A survey of the discussion in the WCC.

VanElderen, Marlin

During the eighth assembly of the World Council of Churches in September 1998, delegates representing all the WCC's member churches will be asked to approve a major policy document setting forth a shared understanding of and vision for ecumenical engagement. The hope is that this text, building on the experiences and lessons of fifty years of life together in the WCC, will serve as a point of reference and charter for renewed ecumenical commitment in the years ahead.

For several reasons the eighth assembly will be a fitting moment for such a step. Not only will the WCC be commemorating the 50th anniversary of its founding at the Amsterdam assembly in 1948, but the Harare gathering will also come at a time when the approach of a new millennium is focusing the attention of people everywhere on the future. Quite apart from the fact that the turn of the century and the millennium reflects their way of numbering years and centuries, Christians can identify a specific symbolic importance in the year 2000. For if it closes the century in which the modem ecumenical movement was born (once optimistically imagined to be "the Christian century"), it also comes at the end of a millennium in which the history of the Christian church has been decisively determined by two deep and lasting divisions: that between East and West, culminating in the mutual excommunications between Rome and Constantinople in 1054, and that within the Western church, beginning with the series of upheavals in the 16th century and continuing in the repeated divisions among Protestant churches.

In November 1996, after an intensive process of consultation, a working draft for a statement "Towards a Common Understanding and Vision of the World Council of Churches" (published in this issue of The Ecumenical Review, pp. 13-33) was sent to the member churches of the Council and to a range of ecumenical partners, asking for reactions and responses to be sent to Geneva by the end of June 1997. On that basis, the text will be revised for discussion by the WCC central committee in September 1997 and then sent to the churches in preparation for Harare. In its present form the document has not been adopted by any WCC governing body, though the first four chapters were the subject of three ninety-minute plenary sessions during the September 1996 meeting of the central committee. The current version of the text reflects that discussion, and as such was approved to be sent to churches and ecumenical partners as a working draft.

The process of study and consultation towards a statement on common understanding and vision which has predictably come to be known in WCC circles by its initials "CUV") was launched in 1989. The decision to focus it on the adoption of a new "ecumenical charter" at the eighth assembly was made by the WCC executive committee in September 1994. Since that time, however, the discussion has been given a new urgency by the extremely serious financial difficulties in which the WCC finds itself (detailed in the report to the central committee by general secretary Konrad Raiser: cf. pp.85-93 in this issue of The Ecumenical Review).

Why a process on CUV?

The kinds of questions posed by the effort to articulate a common understanding and vision of the World Council of Churches are not unfamiliar. What the WCC is and what it should do are old and persistent issues, which have been raised time and again since 1938 when representatives of the Faith and Order and Life and Work movements met in Utrecht to hammer out a constitution for what eventually became the World Council of Churches. An early -- and still perhaps the best-known -- effort to answer them was the statement by the central committee meeting in Toronto in 1950 (cited in paragraph 1.13 of the CUV document); other examples are referred to elsewhere in the text. Ongoing discussions within the Faith and Order commission of "the unity we seek" have reflected this same concern.

