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[George Conklin <gconklin@igc.apc.org>]

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

CENTRAL COMMITTEE     No.  5

            ROUNDUP: 47TH MEETING OF WCC CENTRAL COMMITTEE

GENEVA, 20 September 1996 =FE The need for fundamental changes in the shape=
 of
the World Council of Churches as the third millennium approaches dominated
discussions at the 47th meeting of the international ecumenical body's
Central Committee, which concluded nine days of deliberations here today.
The 156 delegates, elected from WCC member churches, supervise the work of
the Council and its staff between Assemblies (held every seven years).

The discussion of the future of the Council focused on a 16-page draft text
setting out a "Common Understanding and Vision" of the WCC, which is to be
submitted to the Eighth Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1998. The Committee
devoted three 90-minute sessions to plenary discussion of what the document
says and what it should say (in a passage yet to be written) about the
implications of the understanding and vision it develops for the future
organization of the WCC.

^From the outset, however, it was evident that an issue not touched on in
that text -- the state of WCC finances -- is not only setting clear limits
to what kind of Council can be realistically foreseen for the 21st century
but may also require significant administrative changes even before the WCC
celebrates its 50th anniversary in Harare.

During its meeting the Central Committee also voted to re-elect Konrad
Raiser (Evangelical Church in Germany) to a second five-year term as general
secretary, made several key decisions regarding plans for the Harare
assembly, welcomed two new member churches into its fellowship and approved
three brief public statements on current events. Delegates also listened to
plenary presentations on the continuing ecumenical discussion of
"ecclesiology and ethics" and on the churches' response to HIV/AIDS. In
connection with the latter they approved a statement to be sent to member
churches for discussion and action.

In a sober opening report, which many Committee members hailed as realistic,
courageous and hopeful, Raiser linked the WCC's financial plight to the
discussion of its future. While insisting that "severe" staff and budget
cuts already made and still to come do not threaten "the ability of the
Council to respond to its basic mandate", he suggested that "the
expectations, habits and institutional arrangements into which we have
comfortably settled... are rapidly becoming barriers to the way forward".

The document on Common Understanding and Vision taken up by the Committee
emphasizes an understanding of the WCC as primarily a "fellowship of
churches" rather than an international organization operating apart from
them. At the same time, it describes the WCC as one of many bodies
(including regional, national and local councils and conferences of
churches, confessional organizations and churches -- like the Roman Catholic
Church -- which are not WCC members) that make up one ecumenical movement.
The WCC, it says, could serve to foster coherence among the often
overlapping and sometimes competing and conflicting activities of all these
groups.

In his address Raiser distinguished such a "relational understanding" of the
WCC from the prevailing image in many churches "of the Council as a service
organization". Although "the profile of the WCC has been shaped mainly by
its programmes" in the past 30 years, he argued that in the future the
Council must "refrain from assuming direct programme responsibility in areas
where others are better equipped to act" and discontinue programmes which
have been taken up by national or regional ecumenical bodies. The WCC's
role, according to Raiser, should be as "enabler, coordinator, communicator,
convener and sometimes mediator".

At the same time, he called for simplification of the WCC's complex
governing structures, which he said tie up "too much energy and too many
human and material resources... in processes of reporting and
decision-making which have only limited effect on the life of the member
churches".

Reactions to the Common Understanding and Vision document from Committee
members were largely positive. Several members insisted that its focus on
relationships among the churches should not obscure the passion for justice
and peace, the identification with the poor and marginalized and the actions
of pastoral solidarity with suffering people and churches which have
characterized the WCC. Others, while agreeing with the need to streamline
WCC structures, warned against "down-sizing" according to criteria of
bureaucratic efficiency that would turn governing bodies into a rubber stamp
by reducing the number of people involved or abandoning guidelines that
ensure representation from all parts of the world and of women and youth.

Calling the document "a helpful contribution", the Committee voted that it
be revised in the light of its discussions and sent to the churches for
comments and responses "with a view to producing a policy document for
presentation" to its next meeting in September 1997. Raiser said the
revision, which would include more specific suggestions regarding the
organizational implications (to be drafted by a small consultation in
October), would be supervised by an eight-member group drawn from the WCC
Executive Committee.

