Recent CPTnet stories

COLOMBIA REFLECTION: Mark 5:21-29—Only one hope

February 3rd, 2012
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The Colombian social organizations led by women are always the most vulnerable and least heard.  Sometimes I wish God's justice came swiftly and unquestioned the way Jesus dispensed it in Mark 5:21-29.  I see women who denounce the perverse and announce that which gives life, that which is to be enjoyed and shared with others.  Others today may be touched by the mantle that thousands of years ago reached out to a woman condemned by doctors and society to remain sick and excluded all her life.  We cannot ignore this story in our culture that silences women's voices—a society that chooses to isolate women because women don't live up to its standards.  It is a culture that constantly represses and trivialises the work of hundreds of mothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, and daughters.  At end of the day we hear these voices calling, "There is only one hope to see a different tomorrow."

COLOMBIA: Neo-colonization - Towards a better understanding of the conflict in "post-conflict" Colombia

January 17th, 2012
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By today's standards it is difficult to justify the morality of the conquest and subsequent colonization of Africa, much of Asia, and the Americas, by predominantly white, militarily-superior, European powers during the previous millennium. What was once assumed as evidently being God's will--"Manifest Destiny" as it was called at the time--is no longer a politically acceptable justification for the invasion, genocide, dispossession and colonialization of other peoples' countries and other peoples' lands. 

COLOMBIA: Garzal's President, Reverend Salvador Alcántera, Forced to Flee for His Life

December 21st, 2011
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On Friday, December 9th, shortly after Salvador was warned that armed actors wearing balaclavas had come looking for him, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Colombia accompanied Salvador and his family safely out of the Magdalena Medio region. CPT has accompanied Garzal and Nueva Esperanza's struggle to remain on their lands for more than four years.

Salvador's situation is not exceptional. In Colombia leaders of millions of  campesinos (small farmers) seeking to remain on their land or return to the lands from which they were displaced are more likely to be killed than  receive state protection and titles to their lands that would guarantee their safety.

COLOMBIA REFLECTION: Reflections on Advent – Following God’s Call

December 13th, 2011
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Following God’s Call 

by Pierre Shantz

Advent is a time of hope and waiting.  We all anxiously await the birth of Jesus. It is a time of celebration. We sing our favorite hymns. We prepare the wreaths and light a new candle for every Sunday.  Every day, we open a new window in our Advent calendars looking for a treat or a lesson for the day.  For us who know the outcome of the story -- the entering of God into our broken world -- it is one of our favorite seasons in the church.

COLOMBIA REFLECTION: Reflections on Advent - Witness to the Arriving Christ

December 7th, 2011
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Witness To The Arriving Christ
by Caldwell 'Carlos' Manners

Life stands as the central theme in John's gospel (John 20:31), and it is in and through the incarnate Christ that this life of abundance is manifest and brought  into reality (John10:10). It is in this overarching theme that the narrator compels us into a world of contesting powers --  transports us through time to the beginning, when all things came into being. The one journeying from heaven to earth is rejected by his own and is forced to embark on conferring childhood rights to all those who believe in him- -- stirring contrasting images: the violator and the violated, the powerful and the powerless, the colonizers and colonized. It is in these spaces and dimensions of travel, as it unfolds throughout the gospel that we like John are witnesses.