Some might be inclined to think that continuous reflection on its own identity is more likely to be sign of institutional malaise than health (why doesn't the WCC just "get on with the job"?), but several "non-theological" factors inevitably keep this matter of its own self-understanding on the Council's agenda. -- As a voluntary membership organization the WCC must repeatedly ask itself whether it is meeting the needs and expectations of its members. However, these members are not individuals (whose opinions might rather easily be canvassed) but churches. themselves "membership organizations" of widely different types and coming from vastly diverse contexts. Determining how closely the WCC as an organization matches what its members are looking for is thus a complicated exercise. -- The WCC grew out of a movement whose fundamental insight was that the disunity of the church is a scandal calling for renewal and change. This orientation towards change implies a continuing evolution in the churches' understanding of their ecumenical calling and what it requires -- and thus also of the WCC as an instrument of the ecumenical movement. -- The WCC is an organization with a constitution that sets out certain "functions and purposes". It is meant not just to be, but to do things: its members work together on a "common calling". As representatives of a growing number and diversity of churches from around the world have met in the WCC and listened to each other, their being together has created a sense of solidarity in which the dimensions of that common calling have inevitably expanded. "Responsiveness" is thus a highly valued characteristic of the WCC. But an unintended consequence of this worthy impulse to respond again and again to new challenges is institutional growth which has often been uncoordinated, resulting in fragmentation and duplication of work and sometimes superficiality and internal contradictions. -- The WCC is an international organization and, no matter how often platitudes about the importance of the "grassroots" are repeated, it is inevitably a long way from the everyday concerns of the local parishes and congregations which are the building blocks of its member churches. And because the WCC over the years has not shrunk from posing challenges from the perspective of a global body to the local realities of its own members, it consistently runs the risk of being misunderstood, opposed and, more and more, ignored.

Besides these chronic reasons for self-examination, several specific factors brought the issue of a "common understanding and vision of the WCC" to the fore in the late 1980s. The context was the discussion of a programmatic reorganization or restructuring of the Council (finally approved in September 1991). That reorganization was itself spurred by a recognition that the member churches were finding it more and more difficult to cope with (or even keep track of) the complex and often clumsy organization the WCC had become; and were increasingly reluctant or unable to fund it at the same level as previously. But behind the call by the central committee in Moscow lay also a growing consciousness of three specific ways in which the context of the WCC had changed markedly since 1948:

-- Changes in the world situation. The cold war. whose decisive effect on the life of the WCC was prefigured by the clash in Amsterdam between US Presbyterian (and later secretary of state) John Foster Dulles and the Czech Protestant theologian Josef Hromadka, was not yet over in July 1989:. indeed, the most heated debate at the Moscow meeting was about what the WCC ought or ought not to say publicly about the policies of Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu. But the days when the "East-West" divide and the "balance of terror" seemed to overwhelm every other international reality were evidently numbered; and it was already becoming clear that this would mean not only major changes in the life of WCC member churches in what were still "communist countries" but also completely new challenges for the WCC. -- Changes in the situation of Christianity in the world. According to a familiar metaphor, a shift had taken place since the founding of the WCC in the "centre of gravity" of Christianity -- from the North to the South. As the CUV document notes (para. 1.3.2). nearly two-thirds of the churches that founded the WCC were European and North American; today nearly two-thirds of the member churches come from "the South". However, much of the numerical growth of Christianity over the past fifty years has come in churches which have not typically been part of international or even national ecumenical organizations: evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches (especially in Latin America) and independent churches (especially in Africa). Awareness that the member churches of the WCC might soon include only a minority of the world's non-roman Catholic Christians was clearly a new reality, not part of the original self-understanding of those who founded the WCC. who tended to see themselves as "mainline churches". -- Changes in the ecumenical landscape. Since the founding of the WCC, the number of ecumenical organizations at all levels has mushroomed. Many if not most member churches of the WCC belong also to several other ecumenical bodies, creating a number of competing claims on their attention, resources and loyalties. Yet at the same time, there has been a perceptible reduction of ecumenical elan, certainly at the international level. What was once hailed as the "great new fact" of 20th-century church history seems to excite fewer and fewer people. At best, ecumenism is taken for granted. This is true not only of the typical "person-in-the-pew"; it is apparent in most churches that a whole generation of leadership has been formed with little awareness of what the ecumenical movement has accomplished and what remains to be done. While this may have the wholesome consequence of laying to rest certain fruitless old polemics, it does mean that the usefulness of the WCC and organizations like it needs to be re-argued in a convincing fashion.

An overview of the CUV draft text

Each of the three terms in the phrase "common understanding and vision" of the WCC, coined by the WCC central committee at its meeting in Moscow in 1989, is important.

