many of our contemporaries silently or openly entertain, that little or nothing can be done to alter the future that so threatens us. It could be different. The world does not have to end with a bang or a whimper. As a Reformed hymn insists, "Earth could be fair.., and all her people one".

We do not base this hope on mere wishful thinking or the fear of facing less optimistic prospects. Without closing our eyes to all that is making for "future shock" in our time, we here in Seoul have tried once more to discover the future that is promised by the God of our Judeo-Christian tradition. There are many ways in which it is possible to describe the future, but for our particular branch of the ecumenical church no language is more important than that of "the covenant." When we think of God, we think of One who is turned towards the whole creation in love. God's covenant is God's determination to fulfil what God began in creation. Against all the forces of chaos and destruction; against injustice, war, and the spoiling of nature; against death in all its forms, God is at work in the world to give us another future. Jesus, in whom we see this covenant made most real and present, stated the matter in this way: "I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly ."

That, we believe, is where we Christians must begin - begin again - if we are to rethink our faith and our message in the light of the great questions that confront us as we near the end of another millennium. We have for long, with the scriptures that we honour, used the language of God's covenant. But we have been less than clear about its meaning for the destiny of this world. Now we should like to say without any qualifications, and in particular so that may hear us: Our God has an abiding commitment to the earth. That is the fundamental fact, the reality that we intend to hold to, no matter what may to be the case. God, that is, the One who is the Source of all life, the One to whom we must account for our living of life: God is fully committed to the creation; God will not abandon the world. In whatever ways are open to you, in whatever language is meaningful to you, we want to invite you to make this affirmation your own.

But this world and life-affirming God does not and will not act all alone for the preservation of creation. God calls us to become partners in the creation, re-creation and redemption of the world. You will find in what follows this introductory statement, in a section called "The Integrity of Creation," that we have felt it necessary to say to human beings today, "Stop thinking of yourself as if you and your kind were the be-all and end-all of life". Especially in the "Christian" west, we have behaved as if Homo sapiens were entirely distinct from every other creature - as if God's covenant were "for humans only". We shall have to learn that we are creatures amongst creatures, with the others, not above them. What this means, however, is not that we are free to do as we please, to follow whatever "instincts" give us pleasure. Like the other creatures, and with them, we have our particular role to play in the drama of existence. As thinking, willing, working, speaking, praying creatures, we are beckoned into covenant partnership with God. As we have amply shown our capacity to destroy and threaten life, so, with the help of God's own Spirit, it is possible for us to begin to live as keepers of the earth. Thus shall we make good the promise of creation's ancient saga, that amongst the numerous and wondrous creature of this good earth there should be one species which, without simply having to do so, images the very love of the covenanting God in the midst of all this life. Beyond the affirming of this world, then, which is an act that in your youth it may be easy enough to do, we invite you to become men and women who live out of that affirmation, and so seek for and exemplify a glory that is greater than your own.

Bear with us now as we try, in halting and no doubt incomplete ways, to reflect on the three interconnected problems of which we have spoken above. For two days, in three separate "sections", we have discussed these things. What we want to share with you here is something of what we have said to one another. In other places these matters are treated more thoroughly. At the end of this statement you will find a list of some of those resources. What you will read below is simply a brief summary of the thinking and speaking of Reformed Christians meeting in council for a limited time. For all that, we think you may find it interesting, because it represents the reflections of persons from all earth's continents. We are using the headings that have become familiar to ecumenical Christians in the past decade: Justice. Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. These terms are meant to correspond with the problems we have named.

Justice

The world should not be the way it is. It could be different.

Some thirty members of our council have shared with one another facts of the world's injustice, and have sought each other's help in recalling the testimony to God's "justice" that is present in our sacred scriptures and traditions.

They told each other of people going hungry in Lesotho because their government is using their money to buy arms. They spoke about the 20 millions of Taiwanese and the 60 millions of Filipinos whose lives are shaped by the sale of armaments to their countries by superpowers. They listened to the witness of those who knew about the arrest of Ecuadorian Indians, considered "invaders" because they tried to protect their land from seizure by transnational corporations. They heard too of refugees and asylum-seekers in France, who fear that the enforcement of the European Unique Act Of 1992 will lead to more restrictive national policies. They also heard about the lack of technical resources for peasants in Zaire and about insufficient equipment for schools.

