wfn.org | WCC Central Committee - Moderator, p.1

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World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
12 September 1996

CENTRAL COMMITTEE                                             
No. 2   

MODERATOR URGES BOLD RESPONSES TO FINANCIAL CRISIS, ETHNIC
CONFLICTS

Geneva, 12 September:  The "acute financial crisis" facing the
World Council of Churches "will have an immediate bearing on the
life and witness of the Council", according to the Moderator of
the ecumenical body's governing Central Committee. Catholicos
Aram I of Cilicia, Armenian Apostolic Church (Lebanon) issued
that warning in his address on the opening day of the meeting of
the 150-member committee here (12-20 September). "If we are
really concerned about the future of the ecumenical movement...,"
he added, "we have to wrestle with this responsibly and boldly,
and now ? tomorrow could be too late!"

A sense of urgency permeated both sections of the Moderator's
report: the first reviewing significant aspects of the WCC's work
since the Central Committee last met a year ago; the second
reflecting on ethnicity and its bearing on the life and witness
of the churches.

Insisting that "we can no longer afford to maintain the present
programmatic framework and management structure of the Council",
Aram called for a thorough self-assessment in which the WCC would
identify its "specific vocation vis-?-vis the emerging needs and
expectations of our churches and under the imperative of
present-day conditions of our societies". The ongoing process
"Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC" (on the
agenda for plenary discussion on Friday 13 September), said Aram,
"should not be conceived as a study process, but as an
action-oriented process involving our member churches in a common
effort to review and reshape the Council in all its aspects,
dimensions and manifestations".

In his remarks on the financial situation of the WCC ? also a
focus of General Secretary Konrad Raiser's earlier address to the
committee ? the Moderator warned of a threat to core areas of the
WCC's work "because member churches are just not funding the
Council's work adequately". He told the committee that "the WCC
is not a programme agency. It is a council of churches. Its work
in all its aspects must be fully supported by the churches since
the Council's witness is the churches' witness." That the member
churches are not contributing "realistically", he said, is clear
from statistics showing that only Sfr. 6.2 million of the WCC's
1995 income of Sfr. 81 million was in membership contributions;
that 3 percent of the member churches provide 86 percent of that
Sfr. 6.2 million; and that three-quarters of the Council's total
income comes from four countries: Germany, Sweden, the
Netherlands and the USA.

In outlining how ethnicity and ethnic conflict have inevitably
been placed on the churches' agenda, Aram noted that the
resurgence of ethnicity since the end of the Cold War has
intensified ethnic conflicts, shifted power relationships and
destabilized international politics. While some churches are
themselves caught up in ethnic conflict situations, he called on
all churches to "play a pivotal role in eradicating ethnocentric
ideologies and policies that generate and perpetuate ethnic
confrontations".

Suggesting that two key elements of ethnicity are the affirmation
of identity and the right of self-determination, the Moderator
sketched a role for the churches in addressing each of these
issues. "Christian faith affirms each identity," he said, "but
also recognizes and accepts others and calls them all into a
community of diverse identities. The churches are called to work
together for a ?culture of solidarity' that builds community and
relationships and opposes the ?culture of exclusion' that
generates violence and alienation... The church of Christ in
different cultures and places and among different ethnic groups
is called to be truly itself, to realize its real nature and
vocation by becoming a credible and authentic sign of a
reconciled human community across diverse identities."