The report from the Finance Committee, adopted on 19 September, underscored
the warning issued by Central Committee moderator Catholicos Aram I
(Armenian Apostolic Church, Lebanon) in his opening report that core areas
of the WCC's are threatened "because member churches are just not funding
the Council's work adequately". A shortfall of income in 1995 reduced
general funds by nearly SFr. 10 million last year; and projections for 1996
suggest that general income will be about half a million Swiss francs below
the budgeted amount. Overall, the finance report notes, total WCC annual
income declined from SFr. 118 million in 1991 to SFr. 81 million in 1995,
and a further drop to below SFr. 61 million in 1997 and 1998 is foreseen.

Against this background, the Committee approved a 1997 budget with a deficit
of SFr. 235,000. That shortfall represents the amount needed to cover costs
of compensation to staff members made redundant in order to meet the budget
deficit. Finance committee moderator Birgitta Rantakari
(Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Finland) said special funding is being
sought to cover this. The personnel reductions represent a drop of about 20
percent in the WCC staff, from 237 full-time equivalents in 1996 to a
maximum of 190 in 1997.

In order to balance the 1997 budget, the finance committee reduced by nearly
a million Swiss francs the expenditures proposed in the budget submitted to
it. Nearly all the additional cuts will have to be made in the area of the
general secretariat -- including the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, the
offices of Communication and Relationships, and the Office of Management and
Finance. The Central Committee also voted to require that a balanced budget
for 1998 be submitted to its meeting next year; a preliminary draft
submitted to the finance committee showed a deficit of SFr. 2.5 million.

Rantakari told the Committee that "our financial crisis is not yet over...
We have contained the situation for 1997, but we must have more funds". In
particular, she said, significant increases are needed in the amount of
"undesignated income", given by churches to the WCC as "membership
contributions" without restrictions on how it is to be spent. According to
Rantakari, the Council needs at least SFr. 10 million a year in undesignated
income -- in 1995 these funds accounted for less than 8 percent of total
income (SFr. 6.3 million out of SFr. 81 million) -- and if all churches paid
membership contributions they would rise to SFr. 14-16 million.

Two issues stood out in the discussion of plans for the Harare Assembly:
celebration of the eucharist and the implications for the Assembly of the
attitudes towards and treatment of gay and lesbian persons in Zimbabwe,
underscored by repeated and outspoken condemnations of homosexuality by
President Robert Mugabe.

After continuing a discussion begun at its meeting last year, the Committee
approved a proposal to ask local churches in Zimbabwe "to host the Assembly
in eucharistic celebrations according to church traditions represented in
Harare, one of these celebrations to be open to all who in good conscience
would like to participate in the eucharist". Several members expressed pain
and regret at this departure from the practice in earlier Assemblies of
including an ecumenical eucharistic service open to all as part of the
official programme. However, some members noted, holding an ecumenical
eucharist within the Assembly itself is also painful, since certain
participants -- primarily Orthodox and Roman Catholics -- are unable to take
communion in good conscience at such a service.

Responding to a suggestion from some members for finding another way of
visibly expressing "our thirst for unity" at the Assembly, the Committee
asked the Assembly Planning Committee to explore the possibility "of giving
common witness to the celebration of a baptism during the Assembly".

The Committee endorsed a memorandum of understanding regarding the
organization and conduct of the assembly signed in February by
representatives of the WCC, Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the government
of Zimbabwe. Among other provisions, the agreement ensures the entry into
Zimbabwe of all Assembly participants accredited by the WCC, gives the WCC
the responsibility "to maintain order and discipline" at the Assembly site
and ensures the WCC "the freedom to set the agenda and the programmes of the
Assembly and to decide about the persons and the topics to be addressed".
Also explicitly guaranteed are the WCC's right to exhibit print and
audiovisual material related to the Assembly agenda, the Assembly's right
"to express its views publicly on issues it deems fit", and the right of
accredited journalists to "report and interpret the proceedings of the
Assembly to the public at large".

While these provisions seemed to lay to rest suggestions coming from some
quarters to relocate the Assembly, a number of Central Committee members
expressed disquiet over the potential ramifications of the issue of
homosexuality for the conduct of the Assembly as a whole. During plenary
discussion on Thursday 19 September, Raiser said that the general
secretariat committee had held "an open, sincere and very serious
discussion" of the issue. Members of that committee had acknowledged that
sexual orientation is "a potentially divisive concern that is already
weighing on the internal unity of a fair number of WCC member churches and
that if we push this debate too sharply it might force some churches to
reconsider their relation to the WCC". At the same time, he added, "whether
we like it or not, the issue is on our agenda; and the worst way to respond
would be to try to keep it out".

