Report from WCC Evangelical leader challenges dead-end street 'ecumenism' By Parker T. Williamson The Layman Online Tuesday, March 7, 2006 PORTO ALEGRE, BRAZIL – Rev. Norberto Saracco, one of Argentina's leading Pentecostal scholars has excoriated the World Council of Churches brand of ecumenism as a dead end street. "That way of doing ecumenism has gone as far as it can," he said in a plenary address on Feb. 20 to the WCC. Saracco is a Pentecostal pastor, founder and director of Argentina's International Faculty of Theological Studies and co-founder of the Council of Pastors of Buenos Aires. Pastor at the Good News Church in Buenos Aires, Saracco is also vice president of the National Council of Evangelical Churches in Argentina and the international deputy director of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. Having chosen Latin America for the location of its 9th Assembly, the WCC could hardly have ignored the Pentecostalism that has swept through the countries of this region. Multitudes of people are coming to Christ as a result of this evangelical proclamation of the gospel. In an attempt to reach out to the evangelicals and engage them in dialogue, WCC leaders invited Saracco to address their assembly. Evangelical ecumenism "In recent years," Saracco said, "it has been the evangelical churches, and particularly the Pentecostal churches, that have worked hardest in the quest for the visible unity of the church. The strengthening of the National Alliances and Federations of Churches, the establishment of pastoral councils in thousands of cities, and joint mission and evangelism projects are only some examples of this." Saracco laid out the difference that he sees between the vibrant ecumenism that is moving through Latin America today and the decaying attempts at unity exhibited by the WCC: "For the evangelical churches," said Saracco, "unity comes out of their faithfulness to the Word of God and out of mission … For evangelical churches, unity is not based on the recognition of a hierarchical authority, nor on dogmas, nor on theological agreements, nor on alliances between institutions." Institutional alliances don't work anymore Looking directly toward the U.S. delegation where Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick had been seated among the Presbyterian Church (USA) representatives, Saracco said, "We have to accept that that way of doing ecumenism has gone as far as it can … The ecumenical agenda must disentangle itself from the past and become open to the ecumenism of the future." Saracco acknowledged that his message brought hard words to the WCC, but he insisted that the organization could only have a future if it took a strong dose of the right medicine: "I admit that this ecumenical simplicity may be disturbing, but its sole aim is to help an ecumenism that has come to a standstill break out of its inertia." Misrepresenting evangelicals Saracco chastised WCC leaders, including liberals who control denominational infrastructures in the United States, for misrepresenting evangelicals and Pentecostals. Reminding them of instances in which oldline denominational leaders have treated Pentecostals disrespectfully, he said that WCC leaders have a long way to go if they now wish to forge working relationships with this rapidly growing community of Christians. "Unity becomes difficult when our brothers and sisters treat us as sects, when they regard Pentecostals as a threat, and see in the growth of evangelical churches an advance of the pro-war right," he said. "Unity cannot be built on misrepresentation and prejudice … We believe that the centrality of Jesus Christ points up the difference between the mission of the church and religious compassion. We need to be clear. Latin America needs Jesus Christ, and we should come together in mission to declare that truth." Uncompromisingly committed to the gospel and unwilling to dilute it with "inter-religious diversity" or smother it with bureaucratic expressions of unity, Saracco issued a stinging challenge to the WCC: "We have used oceans of ink and tons of paper in writing about unity. That has not been a waste of time, effort or money. But it has brought us as far as we can go. Is not this the time for a new Pentecost? Only a Spirit-filled church will see racial, sexual, economic and ecclesiastical barriers come down. Only Spirit-filled lives will stop calling 'impure' or 'unclean' what God has called holy, and stop regarding as sacrosanct what is 'unclean.' The unity of the church will be a work of the Spirit, or it will not be at all."

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