At Home with God and in the World

A Philip Potter Reader

Philip A. Potter

Edited by Andrea Fröchtling, Michael Jagessar, Brian Brown, Rudolf Hinz, and Dietrich Werner AT HOME WITH GOD AND IN THE WORLD A Philip Potter Reader Philip A. Potter

Copyright © 2013 WCC Publications. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in notices or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: [email protected]. WCC Publications is the book publishing programme of the World Council of Churches. Founded in 1948, the WCC promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. A global fellowship, the WCC brings together about 350 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million Christians in 110 countries and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. Opinions expressed in WCC Publications are those of the authors. Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version Bible are © copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. Cover design, book design and typesetting: Josh Messner Image credits: World Council of Churches

ISBN: 978-2-8254-1565-8

World Council of Churches 150 route de Ferney, P.O. Box 2100 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland http://publications.oikoumene.org Contents

Foreword vii —Olav Fykse Tveit Editors’ Preface ix Introduction xiii —Michael Jagessar Biography xxi —Paul Löffler

Part One. Mutual Sharing of Riches: Cultural Identities within a Global Context 1. Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 3 2. The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures 15

Part Two. Together Seeking God’s Face: Mission and Evangelization 3. At Home with God—God’s Household 27 4. Meditations on Romans 12 31 5. Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 37 6. Healing and Salvation 55 7. From Missions to Mission 67

Photo Gallery

Part Three. Eucharistic Ways of Living: Prophetic Theology 8. The Love of Power or the Power of Love 89 9. Peace: The Fruit of Justice 103 10. A Chance to Change: The Community of Women and Men in the Church 109 11. The Prophetic Ministry of the Church 115

v vi Contents

12. Doing Theology in a Divided World 125 13. Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy 135 14. Justice in a Globalized World 145

Part Four. Growing Together: The Ecumenical Vocation 15. “Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy” 153 16. Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity 159 17. The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 167 18. Dear Friends . . .: Fellowship Is Not Cheap 183 19. Costly Ecumenism 187 20. One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 201 21. A House of Living Stones 215 22. Growing Together as the Body of Christ 231 23. Unity, Common Witness, and Engagement for Human Dignity, 241 Justice, and Peace: The Visit of Pope John Paul II 24. South Africa: The Task Ahead 247

Appendices Biographical Timeline 259 Tributes The Years in England: Pauline Webb 263 With Philip on the Way: Thomas Wieser 267 Together on the Journey with Philip Potter: Baldwin Sjollema 269 Abbreviations 273 Select Bibliography 275 Editors 293 Partners 295 Indexes Index of Biblical Citations 297 Index of Subjects 299 Foreword

lmost everyone I meet who has a strong image of or a strong opinion about the AWorld Council of Churches links this to Philip Potter. First as a youth delegate at conferences and assemblies, then as a member of staff, and later as WCC General Secretary, Philip has always brought high visibility to the Council. He was ever ready to open debates, to offer the WCC as an open space for ecumenical reflection and action and to make known his own positions. More than that, he became an interpreter of the Christian tradition in a time when it was necessary to ask and consider new questions together, to make this tradition a common heritage of churches in all parts of the world. In his speeches and sermons, he exercised his role as a leader of the ecumenical movement, and he conveyed inspiration and insight. He interpreted the Christian faith and also strengthened the faithful through his challenging preaching and leadership. It is appropriate and very much to be welcomed that some of his texts, particularly from his speeches and sermons, are now made available again for old friends and colleagues as well as for new readers. These texts possess the quality to renew and inspire both categories. When I met with Philip recently, he received me warmly and welcomed me into his circle of memories, sharing the joy of the ecumenical movement with one of the younger “boys.” He has reached the milestone of ninety years, with a lower voice than before but still full of a deep sense of humor and wisdom. He remains, as ever, a credible witness to the vision of the kingdom of God with its true values of “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17b). We give thanks to God for Philip’s witness, and for the opportunity to give this witness a new expression. May the Holy Spirit bless these words for our time. Olav Fykse Tveit General Secretary of the World Council of Churches

vii

Editors’ Preface

come from the Caribbean islands, from the region where the Europeans landed after Ithey had crossed the ocean. In 1492 they erected the cross of Christ on the first piece of land they discovered, Hispaniola (Haiti). The inhabitants of these islands had to carry the heavy burden of the cross which was laid upon them by the conquerors—and they are carrying it still today.”1 Philip Alford Potter—born on 19 August, 1921, in Roseau on Dominica—is a visionary of the ecumenical movement who took his point of departure from the interaction between biblical text and socio-political, cultural context. The loci of his theologizing are contextual, inclusive, inspired by an oikonomia that provides “life in all its fullness”—for all. In his various placements, ranging from being a clerk at the Law Chambers to his position as General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Potter understands his work as that of a missionary. Missio Dei, the oikonomia of God, and the subsequent sociopolitical and economic consequences of ecumenical existence, are at the core of Potter’s life and work. Philip Potter has, since his early life, been an ecumenical networker par excellence. His often cited ‘only connect’ has been a bridging exercise between the manifold members of the one oikos and oikonomia of God, across human-made frontiers and limitations. At Home with God and in the World follows Potter’s first collection of writings and speeches, Life in All Its Fullness (1981),2 in which Potter covers a broad range of ecumenical topics and challenges, ranging from soteriology and the understanding of

