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Before and After Vancouver
By Charles C. West

"JESUS CHRIST, the Life of the World," was the theme of the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, last summer. Prophetically, William Lazareth, Secretary for Faith and Order, wrote in a preparatory volume about this theme: "It is a confession of faith that emerges out of the Christ-centered worship of the early church. It is a joyful shout of praise that is both trinitarian in depth and cosmic in breadth…. Hence the theme is intended neither as a scientific statement about the reality of nature ('life'), nor as a philosophical statement about the nature of reality ('world')…. [It] is rather a doxological offering of praise to the Jesus Christ whom Christians confess to be the gracious source of the world's life, both eternal and temporal, as its Savior and Lord."1

Precisely so the Assembly went. It was a celebrative rather than a deliberative gathering. Praise and exhortation were its foremost tones. Definition and debate played minor roles. This was its great strength, and its great weakness.

I

Vancouver 1983 was a celebration of ecumenism. This must be said first about it. The 838 delegates from 253 churches in over 90 countries were only the core of it. At least two thousand others-staff, press, accredited visitors, delegated observers from other churches and Christian organizations, and official guests including a few from other faiths than Christian-surrounded them for the whole three weeks of their work. People poured in from all parts of the United States and Canada to attend as daily visitors. Three satellite conferences, two in Vancouver

Charles C. West is Academic Dean and Professor of Christian Ethics, Princeton Theological Seminary. Long associated with matters ecumenical from his early days as a fraternal worker in China to his more recent position as Director of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Dr. West is here reporting on the Vancouver Assembly of the WCC. Accredited with the press staff at the Assembly on special assignment for THEOLOGY TODAY, we feel sure this authoritative report, together with the list of available WCC documents, will be of wide interest to our readers.
¹ The Lord of Life. Theological explorations of the theme "Jesus Christ-the Life of the World." Edited by William H. Lazareth, p. ix. All the literature referred to in the footnotes is available from the world headquarters of the World Council of Churches, Publications Office, P. O. Box 66, 1211 Geneva 20, Switzerland, and all of it, unless otherwise indicated, is published by the World Council. Orders can also be sent to the New York office of the World Council of Churches, 475 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10115).

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and one across the border in Bellingham, Washington, drew on speakers from the Assembly and watched it on cable television. Some fifteen thousand Vancouverites turned out for the opening festivities in the Pacific Coliseum; they symbolized the welcome that seemed to surround the visitors with a sea of hospitality wherever they went. And, just to make the picture complete, the protesters were there-Carl McIntire, Ian Paisley, Bob Jones, and their friends-with their placards and their shouts, bobbing like corks on the ecumenical waves.

The reality of the ecumenical movement, not the controversies blown up around it, was the attraction of the Vancouver Assembly. People came to affirm it, entered into it, and experienced it. This was their answer to attacks on the World Council of Churches from somewhere outside.

Celebration was not only the occasion of Vancouver, however. It was also its distinctive tone and style. "This meeting," reads the Message from the Assembly to the churches, "comes in a succession which began at Amsterdam in 1948 with the commitment to stay together. Since then we have been called to learn together and to struggle together. Here, under the theme, 'Jesus Christ, the Life of the World,' we are called to live together. In the Assembly we taste that life. Our worship in a great tent which reminds us of the pilgrim people; the presence of Canadian Indians which has challenged us; our moving prayer and praise in many languages but one spirit of devotion; our struggles to face divisive issues; the songs of children-all are part of life together in the Christian family."

This, with one exception, describes the Assembly. Worship was probably its best-organized activity. A volunteer choir had practiced to professional perfection the hymns and liturgies of the church universal from ancient chants to modern syncopated rhythms and from every continent in the world. Each participant received a carefully crafted, beautifully illustrated worship book from which the prayers, responses, and confessions of daily worship were drawn. The high point of all was the celebration of an ecumenical eucharist led by the Archbishop of Canterbury according to the "Lima liturgy" approved after years of study and debate by the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches meeting last year in Lima, Peru. There were no gimmicks in all of this. It was, in fact, conservative, rooted in the life and practice of the churches themselves or in years of ecumenical struggle and prayer. Yet it was creative, often exuberant, a kind of festival of the varieties of prayer and praise, unified by a disciplined faithfulness to the object of that praise. Here in fact the ecumenical movement practiced living together.