Beyond that, there were many other testimonies to injustice: in Brazil there are said to be thirty million abandoned, needy, and sometimes delinquent urban children; one organization attempts to minister to thirty thousand of them. Central America, said one person, "asks for peace and lives in war, because of the interventionist politics of the government of the United States of America and other world powers." The Philippines, said another, has become a place where "we cannot stay alive." In South Africa, as many today testify, 25 million Blacks are denied participation in the government's power structure of five million whites. Over and over again one refrain persisted: The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer. Surely the world should not be the way that it is.

But if the world is to be changed, if the "difference" that "could be" is to be realized, then the present global economic order will have to be altered drastically. This, in any case, was the general consensus of the participants in this discussion. Basic to all other injustices today, they insisted, is economic injustice; and this means that the churches are being called to recognize that the present world economic order and the systems and structures which maintain it are unjust at base. That is, they not only allow but they actually foster injustice in terms of the distribution of wealth and access to economic power. This means that many people are bound to be kept in a condition of utter poverty while a few enjoy immense wealth. If the present economic order is maintained, this enormous discrepancy between rich and poor will prevail, and it will become still more conspicuous. The churches, it was concluded, cannot tolerate the continuance of these conditions.

The will to resist the present economic order cannot, however, be generated easily within the churches; for to do so must mean to confront some of the most deeply held assumptions and unquestioned practices of the nations. Particularly for Christians in the first world, this can only represent a massive, risky and fearsome stand.

For example, it must mean for them calling in question the systems which produce "debt crises". The great economic powers maintain their superiority in part by keeping the smaller economies dependent upon them. They direct, however "indirectly", the governments of the dependent nations, sometimes with the latter's complicity. At other times they engage in immediate political and military intervention, showing no respect whatsoever for the sovereignty of other states. The debts which accumulate as a result of this strategy of dependency can never be repaid. Often all the energies of smaller economies are expended in the payment of interest on loans. Moreover, when this is added to the fact of militarism (discussed in the next section) the situation is made more complex still. For so much of the borrowed monies which make up the budgets of such smaller powers must be spent on military "security" that there is little left over for the essentials of life, thereby compounding the nation's weakness and dependency.

To confront such injustice, Christians especially in places of wealth and power must be prepared to challenge the whole "way of life" of which their own patterns of behaviour and lifestyles are usually part. Not only wisdom and courage, therefore, but also the willingness to engage in self criticism and personal sacrifice must be cultivated within our churches.

Another level of injustice raises the question whether Christians can and should distinguish legitimate from illegitimate states more consistently and decisively than in the past we have been ready to do. Ever since its establishment under Constantine in the fourth century, Christianity has been sorely tempted to make friends with power, wherever power resides and whatever it represents. In the Reformed tradition at its best, this temptation and tendency have always been challenged by prophetic faith. Romans 13, which predates Christian Establishment, should not be read as if all existing power were God's own will. Tyranny and oppression, disregard for human dignity, sexual discrimination, the favouring of privileged minorities, the definition of citizenship by race, creed, property, gender and other such conditions: such are the marks of governments that scripture rejects (eg Rev 13).

Today we are acquainted with many governments that by these criteria must be considered illegitimate, and in all of our nations there must be vigilance against the legitimization of practices and policies (immigration, for example) which defy basic human rights. Yet we recognize how entrenched are the attitudes of passive obedience in society and also in the churches; and we think that the time has come to train up communities of watCHFulness and resistance within our communions. Injustice as well as its causes in economic and legislative corruption must not only be recognized, it must be named publicly, and encountered with both wisdom and courage.

The world ...could be different. Our efforts will not make it perfect; but they may make it more Just.

Peace

"Not as the world giveth..."

Our world is marked by violence; strife is our true condition. From many parts of the globe we have heard personal testimonies to this sad reality. We were told of people bombed in their homes, of innocent persons tortured and brutally murdered ("They boil people," said one of our African brothers). In most of our societies, money that should be used to fulfil basic human needs is used for defence budgets. Whole populations are reduced to refugee-status by various forms of warfare, open and hidden. Beyond that, this public violence creeps into personal relationships - the relations between men and women, parents and children, friends. In the name of "security," attitudes of mistrust and suspicion are bred amongst peoples.