The quest for understanding is necessary because the ecumenical movement and the WCC have called the churches to new forms of relationships and engagements beyond the horizons of their own life. Since every church enters into these new relationships on the basis of its own self-understanding, its own context and its own perspectives, what this means for each church and for the churches together needs to be explained. It is not something self-evident. By drawing on ecumenical texts from the past and by seeking to discern the contemporary and future challenges that face the churches, the main part of the CUV document, especially chapters 1-4, seeks to articulate such an understanding.

The search for vision is a reminder that the ecumenical movement and the WCC grew out of a deep commitment to change the reality of division and estrangement within the church. The dedication of the ecumenical pioneers to making visible the unity of the church was accompanied by a renewed appreciation for the fact that this unity is a gift of God and that disunity is contrary to God's will. Therefore, the concern for the future of the WCC and the ecumenical movement arises not from a mere interest in organizational efficiency but out of profound spiritual convictions regarding the church of Jesus Christ and its mission in the world. The "preamble" to the present document seeks to bring together some of the elements of vision, hope and commitment that undergird the document as a whole.

The effort to express a vision and an understanding that are common -- to put into words what the churches understand together about how they ought to fulfill their ecumenical commitment -- means that this text does not and cannot give full expression to the diverse hopes and dreams of many Christians. But this limitation can also be understood as the very essence of its being an ecumenical document: its quest is an inclusive one -- for what can be affirmed together - rather than an exclusive one which draws lines to mark who is in and who is out. This common understanding and vision is not a "lowest common denominator", for it is rooted in something given by God -- the unity of the church. Nor is it a static reality, for the ecumenical movement is a movement in which those who take part grow and change together.

The document develops the expression of a common understanding which is anchored in a common vision in seven chapters. Chapter I explains why the WCC is engaged in this exercise at this time. Chapter 2 then goes on to explore the meaning of the ecumenical movement, for the WCC cannot be understood apart from an understanding of this 20th-century movement in church history, out of which it grew and of which it is one -- but not the only -- expression and instrument.

Against this background, chapter 3 looks in greater detail at how the WCC understands itself. It takes as its focus the central way in which the WCC is described in its constitutional basis -- as a "fellowship of churches". While this fundamental self-understanding has remained the same since the WCC's founding in 1948, the specification of the WCC's functions which this implies has evolved over the years. The last several paragraphs of chapter 3 suggest that the time is ripe to formulate these in a new way in order to make more specific the WCC's unique role as worldwide fellowship of churches open to all Christian traditions.

The innovation in this listing of functions and purposes (para.- 3.15) is reflected in its two-part structure: there are, in effect, two lists of different kinds of functions.

* A first list explores what the churches do through the Council "in seeking the goal Of visible unity", which is identified as "the primary purpose of the WCC". This list is similar to the present one (cited in para. 3.13), but there are three important differences:

1. The goal of visible unity, listed previously as the first of seven functions, is now presented as "the primary purpose", the distinctive raison d'etre of the Council. Several other functions, are then listed as ways in which the churches pursue this primary purpose through the WCC.

2. This list is preceded by saying that these are things that the churches will do through the Council, underscoring the primary understanding that the WCC is not an organization that does things separately from the churches but is precisely a fellowship of churches.

3. Some functions not mentioned explicitly in the present formulation are added: the promotion of theological dialogue, mutual forgiveness and reconciliation, mutual challenge and accountability and mutual sharing; the upholding of the integrity of creation; the need to promote ecumenical learning; the need for mutual assistance in relations with people of other faiths. None of these is a new item on the agenda of the WCC: but this new formulation of the functions recognizes these as facets of the ecumenical relations of the churches which have taken on a higher profile in the past 25 years.

