ENI – WCC general secretary, Rev. Samuel Kobia, told a gathering of the Bible Society in Sri Lanka's commercial capital that churches are morally bound to act to prevent conflicts and to build peace.
“Prevention of conflicts, peacemaking and peace building are moral imperatives for the churches and for civil society,” said Kobia in a speech in Colombo during his first visit to Sri Lanka, where a 25-year conflict between government forces and autonomy-seeking Tamil rebels has claimed more than 80,000 lives.
“I am left with the chilling feeling that this country sits on a social time bomb,” Kobia said after hearing from church and civil society leaders of the island nation.
Kobia said, “The trauma is deep and so is the bitterness. All these, one could say, are the consequences of a protracted civil war, but the fact is that the hatred, the bitterness, the pain are still there and one cannot wish them away or ignore them.”
The Geneva-based WCC brings together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches.