There were other celebrations as well, quasi-religious, perhaps open to critical question, but still real expressions of human life and longing offered to Christ. A peace rally in solidarity, we were told, with others commemorating Hiroshima all around the Pacific basin flowed into a service of penance and prayer for peace and a vigil throughout the night.

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A totem pole, fifty feet high, carved by Indian prisoners in a nearby penitentiary, was presented in solemn ceremony to the World Council of Churches by tribal chiefs of the Canadian Northwest. It will stand on the grounds of the Ecumenical Center in Geneva, with all its symbolism of the powers, natural, human, and divine that combine in the life and land of these people, as a sign of their part in Christ and in the church ecumenical.

Finally, there was a celebrative, doxological strain also in the speeches on the main theme in plenary session and in the day by day encounters of Christians with one another. Witness was given, sometimes as good theology-Lutheran, Orthodox, and Reformed-sometimes out of a suffering church-Uganda, Lebanon, Korea-sometimes from the practice of religious life-a Pentecostal preacher, a Romanian Orthodox nun-to the wonder of Christ in the world. In more than a hundred small groups which met regularly, participants had a chance to share their lives and faith with one another. Even outsiders caught the spirit. It hardly seemed surprising when at the end of the meeting a group of leading non-ecumenical conservatives who had shared the Assembly experience published an open letter commending the World Council of Churches' progress "in its overarching spiritual and biblical orientation" and urging evangelicals to participate in it.

This was the success of Vancouver. It was no mean achievement. One hears echoes of the evangelical enthusiasm of the first great World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910. But there is a difference, and the difference is decisive.

II

In the seventy-three years of recent ecumenical history, its participants have come to realize that the Holy Spirit cannot be taken for granted. One believer's eucharist is another's superstition. One Christian's evangelism is another's unwarranted intrusion. One activist's program for justice is another's recipe for tyranny. The story of the ecumenical movement is one of hard, committed wrestling for one another's souls in the light of Scripture and in the presence of God. It is changing and being changed as our strongest convictions encounter the faith and witness of others in Christ, and slowly forging deeper truths about our common obedience.

The weakness of Vancouver is that it ignored this history. There was celebration; there was almost no deliberation. Causes were expounded; problems were not analyzed. The participants were exhorted; they were not consulted. This assembly lived off the fruits of previous ecumenical labor; it did not cultivate the vineyard.

Why was this so? The answer seems to lie neither in the lack of substantial progress between the Fifth Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya in 1975, and now, nor in the incompetence of the staff, but rather in a fundamental decision made by the planners about method in ecumenical work.

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There was no lack of solid material which the Assembly could have considered. For example:

(1) The Faith and Order Commission, which is the only agency of the World Council to count Roman Catholics as full members, produced in 198 2 a landmark statement on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry² as the result of more than fifty years of growing and working together among Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox. It sets forth convergence, not yet consensus, but it has been commended to all the participating churches for study and implementation down to the parish level. Meanwhile the Commission has spawned several studies on ecumenical relations with churches and movements inside and outside the Council,³ on church union negotiations around the world which it monitors,⁴ on the unity of the church and the unity of humankind,⁵ and on special problems such as the episcopate, the ordination of women, and the handicapped in the church.⁶

(2) The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism has made giant strides since the Nairobi Assembly in probing and defining the missionary life of the church in cooperation with Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and conservative evangelical agencies and churches. Its Melbourne Conference in 1980 under the theme "Your Kingdom Come" and the paper approved by the World Council Central Committee on "Mission and Evangelism: an Ecumenical Affirmation" broke new ground in uniting personal and social witness in one understanding of the missionary task.⁷ Meanwhile it, too, has continued to produce a stream

² Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry, Faith and Order Paper No. 111, WCC, Geneva, 1982. See also, Ecumenical Perspectives on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry. Theological essays. Edited by Max Thurian. 1983.
³ The Church is Charismatic. The World Council of Churches and the charismatic renewal. Edited by Arnold Bittlinger. 1981. Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite? Towards convergence in Orthodox Christology, Edited by Paulos Gregorios, William H. Lazareth, and Nikos A. Nissiotis. Fifth Report of the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches. 1983. So Much in Common. Documents of interest in the conversations between the World Council of Churches and the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. 1973.
⁴ Survey of Church Union Negotiations, 1975-1977. Survey of Church Union Negotiations, 1977-1979. Three Reports of the Forum on Bilateral Conversations. 1981. Growth in Agreement. Report and agreed statements of interconfessional conversations on a world level. Edited by Lukas Vischer and Harding Meyer. WCC and Paulist Press. New York, 1983. Survey of Church Union Negotiations 1979-1981, Unity in Each Place - in All Places. United churches and the Christian world communions. 1983.
⁵ Unity in Today's World. The Faith and Order Studies on: "Unity of the Church-Unity of Humankind." Edited by Geiko Müller-Fahrenhoiz. Sharing in One Hope. Bangalore 1978. Reports and documents from the meeting of the Faith and Order Commission. Towards Visible Unity. Commission on Faith and Order, Lima, 1982. Edited by Michael Kinnamon.
⁶ Partners in Life. The handicapped and the church. Edited by Geiko Müller-Fahrenholz. 1981. The Bible. Its authority and interpretation in the ecumenical movement. Edited by Ellen Flesseman-van Leer. Episkope and Episcopate in Ecumenical Perspective. 1980. Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ. Ecumenical reflections on the Filioque controversy. Edited by Lukas Vischer. Ordination of Women in Ecumenical Perspective. Ed. by Constance F. Parvey.
^{7 "}Mission and Evangelism, an Ecumenical Affirmation." International Review of Mission. 1982. Also published in International Bulletin of Missionary Research, April

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of studies on particular areas and particular problems,⁸ and to work away at the subtle and difficult questions of the relation between Christian mission and dialogue with other faiths and ideologies.⁹

(3) The Working Committee on Church and Society staffed by the veteran Paul Abrecht produced a massive ecumenical miracle in the World Conference on Faith, Science, and the Future in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1979. The preparatory materials and the two-volume report of that conference are a mine of insights and dialogue on questions ranging from faith and science to technology, economic justice, and ecological responsibility.¹⁰ Meanwhile the study leading up to the conference and flowing from it has produced a solid body of ancillary literature on the theology and ethics of technology, ecology and the uses of science.¹¹

(4) As an offshoot of the Faith, Science, and the Future study, the Office of Church and Society has also sponsored, with the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, an international hearing on nuclear weapons and disarmament before which public figures from East and West, church and state, appeared. The findings of this hearing and the contributions to it, in the volume titled Before It's Too Late offer the only international church study and position paper on this subject available for the guidance of Christians.¹²

(5) The Commission of the Churches on Participation in Development has poured out material during the past eight years on the church

