wfn.org | WCC'S "Shaky Ship" Goes on Sailing

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18-December-1998 
98438 
 
    WCC'S "Shaky Ship" Goes on Sailing 
 
    PC(USA) delegates reflect on the Eighth Assembly 
 
    by Jerry Van Marter 
 
(Editor's note: Of the11 PC(USA) delegates to the WCC's Eighth Assembly, 
only the Rev. Dawn de Vries was unavailable for an interview for this 
story. - Jerry Van Marter) 
 
Harare, Zimbabwe--The 960 delegates and 4,500 visitors to the Eighth 
Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) arrived here with several 
crucial questions on their minds that, taken together, created considerable 
doubt about the future of the world's largest fellowship of churches. 
 
    Could the WCC make enough accommodations to keep the increasingly 
restless Orthodox Churches in the fold?  Would the issue of homosexuality 
tear apart the Council, as it has threatened to do with a number of member 
churches?  Meeting in Africa, could the Assembly sufficiently convey its 
solidarity with the people and churches of this troubled continent?  Have 
drastic budget and staff cuts crippled the WCC's ability to respond 
effectively to the needs of its churches and the world it seeks to serve? 
 
    The messages out of this Assembly, which was held on the campus of the 
University of Zimbabwe here from Dec. 3-14 are mixed, but closing worship 
preacher Emilio Castro, former general secretary of the WCC, seemed to 
strike a resonant chord when he concluded, "We have seen and lived once 
more the mystery of God's presence and as a shaky ship we go on sailing, in 
the words of Paul, 'setting our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of 
our faith.'" 
 
    As the WCC heads into its second 50 years - it was founded in Amsterdam 
in 1948 - the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will continue to play a 
leadership role.  The Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick, stated clerk of the General 
Assembly, and Ashley Seaman, a student at Columbia Theological Seminary, 
were elected to the 150-member Central Committee, which oversees the work 
of the WCC during the seven years between assemblies. 
 
    They succeed associate stated clerk the Rev. Eugene Turner and Kristine 
Thompson, an elder from Washington, D.C., on the Central Committee. 
Kirkpatrick was also elected to the WCC's 18-member Executive Committee. 
 
    Angela Bohanon served on the Assembly's Nominations Committee and said 
she came to appreciate the balancing act required to give more churches a 
sense of ownership in the WCC.  As more churches join the WCC - membership 
is now up to 338 - the task of meeting the desires of all churches to be 
represented on the Central Committee, who's membership remains at 150 gets 
tougher.  "We were concerned about including more churches and about women 
and youth, but to meet those needs," Bohanon said, "some churches are going 
to have to give up power." 
 
    The importance of meeting in Africa was emphasized in every aspect of 
this Assembly.  And by far the most electrifying moment of the Assembly was 
the appearance late in the Assembly of South African President Nelson 
Mandela.  Tara Spuhler, echoing the sentiments of many, said she was 
"overwhelmed" by Mandela.  The 24-year-old PC(USA) delegate said, "I'm not 
old enough to remember Martin Luther King, so Nelson Mandela is my real 
hero -- his life and story is more real to me." 
 
    The Rev. Karen Hernandez-Granzen said meeting in Africa encouraged her 
to "claim my African blood, which I am always tempted to deny because of 
the racism all around."  She said many Africans,upon seeing her when she 
wore her clerical collar, came up to her with words of encouragement. 
"They had never seen a woman minister of color," said Hernandez-Granzen, 
who describes herself as multi-racial.  "They feel in solidarity with me 
and say 'please keep doing what you're doing,'" she said. 
 
    Thompson said the WCC "is in a tough place programmatically and 
staff-wise."  Budget and staff cuts have left the Geneva-based staff 
"feeling in flux," she said, "so programs feel in flux, too."  Thompson 
said the WCC "still has a leadership role to play," but with the world 
ecumenical movement growing more and more diffuse, she added, "the WCC 
needs to move away from considering itself the center." 
 
    Seaman agreed.  "On the central committee I will be interested to see 
how the power shifts," she said.  "Africa has become the heart of 
Christianity," she continued, "so the process of how styles and structures 
change will be intriguing." 
 
    In that vein, Kirkpatrick was one of the strongest supporters at the 
Assembly of a "Forum of Christian Churches and Ecumenical Organizations," 
an initiative long advocated by WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser.  The 
WCC will now take the lead in trying to draw together around one table all 
of Christendom, WCC members and non-members alike to discuss matters of 
common concern. 
 
