1 Declaration of the Micah Network Dhaka Consultation on Justice and Advocacy 2-4 June 2004 Background 35 participants from Christian relief, development and justice agencies and churches met in Bangladesh for 3 days for a Micah Network consultation on the theme of advocacy and justice. The consultation was convened by a steering committee which comprised representatives from Koinonia, HEED Bangladesh, Baptist Aid, Nazarene Mission, the Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, BBCS, CSS, MAF, RDRS and CRWRC. The Micah Network The Micah Network is a coalition of 270+ evangelical relief, development and justice agencies and churches who are committed to integral mission as defined in the Micah Declaration on Integral Mission (September 2001). The vision of the Micah Network is to create a dynamic process that facilitates collaborative action in: Strengthening the capacity of participating agencies to make a biblicallyshaped response to the needs of the poor and oppressed. Speaking strongly and effectively regarding the nature of the mission of the Church to proclaim and demonstrate the love of Christ to a world in need. Prophetically calling upon and influencing the leaders and decision-makers of societies to maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed and rescue the weak and needy. The Micah Challenge The Micah Network and the World Evangelical Alliance are facilitating a global campaign to mobilise Christians against poverty. The campaign is called the Micah Challenge. The campaign s goals look both inwards, to deepen Christian engagement with the poor, and outwards, to influence leaders to fulfil their public promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, and so halve absolute poverty by 2015.
2 One of the objectives of the consultation was to explore the possibility of establishing a national campaign in Bangladesh for the Micah Challenge. The central statement of the campaign is the Micah Call: This is a moment of unique potential, When the stated intentions of world leaders Echo something of the mind of the Biblical prophets And the teachings of Jesus concerning the poor, and When we have the means to dramatically reduce poverty. We commit ourselves, as followers of Jesus, To work together for the holistic transformation of our Communities, to pursue justice, be passionate about Kindness and to walk humbly with God. We call on international and national decision-makers Of both rich and poor nations, to fulfil their public promise To achieve the Millennium Development Goals And so halve absolute global poverty by 2015. We call on Christians everywhere to be agents of hope For and with the poor, and to work with others To hold our national and global leaders accountable In securing a more just and merciful world. Spiritual Basis In our interactive sessions with learned bible teachers, we were reminded: of Amos prophetic call to right our own hearts and actions, and therefore the need to avoid roaring against others while not righting our own failure to follow God s word in relation to justice that righteousness/justice comes as grace from God within the Beatitudes there is a thirst for righteousness/justice but with that comes persecution doctrinal or theological concepts such as truth must become spirituality and action Justice is truth in operation that the journey of Israel in the Old Testament was a journey of justice that took them from enslavement to liberation, and exile in the period of exile, the knowledge of freedom brings with it greater responsibility to do justice with others. We asked what difference hundreds of years of knowing the gospel has made to us in Bangladesh.
3 We learned that the journey of social justice from the time of the industrial revolution has proceeded through the following stages: seeking material wellbeing for the poor upholding rights and dignity of the poor solidarity with the poor; and communion or immersion with the poor to enter into their view of righteousness/justice. The last part of the journey involves a democratisation of spirituality. We are called to read the bible through the eyes of the poor. We acknowledge that to establish justice is a spiritual honour and a spiritual requirement. In God s appointed time, He became incarnated in human flesh so that we could see how he dealt with the question of true justice and peace that remains. From the life and teachings of Jesus, we can derive the following themes: God is both the Creator and righteous judge of all people The Kingdom of God is within us with the coming of Christ in history Eternal destiny of humanity cannot be separated from temporal life We are not owners of any resources, but we are stewards of God s resources There can be no lasting and true peace without justice Faith without work of obedience and love is dead We are God s co-workers for the purpose of reconciliation Ours is a prophetic and advocacy role We affirm the definition of mission contained in the Micah Declaration on Integral Mission (Oxford, September 2001) that: Integral mission or holistic transformation is the proclamation and demonstration of the gospel. It is not simply that evangelism and social involvement are to be done alongside each other. Rather, in integral mission our proclamation has social consequences as we call people to love and repentance in all areas of life. And our social involvement has evangelistic consequences as we bear witness to the transforming grace of Jesus Christ. If we ignore the world we betray the word of God which sends us out to serve the world. If we ignore the word of God we have nothing to bring to the world. Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change and structural change belong together. As in the life of Jesus, being, doing and saying are at the heart of our integral task.
4 Bangladesh context Bangladesh is a nation of beauty, hard work and resilience that has created innovative community development strategies and programs to reach the poor that have led the world. Our country has a culture of participation and advocacy. Many of our people speak strongly for justice and human rights and we have a strong network of NGOs including Christian NGOs. The position of Bangladesh in the UNDP Human Development Index (139 th ) is improving gradually and Bangladesh has achieved significant socio-economic gains since Independence. Bangladesh can point to particular achievements such as the eradication of polio. However, 40 million Bangladeshi earn less than $1 per day, and approximately 20 to 25 children under the age of 5 die per hour, predominantly from poverty related causes. Massive rural-urban migration leaves large numbers of children to fend for themselves on the street. Bangladesh is going through an historically low period in regard to human rights. Discrimination and violence against the powerless is widespread. Key human rights issues include: persecution of minorities by fanatical groups within the majority including rape, forcible acquisition of property, land grabbing and dislocation the incidence of violence against women is extremely high in Bangladesh as is the maternal mortality rate (2.5 deaths per hour) trafficking of women and children (200-400 women and children every month). Corruption is endemic. For the last three years, Bangladesh has been assessed by Transparency International to have the highest incidence of corruption amongst countries participating in the assessment. This is a major reason why justice is denied (eg police not acting in relation to violence and crime). Bangladesh faces environmental challenges and pressure on resources on an enormous scale. It is claimed that Bangladesh has the highest population density in the world and has a massive internal rural urban movement of people. Dhaka has currently 10 million people (ranked 15 th globally) and this is expected to increase to 22 million by 2015 (ranked second). Major environmental challenges include: environmental pollution (air, water and land) natural resources depletion (including forest and fishery resources)
5 Confession We Christians in Bangladesh and our churches have not done enough to respond to the needs of the poor, especially those issues of social justice and human rights that relate to direct confrontation with the power structures, and that have political implications which seemed too difficult and risky for us to handle. On the whole, our focus has been on the spiritual dimension and we have avoided the social and political issues of life. Directions Our mission will be to integrate the issues of justice and advocacy into the teachings of the church, Christian organisations and the lives of individual Christians. We are committed to: transforming social and political systems and structures that dehumanise people promoting transformation of people s attitudes and values towards the poor and marginalised according to the Nazareth manifesto of Jesus (Luke 4:17-18) promoting justice with hearts that are kind and gentle and walking humbly with God as proclaimed by Micah (6:8). Formation of a Bangladesh Micah Challenge Campaign It was resolved that the steering committee for the Micah Network Dhaka consultation be invited to form a national steering committee for the Micah Challenge campaign in Bangladesh within the next 3 months. Ideas for the development of the campaign are contained in a separate document. Dhaka 4 June 2004 For more information on the Micah Network, see website www.micahnetwork.org For more information on the Micah Challenge, see website www.micahchallenge.org
Signed at Dhaka, 4 June 2004 6