* A second list of functions then explores what the Council does to "strengthen the one ecumenical movement" which the churches have constituted it to serve. In enumerating these functions the text goes beyond the formulation of the sixth item of the present list, which is focused on institutions and organizations. in addition to establishing and maintaining relations" with organized ecumenical bodies, the text also speaks of supporting ecumenical initiatives at all levels (since so much of the richness of ecumenism does not come from formal organizations), helping to create networks among ecumenical organizations (for the exchange of experiences and insights) and maintaining the coherence of the many different manifestations of the ecumenical movement (thus responding to the uniqueness of the WCC as a forum of churches which is both global and open to churches of all Christian traditions).

Having suggested a new articulation of the understanding of the WCC itself, the document then returns in chapter 4 to the specific relationship between the WCC and various partners within the one ecumenical movement.

The second part of the document, comprising chapters 5 to 7, asks what the understanding set forth in the earlier chapters would imply for the structure of the WCC itself. The focus here is not so much on the internal organization of the Council as on its governing structures, the bodies and means by which the members of this "fellowship of churches" participate in setting the directions and priorities for the work of the Council. The ideas in chapters 5 and 6 are phrased as tentative starting points for further discussion. Putting them into effect would require changes to the WCC Constitution.

The concluding "postscript", in chapter 7, suggests that in seeking to fulfill their ecumenical calling in the 21st century, the churches might recover the ancient understanding of their relationship to one another as one of "conciliarity" -- a way of relating which was expressed in the undivided church of the early centuries through authoritative "ecumenical councils".

Issues arising in the discussion so far

As noted above, an earlier version of chapters 1-4 was discussed extensively at the central committee meeting in September. That text was itself a revision of a previous draft written following a December 1995 consultation to which the WCC general secretary invited some 35 women and men from churches around the world. Prior to that, a series of discussions in meetings of WCC governing and advisory bodies, as well as a study guide distributed in 1993 to member churches and ecumenical partners. had elicited a wide range of insights and comments regarding how the WCC is perceived and what is expected of it.

Chapters 5-7 of the present text were prepared by a small consultation in October 1996 on the basis of remarks made by central committee members about the structural implications of chapters 1-4. Prior to being sent to the churches it was reviewed by the officers of the WCC and a ten-member subgroup of the executive committee. but it clearly does not reflect the same extensive level of consultation as the earlier chapters. The preamble, prepared by a group of WCC staff, represents an initial attempt to draw together "visionary" elements from the remainder of the document into a short statement of commitment which captures the direction and intent of these chapters without the detail that is necessary in a policy document.

Thus while it is obviously premature to talk about the "reception" of the CUV document among WCC member churches and ecumenical partners, it is possible, as the process gains momentum, to begin to identify some of the key issues surfacing in this discussion. In general terms, these initial responses may be divided into two broad types: (1) those which point to limitations built into the exercise of seeking to articulate a common understanding of the WCC; (2) those which identify specific areas in which there is no clear consensus among those committed to the ecumenical movement.

