WCC FEATURE: Faith and Order at 100

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

Faith and Order at 100
For immediate release: 14 October 2010
 

By John Gibaut (*) 



Tuesday 19 October 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the Faith
and Order movement. “Faith and Order” seeks Christian unity
through theological dialogue among representatives of various
churches. 


The beginnings of Faith and Order are closely linked to the
World Missionary Conference of June 1910 in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The focus of the Edinburgh Conference was cooperation in global
Christian mission. Questions around church-dividing issues and
controversial points of doctrine were intentionally avoided
during public discussions in Edinburgh, yet they were in the
minds of many who attended. 


One participant in the conference was Charles Brent, a Canadian
by birth, a missionary bishop then serving in the Philippines on
behalf of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.
The idea of a Faith and Order conference began with Bishop Brent,
who made the link between the Edinburgh Conference with its call
for Christian unity and the need to resolve issues of faith and
order in the divided churches. 


He recognized that the “self-denying ordinance” not to
discuss questions of difference was a good one in the context of
missionary strategy, but that questions of faith and order needed
their own appropriate forum, and in such a forum they might be
discussed and resolved through dialogue. 


At the end of the Edinburgh Conference, Brent said: 



During these past days a new vision has been unfolded to us. But
whenever God gives a vision He also points to some new
responsibility, and you and I, when we leave this assembly, will
go away with some fresh duties to perform.


Bishop Brent returned to the United States in 1910 for the
General Convention of the Episcopal Church, held in October of
that year. Brent prepared a resolution for the General Convention
that would have major consequences for the nascent ecumenical
movement. On 19 October 1910, the General Convention unanimously
passed a resolution calling for a world conference of the
representatives of all the churches “for the consideration of
questions pertaining to the Faith and Order of the Church of
Christ”.  


This action of a church – not a theological faculty or
missionary society – ensured an ecclesial commitment to
overcome past histories by means of theological dialogue and to
prepare the way for the Church’s unity in faith, order, life,
work, worship and mission so that the world may believe in
Christ. 


As Günther Gassmann, a former director of Faith and Order for
the World Council of Churches (WCC), has written: “Faith and
Order was and is a movement of and in the churches. All
theological efforts on all levels within churches and between
churches towards closer and, finally, full communion are, in a
way, Faith and Order efforts.” 


There were other significant American calls for the resolution
of church-dividing issues around the same time as the General
Convention of the Episcopal Church, notably from the National
Council of Congregational Churches and the Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ), both on 18 October 1910. 


However, the date of 19 October 1910 marks the institutional
beginning of the Faith and Order movement that would lead
directly to the First World Conference on Faith and Order in
Lausanne, 1927. Bishop Charles Brent presided over the 1927
event. Faith and Order, along with the Life and Work movement,
became a constitutive element of the World Council of Churches at
the inauguration of that body in 1948. The Commission on Faith
and Order continues to be a vital dimension of the work of the
WCC. 


(*) The Rev. Dr John Gibaut is the director of the WCC
Commission on Faith and Order. 


More information on the WCC Commission on Faith and Order (
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2267&rid=f_15592&mid=2564&aC=c416b25e&jumpurl=1
) 


Information, documents and photos of the Faith and Order Plenary
Commission meeting 2009 (
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2267&rid=f_15592&mid=2564&aC=c416b25e&jumpurl=2
) 


High resolution photos of the First World Conference on Faith
and Order in Lausanne, 1927, can be requested via
photos.oikoumene.org (
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2267&rid=f_15592&mid=2564&aC=c416b25e&jumpurl=3
) and may be used free of charge in order to illustrate this
story.

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit,
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva,
Switzerland.