1. Quoted from an unpublished travel report to the Caribbean Islands in Walter Müller-Römheld, Philip Potter, (Stuttgart: Evangelischer Missionsverlag, 1972), 9. 2. Philip A. Potter, Life in All Its Fullness (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1981).

ix x Editors’ Preface peace and justice issues, to concerns of covenanting, of growing in faith as a Christian community, and to questions of an ecumenical life-style. Life in All Its Fullness has covered essential ecumenical ground and has been the basis for much of the ecumenical envisioning and envisaging done thereafter. After his retirement as General Secretary of the WCC in 1984, and for the decades to follow, Potter has remained an ecumenical visionary, concerned theologian, sharer of the Bible, shaker and mover, and a caller for getting involved in the just and inclusive oikoumene. He has remained a prolific speaker and writer, covering further ground when it comes to issues of dialogue, to prophetic responses to neoliberal economic globalization, and to processes of marginalization that tear the oikonomia of God apart. In 2009, a group of friends met together with Philip Potter and his wife, Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter, in their home in Lübeck, Germany. The main interest of that group was to make his writings and contributions available to a broader audience. Archival work started by Katharina Fenner finally resulted in a German publication entitled “Damit du das Leben wählst”: Texte und Reden eines Gestalters der ökumenischen Vision,3 launched for his ninetieth birthday in August 2011. The German publication and At Home with God and in the World are not identical. Though the major part of these two publications is identical, other parts speak more to their German- or English-speaking contexts. Thus, for example, an added emphasis of the English publication is Potter’s reflection on the universal dialogue of cultures. Like the German edition, the English publication aims at making available those contributions by Potter that are either post-1981, unpublished, or difficult to access. Furthermore, both compilations aim at providing Potter’s ecumenical landmark speeches throughout the decades, starting from Amsterdam in 1948. Except for minor editorial changes and, in a couple of instances, a shortening of the contributions to ensure the inclusion of a larger number of writings and speeches, Potter’s texts have been published unaltered. The current pursuit of inclusive language, particularly in regard to gender references, did not prevail when most of these texts were written. A brief introduction by the editorial team, set in italics, introduces the background of a speech or an article, and a chapter introduction offers a brief overview of the topics covered. Potter’s style of speaking and writing is an engaging, challenging, and theologically reflective one. In his contributions Potter interacts with a variety of other authors, theologians and documents. Parts of this interaction have been refer- enced by Potter, other parts have not. This edition has not altered that style, that is, no additional footnoting or referencing has been done.

3. Philip A. Potter, “Damit du das Leben wählst”: Texte und Reden eines Gestalters der ökumenischen Vi- sion, ed. Andrea Fröchtling, Rudolf Hinz, Paul Löffler, Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter, and Joachim Wietzke (Göttingen: Ruprecht, 2011). Editors’ Preface xi

As compiling a book is not the sole effort of a single person, we would like to grate- fully acknowledge the input and dedication of all who supported the publication process: First and foremost, we would like to thank Philip Potter and Bärbel Wartenberg- Potter for their warm hospitality and for the treasures they made available, be it in archival records or in snippets of shared memories. It was Potter’s retirement project to write about the twentieth century as the ecumenical century, a project that, for a variety of reasons, he could not complete. We recall the many times in which he reminded us of his project, and we are convinced that by publishing “Damit du das Leben wählst” and At Home with God and in the World, decisive thoughts and moments of ecumenical history can become part of a living ecumenical memory, encouraging and challenging our notions of oikonomia and ecumenicity. Potter once called himself “a Geneva-guy and a guy of this world at large.” We are very grateful that the World Council of Churches has facilitated and accompanied the editorial process of the English edition. Our special thanks go to Michael West as head of the Publication Department of the WCC, who has seen to the final copyediting, indexing, and layout. Mareike Meier, Sven Lesemann, and Felix Halbensleben have digitalized most of the texts in this volume. Barbara Robra has dedicated time and skills to the compilation of a video on Potter’s life, many colleagues at the WCC, such as Peter Williams, have facilitated access to photos, archival material, and already existing bibliographies,4 and Hans Lessing provided technical support at a crucial time. Our final thanks go to those ecumenical bodies, churches, agencies, and church- related organizations in Germany that made funds available for the German edition and consented also to the use of parts of the overall funding for the production of the video and the English edition (see full list of partners on 297).

Brian Brown Andrea Fröchtling Rudolf Hinz Michael Jagessar Dietrich Werner

4. See, for example, Michael Jagessar, Full Life for All: The Work and Theology of Philip A. Potter (Zoeter- meer: Boekencentrum, 1997).

