U.S. Conference for World Council of Churches Holds Annual Meeting
Diocesan Press Service. May 5, 1968 [65-6]
A vivid preview was given at Buck Hill Falls, Pa. of what will be the most widely representative gathering of churchmen in the long history of the ecumenical movement -- this year's Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala, Sweden, July 4-19.
Details of the international interchurch conclave, which will focus on the theme, "Behold, I Make All Things New", were presented at the three-day annual meeting of the U.S. Conference for the World Council. Attended by some 200 Protestant and Orthodox leaders from 28 American communions, sessions were held at The Inn at Buck Hill Falls, April 24-26.
Heading an array of speakers were the present and past general secretaries of the World Council, respectively the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake and the Rev. Willem A. Visser 't Hooft.
Addressing the opening session of the meeting here, Dr. Blake strongly supported the involvement of Christian churches throughout the world in the social, economic and political questions of our time.
"To preach the gospel to a hungry man without giving him food is both futile and cruel," he said. "It is because I believe the Christian faith most fully comprehends the reality of human life and existence on this planet that I believe the churches have the task and opportunity of awakening a responsible world society. "
Many such issues will be dealt with in sectional meetings at the WCC's Fourth Assembly under such topics as "Renewal in Mission," "World Economic and Social Development," "Towards Justice and Peace in International Affairs," and "Towards a New Style of Living."
At a briefing session for American delegates to the Assembly, Dr. Visser 't Hooft cautioned them against being too negative about their country's policy in Vietnam. "It is not good for the ecumenical situation that the participants from any country should use an international meeting to carry on systematic propaganda against their own country, he said.
In a later address in which he traced the historic development of the ecumenical movement and cited lessons to be learned from the past, Dr. Visser 't Hooft stressed that Christian unity "can only come at the end of a process of growth in fellowship through spiritual exchange, mutual correction, mutual assistance and cooperation in witness and service."
"But we have also learned that unless this process really leads to deeds of unity, the ecumenical movement is in danger of becoming an opiate rather than a stimulant," he declared.
"Unity is not an aim in itself," he observed, "but unity is an essential part of the witness which the Church has to give to the world and unity is required in order that the Church may adequately fulfill its mission of witness and service to the world."
However, Dr. Visser 't Hooft continued, "it is neither justifiable nor practicable to make unity dependent on uniformity of Church order" because "the unity we seek will have to leave room for considerable variety with regard to Church order."
Cooperation in common practical tasks, mutual assistance in mission and evangelism, and dialogue leading to unity in faith were cited by Dr. Visser 't Hooft as three ecumenical approaches by the Christian Church that "cannot be separated and are mutually interdependent. "
American delegates to the WCC's up-coming Fourth Assembly at Uppsala were also given a homework assignment that included such books as the collected documents of the Second Vatican Council, the report of the President's Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, as well as the Bible.
Dr. Paul Minear, professor of Biblical theology at Yale Divinity School at New Haven, Conn., and former chairman of the WCC's Faith and Order Commission, also urged the delegates to study materials produced by previous Assemblies so that they would not be tempted "to say everything that's already been said."
Roman Catholic observers are to be present at Uppsala in larger numbers and with more significant roles to play than at any previous Assembly from Amsterdam in 1948, Evanston, Ill., in 1954 and New Delhi in 1961. Some of the major addresses at Uppsala this summer will be made by Roman Catholics.
A major study of the World Council was discussed here by a panel which explored "The Missionary Structure of the Congregation" and its implications for the United States.
James C. McGilvray, director-elect of the World Council's newly-established Christian Medical Commission, reported that this agency will be largely concerned with a shift in emphasis that recognizes the hospital as "primarily a repair facility" that "does not necessarily upgrade the health of individuals in communities. "
Mr. McGilvray who is now director of the Christian Medical Council for Overseas Work, National Council of Churches, said that while church-related hospitals were frequently pioneers in the field, "they are more costly to operate" and "their present relevance has to be examined in the context of rapidly growing secular expansion in health services."
Father Paul Verghese, principal of the Syrian Orthodox Theological Seminary at Kottayam, Kerala, India, was one of several speakers who referred to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Describing the civil rights leader's death as an "event of momentous significance," he asserted that "a martyrdom like that is never to be mourned."
Father Verghese expressed the hope that Dr. King's death will result in three specific consequences:
- the carrying through of the 'poverty' program in an intelligent manner.
- in trying to resolve the race problem in the U. S.A., recognize the universality of the problem -- that the emancipation of the American Negro and, therefore, of the American white man, is inseparable from the emancipation of Southern Africa from its racialism and colonialism.
- in recognizing that the Negro's social emancipation is inseparable from his economic and ideological emancipation, become more courageously committed to the ideals of economic justice in the world and ideological pluralism within humanity.
From its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Council appealed to its member churches throughout the world to contribute to the Mississippi Delta Ministry as a memorial to Dr. King. The appeal vas launched after the Inter-Church Aid Committee of the Lutheran Church of Denmark sent the WCC a gift of $5, 000 for the Delta Ministry.
Since then, it was reported, contributions from abroad have reached $82, 000 and are still pouring in, not only from Denmark, but also the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Norway, France, Germany, Austria, Great Britain, Greece, Kenya, Australia and Canada.
Another speaker, the Rev. Daisuke Kitagawa, discussed the implications for Christian mission in the urban crisis in the United States and around the world. He is executive secretary of the College and University Division of the Executive Council of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.
Dr. Kitagawa contended that components of the U.S. urban crisis include tensions between white and black, affluent and dispossessed; fallacy of our foreign policy, especially with relation to Communist China, the Third World and Southeast Asia.
In his view, the solution lies in a "thorough-going conversion" by a "concerted effort and a comprehensive approach participated in by all sorts of people from all walks of life with all sorts of disciplines."
Among the distinguished guests attending the sessions were the Most Rev. Metropolitan Jonathan, Exarch in America of the Russian Orthodox Church; Dr. Alexander Levanchy, president of the Swiss Protestant Church Federation, and Metropolitan Emilianos, representing Archbishop Iakovos of New York, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America and one of the presidents of the World Council. Metropolitan Emilianos is representative in Geneva, Switzerland, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.