1983. Your Kingdom Come. Mission perspectives. Report of the world conference of CWME in Melbourne 1980. Edited by Emilio Castro and Jacques Matthey.
⁸ People are the Subject. Stories of urban rural mission. Leon Howell. 1980. Mission and Justice. Urban industrial mission at work. Edited by George Todd and Bobbi Wells. 1977. Sharing One Bread, Sharing One Mission. The eucharist as a missionary event. Edited by Jean Stromberg.
⁹ Christian-Jewish Relations in Ecumenical Perspective with Special Emphasis on Africa. Edited by Franz von Hammerstein. 1978. The Christian Marxist Dialogue. An annotated bibliography. Compiled by Ans J. van der Bent. 1969. Christian Presence and Witness in Relation to Muslim Neighbours. Report of a conference, Mombasa, Kenya, 1979. Christians Meeting Muslims. WCC papers on ten years of Christian-Muslim Dialogue. Edited by John B. Taylor. 1980. Churches Among Ideologies. Report of a consultation, 1982. Faith in the Midst of Faiths. Reflections on dialogue in community. Edited by S. J. Samartha. 1977. Jewish-Christian Dialogue. Six years of Christian-Jewish consultations. 1975. Towards World Community, The Colombo Papers, Edited by S. J. Samartha. 1975.
¹⁰ Faith and Science in an Unjust World. Report of the WCC Conference on "Faith, Science, and the Future," MIT, Cambridge, USA, 1979. Edited by Paul Abrecht and Roger L. Shinn. WCC and Fortress Press, Philadelphia. Volume I.- Plenary Presentations. Volume II: Reports and Recommendations. Faith, Science and the Future. Preparatory readings for the MIT Cambridge conference, 1979. Edited by Paul Abrecht. WCC and Fortress Press, Philadelphia. 1979.
¹¹ Anticipation. Published by the Office of Church and Society, World Council of Churches, Geneva. Available free on request, so far as back issues are available. See especially Nos. 21 to 30. Manipulating Life. Ethical issues on Genetic Engineering. 1982, Ecology and Human Liberation, by Thomas S. Derr. 1973.
¹² Before It's Too Late. The challenge of nuclear disarmament. The complete record of a public hearing on nuclear weapons and disarmament. Amsterdam. 1982. Edited by Paul Abrecht and Ninan Koshy. 1983. Facing Up to Nuclear Power. A contribution to the debate on nuclear energy. Edited by John Francis and Paul Abrecht. 1976.

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and the poor, international economic and political ethics, and world development alongside its involvement in development aid and projects. ¹³

One could go on to speak of racism, women in church and society, Christian education, biblical studies, and more. ¹⁴ In earlier years all this work would have been reviewed, evaluated, and focussed for the Assembly in substantial position papers written by the staff in consultation with qualified advisers from the churches. These papers would have defined the issues, noted progress made, outlined critical unsolved questions and areas of continuing tension and disagreement. The Assembly would then have built its deliberations on the solid foundation of past ecumenical experience, which it is called to project along new lines for the future. Previous World Council of Churches assemblies have wrestled hard with controversies in the church and in the world as the Council itself had worked with them in the period before, and so have given guidance to both church and world in their conclusions and their reports.

This did not happen at Vancouver. The reason appears to be that another method dominated the planning and the program. This method also has a venerable history, rooted in missionary experience. Hendrik Kraemer expressed it nearly a half-century ago when he repudiated points of contact in the realm of doctrine or ideas between Christian and non-Christian religions and suggested that the point of contact is the missionary. "Such is the golden rule, or, if one prefers, the iron law, in this whole matter. The way to live up to this rule is to have an untiring and genuine interest in the religion, the ideas, the sentiments, the institutions-in short, in the whole range of life of the people among whom one works, for Christ's sake and for the sake of those people."¹⁵

This is of course a description of missionary practice at its highest and best over the centuries. It has been from the beginning a strand in modern ecumenical practice as well. One moves with Christ across a social border-of culture, of class, or of nation-to identify with another

¹³ Separation Without Hope. Essays on the relation between the church and the poor. Edited by Julio de Santa Ana. WCC and Orbis Books, Maryknoll. USA. 1978. Good News to the Poor. Edited by Julio de Santa Ana. WCC and Orbis. 1982. Towards a Church of the Poor. Edited by Julio de Santa Ana. WCC and Orbis. 1982. The Church and Transnational Corporations. An ecumenical programme. 1983. To Set at Liberty the Oppressed. Towards an understanding of Christian responsibilities for development/ liberation. By Richard D. N. Dickinson. 1978. Poor, Yet Making Many Rich. The poor as agents of creative justice. Richard D. N. Dickinson. 1983. World Hunger: a Christian Reappraisal. Edited by Diogo de Gaspar, Caesar Espiritu, and Reginald Green. Patterns of Poverty in the Third World. By Charles Elliott. WCC and Praeger, New York. 1975. Perspectives on Political Ethics. Edited by Koson Srisang. WCC and Georgetown University Press, USA. 1983.
¹⁴ The Community of Women and Men in the Church. A report of the WCC conference, Sheffield, 1981. Edited by Constance F. Parvey. WCC and Fortress Press, USA. 1983. Racism in Theology: Theology Against Racism. Report of a consultation. 1980. World Council of Churches' Statements and Actions on Racism, 1948-1979. Edited by Ans J. van der Bent. 1980.
¹⁵ The Christian Message in the Non-Christian World. By Hendrik Kraemer. International Missionary Council. 1958. P. 140.