Introduction

— Michael Jagessar —

“Ah, Gregorias, you are genius, yes! Yes, God and me, we understand each other.” He hoists his youngest seascape like a child kisses, cradles it, opens the windows . . . “Listen! Vasco de Gama kneels to the New World.” —Derek Walcott, “Homage to Gregorias” Collected Poems 1948–1984

The Caribbean Imagination On previous occasions when I have had to write anything on Philip Potter, I always turn to Caribbean verses/poetry to help find words to capture this great teacher, dependable friend, prophetic voice, dynamic leader, visionary ecumenist, biblical scholar, passionate theologian, pastor at heart, walking encyclopaedia, Caribbean wordsmith, and a person full of humility. These are not mere descriptive words for me: it is how I have come to know, experience, study and write about Philip Potter. I recall at the defence of my dissertation (Utrecht University, Netherlands) being questioned by a well known professor of systematic theology how is it possible for me to make so many claims about Potter (missionary, biblical ecumenical, Caribbean theologian, and so on). I responded that one minor word and insignificant dot in a sea with its colorful and complex stories made that possible—the Caribbean. For me, that still stands. Potter is shaped by “a history sunk under the sea, or scattered as potash in the canefields, or gone to bush.”1 I discovered that to read and understand Potter, one needs to understand two important things about the Caribbean:

1. Michelle Cliff, “Journey into Speech,” in The Graywolf Annual Five: Multicultural Literacy, ed. Rick Simonson and Scott Walker (Saint Paul: Graywolf, 1988), 59.

xiii xiv Introduction

The sea or what Edward ‘Kamau’ Braithwaite writes of as tidalectics (not dialectics) “as a way of interpreting our life and history as sea change, the ebb and flow of sea movement: and with the suggestion of surf comes the contrapuntal sound of waves on the shore.”2 The other is the Caribbean patron saint that lives in each Caribbean soul—Anancy. In retrospect, I wished I had used more of the optic of anancy-ism to read Potter’s contribution to theological/ecumenical discourse. For as these essays in this volume will show, his work is loaded with significance, way ahead of its time! To introduce this volume, I explore briefly how Philip Potter, a Caribbean person, navigated his way on the “world scene,” specifically in the ecumenical movement and while noting some continuing implications. Potter is an important church leader and ecumenical theologian of the twentieth century. He stands out as a significant catalyst in contemporary theological thinking, especially within the ecumenical movement. His contributions influenced the changing direction of mission, of ecumenical thinking, and of theology and doing theology in the latter part of the twentieth century.3 It is, however, necessary to note a couple of significant points. Firstly, as already pointed out, Potter is from the Caribbean. He is quintessentially a Caribbean thinker, who comes from a region shaped by the “archtectonic forces of conquest, colonization, slavery, sugar monoculture, colonialism, and racial and ethnic admixture.”4 The region was “the testing ground of colonialism, imperialism, and capitalist racism.”5 The stories of the Caribbean islands are essentially stories of the constant struggle for survival, cultural diversity/synthesis, subversion, nationalism, and black consciousness.6 All these factors are significant in understanding Potter’s leadership of the WCC as they have shaped his thinking and the ways in which he negotiated working in a predominantly euro/western context. Secondly, Potter has spent most of his working life outside of the Caribbean. It is reasonable to consider him as a missionary in Europe.7 He served as the first Black Student Christian Movement (SCM) Overseas Secretary for Britain and Ireland (1948– 1950), Executive Secretary of the Youth Department of the WCC (1954–1960), Field Secretary of the Methodist Missionary Society for West Africa and the Caribbean (1961– 1966), and Director of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (1967–1972). The significance of this observation is twofold. In the first instance, while there was the

2. Mary E. Morgan, “Highway to Vision: The Sea Our Nexus,” in World Literature Today 8, no. 4 (1994): 664. 3. Michael Jagessar, Full Life for All: The Work and Theology of Philip A. Potter (Zoetermeer: Boekencen- trum, 1997), 15. 4. Gordon K. Lewis, Main Currents in Caribbean Thought (Kingston: Heinemann, 1983), 3. 5. Philip Potter, Life in All Its Fullness (Geneva: WCC, 1983), 141. 6. Dennis Benn, The Growth and Development of Political Ideas in the Caribbean, 1774-1983 (Jamaica: ISER, 1987). 7. Full Life for All, 72. Introduction xv recognition of the need to include people from the “mission field,” Potter served in these key positions primarily because of his abilities, charisma, and qualifications.8 As Pauline Webb noted, Potter was elected as the General Secretary of the WCC (1973) not because he was from the “third world” but because of his experience and qualifications for the job.9 This was also the view of the late Willem Visser‘t Hooft, who noted that Potter, who is from the so-called third world, “knows the other worlds intimately.”10 Further, it is reasonable to consider Potter as part of the Caribbean/Black Diaspora that lives and works in Europe. His work and theological articulation has been done in the context of “homelessness” and “displacement.” In a real sense, wherever Potter lived (and is living) has been “elsewhere.” The hybrid nature of Potter’s life (including his ethnic and hybrid makeup) has affected all aspects of his life. Indeed, one can suggest that Potter led the WCC and wrote from the affective experience of social marginality and from the perspective of the edge offering alternative ways of seeing and thinking to that of the dominant view(s).11 In Potter one finds a member of the Caribbean/ Black Diaspora with the ability to slip into different contexts embodying a considerable amount of inside knowledge without being an insider. Hence, my bold claim that Potter should be considered a “calypso” theologian.12

