The seven years from Uppsala, 1968, to Nairobi, 1975, marked a critical turning point in the history of the World Council of Churches.
Winds of change from the Third World began to blow the ecumenical bark far off its original course and sent it. rocking violently, in an entirely new direction. The Fifth assembly, with 31 churches from the developing countries added since Uppsala, did nothing to stabilize it or bring it back on course. It served only to reaffirm the new priorities and infiltrate them into every aspect of the council's activities. If there was less tension and fewer “fireworks” than had been expected, it was because of the council’s precarious financial situation and the fear of losing the support of some of the churches.
The Quest for Ecclesiological Unity.
When the 147 founder churches of the World Council gathered for the first assembly at Amsterdam in 1948. their primary aim was to seek together a way of ending the centuries-old divisions of Christendom and bringing to realization the prayer of the Lord “that they all may be one” for the final accomplishment of His divine purpose, “that the world may believe.” John 17:21.
The churches at the first assembly were predominantly Protestant and were thinking in terms of a unity based on the initiative of the Word of God and the response of faith, but right from the beginning the Orthodox, Anglican, and other “episcopal” churches stressed the necessity also of a unity of “order” in the visible continuity of the church through the “historic succession.”
The differences set forth were not resolved at Amsterdam, and as the time of the second assembly in 1954 approached, the opposing concepts of unity were becoming so divisive that an attempt was made at Evanston to steer discussion into less controversial channels. The vast influx of Orthodox churches at New Delhi in 1961, however, gave the “Catholic” or “episcopal” forces such a majority that Dr. Michael Ramsey, then Archbishop of Canterbury, came back from the third assembly jubilantly asserting that the World Council of Churches was “no longer an exclusively Protestant show,” while voices from across the Atlantic urged the catholic forces to “assume the leadership of the reunion movement.”
The Demand for Reassessment of Priorities.
But at this critical stage in the debate on the nature of unity, something new and entirely unexpected happened. After New Delhi pressures from the increasing representation of the churches of the Third World began to call for a fundamental reassessment of priorities in the aims of the World Council. Spokesmen from the developing countries demanded that the problems of “denominational” or “ecclesiological” unity should be relegated to a secondary place, and that the World Council should make its first priority the involvement of the world churches in a “secular ecumenism” to free the peoples of the Third World from the exploitation and oppression to which they had long been subjected.
At first many thought that the change of emphasis was simply from “Faith and Order” to “Life and Work.” but it soon became clear that the change was to be much more drastic. In 1969 the central committee set up a “Program to Combat Racism,” and the next year a special fund was created “to support organizations that combat racism” in Africa, Central and South America, and elsewhere, even though it was recognized that some of the organizations supported by the fund were “combating racism with violent means.”
Before long the new “secular ecumenism” had been given a theological basis by the development of a “theology of liberation” in which Jesus Christ was presented as a political revolutionary justifying armed rebellion, guerrilla warfare, and even terrorism with its attendant cruelties. “Only by the acceptance of this 'theology.' we have been assured,” comments the Rev. George Austin, “can we possibly show 'solidarity' with our oppressed brothers’ struggle for social justice.”
Many churches in the World Council reacted strongly against giving Christian approval to the use of violence and appropriating money to terrorist organizations, and in Germany, Britain, and the United States some went so far as to denounce the World Council of Churches as “Antichrist,” and to press their churches to withdraw from the organization. Shortly before the Nairobi Assembly. Oliver Beckerlegge in the Methodist Recorder urged that “in view of the departure of the World Council of Churches from the basic Christian faith and basic Christian ethics, the Methodist Church should leave the council.”
Little wonder, therefore, that by the time the representatives of the churches gathered for the fifth assembly in November 1975. the relation of Christianity to violent revolutionary change was the principal item on the agenda.
Sociopolitical Issues Take Precedence.
From the outset, the keynote speeches sought to justify the new “theology of liberation” and its sociopolitical implications. Special visitor Michael Manley, prime minister of Jamaica, and a Methodist, while conceding that “the churches must first be concerned with Christian witness” and “personal salvation,” went on to say that “salvation without works is a mockery of God’s holy Word.” In consequence, he asserted, “the churches must be prepared to take their stand against... all the forces that militate against man's need for self-expression and freedom in a context of equality, security, and social justice.” “The challenge before the churches today.” he added, “is to fight in a united and coordinated fashion to eliminate the symptoms and causes of domination, both nationally and internationally—to fight racism, imperialism, and colonialism, to advance the cause of poor developing countries, and to help in the achievement of a new international economic order.”