In all of this it is possible to see a pattern, the pattern sometimes called imperialism. There are empires in this world. smaller and greater empires, firmly established and would-be empires, local empires and empires of universal dimensions. Empires have their own logic of development. They move in certain well-established ways. For one thing they always have enemies. They need enemies, because their boasts are always greater than their reality, and to sustain their ambitions they must forever create the impression amongst their people that the alleged good life that they are providing is under attack from some more or less powerful quarter .

Since they have enemies, the empires must also have armies, and armies, especially contemporary armies, require enormous expenditures for the armaments that are needed for their services to the community. If people complain that too much money is needed for this weaponry, they are regularly told that it is necessary for national security...against the enemies. The production of arms thus becomes a worldwide reality, conditioning the lives of millions and influencing whole cultures. In a moment we shall see the application of this militarism, as it is termed, to the countries of South and North Korea.

In all of this we do not suggest that imperialism is the cause of all evil. It is in fact more truly a symptom of evil than its cause. At depth. great evil is something very mysterious, like great good. Nevertheless, it usually shows itself in human attempts, whether individual or corporate, to gain power over others. Empires are thus one manifestation of an evil that tempts all persons and peoples.

Under the impact of the great imperial powers of today's world, many people suffer. Countries that do not have very much power are turned into battlegrounds (eg Lebanon), or places where contending empires face each other or maintain an uneasy truce. Artificial and often tragic boundaries are thus set up between peoples who both naturally and historically belong together .

We are meeting, as we have already told you, in Seoul; and from our Korean sisters and brothers, some of whom are originally from the North, we have been hearing what such a division means for the life of this peninsula.

The Korean people, they have said, whether they live in South Korea or in North Korea, strongly desire to restore the unity that was theirs for more than a thousand years prior to the end of World War II The division of Korea at the end of that war, in 1945, eventually led to the Korean War, which from 1950 to 1953 devastated the land and claimed a toll of 6 million dead and wounded, and which has not been concluded with any peace treaty. Because of the division, more than ten million people have been cut off from their families and loved ones, and for four decades they have been forbidden any physical contact or even correspondence with them.

True to form, the division is justified by both states on the grounds of "national security." The militarization of Korea has infected its whole culture. It is a militarized society. Besides, the presence of US troops and nuclear weapons and of Soviet missiles deployed and targeted on the country exposes all Koreans to the risk of nuclear confrontation.

At a more subtle level, the militarized condition of Korea has introduced profound psychological and intellectual problems. In the churches themselves, for instance, there has come to be in certain quarters a kind of obsession with communism. An ideology of anti-communism often prevails, to the extent that people under its influence refuse to believe that there are any worshipping Christian communities in North Korea. With such attitudes abroad, it is very hard for Christians to be reconcilers within society, let alone to call for dialogue between contending factions. If the recommendations that have been made by various Korean Christian bodies as well as the World Council of Churches are to achieve sufficient support, Korean Christians, with the support of others, will have to assess honestly and with great courage the character of the militarized state and its effects even on confident Christian faith. such as we have found here.

These Korean testimonies have lent concreteness to our more general reflections on the relation between the quest for power and the need for war challenging us to think through once more our Christian grounds for peacemaking. The following responses may be noted: First, we shall have to begin with a confession of sin. Christians and churches in the past and still today too often condone militarism, if not actual warfare. The habit of being the official cult of the official culture, where it has pertained, makes us specially prone to suppose that the will of God and the way of our own nation are closely related. In this connection, the "just war" concept, which has been the basis of much Christian thought about war heretofore, needs to be thoroughly and critically reconsidered in the light of modern means of warfare, both nuclear and conventional.

Secondly, we have recognized here - at least in theory - that in order to understand and positively criticize such phenomena as militarism, the division of nations, and the like, we require a vantage point from which to think and act. If we insist that "it could be different," we must do so as those who both believe that and know something about the "different" way proposed by the sources of our faith tradition. Have we yet really pondered the meaning of God's shalom? The word comes easily to our lips today; but have our minds taken it in? And what of the Reign (Kingdom) of God? The Bible insists that God's peace reigns where there is justice; where divine judgement has brought down the mighty from their seats and divine love has caused oppressors and oppressed to confess their common need; where human beings and communities cease their incessant striving for control over one another and learn instead the meaning of service.