Sir, I Only Came with the Other Gentlemen! In his acceptance speech as General Secretary of the WCC, Potter told the story of the Caribbean person who arrived in heaven when various gifts were shared. While all the others in the group knew what they wanted, asked for it and got it, the Carib- bean upon his turn merely gave a “huge grin” and replied, “Sir, I only came with the other gentlemen!” This comment was neither a self-deprecation of Potter’s person nor the undervaluing of his gifts.13 This was characteristically a Caribbean way of “poking fun” at oneself when the joke was in fact on those who were laughing. It was a taste of genuine Caribbean “Anancy-ism” at its best, that is, Caribbean subversion. Anancy-ism is a signpost to surviving oppression. It is a pattern of behavior that involves the ability to find the loophole in every situation so that the apparently disempowered individual manages to come out on top, in spite of the oppression. This is what Potter calls the

8. Cyril Davey, Changing Places: Methodist Mission Then and Now (Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1988), 20. 9. Full Life for All, 80. 10. William Gentz, The World of Philip Potter (New York: Friendship, 1974), 83. 11. See Roger Bromley, Narratives for a New Belonging: Diasporic Cultural Fictions (Edinburgh: Edin- burgh University Press, 2000). 12. Full Life for All, 302. 13. Pauline Webb, ed., Faith and Faithfulness: Essays on Contemporary Ecumenical Themes (Geneva: WCC, 1984), viii. xvi Introduction

“in-spite of faith.”14 It is also a philosophy of resistance and “talking-back” or a subversion of the dominant version or dominant voices. Potter may have had in mind his critics and those from the “white” world of ecumenism who had reservations about his leadership of the WCC. I think, however, that this was an indication of how Potter intended to navigate his way through the dominant “western” ethos and ecumenical culture with all the usual baggage (subtle or overt) of superiority. His “calypso” style leadership and thinking would refuse to fit into any pre-conceived molds. The fact that he mostly wore a “shirt-Jac” (some refer to it as “Bush-Jacket”) further underscored Potter’s intention of non-conformity—a typical Caribbean way of subverting. As a catalyst, a postcolonial voice, and a frontier theologian he not only gave signals but offered challenges and opened perspectives on: the inseparable relationship between faith and praxis; Jesus’ offer of full life for the whole oikoumene; a sustaining spirituality; the necessity of a dialogue between cultures in the mutual sharing of riches; the centrality of the Word of God for doing theology; the development of the concept of koinonia and the church as the house of living stones; and social justice issues (economics, ecology, racism, sexism, and so on). In his acceptance speech as General Secretary, Potter goes on to perceive his role as that of a “servant,” identifying the need to make the ecumenical community ‘alive and real’ and enabling each culture, nation, and church in its context to be itself, “not just the sum of parts but an organic relationship of interaction.”15 The imagery of “servant” was another hint at “Anancy-ism” with all its signifying possibilities. While theologically/biblically one understands what he was saying, Potter’s slave heritage must not be sidelined. The imagery of servant/slave (doulos) and Paul’s words about Christ becoming a slave is not a theological dictum for a Caribbean person! Further, in the western context where the dominant version is characterized by power and the “love of power,” the call to a “servanting” life-style is truly subversion. It is through the “power of love” that Potter intended to negotiate his way—a way of living also espoused by the Chris- tians in the west but too often not practiced.

Beyond the Boundary—Cricket as Metaphor Potter suggests that the game of cricket has had a significant impact on his leadership of the World Council of Churches and the way he, as a Black Caribbean, was able to work and reflect theologically in Europe.16 Implied here is more than the ideal of working as a team, enabling, and the insignificance of the end result. Cricket is at the nexus of colonial rule and the constructed precarious Caribbean/Black identity.17

14. Life in All Its Fullness, 141. 15. Philip Potter, “Dear Friends,” Ec R 24, no. 4 (October 1972): 472. 16. Full Life for All, 90. 17. See C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary (London: Hutchinson, 1963). Introduction xvii

