wfn.org | Title: WCC: CORRECTION: Faith & Order: a more visible call to

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches 
Update 03-33 
For Immediate Use 
16 July 2003 

* * * Please note that this version replaces the update sent out on 15 July *
* *

Faith and Order: a more audible call to visible unity of the churches 

The World Council of Churches' Commission on Faith and Order is preparing
itself "to make its call to visible unity more audible to the churches". 

This is the commitment of the commission as expressed by its moderator, Rev.
Prof. David K. Yemba, in his opening address to the meeting of the Faith and
Order Standing Commission, held in Strasbourg, France, 3-10 July, 2003. 

Speaking to about 30 theologians of different church traditions from all over
the world who constitute the Standing Commission, Yemba, a Methodist minister
from the Democratic Republic of Congo and dean of the Theological Faculty of
the Africa University in Mutare, Zimbabwe, stated that "this will be one of
our main challenges" in the near future, and specially at the next Faith and
Order Plenary Commission meeting. 

The Standing Commission confirmed that the Plenary meeting will take place in
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, from July 28 to August 6, 2004. The Plenary
Commission "is expected to play its new role [according to the decision taken
by WCC Central Committee in August 1999] as a forum for theological debate",
Yemba underlined. 

In contrast to many past occasions, this time the meeting will have a general
theme: "Receive one another, as Christ has received you, for the glory of
God" (Romans 15:7). "The theme opens perspectives on reception, hospitality,
spirituality, recognition and reconciliation", Yemba said. "But above all it
constitutes a call to live in communion [...] beyond the boundaries within
the household of God", he added. 

The appropriateness of the selected theme for the work of the Faith and Order
commission was also highlighted by its director, Rev. Dr Alan Falconer. In
his report to the Standing Commission meeting he stated that each of the
studies the commission carries out "is directed to helping the churches call
each other to move beyond themselves by embracing and including the other in
a fellowship of hospitality". 

Ecclesiology, baptism, peace 

In its meeting, the Standing Commission examined and discussed all of the
current studies and gave directions for further work to bring them to
maturity. The studies are diverse and numerous, however, some can be
highlighted. 

One, for instance, is the work on ecclesiology, that is to say, the
understanding of what it means to be church. Faith and Order continues its
work on this issue by developing a text called "The Nature and the Purpose of
the Church". Seen as "a stage on the way to a common statement", the draft,
issued in 1998, was submitted to churches, theological commissions and
council of churches for their reactions. 

While efforts are being made to address confessional and regional imbalances
by getting responses from different parts of the world and from Orthodox
churches, the responses already received are being incorporated in the
redrafting of the text. At the same time, several consultations have helped
to clarify specific themes. Reports and papers from two of them - "Authority
and Authoritative Teaching" and "Does the Church have a sacramental nature?"
- are due to be published later this year. 

The work on baptism follows a similar track. Comments on a draft text from
churches, commissions and scholars continue to be received, and discussions
on it held with theologians and liturgists. While plans are underway for
further development of the text, the key issue discussed here is what would
be the meaning of "mutual recognition" and how this could be implemented more
fully in local contexts around the world. 

A collection of baptismal services - with explanatory articles - from
different Christian traditions is being prepared. Once available to the
churches, it will contribute to an ecumenical understanding and reflection on
baptism, with the goals of promoting its mutual recognition and clarifying
reasons for non-recognition. 

A theological reflection on peace is also underway. In this context, and
related to the WCC Decade to Overcome Violence, a workshop gathered recently
biblical scholars and theologians from Africa. Their experiential reflections
on the meaning of healing and reconciliation from specific contexts of
violence will soon be published. This process of reflection is also linked to
a study process on Ethnic identity, national identity and the search for
unity. 

"All these studies aim to examine, in different ways, the function of
religion in society, its influence on the search for the unity of the Church
and its role in the renewal of human community", Yemba stated in his report.
(A detailed overview of all these initiatives can be seen at:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/faith/goal-e.html ) 

Towards the ninth WCC Assembly 

The Standing Commission meeting also paid attention to other work that the
Faith and Order commission is undertaking in preparation for the ninth WCC
Assembly to be held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, from 14-23 February 2006. The
commission has been entrusted by the WCC Central Committee with the
development of two statements - one of them on the Church, the other on
religious plurality. 

The first one is expected to be a succinct statement, able "to be an answer
to the higher expectation of churches in these times of conflicts and
despair", in Yemba's words. In the tradition of WCC assembly statements on
unity and the churches, it would focus on the Church - local and universal,
one and diverse. 

A drafting group will meet for the first time next March. It is anticipated
the group would include not only members of the Faith and Order commission,
but also representatives from the Steering Committee of the Special
Commission on Orthodox Participation in the WCC and from the Joint Working
Group between WCC and the Roman Catholic Church. 

The statement on religious plurality will be also the result of a
collaborative effort. In this case representatives of the Commission on World
Mission and Evangelism and the WCC programme of Inter-Religious Relations and
Dialogue will join with Faith and Order. The purpose of this process will be
to answer the question of how far WCC member churches can go beyond - if at
all - the position on the relation between dialogue and mission established
at conferences and consultations held at the beginning of the nineties. 

During the meeting of the Faith and Order officers that followed the Standing
Commission meeting, discussions were started on when would be an appropriate
time for the next World Conference on Faith and Order. The last one took
place in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, in 1993, and the period between world
conferences has traditionally been a decade or a decade and a half. There is
an agreement among the officers that the decision about the next one will be
entrusted to the next Standing Commission when it meets after the ninth WCC
Assembly. 

Meeting last week in the city of Martin Bucer who offered hospitality to John
Calvin, the members of the Standing Commission were welcomed by the president
of the Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, Marc
Lienhard, and enjoyed the hospitality of the Institute for Ecumenical
Research of Strasbourg and the St-Thomas Cultural Centre. 

For further information, please contact the Media Relations Office, tel: +41
(0)22 791 64 21 / 61 53 

********** 

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, 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, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany. 

World Council of Churches 
Media Relations Office 
Tel: (41 22) 791 6153 / 791 6421 
Fax: (41 22) 798 1346 
E-mail: media@wcc-coe.org 
Web: www.wcc-coe.org 

PO Box 2100 
1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland