Abstract
At the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches (Nairobi, November 20-December 10, 1975), as reported from the Hearing on the Programme Unit “Justice and Service”, part II on Development and Justice, it was stated: “The development process should be understood as a liberating process aimed at justice, self-reliance and economic growth. It is essentially a people’s struggle in which the poor and the oppressed are and should be the active agents and immediate beneficiaries. Seen in this perspective the role of the churches and the WCC is to support the struggle of the poor and the oppressed towards justice and self-reliance”. This resulted in the
following decision by the CCPD Commission immediately after the Nairobi Assembly: the main focus of ecumenical development work should be “to assist churches and their constituency to manifest in their theological outlook, styles of life and organizational structures, their solidarity with the struggle of the poor and the oppressed”.