C. L. R James, a significant influence on Potter,18 suggests that cricket’s political resonance extends beyond the “boundary” of the cricket pitch and interrogates the tenuous walls that separate culture from politics, race from class, high culture from low culture. The opposition of batsman and bowler serves as a metonym for the broader antagonism between not only colonizer and colonized, but between leader and led, between nation and individual, and between class and race factions. As James writes: “The British tradition soaked deep into me that when you entered the sporting arena you left behind you the sordid compromises of everyday existence. Yet for us to do that we would have had to divest ourselves of our skins. . . . The cricket field was a stage on which selected individuals played representative roles charged with social significance.”19 It is my view that Potter, who was nurtured in the British tradition, could not (and rightly so) “divest himself of his skin” and played a representative role interrogating the barriers placed by the euro/western world. Like many who emerged from a colonial milieu, he reflected a contradictory consciousness—torn between the metropole and the Caribbean. Because of his ethnicity, his history and where he came from, he had no option but to “take-on” the dominant western culture and traditions. He intuitively grasped from his Caribbean heritage the incapacity of accompanying the “master-race” narcissism to encompass the many sidedness of humanity. His critics, mostly from the dominant world did not (or did not want to) understand this. Potter’s leadership of the WCC confronted the tangible barriers that prevented people from being fully human. He was criticized for his obsession with third-world problems and with issues like racism, liberation struggles (Southern Africa), development, human rights, and poverty/debt. Critics were concerned about his unbalanced emphasis on activism and social justice issues, the danger of his ideological/theological bias, and his weak emphasis on the unity of the church—especially with regard to the older “historic” churches.20 In retrospect, the developments in South Africa (among others) stand out as positive signs of Potter’s insistence on the Programme to Combat Racism. With the present focus on globalization, poverty, world debt, ecological issues, and the total mess of our present economic life, Potter has demonstrated remarkable forward thinking. Today it is amusing and sad to read the largely western white male critique of Potter in the light of dying and empty churches in Europe and the growing “black” and “ethnic” Christian communities in their midst and the continuing inability of many western congregations to be welcoming communities. Why could his critics not see the “writing on the wall” and constructively engage with the issues? Was the problem merely a matter of ideological/theological differences or the “evangelical camp” versus the “liberal camp”? Or was it because who Potter 18. Full Life for All, 130. 19. Beyond a Boundary, 72. 20. For more on the critics and the criticisms, see Full Life for All, 89–94. xviii Introduction was and what he represented as a theologian from the majority world? While Potter was a respected leader, a very able theologian, and had many friends and supporters from across a wide cross-section of the ecclesial families and geographical locations, he often felt that the criticisms were unfair and specifically directed to him because of his color/ethnicity.21 In a dominant “white/male/abled-bodied” environment, it is extremely difficult for minorities, from a context of oppression (colonialism, racism, sexism, classism, ableism, slavery, neocolonialism) not to feel despised because of marginal identity and to display overt sensitivity to criticisms or to be suspicious of the dominant status quo. This becomes even more difficult in the context of subliminal and institutional racism, among the many forms of marginalization. Moreover, the insensitivity, arrogance, and unconscious (or conscious) feeling of superiority of colleagues from such dominant groups merely serve to exacerbate the situation. This would have certainly contributed to Potter’s “defensive attitude,” hindered or stultified an honest and meaningful dialogue with these theologians/church leaders, and may have given the impression that he had a “chip on the shoulder.”22 In discussing the various forms of marginalization today, the threat of such polariza- tion is still real. The difficulty of realizing a meaningful dialogue can also be attributed to the inability and unwillingness of dominant groups to theologically come to terms with their past vis-à-vis prejudices, racism, slavery, and their role in the impoverishment of Africa and the Caribbean. Too few efforts have been made by British and European theologians to deal theologically with their colonial past in order to break the cycle of their continuing superiority and domination. This becomes even more urgent given that Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean are in Rotterdam, Berlin, Stuttgart, Paris, London, and Birmingham. Potter’s challenge was an attempt to move the discussion beyond a “colonial” fixation and the monolithic molds of oppressor/oppressed, hence his plea for and commitment to the search for authentic community and the “dialogue of cultures” as the “only hope for humankind to attain fullness of life in all its shared diversity in the Christ who contains and holds all things together.”23 This is a tough and costly call. Potter, who has had to wrestle his own inner and outer struggles as a victim of racism and the consequences he displayed, knows this. As he told a gathering of decent English folks: “I know in my inner being how hard it is to overcome the past and present, and the separation which this has caused between me and you, all the more hard because most of you in this country are so insensitive and complacent about it all. . . . I know, too, how all this is woven into my own inability to forgive myself for the contempt I have for white people and the resulting contempt I feel for myself.”24

21. M. M. Thomas, My Ecumenical Journey (Trivandrum: Ecumenical, 1990), 410. 22. Full Life for All, 297. 23. Life in All Its Fullness, ix. 24. Philip Potter, The Alex Wood Memorial Lecture (Surrey: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1974), 18. Introduction xix

While Potter is known to get passionate and angry when the issue of oppressive practices is being discussed, he seeks justice and reconciliation and not revenge. His genuine passion for seeking ways to give expression to full life for all is motivated by the power of love in Christ.