1. Limitations of the exercise

Some reactions to the document -- usually, it should be noted, taking the form of expressions of unease rather than outright critique -- seem to raise questions about the viability of trying to rekindle ecumenical enthusiasm and commitment by a process of listening to the churches and ecumenical partners as widely and carefully as possible and then drafting, redrafting, revising and re-revising a document, checking at each step along the way with as many respondents as possible, so that when the text is finally presented for adoption there will be no surprises. -- Inevitably. given the subject matter of the CUV document -- and the history of fifty and more years of reflecting about it -- the text strikes some as abstract and detached. Where, they ask, is the passion, the drama and struggle of daily life? How can one talk about something so vital and important and profound as the quest for the unity of the church of Jesus Christ in such cool and detached terms? -- A corollary of this perception of abstractness is the concern that only a certain segment of the fellowship of churches will respond to the process and the document. This point of this critique was already apparent from the responses to the 1993 study guide. The relatively few responses that came were overwhelmingly from churches of the North, especially larger churches and those with specific offices for ecumenical affairs. Many explanations have been advanced for this phenomenon: churches in the South come out of an oral tradition and find the tradition of document-production dominant in the North strange or alienating; churches in the South have more pressing concerns than replying to questions about the WCC or its identity; WCC texts are always in English or some other European language, making it difficult for many churches outside of Europe to respond; the WCC is always unrealistic about deadlines. expecting responses far more quickly than churches with limited resources can manage. -- It should be added that while the concern that the document has limited appeal focuses on the (absence of) responses from the churches of the South, it does not arise exclusively in that context: there are also churches and ecumenical partners in the North who have not easily found their point of entry into the CUV process. In addition, some have suggested that the particular form of abstraction represented in the CUV document is a largely masculine or a largely Protestant way of looking at the issues. not in itself invalid, but not to be taken as universal. -- At the same time. others have suggested that the document is in fact not analytical enough. In particular, they point out that it uses certain key terms (especially church", "ecumenical" and "unity") without providing a proper definition of them. The question here is to what extent it is reasonable to imagine that the CUV document might resolve disputes that have persisted through fifty years of ecumenical history (and go back far beyond that). -- A broader limitation of the document is that it cannot of course say everything that is true or even important about the WCC and the ecumenical movement. But this justification for the absence of certain affirmations is likely to be more appealing to those who discover that the text does include what they think to be important than it is to those who do not find their particular issue in it -- especially in a context in which it is evident that the determination of future priorities of the WCC may be at stake. -- Moreover, there are limitations arising from the way the present draft construes its own subject matter. For example, it became clear when the earliest draft of the text was circulated that there were two quite different understandings of the term "vision". Some people thought of "common vision" as: referring to the overarching spiritual dynamism which keeps the ecumenical movement going, the source of the hope that is in us. Others understood the vision of the WCC for the 21 st century to mean rather more concretely "what the WCC will look like in the year 2000". This latter question has now been taken up in terms of what chapter 6 of the draft calls the "institutional implications" of a common understanding of the WCC. As noted earlier, that chapter focuses on the governing structures established by the WCC constitution, rather than on the organization of the day-to-day work undertaken from the WCC offices in Geneva. The latter question, given urgency by the financial situation of the Council, is now the concern of a separate process being undertaken by the general secretary and the executive committee, which aims to arrive at a viable new pattern of internal organization -- involving a staff which will have to be considerably smaller than the present -- ready to be operational in the months immediately after the eighth assembly. -- The most important limitation, of course, is that a document is finally only words. The maximum this document can achieve by itself is to offer a summary of understandings and convictions which can serve as a point of reference for further decisions and actions. If a revised version of it is accepted and endorsed and publicly received in Harare, it could be said in one sense that the "Common Understanding and Vision" process will have come to a successful conclusion. In an important sense, however, the process will only have begun: making real the life together to which this document points will require further actions and decisions in the years ahead.

