Presiding Bishop Reflects on General Assembly
Diocesan Press Service. July 20, 1968 [67-7]
UPPSALA, Sweden -- The Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches closed here last night with a mammoth service in Uppsala's 700-year-old Lutheran Cathedral, just as it had started two weeks earlier on the morning of the 4th of July.
The historic meeting closed just a few days before the start of another meeting which promises also to be historic -- the Lambeth Conference of '68 called by the Archbishop of Canterbury and to be attended by 460 Anglican bishops from all over the world.
Uppsala was an inspiring, as well as tiring, experience for delegates, particularly for bishops of the Anglican Communion who raced from this meeting to London for the start of the month-long Lambeth sessions.
Among this group are two Americans. The first is the Rt. Rev. John E, Hines, Presiding Bishop, and the second, the Rt, Rev, J, Brooke Mosley who has resigned his see as Bishop of Delaware to take over his new responsibilities on the Executive Council staff as deputy for overseas relations.
Also among this group is the Rt. Rev. Alphaeus H. Zulu, Bishop of Zululand and Swaziland in the Church of the Province of South Africa. Bishop Zulu was elected one of the six Presidents of the World Council during the Uppsala meeting.
Bishop Hines described the Assembly as excellent preparation for Lambeth, as he expected that many of the same issues would be considered at both meetings.
The Presiding Bishop was the chief delegate in a 12-man and woman group of American Episcopalians at Uppsala , and in addition to Bishop Mosley they included:
The Rev. Dr. James Kennedy, Cincinnati; the Rev. Dr. Arthur A. Vogel, Nashotah, Wis.; the Rev. Reynell Parkins, Corpus Christi, Tex.; David Johnson, New York City; Dr. Clifford P. Morehouse, New York City; Gerald A. McWorter, Nashville; Mrs. Wallace Schutt, Jackson, Miss. ; Mrs. John Jackson, Portland, Ore.; Dr. Peter Day, Ecumenical Officer, New York City, Mrs. Robert Webb, of the Executive Council staff, New York City, attended for the World Council's Division of World Mission and Evangelism.
In all, there were 730 voting delegates in attendance, representing 232 member churches from 80 countries. Visitors from Sweden and from overseas swelled the crowds at the services and daily plenary sessions to well over three thousand.
One of the new features of the Assembly was the all-pervasive influence of youth. Of the 1,350 participants fully one-third, it was estimated, were in their 20's.
The young people, who came from all over the world, published their own daily mimeographed newspaper, "Hot News," and operated an a-go-go night spot called "Club 68." They also frequented the Café Chantant, and in both places could be seen talking with delegates and making their views known.
As a consequence of their demand for a greater voice in the affairs of the Church, two young persons in their 20's were elected to membership in the 100-man Central Committee, both of them from the Wider Episcopal Fellowship. They were David E. Johnson, 25, son of Dean and Mrs. Sherman E. Johnson, of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and Miss Carmencita Kagadag, 24, of the Philippine Independent Church, who is a professor of political science.
Bishop Hines called the prominence of youth in the meeting of the Assembly as the most important event "not on the agenda."
In assessing the importance of the Uppsala meeting and its effect on Lambeth ?68, which begins on July 25, he placed the emergence of a "third world" in the awareness of the Church as probably the most significant.
He referred to the emerging new nations of Asia and Africa which are still underdeveloped and seriously in need of assistance, in comparison to the other two 'worlds' made up of the affluent and the moderately well off'.
"Our finally recognizing the existence of this 'third world'," Bishop Hines said, "points up the necessity for the developed nations to undertake responsible and effective relationships with those nations which are deprived and under-developed. The existence of serious conditions in these countries, especially poverty, over-population and the lack of industrial and agricultural know-how, points to them as seed beds of violence and war, and these must be eliminated if the world is to survive."
"We must remove the causes which bring about limited war and put us on the brink of a nuclear war," he said.
In one of its resolutions on war, the Assembly asked the United States, as a major participant in the war in Vietnam, to assume a major role in bringing peace.
Bishop Hines said that he sensed in the Assembly delegates' concern for Vietnam an increased and more sympathetic feeling for the United States and an appreciation of its dilemma in finding ways to end the war.
He praised the World Council's quick action in voting a $3,000,000 aid campaign for the victims and refugees of the war in Nigeria-Biafra. He estimated that there are four million tribesmen of Nigeria and the eastern area who are facing starvation.
"Only massive assistance from the nations of the world," Bishop Hines said, "will be sufficient to alleviate the starvation in Nigeria-Biafra, one of the worst situations the world has ever faced."
He said he was impressed by the Assembly action, not only because it acted, but because it demonstrated that "it is not too large to act responsively. " A new understanding of renewal and mission also came clear during the Assembly's two-week meeting at Uppsala, Bishop Hines declared.
"There seemed to be a new realization that effective agencies and institutions, not of the Church, are channels of God's grace too, and indications of mission, and this was emphasized by speaker after speaker."
"When you begin to see this," he said, "you realize that there is no real difference in mission at home or overseas, in the churches or in secular agencies, It is much broader than simply the traditional idea of personal evangelism and individual salvation, although these too are important. "
Another significant fact of the Assembly, Bishop Hines said, was the participation of the Roman Catholic Church which sent official observers for the first time and who participated in the discussions and debates.
He praised their contribution and predicted that Roman Catholic participation in the World Council would continue to grow and develop.
He also praised the representatives of the Orthodox Churches, which had the largest single Church delegation, and although conservative in theology, he said they made a "profound and positive" contribution to the Assembly sessions.