WCC Sails on in a Sea of Troubles
Episcopal News Service. January 18, 1979 [79012]
Rev. Charles L. Long
KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Intense debate and strong commitment to the vision and program of the World Council of Churches marked the meeting of the Council's Central Committee, January 1-11, at the University of the West Indies in Jamica.
It was the first time a major WCC event had been held in the Caribbean and gave the 130 delegates of member churches a first hand experience of both the hospitality and the poverty of a third world country. As Jamaica struggles to overcome shortages of consumer goods, the rising price of gasoline and over-dependence on tourism, so the Central Committee had to face budgetary havoc created by the international monetary crisis, difficult decisions about certain programs, and the consequences of a major turnover in senior staff.
Despite criticism, especially in the secular press, of the Program to Combat Racism, the overwhelming majority of 295 member denominations from every continent still strongly support the Council and have in fact increased their financial contributions.
But the decline of the dollar and the strengthening of the Swiss Franc against other major currencies have wiped out these gains and forced the WCC to adopt a deficit budget. The short fall in 1979 is expected to be $2,800,000 on operational expenses of $18,000,000. Most of this is expected to be made up in 1980 and 1981 by further reductions in staff and programs.
A Review Committee, under the leadership of Mrs. Cynthia Wedel of the Episcopal Church and a WCC President, recommended that all units of the WCC bring studies and all non-essential programs to a conclusion by 1981. The period between then and the next Assembly in 1983 in Vancouver is to be given over to evaluation of the WCC's work in recent years, an intensive interpretation of these programs to often uninformed member churches, and preparation for the Assembly itself.
An Assembly, composed of delegates of all member churches, is held every seven years and is the chief policy-making body of the World Council. The most recent was held in Nairobi at the end of 1975.
Despite these financial difficulties, a number of major projects will continue.
A controversial grant from a specially designated fund to the United Front of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) was the occasion for a thorough review and debate of the WCC's role in Southern Africa and the propriety of a Christian agency taking sides in a political struggle or giving even humanitarian aid when the recipients were engaged in armed conflict and violence. The United Front is an African liberation movement representing hundreds of thousands of Rhodesians who have been driven into exile and are now waging guerrilla warfare against the white-dominated government of Ian Smith.
Both the General Secretary, Dr. Philip Potter, and the Moderator, Archbishop Edward W. Scott, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, dealt at length with the subject in their opening reports to Central Committee. Two small denominations and the Salvation Army have threatened to withdraw from membership as a result of the grant. More serious has been the uproar caused within the churches of West Germany who provide a third of the WCC's budget. American members of Central Committee were noticeably silent in this discussion, although the Program to Combat Racism has been widely criticized in the American press.
Archbishop Scott asserted that much misunderstanding was based on inaccurate and misleading reporting in the secular press. He counted it as gain that more thought has been given "to issues of racism and violence by churches and church members than in any other six months for many years past," and that in response to the controversy, contributions to the Special Fund of PCR had not gone down but sharply increased.
An African bishop asserted that negative reactions were themselves motivated by racist and economic self-interest. Others referred to the recent scandal in South Africa, revealing the government's use of funds to manipulate the world press. Most of the Central Committee members from the non-Western world rose to the defense of this WCC program. A key vote on the program was passed 101 to 4. The Orthodox Patriarchs of Bulgaria and Russia sent personal messages of support, adding that they wished equal emphasis and publicity could be given to the WCC's work for theological understanding and Christian Unity.
An excellent Background Paper on Southern Africa was distributed (available from the Ecumenical Office, Episcopal Church Center, 815 Second Ave., New York, N.Y. 10017), in an attempt to put the immediate issue into a larger context. The paper summarizes the biblical and theological bases of Christian opposition to racism and the history of the WCC involvement in the troubled history of Southern Africa.
Although racism is a world-wide phenomenon and not confined to any one racial group, the paper states, the accumulation of wealth and power in the hands of white people in recent centuries makes white racism, particularly in Southern Africa, a special focus of concern. Apartheid is described as "a system of injustice that provokes the uncompromising protest of the human community. Moreover, since it claims to defend 'Christian civilization' and continues to receive the backing of some churches, it presents itself as an offence of the gravest sort to the Christian conscience. What is at stake is... the integrity and credibility of the Christian faith."
The background paper goes on to discuss ethical issues that are raised by the means used to combat apartheid and other forms of racism or injustice: "The overriding concern must be to aim at peaceful and peace-producing resolutions of conflicts and to assist in the creating of social and political structures which sustain just and participatory relationships."