That Look in the Eyes—Love with Seeing Eyes In one of his early sermons (1968), Potter cited a conversation that Laurens van der Post had with the last Governor of Indonesia. Van der Post records that the Governor was complaining bitterly that after three hundred years, in which the Dutch had done so much for the Indonesians, they were being thrown out. In answer to his persistent why, van der Post replied: “It was the look in your eyes.” The look had all the marks of self-sufficiency, self-regard, arrogance and superiority. The Governor did not have “love or trust with seeing eyes.”25 In his ecumenical pilgrimage Potter encountered many who had “love with seeing eyes.” Many of these friends and colleagues have influenced his own life and thinking as he also influenced theirs. On the other hand, he has had to wrestle with the arrogance of those Christians with a mindset of superiority. Potter was able to counter this by his genuine commitment in seeking ways to manifest the fullness of life in Christ. Even his sharpest critics and people who did not know him personally, but only see and hear him for the first time, see in Potter a man driven by the “power of love.” Pauline Webb, who credits Potter for her own ecumenical conversion and theological formation, shared an interesting anecdote with me (August 27, 1990). At the Executive Committee Meeting of the WCC in 1979 (Oklahoma, USA), she was invited to the home of a conservative evangelical family who did not know much about the ecumenical movement. At that very time there was a program (60 Minutes) on TV in which Morley Safer interviewed Potter. Both the WCC and Potter were being criticized over the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR) with regard to the controversial support given to “liberation” movements in Southern Africa. After the program, Webb was struck by the comment of the family: “We do not know much about the WCC and the program under scrutiny, but we can recognize when something is said in Christian love and the second speaker (Potter) spoke in that manner.” Motivated by the power of love in Christ, Potter who had harsh things to say to the Western Christians and to his own people from the “third world,” was able to counter arrogance with humility and integrity. These were two important characteristics of his spirituality. The witness of Potter in the ecumenical movement is grounded on the belief that the labor of love begins with trusting that love that is at the heart of our 25. Philip Potter, “Work Out Your Own Salvation,” Sermon preached at the Assembly of the United Board of World Ministries of the United Church of Christ, Greensboro, North Carolina, Sunday Novem- ber 10, 1968 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 12. xx Introduction encounter with the “other.” To counter cultural arrogance and the feeling of superiority, Potter reminds us that we must rediscover this belief and live it out!

A Liturgy of Abundance One of the significant biblical texts for Potter has been that related to Jesus’ offer of abundant life for all (“I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly” (John 10:10b). What Potter embodied through his work and lifestyle was practical ways to make abundance and generosity real in his own life and to challenge the world church to practice a lifestyle premised on generosity rather than on scarcity. For Potter, the logic is what he experienced and learned from his mother and the people of Haiti: If scarcity is what motivates us, then we will only continue to create and maintain all sorts of barriers against the free movement and exchange between peoples and cultures, and of the resources of the earth that should be for the good of all. Self-preservation and selfishness take over our lives. If, on the other hand, it is the abundance and generosity of God that propels us, then warmth and open hospitality will be what shapes our life together, thus breaking the cycle of oppressive practices. Potter’s effectiveness as an ecumenical leader and theologian lies in such a generous spirituality that is grounded in the Bible and Caribbean biblical realism. This served as an indispensable source for his spiritual orientation in wrestling with arrogance of dominant groups/cultures, racism and his own anger, in his ability to encourage, in breaking through an impasse, and in criticiz- ing and being criticized. No wonder his life motto remains: “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty” (Luke 17:10b). Moreover, I can imagine the insight of poet Laureate Derek Walcott, quoted at the beginning of this introductory essay, roll- ing off the lips of Philip Potter accompanied with that mischievous smile of his: “Yes, God and me, we understand each other.” Biography

— Paul Löffler —

“Sir, I Only Came with the Other Gentlemen!” This was a sentence with double meaning that Philip Potter used at the beginning of his primary speech to the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Utrecht. In August 1972 the highest committee of the WCC had, with an overwhelming majority, just elected him as its third General Secretary at a very important point in its development. And as the chairman, M. M. Thomas from the Mar Thoma Syrian Church of Malabar in India asked the English Methodist Pauline Webb to inform Potter, who was waiting outside, of the result, his two predecessors, the Dutch Reformed Visser’t Hooft and the Presbyterian American Blake prepared to accompany him into the hall. Visually, this was also a historic moment for the ecumenical movement. The consequences will be reported on later. But what was it that made this new man from the Caribbean island of Dominica so suitable that the representatives of World Christianity gathered there were convinced that he was the right person at the right time? The double meaning in his reference to the two other gentlemen who had just taken him between them—the press photo of the triumvirate circulated around the world on the following day—lay in the fact that Potter had from the beginning belonged to the ecumenical movement shaped in continuity by his predecessors. He was one of those few people who had been formed by this ecumenical movement and to a certain extent brought by it to this point in his biography. Then fifty-one years old, he had followed a classic path of ecumenical learning and living: his mother, a committed Methodist who brought him up on her own, made him to feel at home in this tradition from child- hood through to youth. Baptized into the Protestant church he received together with his father’s name, Potter, the Christian name of the Catholic Bishop Philip von Roseau. Although his father practically disappeared from his life due to long-term academic

