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The Founding of the World Council of Churches Editor's Note: This article was written a decade ago for the 50th anniversary of the World Council of Churches by the late Rev. Marlin VanElderen (Reformed Church in America), then director of publishing for the WCC. VanElderen was a prolific writer and editor who played a major role in preserving and publishing the history of the WCC and the worldwide ecumenical movement. By Marlin Van ElderenFounded in Amsterdam on 23 August 1948 by representatives from 147 churches, the World Council of Churches turns 50 this year. As delegates from its member churches prepare to mark this jubilee in December at the WCC's eighth assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, what events and developments during the Council's first five decades have shaped its life? Why was the WCC formed?
The WCC's constitution describes it as "a fellowship of
churches".
Over the centuries, the separate existence of these divided churches
has led to mutual suspicion, tension and sometimes even violent conflict.
Most of the time they have gone their own way, isolated from and
ignorant of each other.
The conviction grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that this
disunity contradicts the historic Christian confession that the church is
one and diminishes the credibility of Christian witness in a divided world.
The World Council of Churches was formed to call the churches to make
visible in the world the unity of his followers for which Jesus prayed
(John 17:21).
No super-church
The broad lines of the WCC's agenda are set by assemblies of delegates
from all member churches, which meet every seven years.
While each assembly has seen more churches represented than the
previous one - there are now 330 - the more significant growth has
come in the diversity of member churches. In 1948, two-thirds of them
were headquartered in Europe and North America; today, two-thirds
come from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America, the Middle East
and the Pacific.
Diversity
While the largest church in the world, the Roman Catholic Church, kept its
distance from the WCC in the early years, the Second Vatican Council
(1962-65) made a clear commitment to seek unity with "separated
brothers and sisters".
In the years after the Uppsala assembly (1968), many people even
hoped the Catholic Church might become a WCC member. After long
discussions, this did not happen. But the WCC and the Catholic Church
do work closely together in many areas, especially through official
Catholic membership of the WCC's Faith and Order commission.
Most of the Council's founding churches came from the major historic
traditions of the Protestant Reformation - Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist,
Reformed and the like. But some churches from newer Christian
traditions have also joined. Among those to become members in New
Delhi were two Pentecostal churches in Chile. The first to join of several
independent churches in Africa (churches not originating in Western
missions) was the five-million-member Kimbanguist Church (Democratic
Republic of Congo), in 1969.
Much of the early dynamism came from conferences, organizations and
informal gatherings of youth and students, whose enthusiasm for
breaking down ancient barriers was often a spur to more cautious
church leaders.
Major global meetings in these three areas have been milestones of the
WCC's first 50 years. They have been accompanied by numerous
studies drawing on the experience and wisdom of churches worldwide.
Mission
Life and Work Much of its agenda was taken up by the WCC's fourth assembly in
Uppsala (1968), which responded to the revolutionary climate of the
1960s through commitments to an active - sometimes controversial -
engagement in social, economic and political issues which marked the
Council over the succeeding decades. Of all those engagements - in development, education and health
care, in human rights, in the struggles of women, in work for
disarmament and peace - it was no doubt the Programme to Combat
Racism which had the highest profile. Controversy The controversy often overshadowed the credibility this
involvement earned the Council and its member churches among
oppressed people in many places. Women An expression of this concern has been the WCC's consistent
emphasis on the role of women in church and society (though the
question of the ordination of women continues to divide member
churches). Even before the 1948 Amsterdam assembly, the WCC commissioned an
international survey of the status of women in churches. In the
1970s and 1980s, a further study on the Community of Women and Men
in the Church drew unprecedented local participation. And the
Ecumenical Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women, which began
at Easter 1988, will climax with an international festival, also in
Harare, just before this year's WCC assembly. Cold War A 1950 WCC statement supporting UN intervention in Korea led
Chinese member churches to withdraw from involvement in the Council
until 1991. And superpower rivalry often lay behind criticisms of
the WCC's outspoken support of the hopes and plans of the newly
independent countries from which a growing number of its member
churches came. Meanwhile, increasing participation in the WCC of church leaders
from Eastern and Central European socialist countries led to charges
that the Council was unconcerned about the persecution of
"underground" Christians in the Soviet Union. Indeed, critics
accused the WCC of supporting communism. Many disputed the WCC's policy of relating officially to those
churches in communist countries whose leaders were allowed some
freedom for contacts and travel abroad, with the consequence that
the Council's public stance often looked unbalanced sharply critical
of the West, silent or at best muted in criticizing the East. Others would argue that, for all its limits, this policy gave
oppressed churches an opening to the outside that eventually helped
to bring about the collapse of totalitarian governments. Neither
social action nor controversy was unknown to the Council when the
storms over PCR broke out in the 1970s and 1980s. From the beginning the Council has insisted on holding together
the search for the unity of the church with the quest for the
renewal of humankind. And, as a worldwide organization, it has a
significant role in international affairs. Even before its official founding, the WCC's Geneva office was a
central point. Through it, churches divided by the war maintained
contact and aided people fleeing Nazi persecution. Just after the
war, the WCC coordinated international church involvement in
European resettlement and reconstruction. Subsequently the Council
played a major role in interchurch aid, and each year channeled
millions of dollars to respond to disasters and to support
development programs in every part of the world.
NCC News contact: Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228, NCCnews@ncccusa.org |