Taiwan Church News
3528 Edition
October 7 – 13, 2019
Church Ministry
“Taiwan is Taiwan” Touted in PCT’s Campaign for TEF Consensus
Reported by Lin Chia-jin
To campaign across Taiwan church and society the consensus of Taiwan Ecumenical Forum(TEF), a platform initiated by some visionary church leaders since 2017 trying to solve or alleviate Taiwan society’s isolation, frustration and humiliation due to China’s hegemonic bully and an ecumenical negligence, PCT General Assembly held a meeting called “2019 TEF Consensus Camp” at PCT Bible College in Hsinchu city from October 7 to 9. About 175 representatives or secretaries from different PCT presbyteries, district councils and administrative offices attended this significant assembly.
On the challenging question, “What is PCT’s most urgent missionary concern at present moment(kairos)?”, raised by Rev Chris Ferguson(General Secretary of WCRC), Rev Lyim Hung-tiong(General Secretary of PCT) replied clearly that it is PCT’s firm commitment to stand by Taiwan and say no to China’s toxic offer as “One Country, Two System”.
Rev Lyim said, since a bluntly aggressive Taiwan status proposal, announced arbitrarily by China’s Xi Jing-ping on January 2, 2019, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen immediately retorted with a defiant statement rejecting China’s preposterous offer of “One Country, Two System” to annex Taiwan within its regime. And what President Tsai responded to China also materializes the consensus among Taiwan churches and the whole society, according to Rev Lyim.
Many Taiwan churches and denominations, including Catholics, Anglican and Methodist, were all invited and agreed to attend TEF Consensus Camp. Noteworthy is that Father Wu Wei-Li was assigned to attend this meeting to represent Taiwan Catholic Church.
Dr Victor Hsu, Convener of PCT-TEF Task Force, lamented Taiwan geo-political status among international community was just like a helpless orphan during his explication of the origin and development of TEF’s establishment. In addition, mainstream churches of ecumenical society in their pursuit of peace and justice the dire and desperate needs of their least brothers and sisters in Taiwan was always overlooked, said Dr Hsu.
Therefore, Dr Hsu stressed, now it is time for ecumenical partners worldwide to affirm and accept Taiwan’s prophetic role witnessing God’s compassionate call for justice and peace in the past human histories; jointly protect the freedom, dignity and identity of Taiwanese people in order to make Taiwan become a new and independent country.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