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people, and in this solidarity one discovers with them how Christ and his Church take form there. Sharing of and reflection on this practice, now thoroughly ecumenical because the church in every land is both sending and receiving in mission, is the business of the ecumenical movement. The World Council of Churches has carried it on in many ways: special studies in mission and evangelism and in the life of the church in particular times and places,¹⁶ Bible studies aimed at and involving the laity,¹⁷ regional conferences and studies on women and men in the church,¹⁸ in church and society,¹⁹ and in the work of the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey.

These two methods have always been complementary in ecumenical work. Recently, however, they have been set against one another by a new philosophy of action-reflection that in unguarded moments describes the way of study, dialogue, and conclusion as abstract, elitist, and wrong. Rather, the World Council of Churches, in the view of these new methodologists, should go to the people, to the poor, the disadvantaged and the oppressed, identify with them as Jesus did, share their lives and problems, and help them to understand their struggle in the light of the Gospel as they organize for their liberation. In doing this, World Council agencies may be acting outside the church as it is, but they are serving the world on behalf of the church, evangelizing and building among the poor where Christ is, and transforming the church into its proper role as a witness to Christ's transformation of the world.²⁰

Theological reflection and social analysis both arise out of this solidarity and this struggle. Issues arise out of the life of the people. A World Council of Churches meeting-and above all an Assembly-should therefore concentrate on drawing people into participation, through worship, through vivid presentation of the suffering and the struggle of the oppressed, and through exercises of symbolic action or common proclamation which engage the emotions as well as the mind. It should be a consciousness-raising experience which will send the participants

¹⁶ Households of God on China's Soil. Compiled by Raymond Fung. 1982. To Live Among the Stars. Christian origins of Oceania. By John Garrett. 1982. Martyria Mission. Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today. Edited by Ion Bria. 1980
¹⁷ Room to Be People. By Jose Miguez Bonino. An interpretation of the message of the Bible for today's world. 1979. Experiments with Bible Study. Hans-Ruedi Weber. WCC and Westminster Press, USA. 1981. The Feast of Life, By John Poulton. A theological reflection on the theme "Jesus Christ-the Life of the World." 1983.
¹⁸ Orthodox Women. Their Tole and participation in the Orthodox Church. Edited by Constance J. Tarasar and Irina Kirillova. 1977. Consultation of European Christian Women. Brussels. 1978. Migrant Women Speak. Interviews. WCC and Search Press, UK. 1978.
¹⁹ "Consultation on the Contribution of the Churches in the Socialist Countries to the WCC Program on Faith, Science and the Future." Anticipation #26. "Energy for My Neighbor." Regional report from Asia. Anticipation #28. "Latin America." Anticipation #29.
²⁰ Specific statements of this philosophy are not common because the emphasis of its advocates tends to be on action rather than on reflection. See, however, "Mission and Evangelism: A URM Position Paper," in People are the Subject, by Leon Howell, pp. 75ff.

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pants back into the struggle more aware of their participation in Christ's solidarity with the poor.

Between these two methods the lines have been drawn for some time in ecumenical circles, and it is almost impossible to focus the debate. Each side plays by different rules, and accuses the other of ideological distortion. The conflict usually takes the form of a struggle for the control of the program and agenda of a meeting, not direct confrontation. Each would claim to find a place for the other, in its context. However this may be, the latter method clearly prevailed in the planning of the Sixth Assembly.