Thirdly, the whole notion of "the enemy" must be subjected, in the Christian koinonia at least, to a radical examination. Who is this enemy? May we ever assume, simply take for granted, that our enemies are the ones Identified by those in power? Today it is not enough to "love" our enemies;

we have to discover in the first place whether they are our enemies, and why.

Finally, we think that in this time of global turmoil Christians are called to a discipleship of peacemaking which should have a certain priority in their understanding of true obedience to Christ. The discipleship of peace is not a passive stand. It is rather a strategy which sets over against the age-old concept and practice of solving conflict through physical might; a spirituality that takes seriously the prospect of a statecraft based on persuasion and peaceful resistance against evil. New forms of conflict-resolution are being developed in many places today. We strongly urge you to join in this quest for alternatives to war. Nuclear annihilation will continue to threaten civilization; "the Bomb" cannot be uninvented. For our part, we pledge to you greater seriousness and faithfulness in our own efforts to obey the one whom we dare to call "Prince of Peace".

"My peace I give to you..,
Not as the world giveth".

The Integrity of Creation

God who has made the whole creation,
God who has made and is making us
calls us to say Yes
but also sometimes... No.

For a long time people in western societies have thought that the world works like a machine. This has led us to think that our machines are always beneficial and can solve all problems. We only considered the good things that could happen through our inventions. But now scientists say that all the coal and oil we have been burning in our machines have made the air warmer. This causes all kinds of problems, because with warmer climates the oceans rise and the weather patterns change.

Another thought: We have become so clever that now we are learning all about genes, things so tiny you can't see them without huge microscopes but so powerful that they control the way we grow. And now we are trying to change them. This can be dangerous. We wonder: Does God want us to change the rules of the creation itself? We seem to have this ability. Do we have the right too?

From now on we have to learn how to decide whether or not our machines and inventions will hurt the earth. We may say yes to things which will heal and help, but we must say no to everything that will damage and destroy. The trouble is, of course, that many of the same things that seem on first sight good contain within themselves the possibility of evil. So it is not an easy matter, saying yes and saying no. To acquire the wisdom that is needed to distinguish good from evil inventions and processes, we have to rethink the basis of our faith itself; and particularly we need to consider who we are, we humans, in relation to all the other creatures of God and to the planet itself.

God seems to have created us with certain gifts - knowledge and insight, will and imagination, memory and the capacity to dream. But was it God's intention that we should exalt ourselves to the apex of creation? Did the Creator anticipate that we would one day change the rules of the creation itself?

We think we shall have to learn how to say No to those questions. The God of whom the Bible speaks seems clearly to want a world in which all the parts, though different from one another, exist in harmony. The same Source makes it equally clear that this harmony of God's intention was and is destroyed precisely by us, by our strange need to rise up higher than our creaturehood.

Given that awesome need, and given too the often terrifying historical consequences of it, we should think twice about our attempts at controlling the creation. The truth is, we do not make very good gods.

In the past, the changes that were constantly occurring within creation, some of them because of US, some mercifully beyond our control, were mostly predictable and normal, though change is never without its shadow side. But we are living at a moment in history where the process of change itself has changed - largely because our human influence within the creation has increased dramatically through science and technology.

One example of this has been named "the greenhouse effect." Some of the gases produced by some human communities are causing great changes in our weather. The earth is getting warmer, the seas are rising, flood and drought are increasing. We do not know as yet what this will mean, concretely, for the future - your future. We do know, however, some of the things that we must do to prevent the worst results of this process: we must protect and replenish our forests; we must learn how to live with and not against nature; we must simplify our lives in first and second world societies, and choose lifestyles that will change the industrial processes that produce these harmful gases.

Another example of the new kind of change brought about by unlimited and ill-considered human know-how lies in the field of biotechnology. The last three decades have witnessed massive development in all aspects of medical and pharmaceutical technology. Many of these have been beneficial, sometimes in obvious ways. Yet these same processes have harboured possibilities that are by no means obviously good and are sometimes patently questionable and even evil We can share the joy of couples for whom the reproductive technologies of recent years have made it possible for them to have a child of their own. But we cannot extend such celebration to the commercialization of childbirth. Nor can we say Yes to genetic engineering which "creates" and patents new forms of life. And we condemn rather than celebrate genetic analysis when it is used for sex selection to abort female foetuses. Biotechnology may offer promising opportunities for advance, such as the development of crops that resist various problems. But are we ready to believe that we can know, as well, the full effect of such techniques on the ecosystem? Certainly we already know that such techniques can be used against the poor of the earth.

We want to be good stewards of that which, in earth, sea, and sky has been committed to our tender care. We can only make good our vocation to such stewardship if we learn how to say Yes to the creation...but sometimes, and perhaps now very often, No to our own attempts to manipulate the creation. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof " The language of possession and of mastery is not appropriate to human beings. We believe that we are accountable for what we do with the trees, the way we build our cities, the manner in which we travel and enjoy ourselves, the way we handle earth's unrenewable resources, what we do with our waste...

We are accountable. We are accountable to God. We are accountable to one another. We are accountable to the myriad creatures with whom we share this beautiful, planet. And we are accountable to you, dear children and young people. It is your future for which. under God, we are temporarily responsible. Pray that we may learn better than we have done how to take care of this treasure. so th-at when we shall turn our accounts over to your keeping we may not b~ covered with shame, and so that you may learn from us a little wisdom. From our present perspective, we think that you will need much wisdom for your own stewardship - your "temporary responsibility". According to an ancient writing of our tradition, awe before God is "the beginning of wisdom."

Covenanting for justice, peace and the integrity of creation

In the face of the threats to life in our age, for the sake of the whole creation, the future of all humanity and especially for the children and young people of the planet, the churches are urgently called to new forms of priestly and prophetic worship, witness and solidarity. God initiated his covenant with his creation and so we are all called to enter into a covenant for justice. Therefore, in the name and power of our covenant-keeping God, we resolve