Dr. Robert McAfee Brown, in an address on “Who is this Jesus Christ who frees and unites?” confessed himself “deeply ashamed” of his own country, the United States, ”particularly of what it has done, and what it continues to do in so many of your countries.” He then entered upon a lengthy exposition of “liberation theology” and urged those of his hearers who had focused only on “Jesus, the personal Saviour” to be willing to meet “Jesus, the Liberator, whose social message” now gives hope to millions in the developing countries.
In his report to the council, and in a subsequent press conference. General Secretary Dr. Philip Potter likewise set out to justify the new priorities of combating exploitation and repression everywhere—except apparently in the Soviet Union. He told the assembly of the proposed enlargement of the aims of the World Council of Churches to include not only the goal of “visible unity,” but also to promote “one human family’ in justice and peace.”
Deep Divisions Manifest.
In the discussions that followed the keynote addresses the deep divisions among the delegates on the sociopolitical involvement of the church were quickly manifest.
The Rev. Gordon Gray, an Irish Presbyterian, declared “that the Christian church must not ignore the issues of social and political injustice. To expose them,” he said, “will cause division and pain—but to ignore them is to invite a holocaust that will destroy both church and society.”
Allan Shaw, a representative of the Methodist Church, asserted that his church, by putting the Program to Combat Racism into the missionary society’s regular budget, had pledged itself to support and encourage the “freedom fighters” of Africa and elsewhere, and added his belief that those who were fighting for liberation did so “in love and not hate.”
But speaking for the Church of England, Dr. Graham Leonard, Bishop of Truro, declared categorically that “the church cannot support violence as a way of coping with the situation.” Many others of the delegates agreed. One day a feature was presented that was intended to set out the nature, scope, and motives of the ecumenical movement, but as Canon Bernard Pawley reported in the Church Times, “the selection of speakers was 'heavily loaded' on the side of what is the current World Council view,” namely, the redemption of “the world in which man lives,” rather than the saving of “his soul.”
Appropriate to the season, an “Advent Rally” was included in the Assembly program, but again, as Canon Pawley reported, this was less concerned with the biblical conception of the Messiah than with “the coming of the Messiah as delivering men from starvation, exploitation, and other forms of domination. There was not much mention,” he said, “of the last things or the second coming.”
New Priorities Infiltrate All Deliberations.
So, as the assembly divided into sections for the committee stage of its work, the overriding demand carried to the various groups was for the diversion of the energies of the World Council from the problems of ecclesiological unity to the more urgent political and social priorities. Said M. M. Thomas, chairman of the policy-making central committee, the future of the ecumenical movement lay in a “theology and spirituality for combat.”
In section 1 an attempt was made by Methodist Bishop Mortimer Arias of Bolivia to bring Christian “mission” back to its primary purpose of preaching the “whole gospel” in all the world. He appealed to the council to give “heartfelt commitment” to this as the “permanent task” of the church. But when the evangelical John R. W. Stott of All Souls’, Langham Place, London, rose to welcome the eloquent plea of the bishop, he had to admit that evangelism had “now become largely eclipsed by the quest for social and political liberation.”
In section 4 on “Education for Liberation and Community“ the idea was pressed that religious education had too long consisted of “indoctrination” in abstract theological dogma and biblical exegesis, and the demand was made that all teaching should have the practical aim of encouraging pupils to “be aware of the root causes of injustice” and to “have a special concern for education in political awareness.” So completely were spiritual values excluded from the proposed program of education, that the Anglican Bishop of Truro led a temporary walkout from the committee in protest.
Section 5, dealing with “Structure of Injustice and the Struggle for Liberation,” approved the Program to Combat Racism, while stressing the importance of nonviolent action. But when a vote was taken affirming grants to organizations of liberation, an amendment suggesting the withholding of grants to organizations committed to violent action was lost.
The only section that achieved unanimity was section 6. which agreed on a recognition of the gifts of the Creator and the Christian duty of enlightened stewardship of the earth's power and resources in the interests of all peoples.
Attempts were made time and again in the closing sessions to stress that the primary object of the churches must be to witness to the work of Christ to free from sin, and that the achievement of the unity of the church to give this witness effectively was not to be set aside as ancillary to the achievement of the sociopolitical unity of mankind. But at the end of the day it was clear that the World Council of Churches in its fifth assembly was committed to its new priorities and direction, and that all other aspects of unity would have to take second place.
