wfn.org | Radical Changes Proposed to World Council of Churches

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27-November-1996 
 
 
96475 Radical Changes Proposed to World Council of Churches 
 
                         By Stephen Brown 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--The World Council of Churches (WCC) -- the world's largest 
ecumenical body -- is considering radical changes in its structure, 
including the creation of a new ecumenical forum which could include the 
Roman Catholic Church and other churches which are not members of the WCC. 
 
      The World Council of Churches has 330 member churches throughout the 
world, including nearly all of the world's historic churches, with the 
exception of the Roman Catholic Church. The proposed changes seem likely to 
reduce the size of the WCC's organisational structure, resulting in a less 
costly and more flexible organisation. 
 
     The proposals, outlined in a paper sent this week to the WCC's 330 
member churches, will be discussed next September at the WCC's central 
committee in Geneva. Final proposals will be presented to the next WCC 
assembly, in 1998 in Harare, Zimbabwe. 
 
     The Harare assembly will also mark the 50th anniversary of the WCC, 
which was founded at Amsterdam in 1948. 
 
     The paper suggests that in the year 2000, all Christian churches 
should -- in a "common act" -- commit themselves to working "towards the 
day when an ecumenical council of the entire Church of Jesus Christ, in the 
sense of the ancient undivided church, will take place". 
 
     The paper -- a draft policy statement entitled "Towards a Common 
Understanding and Vision [CUV] of the World Council of Churches"-- is part 
of a process that has been under way since 1989, but which has taken on an 
added urgency because of a severe financial crisis facing the WCC. A 
radical shake-up of the WCC's structure is likely to result from the 
combined impetus of the financial difficulties and the search for a renewed 
vision of ecumenism. 
 
     Although the draft paper avoids making proposals for "the internal 
arrangement of ongoing council operations and staff deployment" -- which it 
says are "beyond the scope of this document" -- an internal WCC staff group 
is working on proposals to reshape WCC staffing in line with the CUV 
proposals.  Insiders believe that the WCC will discontinue some of its 
current programmatic activities in favor of a smaller and more flexible 
central staff at its headquarters in Geneva. Currently the WCC has more 
than 200 staff. 
 
     According to the draft proposals, "the work of the WCC should be aimed 
at enhancing the fellowship among its member churches not at building up an 
organization for its own sake". 
 
     Among the controversial proposals in the draft policy statement is a 
suggestion that the WCC's assembly -- which takes place every seven years 
and is the WCC's highest policy making body -- be discontinued. 
 
     The paper points out that "at their best", assemblies have been 
occasions for "repentance, thanksgiving and celebration, [and] for renewal 
of ecumenical commitments", but it goes on to say: "But their size, 
duration and infrequency make them unsuited for carrying out many of their 
constitutionally mandated representative and legislative functions, which 
have in effect been assumed by the central committee. Nor have they 
succeeded in providing a place for detailed reflection on theological 
issues." 
 
     The assembly might be replaced, according to the statement, by 
meetings of a new "global forum of churches and ecumenical organizations", 
which could include the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical and 
Pentecostal churches which are not members of the WCC. (Some Pentecostal 
churches are already WCC members.) 
 
     According to the CUV paper, the WCC is "well positioned" to take the 
initiative in creating such a forum.  
 
     "Special attention should be given to enabling participation by the 
Roman Catholic Church and by evangelical and Pentecostal bodies who are 
partners in the one ecumenical movement," the CUV paper suggests. The forum 
would also include Christian World Communions -- such as the Lutheran World 
Federation or the Anglican Communion -- as well as other international 
Christian organizations.  
 
     Christian World Communions could hold their own assemblies -- or other 
decision making bodies -- in the context of forum meetings, "thereby 
enhancing inter-organization communication and reducing costs." 
 
     The CUV document suggests that the WCC should "repent of the ways we 
have sinned" against evangelical or Pentecostal churches "through 
caricature or indifference", and pays tribute to working relationships that 
do exist with bodies such as the World Evangelical Fellowship. 
 
     The paper also seeks to respond to complaints that the WCC has become 
too remote from its member churches by suggesting that there should be a 
periodic meeting of heads of the WCC's member churches. 
 
     The role of the WCC's 156-member central committee would be 
strengthened under the proposals, while a 15-member executive committee 
would assume the role of management body for the WCC. 
 
     The largely ceremonial positions of WCC presidents -- there are 
currently seven presidents -- would be discontinued, according to the 
proposals. 
 
     The CUV proposals also try to deal with criticism that there is too 
much duplication of work between the WCC and other international church 
bodies linked to specific denominations, such as the Lutheran World 
Federation or the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Such international 
bodies are not, and cannot, according to the WCC's present constitution, 
become WCC members although they have close working links with the WCC. 
 
     There has been tension in the past between the WCC's emphasis on 
ecumenical unity and the denominational identity of Christian World 
Communions, but the CUV document suggests that the two approaches could 
complement each other: "We believe that a strong relationship with the WCC 
can be useful for these bodies as they seek to avoid confessional 
isolation, just as a strong relationship with them can be useful for the 
WCC, reminding this fellowship of churches that ecumenical commitment is by 
no means incompatible with 'rootedness' in an ecclesial tradition." 
 
     Many of the proposals contained in the CUV document have been made at 
various times by the WCC's general secretary, Konrad Raiser, since his 
appointment in 1993. But this is the first time that they have been brought 
together in an official WCC document. 
 
     Last year, Raiser used his speech to the WCC central committee to 
suggest that the WCC should become an "organizing agent" of a forum in 
which the WCC would be one member alongside other Christian organizations. 
 
     He later told a press conference that "any such model which would not 
facilitate the integration or full participation of the Roman Catholic 
Church would have failed its purpose".  
 
     Earlier this year, Raiser suggested to an ecumenical gathering in 
Trier, Germany, that the main Christian traditions start preparations in 
the year 2000 to resolve the main issues -- including that of the primacy 
of the Pope -- dividing Christians, thereby enabling a universal Christian 
council to be convened. 

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