While no formal action was taken, Raiser said "there is an emerging
understanding that we must find a way for the Central Committee at its next
meeting to acknowledge and understand the issue we are discussing, what we
share as a common base, what we expect to happen at the Assembly and what
should not take place, so that we remain in control of the discussion."

Among actions pertaining directly to WCC programmes, the Central Committee
declared 1997 as the Ecumenical Year for Churches in Solidarity with the
Uprooted, and called on all member churches and related organizations "to
mobilize resources and organize activities" to support millions of people
worldwide who have been forced from their homes by political upheavals and
natural disasters.

It also approved continued support through the programme unit on sharing and
service (Unit IV) of "advocacy work and networking for the rights of
children with the direct involvement of children's organizations around the
world". The urgency of such advocacy was vividly underscored by two
teen-agers who addressed the Committee, Ashtha Tuladhar from Nepal and Craig
Kielburger from Canada.

The Committee approved a series of recommendations intended to give focus to
the WCC Programme to Overcome Violence, which it had mandated at its meeting
in Johannesburg in 1994. Central among these was the launch of a global
initiative entitled "Peace to the City". The focus on the city, said Janice
Love (United Methodist, USA), is warranted by the fact that "the city is
where power is located, where people's homes are. And there is virtually no
safe space for people anymore."

In a press conference explaining the initiative, Margot Kaessmann
(Evangelical Church in Germany), said details for it would be worked out in
concert with local religious leaders in five to seven cities -- including
Johannesburg and Rio de Janeiro -- that have the reputation of dealing with
violence. Anti-violence programmes in those cities will then be offered as
models for other cities struggling with the problem.

Kaessmann told journalists she was convinced that "the Programme to Overcome
Violence has the potential to become the most significant moral and ethical
enterprise of the World Council of Churches. As individuals and nations seek
violent solutions to conflicts, the churches have to say a clear No," she
declared.

Responding to developments in Burundi, where ethnic conflicts since October
1993 have killed an estimated 100,000 people and displaced another 400,000,
the Committee condemned "the continued use of violence by the armed groups
and the military... to destroy innocent civilian life and property" and
called on the military rulers "to take immediate steps to reestablish
constitutional rule". The statement praised peacemaking efforts by regional
and international bodies, especially the initiative by former Tanzanian
President Julius Nyerere, and assured the churches of Burundi of "prayers
and support in the trials of these days and in their efforts to become
faithful witnesses for peace in their society".

The Committee also condemned the US Senate's Helms-Burton Amendment, which
penalizes nations and companies doing business with Cuba, as a "new act of
economic aggression against the people of Cuba". The statement said that the
escalation in sanctions would have a "terrible impact" on the Cuban people;
and it urged US President Bill Clinton "not to apply the measures called
for" by the amendment. The Committee called on the US and Cuban governments
"to resolve their differences through negotiation and dialogue".

In the wake of US air strikes in early September, the Committee approved a
minute calling on all nations to "respect the territorial integrity of
Iraq". The Committee commended an earlier WCC statement describing the
attacks as "indefensible on moral grounds". It voiced appreciation for a
statement by representatives of the US National Council of Churches which,
while expressing "no sympathy for the policies of the present government of
Iraq", called on the US and other governments "to pursue a course of
discernment, diplomacy and cooperation that will both protect human life and
embody the responsible use of power".

The Committee asked that a document on the contemporary role of the church
in international affairs be sent to member churches for discussion,
reflection and comment. During a press conference, WCC international affairs
staff member Dwain Epps said he hopes this new document will help churches
"to reassert their responsibility for looking at global issues". In the face
of the growing complexity of the global situation in the post-Cold War
period, Epps said, "our debates together must be more well-informed, so that
the voice of the ecumenical movement can be heard and can make a difference,
also by bringing the gospel to bear".

Both new member churches welcomed into full WCC membership (bringing the
total to 332) are African.The Methodist Church in Togo has 45,600 members;
the Presbyterian Community of Kinshasa (Zaire) 30,000. The Committee also
decided to send to the churches a revised document elaborating the "meaning
of membership" in the WCC, and, in view of continuing reflection on the
Common Understanding and Vision of the WCC, to receive only a limited number
of further applications for membership before the 1998 Assembly. In light of
the Assembly venue, nine of the 13 churches on a proposed list of additional
members are from Africa.

*****
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 330, in more
than 100 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest governing body is the Assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years.  The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is headed by
general secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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