Third World Majorities on Executive Bodies.
Significantly, three of the new presidents of the World Council are from Third World countries—Ghana, Indonesia. and the Argentine. Another is Metropolitan Nikodim of the Russian Orthodox Church. Only two, U.S. Episcopalian Dr. Cynthia Wedel, and Swedish Lutheran Archbishop Olof Sundby, are from the West.
Archbishop Edmund Scott, primate ofthe Anglican Church in Canada, was elected moderator of both the enlarged central committee and the executive committee, but both these committees now have a majority of Third Worlders. And Third Worlder Dr. Philip Potter continues as General Secretary.
Canon Pawley, at the end of the assembly, optimistically suggested that “we must learn to ride the storm” with “patience,” confident that the “tide will surely turn.” but the view of the majority of those who were there was that the World Council of Churches would never be the same again. An editorial in the Church Times suggested that the time might come when “there would be little point in keeping in being an expensive ecclesiastical organization which allowed itself to degenerate into a futile imitation of the United Nations Organization in its least attractive aspects.”
The Search for Unity Will Go On.
But this does not mean that the search for unity will not go on. It means that the movement for ecclesiological unity will go on outside rather than inside the World Council of Churches. Canon David Edwards has commented: “While we certainly ought to be represented,” and “we ought to insist that we have both the right and duty to discuss our problems,... if the international meetings will not discuss them seriously, other meetings must be arranged.”
Despite the relegation of matters of faith and order to a secondary place in this assembly, section 2 on “Unity,” chaired by Kenneth Woollcombe, Bishop of Oxford, did manage to move the cause of church unity some steps forward. His group redefined the role of the World Council of Churches as being “to call the churches to the goal of one visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship, experienced in worship and in common life.” It moved from the original conception of “one great church” to the new conception of “conciliar fellowship” as a more realistic plan for future church unity.
In his message to the fifth assembly, the pope expressed the hope that collaboration “wherever possible” with the World Council of Churches would “continue and grow even greater with God's help.” To this end the Roman Catholic Church sent sixteen observers and ten Catholic advisers to the assembly, including the new director of the Vatican Unity Secretariat, Monsignor Charles Moeller. Ten percent of the members of the permanent Faith and Order Commission also are Roman Catholics, and they will doubtless continue to insist on faith, communion, and ministry as the basic criteria for true unity. But whether collaboration with the World Council increases or decreases in the years ahead, the Roman Catholic Church will certainly press on in its efforts to promote the ecclesiological unity of the churches.
Bilateral committees between the Anglicans and Rome. Lutherans and Rome, and others regularly meet to discuss doctrinal differences. Already “agreements” have been reached with the Anglican Church on the “sacraments” and “order.” and deliberations are proceeding on the subject of “authority.“ Rome has made it plain that she is no longer pursuing a policy of “absorption,” but is ready for a unity based on some sort of “conciliar” or “uniate” principle.
Vast plans are now being made for the Forty-first International Eucharistic Congress in Philadelphia in August this year. The primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in North and South America and the head of the Episcopal Church of the United States have been asked to join the committee charged with involving non-Roman churches in the congress.
The Orthodox and Roman churches in particular are drawing noticeably nearer together. Recently parallel ceremonies were held in Rome and Istanbul to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the lifting of the mutual excommunication of 1054. During the mass in the Sistine Chapel, the pope declared that the two churches had achieved “such a profound communion that little is lacking for reaching the fullness that will authorize joint celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord.” At the end of the mass, as the procession was preparing to leave the chapel, the pope removed his tall miter and symbolically kissed the foot of the visiting Metropolitan Meliton of Chalcedon.
What the outcome of all these extra-conciliar activities and consultations will be it would be unwise to predict; but from the point of view of this journal it needs to be pointed out that just as there is, for us, an “unacceptable face” of sociopolitical ecumenism, there is unfortunately emerging an “unacceptable face” of ecclesiological unity, with which there can be no compromise. We are behind none in our desire for the unity of the church in harmony with the last prayer of Jesus (John 17), but at the same time we must insist that the only unity to which we could subscribe would have to be based not on tradition, however ancient, but solely on the eternal truth of the Word of God.
Author W. L. Emmerson is almost synonymous with Signs of the Times Magazine, having written for the journal for nearly half a century. He lives in Berkshire, England.
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