wfn.org | Reformed Churches Seek a Cure For Their Tendency to Split

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14-August-1998 
98235 
 
    Reformed Churches Seek a Cure 
    For Their Tendency to Split 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA-The tendency of Reformed churches to split has prompted the world's 
main international Reformed organization, the World Alliance of Reformed 
Churches (WARC),  to make a decision to support an initiative promoting 
unity among these churches. 
 
    In partnership with the John Knox International Reformed Center, 
located in Geneva close to the Ecumenical Center where WARC is based, it 
will set up a new office and appoint a coordinator to spend three years 
facilitating moves toward greater Reformed unity. 
 
    Members of Reformed churches sometimes jest that Reformed churches 
"split at the drop of a hat," but at the same time the divisions among 
churches of the Reformed tradition - Congregational, Presbyterian, Reformed 
and United - are a cause of deep concern for the world's 700-plus Reformed 
denominations. 
 
    Jean-Jacques Bauswein, a pastor and co-editor of an exhaustive study, 
"Handbook of Reformed Churches Worldwide," which will be published later 
this year by Eerdmans Press under the auspices of WARC, told the 
organization's newsletter, "Update," in September last year: "It's fine to 
say the Reformed church is in 155 countries, but we have to ask if it's 
right that there are as many as 95 separate Reformed denominations in a 
country like Korea."  (The other co-editor of the book is Lukas Fischer, 
who, like Bauswein, has had many years of experience in ecumenism in 
Geneva.) 
 
    Milan Opocensky, WARC's general secretary, told ENI that the issue of 
unity among Reformed churches was "extremely sensitive, and there are 
highly different views held within the  Reformed churches.  The matter must 
be handled with great sensitivity. 
 
    "Nevertheless," he added, "those within the churches are concerned 
about the multiplicity of Reformed churches." 
 
    The issue was complicated, he said, by the various origins of the 
Reformed churches, some dating  back to the Reformation of the 16th 
century, some to the missionary activity of the 18th and 19th centuries, 
and some emerging in this century, such as many independent churches 
in Africa which had not been the result of missionary work. 
 
    "The project is aimed at bringing these churches together and 
initiating dialogue between them," Opocensky said. 
 
    Paraic Reamonn, communications officer of WARC, told ENI that Reformed 
churches split for both "theological and nontheological" reasons.  "They 
can split over doctrine, personality conflict, ethnic and cultural 
conflict, conflict over strains imposed by the missionary origins of the 
churches."  However, he said that the multiplicity of Reformed churches was 
not always the result of splits. 
 
    "In many countries of the south the different missionary activities of 
missionary boards in the north result in the establishment of separate 
churches. There are in fact few countries in which there is only one 
Reformed church." 
 
    As an example, Reamonn mentioned the Church of Central Africa 
(Presbyterian), which has three different synods in Malawi, one in Zambia 
and one in Zimbabwe. "Two of the synods in Malawi are the products of 
Church of Scotland missionary activity, and one is the product of mission 
work by the Dutch Reformed Church," he said, adding that while the three 
did cooperate in a general synod, the real power lay with the local synods. 
"And that's a rather benign example of the things that can happen." 
 
    Even now, Reamonn said, Reformed churches could be split by the arrival 
in a region of conservative, Evangelical missionaries who tried to win 
members away from churches whose theology was thought to be too liberal.  A 
growth in charismatic activity could also split a church, he said. 
 
    Four consultations on mission in unity have been held since 1988 by the 
John Knox Center.  The decision to publish the "Handbook of Reformed 
Churches Worldwide" was one result of these meetings. 
 
    The latest consultation, held in March this year, said that a 
"disturbing" picture of division was emerging from research for the 
handbook.  The consultation's report stated that "what today is urgently 
needed is a movement or process through which Reformed churches can find 
their way to a new common commitment in unity." 
 
    Reamonn told ENI that the agreement by WARC's executive committee, 
which met in Geneva from June 26 to July 2, to establish an office and to 
co-sponsor a coordinator to spend three years working on the issue was a 
result of the deep concern expressed during the consultations. 
 
    "This question [of Reformed unity] was discussed at our last two 
general councils, and the feeling was that it should be a priority for our 
programmatic work," he said. 
 
    The office will be located at the John Knox Center, and the consultant 
will consider all Reformed denominations around the world rather than 
concentrate exclusively on the 214 churches which are members of WARC.  It 
is expected that the consultant will work closely with WARC staff. 
 
    Reamonn pointed out that over the past 10 years WARC had very actively 
promoted closer links between Reformed churches in many countries. In 
Chile, for example, support from WARC officials had helped Reformed 
churches to draw closer together, while in South Africa 
WARC was encouraging the Dutch Reformed Churches, split on racial grounds, 
to unite. 
 
    However, Reamonn said, the executive committee felt that such 
initiatives needed to be upgraded. "There's a feeling that we need a much 
more deliberate and focused approach to a whole range of Reformed churches 
in a whole range of countries, rather than dealing with this issue on a 
piecemeal basis.  This appointment [of a coordinator] will be a very 
positive step." 
 
    WARC's executive committee also agreed at its annual meeting to find 
ways to cooperate more closely with another major organization representing 
the Reformed tradition, the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).  REC, a more 
conservative-leaning organization, has about 30 member churches, about half 
of which are also members of WARC. 
 
    REC and WARC will now set up a joint committee to explore possibilities 
of greater cooperation. 

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