The churches cannot escape, whether by action or inaction, taking sides on political questions, but they out to resist "unreserved identification with any system of society or ideological claim," and not forget that the way to peace and justice "often makes conflict necessary and reconciliation costly." There is an "essential relationship" between "Christian faith and faithful action" manifest not only in the Church's peace-making and justice-seeking but also in ministering to the needs of victims of this struggle.
A small grant was made to the Zimbatwe United Front but the WCC spent many times that amount in humanitarian services through Church channels inside Rhodesia. The report states that all the service agencies of the WCC have been heavily engaged in Southern Africa as a whole, administering disaster relief, caring for refugees and the dependents of prisoners, assisting programs of evangelism, theological education, the development of primary health care, etc. In the period 1970-'78 grants for these programs totaled more then $7,000,000 and helped to stimulate the sending of tens of millions additional aid by WCC member churThe Commission on Interchurch Aid (CICARWS) of the WCC has issued a new appeal for $5,000,000 for Southern Africa programs "to serve the needs of all the people affected, displaced persons, refugees, victims of the war and oppression." The present number of refugees in this region alone amounts to one million, of which nearly 500,000 are from Rhodesia and help are children fourteen years of age or younger.ches and related agencies.
By the end of the meeting the Central Committee was able to agree that "although the adverse image and understanding of the Program to Combat Racism needs to be changed, the purpose and thrust of PCR are still valid." They also approved the General Secretary's proposal to set in motion immediately a "process of consultation" with race relations specialists and other leaders of member churches, to determine "how the churches may be involved in combating racism in the 1980' s." The consultation would not only take into account the experience and criticisms of PCR but hopefully discover imaginative ways of continuing the program: ways, according to Archbishop Scott, "not so difficult to understand or so easy to misinterpret."
A multitude of studies and programs either completed or in the planning stage were reported to the meeting. The Faith and Order Commission had held an important conference in India last summer on the relation between Christian hope, evangelism and unity, "Giving Account of the Hope." The different hopes of human beings in different parts of the world often lead to conflict and are sometimes reflected in the divisions of the churches. If hope divides us, can that division also be overcome as the churches articulate the Hope they hold in common, in Jesus Christ and his Kingdom?
The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism will carry that theme a step further at a world assembly to be held in Melbourne in 1980 under the title "Your Kingdom Come." It will be the first major WCC conference on Christian mission since the Bangkok conference in 1973 on "Salvation Today," and will bring together not only missionaries and representatives of WCC member churches but leaders of Councils of Churches and of conservative evangelical groups not members of the WCC.
Of more immediate interest to Americans is a world conference on "Faith, Science and the Future" to be held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology July 11-25, 1979. Including some 450 of the world's leading scientists, technologists and theologians, the conference will conclude a series of studies under the auspices of the WCC's unit on Church and Society, examining the hopes and threats and new ethical issues raised by rapid scientific developments. Co-chairman of the Conference is a distinguished scientist and an Episcopalian, Professor David Rose of M.I.T.
The WCC has lost or is about to lose a number of its best known and most experienced leaders through death, retirement and application of a personnel rule that limits the length of service of most members of staff to not more than nine years. The Central Committee spent much time, in closed sessions, debating whether to make exceptions to the rule and deciding, narrowly, to let it stand.
Among those affected and who will soon be leaving for other work are Dr. Lukas Vischer, Secretary for Faith and Order; Miss Brigalia Bam, head of Unit III (Education and Renewal) and Secretary for Women's Concerns; Mr.C.I. Itty, director of development programs (CCPD); and the Rev. Jurgen Hilke, director of Communications and Publications.
Among new appointments and elections announced were: the Rev. Julio de Santa Ana, of Uruguay, to succeed Mr. Itty and Professor Tibor Saber of Bulgaria, to serve as Deputy General Secretary and Director of Unit I (Faith and Witness). Canon Wilbert Wood, of the Church of England, has been elected as Moderator of the Committee to oversee the Program to Combat Racism.
To fill the remaining term of the late Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad as one of the six Presidents of the WCC, the Central Committee elected His Holiness Ilia, Patriarch of the Orthodox Church of Georgia (USSR).
The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion as a whole are wellrepresented in deliberations of the WCC. The Presiding Bishop, the Rt. Rev. John M. Allin, is an elected member of the Central Committee; Mrs. Cynthia Wedel is one of the six honorary Presidents, and Archbishop Scott of Canada holds the highest elective office as Moderator of Central Committee.
An Episcopalian, the Rev. William Perkins, is on the staff of the Commission on Inter-Church Aid. Eighteen Anglicans from other parts of the world are included in the executive staff of about 130 persons. Many others serve as members of particular committees or commissions.