CHURCHES THINK ‘SMALL’ IN COOPERATION
By Brian Murphy
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
March 11, 2006 Saturday
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil –Charged with promoting Christian unity, the
World Council of Churches has taken its work seriously — each of its
meetings has grown bigger and more ambitious over the past six decades.
But now even some of the most ardent backers of the WCC’s mission
are wondering if smaller may be better.
During the WCC’s latest global assembly — bringing together 4,000
envoys from more than 350 churches — delegates challenged the group
to look hard at whether such parliament-style, mega-meetings are still
relevant at a time when Christianity is being rapidly reordered around
the world.
In the West, mainline Protestant churches face graying congregations
and declining influence. Some denominations, most notably Anglicans,
also are in danger in splintering over disputes on gay clergy and
same-sex blessings. Pentecostal and evangelical movements, meanwhile,
keep steamrolling through Africa, Latin America and elsewhere —
but accounted for less than 2 percent of participants at the WCC
gathering in February.
“The ecumenism of structures, the ecumenism of papers and documents and
speeches has reached its limits,” said Norberto Saracco, a Pentecostal
pastor and theologian from Argentina. “We cannot continue in this way.”
It was more than just grumbling from groups outside the World Council
of Churches, whose core membership includes mainline Protestants,
Anglicans and Orthodox churches. [The Roman Catholic Church is not
a member, but cooperates closely.]
The keynote address of the conference repeatedly raised the idea
that Christian churches need to find clearer ways to connect and
cooperate beyond simply sharing the stage at meetings and issuing
joint communiques.
Catholicos Aram I, the spiritual head of the Armenian Apostolic Church,
sounded at times like a CEO, saying the WCC must become more “efficient
and credible” and reverse an “in-house mood of restlessness,” with
the group’s income falling about 30 percent since 1999.
Aram, the moderator of the assembly, urged for more outreach to the
evangelical powerhouses and stressed that the WCC members must learn
how to engage more with youth or risk becoming spiritual dinosaurs.
“The ecumenical movement, for some, is getting old. For others,
it has already become obsolete,” he told the conference last week.
“Institutional ecumenism has been preoccupied with its own problems
and, therefore, lost touch with the issues facing the churches.”
The modern map of the Christian world has little in common with
the Euro-centric model at the WCC’s founding congress in 1948. The
Christian centers of gravity now reside in the countries where European
missionaries once brought the faith.
“Mainstream Christianity is aging and falling in number,” Aram said.
“Christianity is re-emerging with new faces and forms … that have
dramatically changed the Christian panorama.”
But it’s not clear what that means for the WCC and its tradition
of big tent meetings. The only consensus is that it cannot afford
to freeze out the Pentecostal, evangelical and related churches,
which some experts predict could account for more than a third of
the world’s 2.2 billion Christians in less than 20 years.
The handful of Pentecostal and evangelical guests at the Brazil
conference expressed a desire for closer contact with the WCC, but
gave no clues on how it could happen. There is still deep resistance
across the movements for such pan-Christian alliances.
Many pastors worry that the WCC will try to rein in their spontaneous
style of worship and their plans for expansion, which are often
bankrolled by what’s called “the Gospel of prosperity” which says
God smiles on those who help the church.
But the mainline churches seem to have little choice but to make
room. Some WCC veterans say the future could include fewer academic
speeches and large conventions. Instead, they foresee more attempts
at joint worship and social programs –especially those aimed at
young people in the West.