wfn.org | Alias: "Mr. Handbook"

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

19-August-1997 
97316 
 
    Alias: "Mr. Handbook" 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
    World Alliance of Reformed Churches Newsroom 
 
DEBRECEN, Hungary--Even with all the flowing, brightly colored robes 
indigenous to Asia, Africa and South America swirling around the 23rd 
General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) here, 
"Mr. Handbook" stands out. 
 
    Maybe it's the black silk top hat.  Or the pince-nez glasses. Or the 
white T-shirt with the simple red block letters: Mr. Handbook.  But Mr. 
Handbook (alias Jean-Jacques Bauswein) draws curious General Council 
participants like moths to a flame. 
 
    Which, of course, is precisely his intent. 
 
    Bauswein is co-editor of the "Handbook of Reformed Churches," an 
exhaustive compilation of facts and figures about more than 700 Reformed 
denominations throughout the world.  He is in Debrecen to ensure that he 
has catalogued all 211 WARC member denominations for the handbook, which is 
scheduled to be published within the next six months by Eerdmans Press of 
Grand Rapids, Mich. 
 
    "This project grew out of a number of ecumenical consultations on the 
theme of mission and unity" while he was the director of the John Knox 
Center in Geneva, Bauswein says.  "I kept thinking how difficult it is to 
make any progress on unity unless we know who all the partners are." 
 
    And so three years ago Bauswein and his co-editor, Lukas Vischer, both 
veterans of international ecumenical work in Geneva, Switzerland, set about 
to compile the handbook of all the world's Reformed denominations. Bauswein 
began by surveying the eight federations of Reformed churches in the world. 
 
    WARC is the largest, with more than 200 member churches.  But though 
the Alliance represents 65-70 percent of the world's Reformed communicants, 
it comprises only about one-third of the world's Reformed denominations. 
 
    "In almost every country there is a Reformed church -- so far we have 
detected Reformed churches in 155 countries," Bauswein says.  "We don't 
know exactly how many Reformed there are in the world," he adds, "but we 
estimate there to be 70-80 million."  The denominations range in size from 
one congregation to tens of thousands of parishes. 
 
    "It's fine to say the Reformed church is in 155 countries," Bauswein 
says, "but we have to ask if it's right that there are as many as 95 
separate Reformed denominations in a country like Korea." 
 
    When the handbook is published, Bauswein says, he hopes it will spawn a 
process of "conscientization" in which Reformed churches "start becoming 
more aware of how rich, how diverse and sometimes how split we are as a 
family." 
 
    The handbook will include an introduction to the worldwide Reformed 
family of churches and an alphabetical listing by country of every Reformed 
denomination.  It will also contain a list of more than 500 Reformed 
theological institutions around the world and a list of all the regional 
subgroupings of churches. 
 
    The entry for each denomination will include statistics and a short 
history of the country and of the church there.  Churches will be listed 
chronologically in each country -- "so the reader can see how the 
denominations evolved out of each other" -- and each church's entry will 
list vital statistics, such as membership, number of clergy, number of 
congregations, whether it practices infant and/or adult baptism, 
comparative numbers of women and men in membership and ordained leadership, 
its structure and international involvements, the confessions it recognizes 
and its institutions of theological education. 
 
    "We know this will be a useful reference book," Bauswein says.  "But I 
also hope this will bring churches -- some of whom have not talked with 
each other for a very long time -- closer together." 

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