Conger

Church leaders from the Philippines and Japan have issued a joint statement denouncing US military policies in East Asia, and condemned plans for a free trade agreement between the two countries.

“We stand against the forces of war and militarism: we lament the sustained US military war exercises in Mindanao and their presence in the rest of the Philippines, and the expansion of its bases in Okinawa,” delegates from the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) and the National Christian Council in Japan (NCCJ) said at the close of their joint Jan 21-25 meeting in Davao City.

Church leaders from the two countries noted that though the social and economic realities of their societies were very different, both nations were linked “are inextricably linked to the designs of the Empire especially its use of militarism as a tool for control and dominance.”

“We do not want our countries as launching pads for the US wars of aggression against the peoples of the world for its sole economic and political interests,” they said.

The church groups called the proposed Japan Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement, a free trade pact, “one sided, unequal and deceptive pact.” It would be “hugely beneficial” for Japan “but will surely aggravate the Filipino people’s misery.”

The conference also denounced “the continued political killings and other human rights violations in the Philippines whose targets are known critics of the policies of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.” (pictured)

In his conference address, the Rev. Rex Reyes, Jr., General Secretary of the NCCP accused the government of President Arroyo of having betrayed the people. The Anglican priest said the Arroyo presidency had led to “the repression and the militarization of the countryside.”

“The government’s counter-insurgency campaign, under the guise of war against terror,” had been implemented to enrich the government and its cronies through “the implementation of the economic policies of liberalization and privatization.”

The “repressive policies of the government” which had banned strikes and placed the country in a “state of emergency” were “meant to stifle principled dissent.”

“Peace and justice” remained an “enduring concern” for the Episcopal Church in the Philippines and the NCCP he said. The churches sought not to replace one regime with another, but to foster a “theology and spirituality that affirms the sanctity of life and the gifts of grace and providence bestowed on us by the Creator,” he said, and lead to the transformation of Filipino society.

Church leaders have denounced guidelines adopted by the Japanese Association of Acute Medicine (JAAM) that allows doctors to euthanize terminally ill patients.The Oct 15 policy paper allows doctors to stop life prolonging treatments of the terminally ill, if the patient has stated in writing they do not wish to receive such treatment and their family endorses the decision.

If the family cannot decide or if the cannot be found, the decision should be left up to a team of medical professionals, JAAM said.

Critics charge the new guidelines are being driven by fears of government prosecution, rather than medical ethics. Japanese law is silent on euthanasia, with the state tending not to prosecute cases of “mercy killing” when done with the family’s permission. However, in 2005 a Yokohama doctor was jailed for three years for giving a comatose man a lethal injection.

On Oct 27 the Japanese newspaper the Ashai Shimbun reported that JAAM began compiling the guidelines after police questioned a doctor at Imizu City Hospital in Toyama Prefecture who had removed artificial respirators from seven terminal-cancer patients between 2000 and 2005.

The Rev. Masakatsu Seki, professor emeritus of Christian life ethics at St. Paul’s University in Tokyo, told Ecumenical News International the guidelines violated medical ethics.

“The logic is that if they follow the process towards halting measures for prolonging lives according to this [report], they will be justified and won’t be sued for illegal acts and that they have supported death with dignity as a mercy killing,”, the Anglican priest said.

The Anglican Church in Japan, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai [NSKK] has revamped its hymnal, replacing Hymns Ancient and Modern with a new book that seeks the enculturation of Christian hymnody into the Japanese cultural experience.

Work on the new hymnal began in 1994 with a mandate to move away from reliance upon Japanese translations of traditional English and American hymns. The new book, the Hymnal of Nippon Sei Ko Kai was released with month and includes 590 hymns and 77 liturgical chants.

The new book combines colloquial Japanese hymns, with translations of Chinese and other Asian Christians hymns, the NSKK said. It also sought to add hymns that celebrated creation and God’s relationship to man.

THE DIOCESE of Chubu has urged voters to reject the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s [LDP] plans to amend Japan’s ‘Peace Constitution’, saying a remilitarised Japan could provoke a world war and would turn the country into an Asian Britain, making it a tool of American foreign policy interests.“If we don’t dissuade the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (pictured) from changing Japan’s Peace Constitution, not only will the world be losing a powerful instrument for peace, but the change may also precipitate a war in Asia, in which China would almost certainly be involved, and to which the US would almost certainly respond,” the Central Japanese diocese’s international affairs commission said last week.

Read it all in The Church of England Newspaper