The result, on the level of thought, was considerable confusion. William Lazareth, in his preparatory volume, The Lord of Life, set forth the structure of theme, sub-themes, and program issues which was originally planned, The essays in this book are of varying quality, but they showed promise of a learning adventure. At Vancouver, however, this structure practically disappeared from view. The main theme-"Jesus Christ, the Life of the World"-as a doxology, permeated the worship and was celebrated in plenary session by two adequate sermons, one from Theodore Stylianopoulos of the Greek Orthodox Church, USA, and the other by Allan Boesak of the Reformed Church in South Africa. The sub-themes-Life, a Gift of God; Life, Confronting and Overcoming Death; Life in its Fullness; and Life in Unity-were occasions for a bewildering variety of statements. An American student and a Uruguayan theologian meditated on Scripture. An African mother, a Jugoslav evangelical, a Guyanese youth, a Lebanese woman, a Bolivian miner's wife, a Ugandan bishop, and a pastor from Korea who had been in prison, all told stories of their experience in relation to their faith. A Marshall Islander denounced United States policy in her islands, a Nishga chief presented his tribe's claims to ancestral lands against the Canadian government, speakers from Australia, Germany, and Czechoslovakia exhorted the assembly on behalf of nuclear disarmament and world justice, all in the context of Christian witness. Finally, representatives of non-Christian religions-Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism presented their statements to the theme "Life, a Gift of God." To hear all these was a fascinating experience, but it left the assembly with only a few phrases, theological and political, and a few nuggets of insight from those speakers who addressed issues directly.²¹

The program issues, eight of them, were handled primarily in sub-groups into which the assembly was divided. These groups worked

²¹ A full report of the proceedings of the assembly will be compiled and edited by the Reverend David Gill of the Uniting Church of Australia and will be published by the World Council of Churches early in 1984. Among those few plenary speeches of special substance, the following can be mentioned: Vitaly Borovoy from the Russian Orthodox Church, "Life in Unity"; Jan Pronk of the United Nations Commission on Trade and Development on "Political Conditions for an Economic Translation of an Ecumenical Mandate"; and John Francis, science adviser to the Church of Scotland, an the implications for science and technology of "Life, A Gift of God."

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on four afternoons and one evening to produce reports for the assembly to receive, and recommendations for future World Council of Churches programs. The issues were deliberately chosen not to coincide directly with the work which the units of the World Council of Churches had been doing. The preparatory papers drew on fragments of work from various departments drawn together by unknown authors. Their main value was their bibliography and a few suggestive ideas. They were in fact ignored by the groups themselves.22 Those who wished to set the issues against the background of the actual work of the World Council could read From Nairobi to Vancouver, a descriptive history of that work which was sent to all delegates.23 The groups themselves differed greatly and so did the reports they produced. Where there was strong staff leadership backed by experienced participants, as in "Taking Steps Toward Unity" (Group 2, building largely on Faith and Order) and "Confronting Threats to Peace and Survival" (Group 5, drawing on work in Church and Society) a useful report was produced, which at least reflects the ongoing work of the World Council. When new issues were introduced: "Moving Towards Participation (Group 3), "Healing and Sharing Life in Community" (Group 4), "Learning in Community (Group 7), and "Communicating with Conviction" (Group 8), the reports were vague and unsubstantial. In two cases: "Witnessing in a Divided World" (Group 1) and "Struggling for Justice and Human Dignity" (Group 6), the reports were rejected by the assembly as utterly inadequate to the best work and insight of the ecumenical movement on these subjects so far. These reports could not be revised in time for submission to a final plenary session. Their final form, therefore, will be an expression of the new Central Committee of the World Council, not of the Assembly itself.

III

There were two committees in the assembly which did much of the work which should have fallen to more representative bodies. The Policy and Reference Committee produced statements on human rights, on Central America, on Afghanistan, Cyprus, Southern Africa, the Pacific, the Middle East, U. S. military bases in the Philippines, the riots in Sri Lanka, church persecution in Lesotho, the world food situation, and peace and justice with particular relation to nuclear disarmament. All of these statements poured out in the plenary sessions of the assembly, mostly in the last two days. There had been little opportunity for prior education, discussion, or debate over controversial questions within them. The plenary sessions did make helpful suggestions: that the

22 These papers are available from the World Council of Churches in a packet entitled "Issues: Discussion Papers on Issues Arising Out of the Life and Work of the World Council of Churches in Preparation for its Sixth Assembly."
23 Nairobi to Vancouver 1975-1983. Report of the Central Committee to the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches.

