wfn.org | WCC FEATURE: Evanston Assembly after 50 years

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World Council of Churches - Feature
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For immediate release - 14/09/2004

 EVANSTON AFTER FIFTY YEARS

			  By Norman A. Hjelm (*)

					    Free photo available, see below

It is fully half a century since the second assembly of the World Council
of Churches was held in Evanston, Illinois.  To date, this is the only WCC
assembly to have been held in the United States.  Incumbent US president
Dwight D. Eisenhower welcomed the delegates and, speaking as "a single
member of one of the constituent bodies of this council of churches",
challenged them to mobilize their communions for "an intense act of faith"
that would summon Christians everywhere to "the devotion, wisdom and
stamina to work unceasingly for a just and lasting peace".

Over the course of fifty years, experiences fade and even memories are
blurred.  So it is with the Evanston assembly, held in August 1954.  At
least so it is to this person, now a retiree but then a youth delegate.
But two personal experiences, never to be recorded in official annals of
the assembly, stand out.  Both were striking to me in 1954, and both
reflected major concerns facing the World Council of Churches at the time.

The first memory I have was of a service of worship which brought together
youth from many parts of the world.  It was held in one of the Evanston
parish churches, attended by several hundred persons.  What I remember most
clearly was how startled - if not offended - the German participants were
at the choice of the opening hymn for the service.  The hymn, sung from an
American Lutheran hymnal, was "Glorious things of thee are spoken".  The
words were fine, by John Newton, but it was the melody! It had been written
in 1791 by Franz Joseph Haydn: "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser".  Not only
was this melody subsequently used by Haydn in a string quartet, it later
became the German national anthem, as it continued to be at the time of
World War II, with the all too memorable opening line "Deutschland,
Deutschland, |ber alles".  To sing this melody seemed blasphemous to German
participants.  After all, the Evanston assembly was held only nine years
after that war's end, and the wounds were not yet healed.

The fact that this was only the second post-war assembly was marked
throughout the event.  The assembly's theme itself, Christ - the hope of
the world, set off theological fireworks not unrelated to the experiences
of war.  Europeans tended to view this theme in apocalyptic terms, a view
dominated by the world's apparent hopelessness as demonstrated through the
war.  North Americans, on the other hand, tended to view Christian hope
progressively, hailing present efforts towards building the kingdom of God
in the midst of human society.	The major addresses by Edmund Schlink of
Heidelberg and Robert Calhoun of Yale stood in stark contrast to each
other.	In many ways this division now seems passi, to some at least, but
in the development of many churches and individuals (myself included) these
"sharp differences in theological viewpoint", as an Evanston report put it,
were and remain important.

The second memory I have is a private one.  The Evanston assembly was held
in the United States of Dwight Eisenhower, but the ascendancy of Senator
Joseph McCarthy was soon to achieve its zenith.  There was a hesitancy on
the part of the American government to grant visas to many, particularly
persons from Eastern Europe who might have presented what is now called "a
security risk".  Nevertheless, certain Eastern European church leaders were
allowed to participate in the assembly, although most often they were not
allowed to leave the quiet university town of Evanston.  Someone asked me -
I can't believe it was any kind of official request - to spend time with
and keep my eye on Laszls Dezsiry, a Lutheran bishop from Hungary who, we
later learned through bitter church experience, probably had a greater
allegiance to his government than his church.  This was a daunting
assignment for a twenty-three-year-old seminary student.  The bishop was
allowed to go with me to the assembly service at Soldiers' Field in
Chicago, a service attended by more than 100,000 persons.  We marched
together in the procession when suddenly we were each pointed in a
different direction - and ended up on opposite sides of the enormous
football stadium.  I thought I was part of an international incident*

Thus was it first demonstrated to me that not only were governments on
opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, but churches themselves were separated
from one another on political and ideological grounds.	The World Council
was just feeling its way out of the climate created by World War II, and
feeling its way into a new situation - East / West - that was to last for
another thirty-five years.  At Evanston, perhaps, we did not know quite
what we were getting into.

The assembly, of course, was a major step forward for the WCC.	It has
often been said that if the motto of the first assembly at Amsterdam in
1948 was "staying together", the watchword at Evanston was "growing
together".  In fact, in reaffirming the Amsterdam covenant, the Evanston
assembly stated: "But beyond that, as the Holy Spirit may guide us, we
intend to unite."

There were seeds planted at Evanston in a host of fields, among them:

      A theological statement concerning the assembly theme was received
   from the Roman Catholic Church.  It came too late to be acted on, but it
   was a    harbinger of what would become normal ecumenical practice after
   Vatican II.
      Debate over the assembly theme included a reference to Christ as
   being "the hope of Israel".	This phrase produced a jarring conflict and
   was dropped f  rom consideration.  This was not a high point of
   interfaith dialogue.
      The Amsterdam view of a "responsible society" was clarified and
   sharpened at Evanston, a crucial step - now of primarily historical
   interest - in the	      development of ecumenical social thought.
      The report of the assembly section on "The churches amid racial and
   ethnic tensions" resulted in the establishment of a WCC department for
   racial and	  ethnic relations.  That department, in turn, paved the
   way for the later creation of the Programme to Combat Racism.
      There was serious discussion of religious liberty in international
   perspective that led to the establishment in 1958 of a WCC secretariat
   for such		questions.

One other event at Evanston made an indelible impression on this youth
delegate.  It was the address "An instrument of faith", given on 20 August,
1954 by Dag Hammarskjvld, secretary-general of the United Nations.  Rarely
would the World Council of Churches receive so moving and important a
statement from one of the century's towering statesmen.  His address became
for many, including myself, a precursor to his posthumously published
Markings, one of the few truly great spiritual classics of the 20th
century.  The final words of his Evanston address epitomize for me the
entire assembly (I quote from the report on the main theme of this
assembly).

"For the Christian faith 'the Cross is that place at the centre of the
world's history * where all men and all nations without exception stand
revealed as enemies of God * and yet where all men stand revealed as
beloved of God, precious in God's sight'.  So understood, the Cross,
although it is the unique fact on which the Christian Churches base their
hope, should not separate those of Christian faith from others but should
instead be that element in their lives which enables them to stretch out
their hands to peoples of other creeds in the feeling of universal
brotherhood which we hope one day to see reflected in a world of nations
truly united."

Today the World Council of Churches looks forward to convening at Porto
Alegre in February 2006. Its tenth assembly will be held in a different
climate, a different culture, a different continent.  But though times and
seasons may have changed during the fifty years since the second assembly
at Evanston, the challenge before us endures.  Even more enduring is Christ
- our hope - who continues to assure us of God's gracious will for the
transformation of the world.  [1352 words]

- - -

(*) Norman A. Hjelm is a a former director of communication and
subsequently acting deputy general secretary of the Lutheran World
Federation.  He attended the WCC assembly in Evanston as a youth delegate.

A photo from the Evangston assembly is available on our website:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/ecumenical/evanston.html 

Opinions expressed in WCC Features do not necessarily reflect WCC policy.
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 The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
 more than 120 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 Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.