STATEMENT. NCCI STRONGLY CONDEMNS ATROCITIES AGAINST DALITS IN INDIA

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PRESS RELEASE | STATEMENT

The National Council of Churches in India, meeting as a General Body in Chennai on August 12, 2016, strongly condemned  the growing atrocities against dalits in India:

National Council of Churches in India expresses its grave concern over the vehement hate campaigns and brutal attacks on Dalits in different parts of India. We condemn the perpetrators, cow vigilante groups and the right wing fundamentalists who take the law in their hands and torment the Dalits in our country. Serious cognizance must be taken of the hate campaigns manifesting in their most recent forms such as the activities of ‘Cow-killers’ and restrictions sought to be imposed on ‘Cow-meat-eaters’. This is an extreme form of modern-day practice of untouchability and discrimination.

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NCCI EXPRESSES CONCERN OVER THE TROUBLED SITUATION IN KASHMIR.

The National Council of Churches in India, in its Executive Committee meeting in Chennai on August 13, 2016, has expressed deep concern over the disturbed situation in Kashmir.

It urges the central and state governments to facilitate peace in the region on the principles of justice and inclusivity. The NCCI also urges the Government to reconsider the continuance of the imposition of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Kashmir and North-East India.  Read more

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NCCI CONDEMNS CONTINUING ATROCITIES ON CHRISTIAN MISSION WORKERS.

PRESS RELEASE

The National Council of Churches in India, in its Executive Committee meeting in Chennai on August 13, 2016, condemned incidents of physical attacks on Christian Mission workers in different parts of the country.

The NCCI is concerned about wanton actions taken by right wing fundamentalist forces on dedicated workers seeking to serve the society through their ministries of education, health care and life-transformation. So also the worship services conducted by them in houses of Christian families have been disrupted on the false allegation that they are converting people to the Christian faith. Such workers have been subject to much humiliation including being imprisoned on false charges.

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Bishop Dr. P. C. Singh’s Presidential Message: Our Vision and Mission

OUR VISION AND MISSION

Dear Ecumenical Colleagues,

I thank God along with you for a century-long ministry of the National Council of Churches in India.  I welcome all of you to this new quadrennial period of renewed vision and commitment.

I am grateful to all of you for unanimously electing me to be the President of this national ecumenical movement which, in the past, had been led by great ecumenical leaders like Bishop Vedanayakam Azariah.  All the members of the Presidium will be working as a team.  I request the full support of my friends.

Let me take this opportunity to bring greetings from Church of North India of which I am the Deputy Moderator and also from the Diocese of Jabalpur where I serve as its Bishop.  We were privileged to host the quadrennial assembly of NCCI from 27 to 30 April, 2016 in Jabalpur.  Our diocese was greatly blessed by your presence and participation.

It is only appropriate to reflect on our vision and mission for the new quadrennial period and future years.  As all of us know, NCCI has initiated a Strategic Planning Process (SPP) which also involved a light assessment of NCCI’s life and work (Jan-Feb 2013)

The main objectives of the SPP were to:

  • Articulate a vision and mission of NCCI
  • Spell out the implication of such a vision for the mission of the NCCI
  • Draw out the implications of the mission statement for the structure of NCCI and its governance
  • Give directions and functional policies for the existence and relevance of NCCI

I have drawn major insights of this “Vision and Mission” paper from the findings and recommendations of the SPP.  To those I have added insights from my own experience a minister of the Church.

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Meditation on ‘Inclusiveness’

Introduction: “Gospel in a groaning world” was the theme of the previous quadrennial.  The present quadrennial has the theme “Towards Just and Inclusive Communities”.  During the assembly we deliberated on this theme in detail.  This morning I wish to share some thoughts on the theme of “inclusiveness”.

Inclusiveness in simple terms means comprehending everything, containing everything and including everything.  In human terms it means accepting and respecting others who are different from us, giving opportunities to those who are marginalized, and working towards a community without discrimination of gender, caste and creed.

What does this term mean in our Christian faith?  What are its implications in our community life?  These are some of the questions we need to deal with.

There are three main principles of Inclusiveness

Principle 1. God is the most important principle.  Col.1:17 says that God is the basis of all things.  We can call this principle also as unity in creation.  It is by the word of God (divine fiat) that all things were created.  Human beings were designed by God’s hand.  The source is the same.  Therefore, all creation will have to be finally restored to God.  That is God’s purpose.

Principle 2.  Life and its resources.  Life is a gift from God.  It is a common factor for all creation.  Life has many forms.  Think of the simple common things that we share as part of our life-sustaining system.  The air we breathe, the water we drink, the sunlight we enjoy are some of them.  All creatures share them.  All of them originate from God.  People belong to different religions and faiths.  Yet, we are all grounded in the same source – life.  So, life has priority over religions and faiths.  The life which comes to us as a gift from God binds us all together.

