wfn.org | Eighth Assembly

[Sheila MESA <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
13 September 1997

CENTRAL COMMITTEE      No.  3

 ALL AFRICA  TO WELCOME WCC ASSEMBLY TO HARARE

The churches of Zimbabwe "are waiting to receive you with warm
hands and hearts," declared the enthusiastic general secretary of the
Zimbabwe Council of Churches as he stood before the World Council of
Churches Central Committee Thursday (12 September).

Mr Densen Mafinyani made it clear that his enthusiasm is shared by
Christian churches throughout Africa as the WCC prepares to hold its
Eighth Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe, 3 14 December 1998.

"Africa is a religious continent," he told committee members who are
meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, September 11 19.  "Look under a tree
and you will find people serving Holy Communion."

And several members expressed hope that the African spirit will be
contagious as some 4,000 Christians gather in Harare next year from all
over the world.  "In our churches there is so little joy, so little movement,
and we hope that Harare might help us to get going again," said Dr
Guenter Krusche (Evangelical Church in Germany) during a session
devoted to assembly planning.

Those plans suffered a blow last spring when the Assembly Planning
Committee (ACP) learned that September 1998 dates slated for the
meeting were no longer available at the planned meeting site, the
University of Zimbabwe campus in Harare.  The WCC executive
committee considered new dates and settled on 3 14 December 1998.

The change of dates created confusion among member churches, some
of which had already named delegates to attend a September meeting,
and Mafinyani assured the committee that the issue was finally resolved.
 "The dates are firmly signed, concretized for the university campus," he
stressed.  "There won t be any change to the dates."

Plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the WCC in Harare, originally
scheduled for 20 September, were creatively amended to accommodate
the new dates, according to WCC General Secretary Dr Konrad Raiser.

The new proposal is that the Recommitment Day celebration be launched
on 20 September as planned and that a special period of ecumenical
celebrations and recommitment for WCC member churches climax in
Harare on Sunday, 13 December.  The celebration will begin in
September in Amsterdam, Netherlands, where the WCC was born in
1948, Dr Raiser said.

"We would begin in one of the old cities of Europe and end in a young
nation in Africa," the general secretary said.  He expressed the hope that
member churches around the world would begin their recommitment
celebration on 20 September, but he noted that some may wish to begin
with Advent (the Christian celebration leading up to Christmas) in late
November.

Whatever individual churches decide, Dr Raiser said, "Let Harare be
genuinely the culmination point of this progressive act of celebration and
recommitment."

WCC President Rev. Eunice Santana of Puerto Rico (Christian Church,
Disciples of Christ) led committee members in an examination of
assembly plans.  Rev. Dr Thomas Best, executive secretary for Faith and
Order in the WCC s Programme Unit on Unity and Renewal, scrutinized
the assembly theme, "Turn to God    Rejoice in Hope."

"Choosing a theme for an assembly is both a theological act and a moral
act," Dr Best told committee members.  "You have chosen a theme that is
complex.  There is no danger that it will become a facile slogan."  Dr Best
has written an article on the theme in a recent issue of The  Ecumenical
Review. 

Professor Rose Zoe Obianga (Presbyterian Church of Cameroon) said
the assembly celebration of jubilee will have special resonance in Africa.
 "African women have very enthusiastically received the liberating
message of hope in Jesus Christ," she said.  

The biblical theme of jubilee suggests, among other things, that debts
should be forgiven and real estate returned to its original owners every
50 years.  "If a human being cannot write off the debts of a fellow
human being, then there is still a debt (owed) to God," Dr Obianga said. 
"The year of jubilee in 1998 is something that is very important to us   
but are we willing to face the consequences of a year of jubilee?"

Bishop Jonas Jonson (Church of Sweden), moderator of the Assembly
Planning Committee, led committee members through a discussion of key
components of the assembly.  A series of "Padare" (a Shona word
meaning "meeting place") will offer assembly delegates and visitors an
unprecedented opportunity to share ideas, songs, dances and other
facets of their faith and culture with one another.

Ms Jean Stromberg (American Baptist Churches USA) and Dr Wesley
Ariarajah (Methodist, Sri Lanka) answered members  questions about the
padares and other assembly elements, including the hearings, which are
intended to give delegates a chance to evaluate WCC programmes since
the last assembly in Canberra, Australia, and to suggest new work for
the future.

**********
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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