Lucas Vuilleumier (Protest info)
Published on November 4, 2024 at 07:42. / Modified on November 4, 2024 at 07:45.
What gets him up every morning is the desire to “heal a broken world.” With “Jesus as the absolute center” of his existence, Jerry Pillay has assumed the role of general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) since January 2023. Created in 1948 and based in Geneva, this community of Churches brings together 352. Its goal? “Work for Christian unity but, above all, for peace,” says the 59-year-old pastor. Jerry Pillay embraces these missions with all the more fervor as he himself is the product of a past marked by the wound of exclusion and injustice.
Of Indian origin, raised in South Africa under apartheid, he comes from a family of six children, the first two of whom did not access higher education because of the seriousness of the political situation. Jerry Pillay admits, however, that his family may have experienced meager privileges: “Even though we were considered black, Indians in South Africa had the power to create their own community growth, including raising funds to build schools and hospitals.”
Son of a textile company director and a stay-at-home mother, both practicing Hindus, Jerry Pillay nevertheless considers that he was raised “close to Christian culture”. In the district of Johannesburg where he grew up, he attended Sunday school at a local church. “My parents, witnesses to my early and growing interest in Christ, encouraged me,” assures this son of a very open family. So much so that his father, seriously affected by an illness that was eating away at his stomach, declared one Christmas evening: “If Jesus exists and he allows me to eat this dish, then I will become a Christian.” Surprise: the man who hadn’t eaten for months finished his plate. He then joined the Presbyterian Church, of which he became an “elder”, with his wife, while the latter took the head of her women’s association. For his part, Jerry Pillay, then only 10 years old, began to preach the Gospel in the streets. “With a children’s microphone, placed on a small stepladder.”
Dialogue
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