wfn.org | New Churches Boost WCCMembership to 332

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

23-September-1997 
97369 
 
    New Churches Boost World Council of Churches 
    Membership to 332 
 
    by Julian Shipp 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--The World Council of Churches has agreed to accept three churches 
as members -- provided there are no objections within the next six months 
from existing member churches -- thereby bringing the total number of WCC 
member churches to 332. 
 
    The Central Committee also approved on Sept. 11 -- for the first time 
-- the "recognition" of 20 international Christian organizations in working 
relationships with the WCC, following new rules adopted in 1995 to 
strengthen relationships between the WCC and other international 
church-related bodies. 
 
    The three churches to be received into membership are the Christian 
Biblical Church in Argentina, the United Church in Papua New Guinea, and 
the United Church in the Solomon Islands. 
 
    "Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Christian Biblical Church 
is that it is a Pentecostal church, and we have few Pentecostal members in 
the World Council of Churches," Huibert van Beek, executive secretary of 
the WCC's Office of Church and Ecumenical Relations, told ENI. 
 
     "There are many Pentecostal churches in Latin America and throughout 
[the world], but they often look at the WCC as an organization that is 
liberal theologically, left wing politically and so on." 
 
    The origins of the Christian Biblical Church date back to Italian 
emigration to Argentina in the early part of the 20th century. Missionaries 
from the Italian Pentecostal Church in Chicago traveled to Buenos Aires, 
where they founded Pentecostal communities among the Italian immigrants. 
The churches became known as Italian Pentecostal churches. Out of them grew 
the Christian Biblical Church, which now has an active membership of 10,000 
and reaches out to a church population of more than 30,000. 
 
    Soritua Nababan, vice moderator of the WCC's Central Committee, told 
the gathering the denomination had 47 congregations and 52 pastors. 
 
    The other two churches to be received into WCC membership -- the United 
Church in Papua New Guinea and the United Church in the Solomon Islands -- 
came into being on November 7, 1996, after the former United Church, which 
extended over the two territories of  Papua New Guinea and the Solomon 
Islands, was officially reorganized into two independent churches. 
 
    Van Beek said that the United Church in Papua New Guinea had a 
membership of approximately 600,000. The United Church in the Solomon 
Islands had a membership of roughly 45,000. Speaking of the recognition of 
the 20 international ecumenical organizations in working relationships with 
the WCC, van Beek said that "this rule and the approved organizations will 
not have a significant impact on the WCC now, but it will become 
interesting when new organizations that don't have a history of working 
with the WCC apply." 
 
    "Then we will have to decide with some discernment whether they are 
qualified for this category or not." 
 
    Van Beek said that several of these organizations, such as the Young 
Men's Christian Association and the World Student Christian Federation, 
were older than the WCC itself and were the original home of several 
ecumenical pioneers who founded the WCC. 
 
    Others, like the Organization of African Instituted Churches, founded 
in 1978, were much younger. However, van Beek said, all of them had a 
working relationship with the WCC at the programmatic level. 
 
    The organizations are Diakonia World Federation of Diaconal 
Associations and Diaconical Communities, Organization of African Instituted 
Churches, World Association for Christian Communication, World Student 
Christian Federation, World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Associations, 
International Christian Youth Exchange, World Day of Prayer International 
Committee, The Fellowship of the Least Coin, Ecumenical Association of 
Third World Theologians, Association of World Council of Churches Related 
Development Organizations in Europe, Ecumenical Development Cooperative 
Society, European Ecumenical Commission for Church and Society, Life and 
Peace Institute, Christian Peace Conference, International Federation of 
the Action of Christians for the Abolition of Torture, Evangelical 
Community for Apostolic Action, The Council for World Mission, United 
Evangelical Mission, World Vision International and Nordic Ecumenical 
Council. 

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