Editorial.

Gill, Theodore A., Jr.

The typography and vocabulary may look dated in places, but anyone who reads historical theology refines the necessary mental adjustment. Despite differences in language, the content is as relevant as our most recent observations and reflections. Consider anew this passage at the heart of the 1948 "Amsterdam Message" from the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches:

   ... We are divided from one another not only
   in matters of faith, order and tradition, but
   also by pride of nation, class and race* But
   Christ has made us His own, and He is not
   divided. In seeking Him, we find one another.
   Here at Amsterdam we have committed ourselves
   afresh to Him, and have covenanted
   with one another in constituting this World
   Council of Churches. We intend to stay
   together. We call upon Christian congregations
   everywhere to endorse and fulfil this
   covenant in their relations one with another.
   In thankfulness to God, we commit the future
   to Him.

   When we look to Christ, we see the world as it
   is--His world, to which he came and for
   which He died. It is filled both with great
   hopes and also with disillusionment and
   despair. Some nations are rejoicing in new
   freedom and peace, some are bitter because
   freedom is denied them, some are paralyzed
   by division, and everywhere there is an undertone
   of fear. There are millions who are
   hungry, millions who have no home, no
   country and no hope. Over all mankind there
   hangs the peril of total war. We have to accept
   God's judgment upon us for our share in the
   world's guilt. Often we have tried to serve
   God and mammon, put other loyalties before
   loyalty to Christ, confused the Gospel with
   our own economic or national or racial interests,
   and feared war more than we have hated
   it. As we have talked with one another here,
   we have begun to understand how our separation
   has prevented us from receiving correction
   from one another in Christ. And
   because we lacked this correction, the world
   has often heard from us not the Word of God
   but the words of men.

   But there is a word of God for our world. It is
   that the world is in the hands of the living
   God, Whose will for it is wholly good; that in
   Christ Jesus, His incarnate Word, Who lived
   and died and rose from the dead, God has
   broken the power of evil once for all, and
   opened for everyone the gate into freedom
   and joy in the Holy Spirit; that the final judgment
   on all human history and every human
   deed is the judgment of the merciful Christ;
   and that the end of history will be the
   triumph of His Kingdom, where alone we
   shall understand how much God has loved
   the world. This is God's unchanging word to
   the world. Millions of our fellow men have
   never heard it. As we are met here from many
   lands, we pray God to stir up His whole
   Church to make this Gospel known to the
   whole world ...

One wonders why it has been thought necessary to write additional Messages for successive ecumenical assemblies and other convocations. The thought behind the First Assembly's Message applies as directly and speaks as urgently to the world's condition following Busan 2013 as ever it did to the circumstances surrounding Amsterdam 1948, Evanston 1954, New Delhi 1961, Uppsala 1968, Nairobi 1975, Vancouver 1983, Canberra 1991, Harare 1998 or Porto Megre 2006.

Reporting on the 10th Assembly

Practical considerations persuade participants in each new WCC gathering to send up-to-date "messages", attempting to address the whole world by stirring up the churches, by encouraging "Christian congregations everywhere to endorse and fulfil" those recommendations adopted by their representatives on the global level.

As has always happened after a WCC assembly, an official report is in process of preparation. The major documents of the 10th Assembly will be published with an interpretive introduction by the general editor, Dr Erlinda Senturias of the Philippines. This report should be available in print from WCC Publications by mid-2014.

Meanwhile, many texts associated with Busan are to be found on the Internet on websites of the World Council of Churches (http://www.oikoumene.org) and the 10th Assembly (http://wcc2013.info/en). A list of computer links to files containing Busan-related books and booklets, speeches, sermons and greetings to the 10th Assembly are to be found at this address:

http://wcc2013.info/en/resources

Among the publications available on the assembly's website are: Hallelujah, the resource book for services of common prayer; The Church, a study document supporting the search for consensus on questions of ecclesiology; Together Towards Life, or "TTL", a reaffirmation of mission and evangelism as a task of churches engaged in the ecumenical movement; and an assortment of reports and WCC statements on unity, the economy, inter-religious cooperation and a number of public issues on which the assembly spoke.

Starting Another Chapter

It has been said that the most significant single set of decisions made by a WCC assembly consists in the election of a new central committee for the seven-year period until the following assembly. Regional and confessional presidents, forming the WCC presidium, also are chosen. At Busan, for the first time, four men and four women were elected as the WCC presidents.

After an assembly closes, the central committee convenes to elect its moderator, two vice moderators and the 20-member executive committee that will meet every six months to review the council's work.

Dr Agnes Abuom of the Anglican Church of Kenya is both the first woman moderator, and the first moderator from Africa. Metropolitan Gennadios of Sassima, of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, was re-elected as vice-moderator, in which position he is joined by Bishop Mary Ann Swenson of the United Methodist Church, from the USA. Together with WCC general secretary Olav Fykse Tveit, they make up the four WCC "officers".

For a full list of the newly elected central committee, see: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/about-us/organizafional-structure/central-committee/NC032FINALMembersoftheCentralCommitteeasElectedbythe10thAssembly.pdf

And, for the list of WCC presidents, see: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/about-us/organizational-structure/presidents-officers The WCC leadership is researching and discussing the conversations and decisions of Busan. It is through this process that plans will be made for the years ahead.

A Busan Sampler

This issue of The Ecumenical Review represents a sampling of documents that will appear in the full report of the 10th Assembly. To use a term beloved of publishers and chocolate-sellers alike, it is a "sampler" offering a variety of delicacies intended to satisfy without satiating the consumer. (This is not necessarily to imply that satiation will come with the official report.)

The content of this issue is by no means exhaustive but is intended to provide insights into assembly-goers' attitudes toward the churches' progress toward unity, toward a common understanding of the church, toward openness to common mission and evangelism, toward an understanding of those many elements that make for peace with justice. Ecumenical Review, as ever, provides a space where diverse voices may be raised, and heard.

As our regular readers know, the theme of the 10th Assembly has been: "God of life, lead us to justice and peace." This prayer that God may lead and guide us promoted the concept of pilgrimage during the assembly, and in our journeying after Busan. It is in the spirit of pilgrimage that the Message of this latest assembly concludes:

We intend to move together. Challenged by our experiences in Busan, we challenge all people of good will to engage their God-given gifts in transforming actions.

This Assembly calls you to join us in pilgrimage.

May the churches be communities of healing and compassion, and may we seed the Good News so that justice will grow and God's deep peace rest on the world.

DOI:10.1111/erev.12059

Editor

Theodore A. GILL, Jr.