    Key participants in such a forum who are not WCC members include the 
Roman Catholic Church, a large number of Pentecostal and Evangelical 
churches and groups, and an equally large number of regional and national 
councils of churches that currently have working relationships with the WCC 
but which are not members. 
 
    Kirkpatrick argued passionately for the forum, which some had feared 
would distract the WCC from its unity goals by establishing a "parallel" 
organization with less formal commitment to unity and less accountability 
between its participants.  "I don't want to see any second-class status, 
but let's not forget, friends, that renewal comes from reaching out, not 
reaching in," Kirkpatrick said.  "We must find ways to involve the broader 
body of Christ in our search for unity." 
 
    Turner said he came to the Assembly with "many reservations about the 
continuing presence of the Orthodox churches, but they have diminished." 
Orthodox churches have grown increasingly unhappy with WCC pronouncements 
that they consider too liberal and with decision-making processes that they 
feel are stacked against the Orthodox, who comprise about 25 percent of the 
voting membership. 
 
    Two Orthodox churches have withdrawn from the WCC - the Georgian 
Orthodox Church and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - and the Russian 
Orthodox Church, by far the WCC's largest member church, has suspended its 
participation in the Central Committee pending the outcome of a 
newly-instituted Special Commission that was created by this Assembly to 
try and iron out the differences between the Orthodox and the WCC. 
 
    Turner said the dissidents are primarily from the former Soviet Union 
and Eastern Europe where the political upheavals of recent years have left 
Orthodox churches in those countries suspicious of ecumenical bodies such 
as the WCC.  Still, most of the 22 Orthodox churches remain staunch 
supporters of the WCC and an "observer" from the Georgian Orthodox Church 
tearfully told the Assembly that his church had withdrawn only upon threat 
of schism by "fundamentalists and extremists." 
 
    "We have to have the Orthodox in order to be a global conciliar body," 
Turner said, adding he believes the special commission will find the way 
for full inclusion of the Orthodox. 
 
    Spuhler expressed frustration that the "youth" delegates had so much 
difficulty "injecting our positions into the actions of the Assembly." 
Noting that positions on various issues had been carefully crafted at a 
pre-Assembly youth gathering, she said, "It's challenging how to get 
plugged in here because our positions are seen as 'youth issues' when they 
really are global issues for all people." 
 
    Similar frustration was expressed by the Rev. Unzu Lee regarding 
women's issues.  "I don't feel very well" about the recently concluded 
Ecumenical Decade: Churches in Solidarity with Women, Lee, who is on the 
staff of the Women's Ministry Program Area in Louisville, said.  The WCC 
tries to broaden the scope of its actions to appeal to more churches, she 
noted, "but when you broaden the agenda, the specific needs of particular 
people get dropped out, such as the needs of women and children in the 
context of talking about war or the refugee situation in the world." 
 
    Yet, in what seems to be a commonly felt love-hate relationship with 
the WCC, PC(USA) delegates all praised the Assembly.  "When Mandela 
arrived, our clapping converged into an act of God," Lee said.  "That unity 
of spirit was powerful -- documents aren't all that happened here." 
 
    Edwin Andrade, a PC(USA) delegate who is on the staff of the Synod of 
Southern California and Hawaii, said the highlight of the Assembly for him 
was worship. "Worship is one of the few places we can come together as 
children of God without agendas," he said.  Andrade also expressed 
appreciation for the small groups in which each delegate and visitor 
participated.  "In such a large Assembly its hard to make strong 
connections," he said, "so getting close to people of such different 
backgrounds and experience made me much more aware of the diversity of the 
whole church." 
 
    The Rev. Marian McClure, director of the Worldwide Ministries Division, 
said differing perspectives around the world was also valuable in the 
Assembly's policy statement on global debt.  The statement called for debt 
cancellation for poor countries, debt reduction for middle income countries 
such as Brazil, tighter controls on international financial institutions 
who have the power to ruin countries by rapid movement of capital and for 
tougher measures to eliminate corruption and the improper spending of loan 
funds by some governments. 
 
    "The evolution of the thinking about the debt burden truly shows the 
ways that we Christians need each other in all our diversity," McClure 
said, "if we are to be faithful to the call of Jesus Christ to serve the 
world for whose sake he died." 
 
    And so the World Council of Churches enters its second 50 years.  The 
Ninth Assembly is scheduled for the year 2005 somewhere in Asia.  Andrade 
echoed a widely-held optimism: "As long as we keep trying, there's a lot we 
can do." 

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