wfn.org | Ecumenical Movement Is Out of Touch, Warns Protestant Theologian

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

13-July-1999 
99229 
 
    Ecumenical Movement Is Out of Touch, 
    Warns Protestant Theologian 
 
    New WARC President's Speech Ignites Debate Over the Future 
 
    by Edmund Doogue 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
TAIPEI- The president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) has 
declared that the ecumenical movement is out of touch with people in the 
churches and has "almost ceased ... to be taken seriously" as a spiritual 
force. 
 
    Professor Choan-Seng Song, a professor of systematic theology at 
California's Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union, 
made his remarks in his opening address here July 2 to the annual executive 
meeting of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC). 
 
    Song said that since the 11-day gathering was the last of the 20th 
century, "I decided to be very frank this time - we tend to be polite 
ecumenically." 
 
    In his address, Song warned that mainstream church bodies such as WARC 
and ecumenical organizations had failed to respond to a growing "spiritual" 
awareness among ordinary people. 
 
    Referring to the financial problems faced by WARC and many confessional 
and ecumenical bodies, Song declared that perhaps the "financial coffer is 
empty because the spiritual coffer of our member Christians is empty.  Or 
perhaps the Alliance's [WARC's] spiritual coffer itself, after more than a 
century, has become empty." 
 
    The criticisms made by Song, who was elected WARC president two years 
ago, are all the more remarkable because he has previously worked as a 
staff member of both WARC and the World Council of Churches, the world's 
largest ecumenical organization.  Both organizations are based in Geneva, 
along with other ecumenical and confessional bodies. 
 
    However, Song also stressed that his analysis was limited to his 
personal perceptions, and, at various times during the executive committee 
meeting, he praised WARC's staff employed at the organization's 
headquarters in Geneva. 
 
    Song told ENI after his address that he wanted to be "provocative, to 
make people think."  While the ecumenical movement had many achievements to 
its credit, it must not become a prisoner of its past, he said. 
 
    As soon as Song had given his speech, it was clear that it had caused 
considerable ripples among leaders of the organization he heads.  The 
speech may well succeed in provoking the debate intended by Professor Song, 
who is a member of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, which is hosting the 
WARC meeting. 
 
    But ecumenical and confessional organisations were not the only targets 
of his 10-page speech - Bill Clinton and Tony Blair earned a sharp rebuke 
for their leading role in NATO's 11-week military action against 
Yugoslavia.  Song suggested that the NATO campaign may one day be as deeply 
regretted as the U.S. military campaign in Vietnam during the 1960s and 70s 
by contemporary historians and political leaders. 
 
    But the main target of Song's speech was the "ecumenical mindset" which 
he believes is far removed from both authentic spirituality and the 
day-to-day lives of the millions of Christians who attend services in 
churches which are involved in the ecumenical movement. 
 
    He told the 35 members of the WARC executive committee that after 
taking up the presidency he "became worried because some basic assumptions 
held by the ecumenical institutions had become obsolete, if not entirely 
wrong. 
 
    "I became alarmed because if this trend were to continue, the 
ecumenical movement that revitalized the history of Christianity in the 
post-World War II world would become a historical memory and merely a 
subject of doctoral dissertations.  As a matter of fact, it has almost 
ceased to be `the' spiritual force to be taken seriously by the world.  Am 
I totally wrong in my assessment?  I wish I were." 
 
    Quoting from a pivotal text of the New Age movement of the 1990s -- 
James Redfield's "The Celestine Vision" - Song made it clear that while he 
is no New Age supporter,  he believed that expressions of spirituality are 
breaking into the consciousness of ordinary people. However, mainstream 
church bodies had not responded to this growing awareness. 
 
    "We lament that we have lost a large number of our faithful members to 
what is called the `charismatic' movements that make spiritual experience 
their sole business.  We may not like the spiritual experience promoted by 
the charismatic Christian communities of diverse hues and colors, but what 
alternative have we been able to suggest?  What else have we been able to 
offer our people who struggle with genuine spiritual hunger?" he asked. 
 
    In recent decades some of the major achievements of confessional 
organizations like WARC, the Lutheran World Federation and the Anglican 
Communion have been complex theological agreements with other communions. 
But Song was skeptical about the value of such agreements for the average 
churchgoer. 
 
    At one point in his speech, he declared: "In study sessions the church 
members who care enough to be present are not asking what the ecumenical 
movement is doing, how union negotiations are working or not working.  The 
fact that they no longer ask such questions does not mean that these 
questions are not important. 
 
    "The prevailing reality is that these ecumenical concerns, if [they] 
ever existed among local Christians, are hardly present in their 
consciousness.  This is particularly true with the Christians who belong to 
the two-thirds of the Alliance's member churches [in the South].  They are 
preoccupied with problems of life, such as birth, ageing, illness and 
death.  What they are looking for is spiritual strength to cope with the 
meaning of this transient life." 
 
    Song suggested that as it enters the 21st century WARC undertake the 
"awesome task" of rebuilding the organisation with a new set of priorities: 
 
     * Reconnecting with Christians "in their pursuit of spiritual 
direction" 
     * Finding ways to make WARC a "mass movement" 
     * Providing training to equip young people with "ecumenical vision and 
vitality for their ministry in their churches and communities" 
 
    Song, who has had substantial experience in theological education, 
stressed the need for training programs for pastors and lay people.  He 
suggested that the John Knox International Reformed Center in Geneva, which 
is linked to WARC, was one location which  could be used for such programs. 
 
    In a brief discussion by the committee after Song's opening address, 
WARC's general secretary, Dr Milan Opocensky, said he was "intrigued" by 
the possibility of creating a "global faculty" for training people, 
possibly located at the John Knox Center. 
 
    "When I first read Song's report, I was a little bit shocked - I 
thought it was a wholesale attack on what we are doing," Opocensky said. 
But in discussion with WARC staff he had seen the value of cooperating with 
churches to set up training in several places to strengthen contact with 
churches. 
 
    WARC staff told ENI that during his 10 years as general secretary, 
Opocensky had in fact made major efforts to improve WARC's contacts with 
its member churches around the world. 

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