xxi xxii Biography work in Canada, the influence of his strict Catholic family was retained through his grandfather, who regularly took him to the Catholic cathedral. During his theological studies in Jamaica, Potter was a member of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) and worked for the British branch of the movement during and after his studies for his Masters at the University of London. From 1954 to 1960 he was in charge of the Youth Desk of the WCC. From 1960 to 1968 the Christian World Student Federation elected him as their president. In his contribution, “From Missions to Mission,” he mentions the whole gallery of his teachers from Oldham through Kraemer to Cone, who were almost all part of the Student Christian Movement. When he was seventy years old he researched and wrote up the history of the World Student Federation from 1895 onward. Original contributions from youth and student times are documented in this book, as is his speech at Utrecht. How does his personal background outlined here help us to appreciate them better? From the beginning Potter stood up and spoke out as a protagonist rooted in a powerful movement of young people throughout the world who increasingly made him their spokesperson. At the World Youth Conference in Oslo, directly after the end of the Second World War, he was one of the keynote speakers. A year later at the inaugural meeting of the WCC in Amsterdam in 1948, he was called as Speaker for the Youth. In the middle of the previous century, this movement had already begun to ignore denominational differences and to reach out to one another across national and cultural borders. Through its close links to the work of world mission it had been globally oriented from the beginning, and after the Second World War it developed into an entirely ecumenical network encompassing the world. Potter was able to travel and visit parts of it from its early beginnings. In a BBC broadcast in 1962, he reported on his current experiences in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, in Brazil, and in India. He reported on crisis areas in the various societies where young people had taken the initiative and put their faith into action. These movements reflect the power of lay people in the church who are close to social reality and combine international acts of solidarity with their prayers for one another around the world. In Bad Segeberg, Germany, in 2002, when looking back on these days, Potter confessed that it was this movement that taught him the close relationship between biblical interpretation and newspaper analysis: “Without the Bible the newspaper is not very meaningful. And without the newspaper the Bible is not relevant.” And from the beginning it was a movement of both men and women together. “I believe it left its mark on all of us.” Visser’t Hooft’s characterization of this movement as “the nursery and proving ground for the ecumenical movement,” applies in a special way to the ecumenical development of Potter. Politically it is noteworthy that the movement concerned itself with Biography xxiii the problem of racism at a very early stage; particularly racism within the Christian Mission as exemplified in the ground–breaking analysis of racism by the ecumenical lay pioneer J. H. Oldham (Christianity and the Race Problem [SCM, London, 1924]). This fitted very well into Potter’s own personal experience. He grew up in the native quarter of Roseau as a black person among black people. His tall figure identified him at first sight as a descendant of slaves from West Africa, displaced with all the consequences of dispossession, discrimination, and contempt from the ruling white masters. In the same way and especially later in view of his professional success, he experienced the more refined forms of racial prejudice, which he admitted he found almost more repulsive: patronizing forbearance, paternalistic tutoring, and wounding arrogance. Thus the fight against racism became a constant task throughout his life. In the WCC under his direct predecessor, Eugene Carson Blake, the fight had taken the form of the “Programme to Combat Racism (PCR).” From 1967 onward, as Associate General Secretary and Director of the Department for World Mission, Potter contributed to the development of this program as the most prominent part of the work of the WCC in those years. He supported inviting Martin Luther King as a prominent guest speaker at the WCC General Assembly in Uppsala in 1968, but King was assassinated before the General Assembly took place. Potter had much in common with him as a person, with his pacifist nonviolent strategies and with their theological justification. As General Secretary he not only convincingly continued the work of the PCR but developed it much further with various campaigns and forms of action.

The Election in Utrecht: A Breakthrough! For a long time, even after the Second World War, the ecumenical movement was still prevalently determined by the North Atlantic states in spite of its global framework and context. Even at the beginning of the 1960s, we said jokingly that the WCC was characterized by Anglo-Saxon Presbyterian standing orders, Dutch pedantry, and German theologizing. The large majority of the delegates at the General Assemblies, in 1948 in Amsterdam, and in 1954 in Evanston, also came from the Western world. Correspondingly, the first two General Secretaries came from Western Europe and North America. It was not until the General Assembly in New Delhi in 1961 that the representatives of the Two-thirds World, at that time still known as the Third World, began to be better represented in the work. At the World Conference on the subject of “Church and Society” in 1966 in Geneva, and the WCC General Assembly in 1968 in Uppsala, the majority ratio had visibly changed. The election of Potter as General Secretary of the WCC at the meeting of the Central Committee in 1972 in Utrecht put the seal on the breakthrough. A man from the Third World, a black man, had visibly xxiv Biography taken the wheel for the world to see. That was more consistent than the United Nations, unthinkable in Rome, and almost forty years before such change took place in the President’s office in Washington. The breakthrough also took the form of a new intensity in ecumenical thinking and working. This included: practicing ecumenical sharing, intensifying the exchange between the member churches so that they accounted to each other for their actions, going beyond individual programs to carry out joint campaigns, giving expression to an ecumenism that comes with a cost, acting in line with theological thinking (“doing theology”), and fulfilling the prophetic task of speaking out in today’s world in the light of the Gospel. Correspondingly, the PCR gave new impetus to boycott goods from South Africa and to campaign against banks that invested in the Apartheid state. A circular letter sent to the member churches after the Central Committee meeting of the WCC in 1979 in Kings- ton, Jamaica, ten years after the start of the PCR, directed their attention to racism in the context of their own churches and societies as the challenge for the 1980s. In Germany this resulted in a “Programme to combat racism in the Federal Republic of Germany.”