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human rights statement pay more attention to freedom, Christian and political, and to violations of religious liberty, for example. The resolution on Afghanistan, which simply backed the United Nations General Secretary's efforts to bring about a negotiated peace, was vigorously debated in an effort to strengthen it. The effort failed in a close vote. The Middle East resolution was haggled over, though not much changed in its anti-Israeli slant. All of these statements eventually passed. They will be published as declarations of the World Council of Churches in General Assembly.

In some cases, they may be helpful in guiding the staff as it intervenes on behalf of the church to promote peace, justice, and human rights. In other cases-the contrast between the statements on Afghanistan and Central America is an example-the disproportion between what the World Council is able to say to a free country whose Christians are not endangered by its statements, and to a dictatorship which can penalize the church for every critical ecumenical statement, is too great for the word of the World Council to be wholly credible. In still other cases, those who read these resolutions will simply note their failure to reflect the depth and sensitivity of understanding which might have made them prophetic.

Another committee, Program Guidelines, raises a different problem. All proposals from interest groups for future World Council programs were directed there. The committee, however, did not have time to digest them in its final report to the assembly. Instead, it set its own priorities in general terms, with specific reference only to the Faith and Order work of the past few years in the council. Its overriding concern, reflected in instructions for the use of both finances and staff time, is the strengthening of local ecumenism. The plan is that World Council staff and budget be recruited from all the units and sub-units for this purpose, in interpretation, distribution of materials, visitations to local churches, and the like. The committee is stern on this point: the particular programs and concerns of the various offices in the World Council must not take precedence over this general responsibility. Meanwhile, the Finance committee reported to the assembly that the present unit and sub-unit structure, with its elaboration into sub-units for Faith and Order, Mission and Evangelism, Church and Society, Participation and Development, Theological Education, etc., could only be maintained on the present budget for another year or two.

The thrust of these guidelines seems to be the centralization of the World Council staff at the cost of the creative initiative which its various offices and commissions have been able to exercise so far, and a redirection of World Council work away from study, dialogue, and new breakthroughs in ecumenical understanding, toward the cultivation of relations between the office in Geneva and churches or other groups around the world. What, then, will these World Council of Churches officials have to offer to the churches and people they visit? When, and

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with what resources, will they process all the suggestions they receive? Where will leadership come from? These questions dangle anxiously as the Vancouver assembly becomes history.

IV

What, then, is the future of ecumenism? The evidence seems to be that certain programs of the World Council of Churches will continue despite all constrictions. The Commission on Faith and Order has a life of its own and a support within the churches that commands respect and brings forth resources, both human and financial, to pursue its search for Christian unity. The danger for this commission is that it could be isolated, unless there is a strong World Council of Churches around it, within ecclesiological concerns, forgetting one part of its mandate: the unity of the church and the unity of the world. The Commission on World Mission and Evangelism will also continue in strength, nourished by an ecumenicity broader than the World Council itself, and by its base of support in the mission agencies and consciousness of churches in every land. Its major unsolved problem is the relation between evangelism and dialogue with Christians of other faiths and ideologies. For this debate, it needs the continuing nourishment of Faith and Order concerns, on the one side, and Church and Society studies, on the other.

Curiously, the Church and Society emphasis within the World Council program is most endangered. It has depended for a generation on the inventive and organizing genius of one man who is now retiring. Its mandate has been split so that science and technology questions are handled by one office, economic justice and development by another, and racism by a third. It desperately needs the kind of integration which the two above commissions have given to their areas of work. It furthermore needs a return to the sort of substantive deliberation, of confrontation between different points of view, of wrestling in dialogue for the truth, which have characterized its past and which is still expressed in the work being done on science, technology, and the human future. Action programs, such as the Churches Commission on Participation and Development, and the Program to Combat Racism, would be far less vulnerable if their foundation, both theological and socialanalytical, were more solid.

In these fields, the World Council of Churches is still in movement. The same is true of several of its offices which work in mission, education, and social action with groups in the churches across the world. There is a danger, however, that this movement may be undermined if the two methods of ecumenical work continue to be set against each other, and if slogans, whether theological or political, continue to take the place of serious dialogical work. Here is the challenge the ecumenical movement faces in the next few years.