MANILA, Philippines – Evangelical churches on Wednesday denounced “with utmost indignation” the recent terror attacks in New Zealand and Nigeria.
The Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) also urged the faithful to be remain united as Catholics.
“PCEC denounces with utmost indignation these senseless terror attacks, which violate all norms of human decency and blatantly defy the true, peaceful teachings and religious morality of Christianity, Islam, and all established religions,” PCEC national director Bishop Noel Pantoja said in a statement.
“While the attacks in New Zealand and Nigeria occurred overseas, they are not detached from the bombing of the Jolo Cathedral and a Mahardika mosque in Zamboanga City earlier this year. We are all united in our common humanity, so that a terrorist attack against anyone, anywhere, is an attack on us all. We all are, as individual persons and as a community of nations, each other’s keeper,” he added.
At least 49 people were killed and some 48 others wounded when a lone gunman opened fire in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
READ:New Zealand shootings seen as racist attack; 49 dead
Pantoja also noted that since February, more than 120 individuals were killed by Fulani terrorists in the “predominantly Christian” villages of Nigeria’s Kaduna, Benue, and Zamfara states.
With this, he reminded the public on how terrorism “inculcates, promotes, and draws its strength from prejudice, discrimination and hatred of others within society” as it encouraged the public to be ambassadors of reconciliation.
“Terrorism can only thrive in hatred. It is a supreme manifestation of the ways of darkness, and those walking in it ‘do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them’ (1 John 2:11),” Pantoja said.
“PCEC therefore calls on its Evangelical Christian constituents in the country, as Christ’s ambassadors of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:19-20) who now live in the light (1 John 2:10) to pray intensely, and in the power of the Spirit strive toward breaking down walls of discrimination and prejudice in our society. Let us show that hatred and violence will never have the final word, but peace that comes from the love of God and of our neighbor,” he added. / gsg