That the general council calls its member churches to recognize and declare that the present global economic order is immoral and must be changed to one that is just and produces conditions in which justice, well-being and wholeness are possible. All are enjoined to commit their energy. strength and resources to the task of establishing such an order.
That the general council:
1. calls its member churches to declare when government laws and actions, or governments themselves, are illegitimate because they maintain constant oppression, actually promote injustice, govern without the consent of their people distort the gospel itself;
2. calls its member churches to give leadership in civil disobedience and non-violent resistance when they believe the gospel obliges them to do so;
3. calls its member churches to earnest prayer, particularly during Holy Week each year, and in other ways to stand with those who lead or engage in such resistance; and
4. ask the executive committee to explore this whole area of civil disobedience and resistance to illegitimate governing in view of the variety of situations within member churches countries, and report to the 23rd general council.
That the general council calls on its member churches to pray for and work toward full promotion and protection of human rights for all people, including those within their churches. To that end, member churches that have not already done so are urged to put the ordination of women on their agenda, and move towards its realization in their life. That the general council call its member churches to work to correct the problems of economic injustice towards women within their churches and societies, and to help women and their children who are trapped in poverty to achieve economic emancipation and independence.
That the general council welcomes the positive political changes in some east European countries and the Soviet Union, and encourages member churches in this area to support fully the process towards democratization.
That the general council call its member churches to
1. promote positive measures of peacemaking within their churches through their worship and witness and in the reassessment of the concept of "just war", the image of "enemy" and the vision of "shalom" in today's world;
2. create and implement imaginative efforts towards healing divisions both within their own society and throughout the world;
3. insist that their governments take active measures to
  1. reduce and finally to abolish the international trade in arms;
  2. stop foreign intervention in the sovereignty of other nations;
  3. work actively for disarmament among all nations;
  4. abandon war and the use of force as an appropriate means of '5 settling disputes, and furthermore that the general council calls
  5. those member churches in those countries which maintain military bases in foreign lands against the will of the people of those lands to INSIST that those bases be dismantled;
4. to support the efforts of the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations (in its resolution number 1989-59) which accepts conscientous objection as a human right;
5. support the efforts of the peacemaking towards human rights in Cambodia, the Middle East, especially Lebanon, Palestine and South Sudan.
That the general council call its member churches to support efforts towards peace and reunification in the Korean peninsula by
1. endorsing as their own the "Declaration of the churches of Korea on national reunification and peace (NCCK, February 1988), the Glion declaration on peace and the reunification of Korea (November 1988), and the WCC central committee's statement, "Peace and the reunification of Korea" (July 1989);
2. formally communicating to the Korean WARC member churches their solidarity on the issues of peace and reunification in Korea;
3. participating in the "world day of prayer" for peace and reunification in Korea on the Sunday nearest August 15 each year from 1990 to 1995; and
4. encouraging the WARC general secretariat to take initiatives for a "world church jubilee pilgrimage" for peace and reunification in Korea in August 1995.
That the Alliance constantly draws attention to the threats to creation and in particular urges its member churches and its congregations to raise their voice to make their own members and society at large conscious of the threats to the earth's atmosphere - "the greenhouse effect" and the destruction of the ozone layer. Rapid action is required if disastrous consequences for the whole created world are to be avoided. Many examples of such action can be given. The burning of fossil materials needs to be drastically reduced which means, among many other things, diminishing heating and, private car transport and renouncing the further development of air traffic. The production of sprays, styrofoam and similar materials needs to' come to an immediate halt. Special attention is to be given to the preservauon and replanting of forests. Facing the threats to creation calls inevitably for a radically simplified lifestyle, especially in the industrialized countries. Furthermore the Sabbath as a day of rest for all creation must be defended. Educational programmes on our covenant responsibility to live in harmony with creation should be provided to undergird the liturgical and faith commitments of the member congregations.
That the general council call its member churches to discern when their governments act unjustly in the dumping of nuclear and toxic wastes. These toxic wastes harm God's creation, hurt people and destroy livelihoods of individuals and communities.
That the general council urge the member churches to engage themselves in serious efforts to protect the land itself, a precious and irreplaceable gift of God and essential source for life, learning about and supporting a) agricultural methods which protect the land's fertility and b) development planning which is respectful of the land.
That the general council, while welcoming its beneficial applications, aler1 its member churches to par1icular theological and ethical dangers involved in cer1ain expressions of biotechnology, including the use of genetic analysis for sex selection resulting in the widespread destruction of female foetuses, the commercialization of childbir1h, the exploitation of reproductive technologies, discrimination based on genetic characteristics, military applications of genetic engineering, the patenting of genetically engineered new life forms, and the use of this technology by economic powers to exploit the genetic resources of third world countries. In cooperation with other ecumenical bodies, materials should be prepared which can be used in local congregations to explain and discuss these issues.
That the general council, in cooperation with the World Council of Churches and with Christian World Communions, pursue the theological understanding of creation's integrity, with particular attention to these tasks:
1. exploring whether WARC can complement its human rights declaration of 1977 with a similar declaration affirming the value, integrity and rights of all God's creation;
2. studying in depth the theological and ethical challenges presented by modern biotechnology in order to better equip the churches to respond in the future to these urgent issues.
That the general council calls its member churches:
1. to recognize that at present poorer countries of the world are bearing the burden of the international indebtedness in patently unjust and oppressive ways;
2. to stand in solidarity with the peoples who are suffering so deeply and with the churches who minister among them;
3. and particularly its member churches in creditor nations and those of indebted countries to press their governments, banks and other financial institutions to end the debt crisis in a manner which ensures that the poor will not bear the burden of its effects, but that the creditor nations and institutions will absorb the losses, in the interest of global economic justice.
That the general council gives full support to 1he peacemaking efforts by the group of five Central American presidents (Arias plan) seeking a resolution of the situation in Nicaragua, and calls on member churches in the United States to press their government to respect the ruling by the international Court of Justice upholing Nicaraguan sovereignty.
That the general council alerts its members and condemns the use of abortion as a means of birth control.
That subject to funds being available the general council publish, with appropriate explanatory, study, and implementation material, the letter to the children and young people of our planet, and these recommendations and that it distribute them widely to WARC member churches, the larger religious world community, and relevant secular organizations such as the United Nations.