World Council of Churches Mission Meeting Struggles with Mix of Gospel and Culture
Episcopal News Service. December 19, 1996 [96-1659]
(ENS) The Gospel of Jesus Christ must both challenge a culture and be "illuminated by it," delegates to a 10-day international gathering on mission and evangelism concluded.
The 600 representatives of nearly 120 member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) met in Salvador, Brazil, November 24 through December 3 for the 11th Conference on World Mission and Evangelism. The first conference, held in Edinburgh in 1910, is generally considered to have been the beginning of the modem ecumenical movement.
Under the theme of "Called to One Hope -- the Gospel in Diverse Cultures," the conference delegates struggled with questions of "what we meant by the Gospel, what we meant by culture, how secularism in our culture or nativism in other cultures affects our understanding of the Gospel," said Margaret Larom, the Episcopal Church's world mission interpretation and networks officer, and one of two representatives from the Episcopal Church.
She returned from the meeting, she said, pleased with the opportunity to "talk to people whose context was so different from mine, but who had so much love and commitment and willingness to wrestle with some of the issues."
Elizabeth Mellen, an Episcopalian who is the associate director of the Graymoor Ecumenical Institute in New York, called the conference, held every eight to 10 years, part of the gift of the ecumenical movement. "It is in the intentional coming together, the naming of who and what we are so that we may truly encounter one another, that we are able to move forward in dialogue, in action, in Christ," she said in an interview.
In a final message adopted by the conference, the delegates stressed that "the church must hold on to two realities: its distinctiveness from, and its commitment to, the culture in which it is set." With such an approach, "the Gospel neither becomes captive to a culture not becomes alienated from it, but each challenges and illuminates the other."
While the message also described the delegates as having "hearts on fire with the beat of mission and a prayer on our lips that many will share with us in being 'Called in One Hope,'" the conference acknowledged the shortcomings of past missionary efforts.
Continued racism in the church, the slavery of African peoples and "near extermination" of indigenous communities and cultures were cited. Churches of North America and Europe were chided for the paternalism of much of their missionary efforts, and North American churches were cautioned against a "growing localism," which, "while strengthening their commitment to mission and evangelism in their own context, may lead to an isolation and insulation from global realities."
Still, the delegates applauded Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, retired missionary and bishop of the Church of South India, who proclaimed that "the gospel is certainly the most important fact in the world, and one which we cannot keep to ourselves."
Their final message reasserted a belief that the church's primary calling is to "pursue the mission of God in God's world through the grace and goodness of Jesus Christ," but also stressed that "this mission, history-long, world-wide, cannot be seen today in narrow ways -- it must be an every-member mission, from everywhere to everywhere, involving every aspect of life in a rapidly changing world of many cultures now interacting and overlapping."
Larom said that she and other delegates were disappointed that the conference did not provide more opportunities for interaction with the local Afro-Brazilian community, even though representatives of "candomble," an Afro-Brazilian religion, were allowed to address the gathering.
Tensions also were evident, she said, as concerns of the Russian Orthodox Church over proselytism clashed with perceptions of other denominations that they were mandated by their faith to share in spreading the Gospel in Russia. "It wasn't all sweetness and light," Larom said. "There were some very hard times."
The Episcopal representation, which also included Keith Yamamoto, a senior at the General Theological Seminary in New York, was able to offer the perspective of a worldwide and profoundly diverse Anglican Communion, she said. "Because of the breadth of the Communion, I think our experience made us very sensitive to the ecumenical mission," she said.
Worship services showed a particular genius for incorporating diverse traditions and liturgical practices in such a way that "touches people but doesn't offend," Larom said. "Some focused on the way Jesus handled cross-cultural encounters. Others focused on contemporary issues such as AIDS. Each had a message."
In a particularly moving service, delegates gathered at Solar do Unhyao, the site of the dock where African slaves landed (see related story). A brick from the outer wall of the now-destroyed slave fort, Cape Coast Castle, in Ghana, where the slaves were loaded on ships, was presented to the Afro-Brazilian community.
The WCC also held a hearing to gather input for a new statement on mission and evangelism that will be presented to the WCC Central Committee in September, 1997, and to the Eighth Assembly of the WCC in Harare, Zimbabwe, in September, 1998. The new statement, which is expected to take up important developments in mission thinking since 1982, should supplement the landmark document, "Mission and Evangelism: An Ecumenical Affirmation," adopted by the Central Committee in 1982.