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Over decades, Methodists make significant contributions to WCC

Jan. 24, 2006

NOTE: A photograph, audio and related stories are available at
http://umns.umc.org.

A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*

Methodist contributions to the World Council of Churches have been
significant over the decades since its birth.

Betty Thompson, who participated in five WCC assemblies - beginning with
New Delhi in 1961 and ending with Canberra, Australia, in 1991 - knew
and worked with some of those contributors and was herself a firm
supporter of ecumenism.

A retired executive of the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries,
she also was a communicator for the WCC from 1955-1956 in Geneva and
1956-64 in New York.

In the beginning, she said, there was John R. Mott, a Methodist layman
whom she described as "a visionary" and "a key figure" in the council's
creation.

Mott already had organized the World Student Christian Federation, led
the International YMCA and presided over the 1910 Edinburgh Missionary
Conference that launched the ecumenical movement. He was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1946.

The 1948 assembly, in Amsterdam, where the WCC was formed, convened
during a period of great hope and expectation for international bodies,
Thompson said. Participants from 147 churches in 44 countries
represented all Christian confessional families except for the Roman
Catholic Church. Mott was named the WCC's honorary president at that
gathering.

Half of the council's chief executives over the years - Philip Potter of
the West Indies, from 1972-84; Emilio Castro of Uruguay, from 1985-92;
and Samuel Kobia of Kenya, the current leader since January 2004 - have
been Methodist.

Methodist Bishop G. Bromley Oxnam served as the council's first
president from 1948-54. Other U.S. United Methodists serving as WCC
regional presidents included Charles C. Parlin, 1961-68, and the Rev.
Kathryn Bannister, who was elected at the 1998 assembly in Harare,
Zimbabwe.

Others from the Methodist tradition who were elected to be a president
included Dame Nita Barrow, former governor-general of Barbados, 1983-91;
Sarah Chacko of India, who made a report on women and the church at the
Amsterdam assembly, 1951 (she died in 1954); D.T. Niles, who also was
president of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka and the Christian
Conference of Asia, 1968-75; Sante Uberto Barbieri of Argentina,
1954-61; and Bishop Vinton R. Anderson, African Methodist Episcopal
Church, 1991-98.

More recent United Methodist ecumenical leaders involved with the WCC
have included Bishop James K Mathews, Bishop Melvin Talbert, the Rev.
Bruce Robbins and Jan Love.

"It's significant, I think, that Methodism has been a supplier of
leadership," Thompson said.

In a January 2004 interview with Ecumenical News International, Kobia,
who now leads the council, spoke about why Methodists have been such
prominent ecumenical leaders.

"I think Methodism combines two very important qualities, that of
spirituality and the concern for social justice, and this is a Methodist
tradition right from its origins," he told ENI. "John Wesley once
referred to social holiness, and this shows Methodist commitment to
social justice and this is part of ecumenism.

"When I think of the ecumenical movement at all levels, and when I think
of places where churches are united or uniting, Methodists are at the
forefront," Kobia said.

Ecumenical leaders from other denominations also have emerged through
the WCC. Thompson's seatmate at the 1965 assembly in Nairobi, Kenya - by
accident of the alphabet - was Desmond Tutu. They were both WCC staff
members at the time.

By the time of the 1983 assembly in Vancouver, Archbishop Tutu had
become a great ecumenical figure, one that Thompson was proud to know.
At her invitation, he was a keynote speaker at the first Global
Gathering of the Board of Global Ministries in 1987.

In recent years, the ecumenical movement has lost some of its luster, in
Thompson's opinion. "The mainline churches themselves have lost members,
money and prestige," she explained. "The ecumenical bodies have suffered
accordingly."

WCC membership - which numbers 347 churches in more than 120 countries -
also has shifted to include more churches from non-Western countries
that cannot contribute as much financially. And the belief, in 1948,
that "theologically, disunity was a scandal," seems to have faded, she
added.

"It turns out, that in some ways, the ecumenical movement was a luxury,
not a necessity," she said.

Thompson also attributes part of the ecumenical decline to a lack of
interpretation from church leaders to local congregations. "The churches
never translated the enthusiasm of the assemblies to the local
churches," she said.

The exception for the United Methodist Church has been the work of the
Women's Division, which has made "very effective" contributions to
ecumenical education, she explained.

Two previous leaders of the Women's Division - Dorothy McConnell and
Theressa Hoover - were "prominent and outspoken in their support of
ecumenism." Jan Love, the division's current chief executive, has been
involved with the WCC since she was a young adult. Under her leadership,
the division remains a place "of enthusiasm and support for the
ecumenical ideal," Thompson said.

Thompson has not lost faith in the ecumenical movement, and she believes
one of its most significant achievements has been the improvement of
relations between Roman Catholics and other Christians. "The hostility
and disregard that used to exist doesn't exist in the local communities
anymore," she explained.

She said the fact that the 2006 assembly is occurring at a Roman
Catholic university in Brazil, with an emphasis on Latin American
churches and on youth is "all good."

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

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