  Evangelicals seek to build networks among WCC members  By Janice Shaw Crouse Executive Director Ecumenical Coalition on Women and Society Wednesday, December 16, 1998
Navigating the passage Canon Dr. Vinay Samuel, observer-team coordinator for the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians (INFEMIT), is the man navigating that passage. The World Evangelical Fellowship, the Assemblies of God, Latin American Theological Fraternity, the Reichenberg Fellowship, and Mennonite World Conference also have sent representatives with evangelical concerns. A six-member team of evangelicals represents The Association for Church Renewal, a North American group of church renewal executives and board members. Samuel has helped draft a letter expressing concerns emerging from a half-dozen meetings of evangelicals attending the assembly. The discussions have been lively exchanges from African, Asian, Latin American, European and North American theologians, lay delegates, visitors and observers. The group is a diverse mix of age, sex, nationality and denominations. "The open, flexible, and competent discussions we have had together have been amongst the highlight of the assembly for me," said Rolf-Alexander Thieke, a German Lutheran theologian.
The central theme running through the meetings has been that evangelicals and their concerns are not adequately represented in the WCC. Hwa Yung of Malaysia said a major concern of evangelicals is the lack of emphasis on wholistic mission. No mission imperative exists without a strong WCC commitment to its constitutional basis of unity in Christ, evangelicals say. "Being here at Harare, I can clearly see what is at stake when the WCC tends to promote an agenda quite distinct from the original vision at its founding in Amsterdam," said youth delegate Kosta Milkov of Macedonia. "The vast majority of the members of the U.S. Protestant churches in fact hold to a biblical Christian faith that is closer to Orthodox and Two-Thirds World evangelicals than our liberal denominational delegations here in Harare," said Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and a steering-committee member of the ACR. "Because these ecumenical gatekeepers do not represent us, we are being systematically denied access to the WCC's great ecumenical project." Evangelicals are also concerned about the processes of the WCC. "The WCC seems to be captive to western liberal Protestantism - a small, shrinking minority of Christ's Church - and to its emphases on individual autonomy and moral relativity," Knippers said.
"WCC officials - whose liberalism is clearly not in tune with the overwhelming majority of Christians at this assembly - are pursuing a relentless divide-and-conquer strategy," said Parker Williamson, Executive Editor of The Presbyterian Layman. "Celebrating diversity has meant organizing hundreds of Padares and sessions with open microphones so every point-of-view can be expressed," Williamson said. "In the midst of the cacophony of ideas, the WCC's Central Committee sets forth its plan. Without a clear alternative and in the press of time, the people accede in the name of 'unity in diversity.'" Evangelicals want to present a positive approach rather than focus exclusively on points of controversy. "There are areas where we applaud what the WCC is doing," said Tom Finger of the Mennonite Central Committee. "The Mennonites are here to support and participate in the WCC's Program to Overcome Violence. But we want to ensure that this and other programs maintain a biblical and Christocentric focus." Evangelical-Orthodox dialogue While there are serious points of difference between evangelicals and the Orthodox, the developing dialogue is encouraging to both sides. Young evangelicals from Orthodox-majority areas are asking to be included in the second phase of the dialogue, pointing to their fellow believers who are engaged in graduate-level study of Orthodoxy. Some evangelicals said they considered an Orthodox-Evangelical Padare the high moment of the WCC Assembly. Other evangelicals are quick to acknowledge their shortcomings. "We need to recognize our areas of weakness and acknowledge that the WCC might have reservations and hesitations about evangelical involvement in the journey of the World Council of Churches over the past 50 years," Samuel said. A team of about a dozen writers volunteered to draft the Evangelical Letter. "This letter is a frank and loving Jubilee call to the WCC from evangelical participants at Harare," Samuel said. The letter praises the faith of many Assembly participants, the vitality of the worship experiences, the beauty of the ecumenical vision and the continuing dialogue with the Orthodox delegation. The letter expresses regret that the Assembly neglected the voice of orthodox churches in Africa -- which the authors describe as "committed to the centrality of scripture, cultural renewal, and social, political and economic change." Letter of regret The letter expresses regret that no major speakers were recognizably evangelical and that several speakers clearly were outside the creedal base of member churches and the WCC's own faith base. The letter stresses points of importance to evangelicals - the centrality of personal transformation in Christian mission and a biblical view of the Trinity. The document says that "the WCC must operate more in accord with the Christocentric, missionary emphasis of its original vision. Jubilee is also a time to return to the beginning." "In spite of our deep differences with the WCC, we will not be alienated from the unity to which we know the Holy Spirit is wooing the churches," Knippers said. "We look forward to greater participation in the quest for unity in Christ, either through a radically reformed WCC or through new avenues we are confident that God will raise up as needed." |
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