U.S. Conference for WCC Meets
Diocesan Press Service. May 10, 1966 [43-11]
Two hundred of the nation's top Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox church leaders have taken a long, hard look at the right of the churches to speak out on controversial political and social questions.
This matter highlighted the three-day annual meeting of the U. S. Conference for the World Council of Churches, composed of 28 major church bodies in the Unites States.
The right of the churches to speak individually or corporately on controversial topics has long been debated in church circles. However, the issue now has particular poignancy because of strong reactions by some church leaders to U. S. involvement in the Vietnam war.
At specific issue here this week was a statement adopted by the WCC's 100-member policy-making Central Committee in February, outlining 10 steps which it said should be taken in order to bring about a cease-fire in Vietnam and the start of negotiation.
That statement was defended by Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the WCC's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs. "The churches have a responsibility to get down into the arena where the battle for peace is being fought," he said, "if they seek to make a responsible witness to the world of nations."
Similar sentiments were expressed by Methodist Bishop James K. Mathews of Boston. Those who would have her remain silent, he said, "forget this is exactly what is imposed upon her under totalitarian regimes, so detested by these same persons."
Dr. Fredrik Schiotz, president of the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran World Federation, also affirmed the churches' right to speak on controversial matters.
The chief spokesman of those opposing church pronouncements on social issues was Dr. Carl F. H. Henry, editor of the conservative evangelical fortnightly, Christianity Today.
Dr. Henry conceded that individual Christians have the right to become "politically vocal and active to the limit of their knowledge and ability." But he insisted that the corporate church had no business in handing down pronouncements on controversial matters.
However, Bishop Mathews replied that it was possible to arrive at "a kind of Christian consensus" on certain issues through the process of both formal and informal conversations between the churches throughout the world.
He said it was the responsibility of the World Council of Churches to finally articulate this consensus.
Another disquieting problem facing the churchmen involved the matter of translating ecumenical concern into ecumenical action.
Dr. Willem A. Visser't Hooft, the WCC's retiring general secretary said that there is no "glamor" in "agonizing together" as Protestants over the wide breaches within the Protestant community. He noted that many Roman Catholics are questioning the value of the Protestant-Catholic dialogue when Protestantism itself is still divided into many separate bodies.
At the same time, the churchmen heard of major changes that have taken place among Catholics and conservative evangelicals regarding ecumenical activity. Neither group holds membership in the World Council, which is composed of 214 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox communions in some 90 countries and territories.
"Ecumenism is making substantial though not dramatic progress in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States," reported Father John Sheerin, editor of The Catholic World and an observer at many WCC meetings.
The Paulist priest said there are small pockets of resistance, but no large-scale opposition, to the ecumenical movement in the Roman Catholic Church. He attributed this to support given by the American bishops who recently created a commission for ecumenical affairs.
However, he conceded that some individual bishops "have taken a somewhat legalistic approach to ecumenism in their dioceses," waiting for directives from Rome.
Meanwhile, Dr. Henry reported that conservative evangelicals outside the World Council membership are displaying their ecumenical spirit much "more fully and spontaneously" in transdenominational mission rather than by top level ecclesiastical negotiation.
Friday, April 22 was an historic day in the history of the world because it was on this date in 1947 that the Provisional Committee held its first meeting in America at The Inn in Buck Hill Falls.
This Provisional Committee later became the policy-making Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. A plaque has been set up in The Inn to commemorate this event which brought together 53 distinguished church leaders from 21 communions from 15 nations.
It was here that the final comprehensive plans were drawn up for the official establishment of the WCC at its first Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948.