Principle 3. Jesus Christ, He is the most powerful symbol of inclusivity.  All things were created through him and all things which were created came into existence only through him (Jn.1)

 

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NCCI’s new website

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ncci1914.com

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NCCI’s new website ncci1914.com was inaugurated by NCCI President, Honourable Bishop Dr. P. C. Singh on August 11, 2016 in the course of the General Body meeting in Chennai. Bishop Dr. P. C. Singh appreciated NCCI’s Commission on Communications and Relations for the upgrade, and wished the website to be a channel for more effective accomplishment of ecumenical objectives as communicating communities seeking to synergize efforts in service of the Church and Society.

NCCI’s new website is aimed at incorporating newer strategies and website components towards optimizing available technology to the various ways people currently use it, and its new domain name brings into focus the historic standing and commitment of the Council. The website will serve as a repository for reference and relevant data as well as a portal for news from NCCI, its member bodies and ecumenical concerns in general. With a responsive web design and integrated cross-platform content sharing (eg. in addition to email, facebook, twitter and other online social media, news posts viewed on mobile devices can now be shared on whatsapp as well), NCCI has responded practically to changing trends of accessing and sharing data across multiple platforms, including smart phones. The NCCI news app for AndroidTM devices that complements the news components of the website, continues to be freely available on Google PlayTM

 

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Black Day Observance at NCCI Campus, Nagpur

Black day PicAll NCCI Staff members observed “Black Day” on August 10, 2016 at the NCCI Campus, Nagpur to  protest about the continual negligence of the government to the cry for the rights of Dalit Christians and Muslims in the country.  In his address, Mr. Pradip Bansrior, Executive Secretary- Dalit and Tribal/ Adivasi Concerns,  highlighted the injustice related to the issue and lamented that the Civil Writ Petition 180/2004 in the Honorable Supreme Court of India praying for the deletion of paragraph 3 of the Presidential Order 1950 has been pending in the Supreme Court of India for the past 12 years, since the Government has not yet replied to the Supreme court.

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A Relevant Diaconal Intervention for Youth Today

Workshop on ‘Youth for Peace’

23rd July 2016, Aruppukottai, Virudhunagar, Tamilnadu

DSC01557A one-day workshop on Relevant (Diaconal) Mission for Youth under the theme “Youth for Peace” was held on 23rdJuly 2016, at Church of South India (CSI) Parish Hall, Aruppukkottai, Virudhunagar District, Tamilnadu. The Unity, Mission and Evangelism Unit and the Youth Unit of National Council of Churches in India (NCCI), the Commission on  Conflict Transformation and Peace Building Program of United Evangelical Lutheran Churches in India (UELCI), Christian Service Agency (CSA) and Congregation Accompanied Reformed Diaconia In Action (CARDIA) and Dept. of Communication of CSI Diocese of Madurai and Ramnad jointly organized this workshop.

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Indian Churches’ Pilgrimage of Green-justice…

IMG_7670The National Council of Churches in India and the Church’s Auxiliary for Social Action has jointly initiated a pilot programme with four local congregations to address the climate justice issue, thereby accompanying them in their journey towards becoming ‘green congregations’. This programme is an outcome of the National Church Leaders’ Consultation on ‘Ecumenical Diaconia at the Grassroots’ held from 24 -26 August 2015 in Bangalore.

Since there has been a long standing concern to strengthen churches in North India, the four local congregations belonging to NCCI Member churches come mainly from this region. The four congregations are part of the Church of North India (Amritsar Diocese), Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church (Ranchi) Hindustani Covenant Church (Pune) and Methodist Church in India (Delhi Conference).

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World Social Forum 2016. “Another world is needed: Together it is possible”

fsm_logo_enThe World Social Forum (WSF) 2016, scheduled to be held in Montreal, Canada from 9th to 14th of August 2016 on the theme “Another World is Needed: Together it is possible”. The goal of the WSF2016 is to gather tens of thousands of people from groups in civil society, organisations and social movements who believe in the construction of a better world. and want to build a sustainable and inclusive world.

This is to inform you that, the OIKOTREE (joint initiative of WCC, CWM and WCRC) movement is committed to campaigning against the injustices around the globe though various ecumenical pilgrimages for the past over a decade. Now, Oikotree is happy in announcing its participation in the World Social Forum 2016 to raise three key issues in the struggle for building together another world that is needed and possible. These are the questions of “Land”, “A New Epistemology about Life” and “People’s Assembly of the World”.

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