2. What in the world is the WCC?

In addition to general reservations of this type, a number of substantive differences brought to light by the text have emerged in discussions so far: -- The renewed emphasis on the primary identity of the WCC as a "fellowship of churches" (cf. para. 3.4.2) raises old and unresolved questions about the "ecclesial nature" of the WCC (which is hinted at though not mentioned explicitly in para. 3.3). Perhaps more significant than this ecclesiological conundrum is the emphasis given to the "mutual accountability" of the churches within the WCC, which the document (para. 3.5) derives from the Toronto statement. Clearly this is a concept which needs considerable unpacking. -- Some people have expressed concern that (to put it in terms of the ecumenical streams which flowed into the WCC) the text currently gives inadequate attention to the Life and Work and mission traditions. To be sure, the document is explicit about the need to overcome a range of "familiar dichotomies" (para. 5.3.7), including this one; and the new formulation of the first list of "functions" in paragraph 3.15 suggests that the tasks associated with Faith and Order, mission and Life and Work -- as well as ecumenical diakonia, education, interfaith dialogue and renewal -- are all inseparable facets of one quest for visible unity which is "expressed in worship and common life, witness and service to the world". Nevertheless.. some have suggested that the effect of emphasizing the concepts of "visible unity" and "fellowship of churches" as this text does is to fail to do justice to the particular ecumenical vision and contribution of those groups and movements who have focused their attention on common Christian witness in the world through words and actions. -- Related to this is a concern that the accent here on the fellowship of churches does not draw sufficiently on the tradition of the WCC as a prophetic, vanguard movement or instrument. -- As such, the twin suggestion that the WCC has on the one hand a unique role to play in fostering the coherence of the "one ecumenical movement" while it must be ready on the other hand to let go of certain activities is not self-contradictory; but working this out in fact does raise a number of complicated issues. How can the desired "coherence" be fostered without "centralization" of authority? And how can various tasks and activities be "decentralized" without an inevitable fragmentation? It is important to recall in this connection that the autonomy of individual ecumenical bodies has always been an article of faith: regional or national councils and conferences of churches are not "branch offices" of the WCC. At the same time, tasks cannot simply be "delegated" from one ecumenical body to another without some lines of accountability. Obviously, on this point much more intensive discussions with other ecumenical organizations will be required. -- While many (though not all) have welcomed what is said in paragraphs 4.6 and 4.7 about relations with the Roman Catholic Church and with evangelical and Pentecostal churches, realizing the closer ecumenical relationships which are called for here will certainly require more than pious hopes and good intentions. It may be that putting flesh on these suggestions will demand changes far more profound than many people suspect. -- Finally, some have expressed regret that more is not said about what is called in some quarters the "wider ecumenism" - the quest for community among all those who seek the truth within any community of faith. Paragraph 2.8 notes that the document deliberately uses the word "ecumenical" only to designate a Christian movement; paragraph 3.15 proposes that a reference to interfaith relationships be added to the list of the WCC's functions; and paragraph 4. 10 notes that the WCC'S partners in dialogue and collaboration" need not and indeed must not be limited to Christian organizations and groups. But while probably no one would disagree with these statements, some would argue that they do not go far enough and in fact define an ecumenism which, for churches in some parts of the world at least, is simply inadequate. Others would shrink back from any suggestion that relations with people and groups of other faiths are to be placed on the same level as work for the unity of the church.

Eventually, the question arises of how far these and other reservations about the text can be accommodated satisfactorily. Of course, the persistence of diversity -- whether of perspective or of understanding or even of conviction -- is not in itself a problem, as the CUV text notes (cf. paras. 2.7.7 and 2.7.8). The time-honoured ecumenical formula of mutually acceptable differences ("some would say..., while others would wish to emphasize...") is readily available to be pasted into the text as necessary. Indeed, paragraph 3.3 and the second half of paragraph 3.16 in the present draft already reflect this approach. To be sure, resorting too often to this stratagem not only tends to produce a clunky and uninspiring text but also arouses the suspicion that if ecumenism consists largely in setting out our differences in parallel columns there is not likely to be much movement to it -- which is hardly the sort of dynamic vision one wants to project at the dawn of a new millennium.

This is not to underestimate the importance of such careful delineating of differences within the ecumenical fellowship -- both as an acknowledgment that these diversities need not mean disunity, and as the fruit of a continued process of listening carefully to and challenging one another. And honest recognition of persisting differences is surely preferable to making excessive claims regarding agreements reached.

The question raised by the CUV process is this: against the background of all these points of difference -- whether in emphasis or substance -- can a formulation of common commitment be found to which the churches are ready to commit themselves? Perhaps such a statement will have to be more nuanced and chastened than the stirring simplicity of the message of the Amsterdam assembly. Yet if it is to serve the purpose of an ecumenical charter for the 21 st century, one would think that the bottom line must be the same: "we intend to stay together."