Members:
Vanderbilt student sees global ecumenism in action during WCC meeting in Geneva (3/3/08)
By Rebecca Bowman Woods, DisciplesWorld news editor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (3/3/08) — Although she studied the ecumenical movement in classes at Vanderbilt Divinity School, Disciples seminarian Robyn Fickes often wondered what Christian unity really looks like.
After serving as a young adult steward during the World Council of Churches’ Central Committee meeting last month, she now has a pretty good idea.
People often think unity means conformity or uniformity, Fickes said. But in observing world religious leaders working on difficult issues, she learned that unity is a work in progress, held together by relationships.
The Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) is a group of about 150 representatives who carry forward the WCC’s work in between the church group's assemblies, which take place about every seven years.
This particular Central Committee meeting, held Feb. 13-20 in Geneva, had its share of tense moments. Early on, General Secretary Samuel Kobia announced he would stand down when his first term concludes at the end of 2008. Usually a general secretary is asked to continue on for a second term, said Disciples’ ecumenical officer Robert Welsh, who was in Geneva for the meeting.
Others within the WCC criticized it for not keeping up with changes in the global Christian landscape. Christianity, especially Evangelical and Pentecostal movements, is growing in the Global South and East, while across North America and Europe, mainline Protestantism is declining.
One Russian Orthodox bishop from Vienna and Austria spoke out against what he sees as the biggest threat to unity – liberal Christianity. Bishop Hilarion was responding to suggestions by Anglican Archibishop Rowan Williams that Great Britain’s legal system should recognize some aspects of Islamic law. Williams' comments came during a radio interview about a week prior to the Central Committee meeting.
For Fickes, a third-year Disciples Divinity House student from Nebraska, seeing the WCC’s Central Committee grapple with these kinds of challenges was energizing, not disillusioning.
The churches of the WCC “aren’t perfect in this, and we don’t have it completely figured out,” Fickes said. “But what we do have is a commitment to one another to stay in this relationship and to try and best work it out.”
Twenty-five young adults participated in the stewards program, acting as translators, working in the communications office, and helping on the floor when the committee was in session.
In some ways, Fickes said, the stewards’ group was a microcosm of the larger Central Committee. During free time, they found themselves discussing the same issues.
“No, not everyone got along all the time, but there were very worshipful and prayerful moments throughout the whole thing,” she said.
There was also dancing. Most evenings during free time the stewards gathered to play music and teach each other a few new steps. Fickes learned dances from Argentina, Belarus, and Palestine. In turn, she and another steward from the United States taught the Electric Slide and the Pretzel.
Fickes also got to participate in a special worship service marking the WCC’s 60th anniversary. She read John 3:16, offering words of assurance following a community prayer of confession.
During the worship service, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I called on the WCC’s members to face their differences with honesty, and in the light of the scriptures. "Love is essential, so that dialogue between our churches can take place in all freedom and trust," said Bartholomeos, according to an Ecumenical News International (ENI) report.
With strong relationships in place, "the divergences that originate from the different ways in which churches respond to moral problems are not necessarily insurmountable, because churches witness to the Gospel in different contexts," he said.
Some Central Committee members would like to see the WCC reach out even further, by opening up its next Assembly in 2013 to organizations and churches that are not members, and possibly, not Christian.
"Too many churches are stepping back from ecumenical to unilateral activities and positions. An expanded assembly would be a counterpoint to that," said John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ and a supporter of a proposal to broaden the Assembly, according to ENI.
The WCC now has 349 member churches after welcoming two new members, the Independent Presbyterian Church in Brazil and the Lao Evangelical Church. The WCC includes Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox church families. The Catholic Church cooperates in some areas but is not a member.
Besides Welsh and Fickes, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) was represented by General Minister and President Sharon E. Watkins, a Central Committee voting member.
Watkins addressed the meeting regarding the WCC’s ongoing Decade to Overcome Violence initiative. In her presentation, she offered thoughts on how the global church can be a place of reconciliation and healing, and how the women’s programs of the WCC are helping to address violence against women as part of the Decade to Overcome Violence.
The Central Committee also announced plans for an International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in 2011 in Kingston, Jamaica as the culmination of the Decade to Overcome Violence.
