wfn.org | Official Sees Signs of Hope for Relations Between Two Christian

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Groups 30-May-1997 
97221 
 
            Official Sees Signs of Hope for Relations  
                Between Two Major Christian Groups 
 
                          by Tracy Early 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK CITY--A Canadian church leader who represented  the World Council 
of Churches (WCC) at the recent Assembly of  the World Evangelical 
Fellowship (WEF) is optimistic about the possibilities of future relations 
between the two groups. 
 
     "I went with a little trepidation," S. Peter Wyatt, a United Church of 
Christ minister who is chairman of its WCC Relations Committee, told ENI. 
"But I was warmly received." 
 
     The WCC has as members mainstream Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox 
churches around the world, while the WEF represents most of the world's 
major evangelical churches. Although there has long been dialogue between 
churches in both organizations, there sometimes have been sharp differences 
of opinion in the past on subjects such as evangelization and ethical 
issues.  
 
     According to the WEF, there are about 150 million evangelical 
Christians in the world, and numbers are rising sharply. The 332 churches 
in the WCC have a total membership of about 400 million.  
 
     Although the terms "evangelical" and "ecumenical" are conventionally 
used to distinguish the two main groupings of non-Roman Catholic 
Christians, there is some overlap between the two groups as a handful of 
evangelical churches are members of the WCC and the "evangelical" community 
crosses denominational lines. 
 
     The WEF traces its history to the formation of the Evangelical 
Alliance in London in 1846.  Its Assembly, held every five years, met from 
May 8-15 in the Canadian city of Abbotsford, which has a strong evangelical 
community. 
      
     Wyatt told ENI he had been given an opportunity to extend greetings 
from the WCC to the WEF's  International Council.  Referring to a statement 
by Desmond Tutu, former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, that he and a 
white Christian had "problematic" relations but as Christians were "stuck 
with each other," Wyatt told the committee that evangelical and ecumenical 
Christians were similarly "stuck with each other." 
 
     He said, however, that although the WCC constituency was generally 
agreed on the desire to develop closer ties with evangelicals, the 
evangelicals were more divided on that question.  But he had "heard a lot 
about unity" at Abbotsford.  "I am not discouraged." 
 
     Wyatt said he had heard talk not only of preaching the gospel but also 
a call for evangelicals to acknowledge the gospel's political and social 
implications.  "I had the sense that there was this balance," he said. 
 
     Evangelicals have been viewed in the past as Christians who avoid 
political action and concentrate instead on the Bible and its circulation. 
However, some evangelical groups do have strong involvement in political 
issues through their aid, education or morality programs. 
 
     Wyatt said that during the WEF Assembly a South Korean pastor had 
indicated that the WCC and the Christian Conference of Asia, the mainstream 
ecumenical body in that region, were already providing aid for people 
starving in North Korea. The pastor asked whether the WEF would take 
similar action. 
 
     Wyatt said the pastor was told that the WEF itself did not conduct 
programs of that kind, but helped facilitate such efforts by other 
agencies. Two agencies drawing much of their support from the evangelical 
community -- World Vision International and Mercy Corps International -- 
are participating with ecumenical and Roman Catholic agencies in a program 
to provide aid to North Korea. 
 
     Don Argue, president of the U.S. National Association of Evangelicals, 
interviewed by ENI during the Abbotsford Assembly, remarked on the strong 
presence of African, Asian and Latin American delegates at this WEF 
gathering. This represented a change, he said.  "The most impressive thing 
in the Assembly was the major shift under way in evangelicalism."  
 
     Argue, who is a minister of the Assemblies of God, continued:  "North 
Americans were obviously in the minority."  He  characterized the shift as 
"from the West to the rest." 
      
          According to Argue, the Assembly appeared to give women a 
prominent place.  But Wyatt found it a much smaller place than was usual in 
WCC gatherings. 
 
     Both commented on the upbeat spirit of the meeting.  Wyatt said he had 
heard people declaring, "Tomorrow belongs to evangelicals."  Argue 
commented: "The evangelical church is booming around the world." 
 
     Argue also said the Assembly had included a "strong presentation on 
Eastern Europe and Croatia," but he had heard nothing about dialogue with 
the Russian  Orthodox Church or attempts to address its concerns about many 
evangelical groups trying to win converts in Russia. (The Russian church 
regards the region as its own "canonical" territory.) 
      
     According to Argue, the Assembly had 540 official delegates from 93 
countries and another 110 participants.  Some plenary sessions open to the 
general public drew more than 2,000 people. 

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