Potter’s Background and Experience—Formative Influences Potter began his Utrecht speech with the story of how the gifts were distributed at creation, which stems from his inexhaustible treasure-trove of Caribbean wisdom, as do many easily remembered sayings and apt expressions which he often made use of, and which have accompanied many of us throughout our lives. The necessity for a holistic understanding of mission, for example, he explained with the saying: “When you get a thorn in your foot you have to bend your whole body to remove it.” His home island, Dominica, one of the Lesser Antilles, was a special case of Caribbean history and cultural development, if only because of the still-surviving indigenous people, the Caribs, high up in the mountains. Inaccessible mountain massifs apparently prevented Columbus from conquering the island. He merely gave it its name, in reference to the fact that he sailed past this island on a Sunday. It was not until 1750 that it was first occupied by the French and later by the British. This history led the inhabitants to acquire self-confidence and the art of surviving, together with a strong sense of belonging together. This is still expressed today in their enigmatic humor and the “Calypso Way,” as Potter calls their way of life. It helped those who had learnt it to assert themselves and master their own lives in spite of many unfavorable circumstances. But above all, they lived in a society that practiced solidarity and still does today. In the same way they had also learnt to maintain internal solidarity against external interests, which also applied to religious and denominational differences. Looking back, Potter always claimed: “Six days in the week we did everything together. Only Biography xxv on Sundays were we separated.” But even on Sundays it was more like friendly competition than divisive opposition. For example, the Methodist congregation that Potter belonged to tried to drown out the Catholic singing in the neighboring cathedral by singing their own hymns even louder. Potter’s personal experience of overcoming denominational boundaries had to do with the name of the Catholic Bishop, Philip, which was given to him, and to his regularly sitting in the front row of the Catholic cathedral together with his grandparents on their frequent Sunday visits there. The unity that he experienced here would influence his vision for the unity of the church in the whole ecumenical world: diversity and different traditions are an important part of this and can stand side by side as an expression of the richness that has come into being through the history of the church. After his election as General Secretary of the WCC in Utrecht, he spoke of the deepening sense of community, absorbing the existing differences and cultural diversity into itself. In the report of the General Secretary to the General Assembly in 1975 in Nairobi, he insisted upon moving toward “a New Covenant between the member churches at all levels of their church life and the WCC at all levels of its activities.” And following on from his Methodist tradition, where the understanding of the Covenant in the Bible is still very much alive, he clarified that it meant more than a partnership of convenience, for God himself remains the founder of the Covenant. It was a case of a new understanding, even a new theological quality, of “being church” in the ecumenical community. In 1981 in Vancouver, at the next General Assembly of the WCC, in his report as General Secretary, he used the picture of the “House of Living Stones” that continued to shape the ecumenical vision in the years that followed. For him an essential part of this was the components of various cultures linked together in contextual interpretation of the Gospel together making up the great diversity in the ecumenical house. “I regard this as congenial,” he said, “I who come from the special world of the Caribbean, where all major cultures of the world have not only coexisted over the last 500 years but have also interacted.” The universal dialogue of cultures that he demanded had already begun for him in the truly multicultural society of the Caribbean. This is made clear in what he said in his speech in honor of the Indian ecumenical scholar, Russell Chandran, about the real aim of the universal dialogue of cultures: “The ecumenical movement that should be, will exist when the world becomes an oikos in which all will be open for each other and will share a common life in the entirety of their interwoven diversity.” This means that continuing dialogue will become the essence of an ecumenical community in which cultural differences are fundamental and not divisive. Although his grandfather was modestly well off with his lemon plantation outside the town, the household of Violet Peters and her son Philip would have been considered xxvi Biography rather poor. On top of her small wage as a secretary, she was compelled to cook for others in order to earn extra money. On the whole the black population of the island, to which they belonged, lived at a lower economic level of the colonial society. The world economic crisis of 1929/30 also hit the Caribbean hard, and there was a traceable impoverishment as a result of the Second World War. Potter experienced poverty as a lay preacher on Nevis, and lived amidst poverty himself as a pastor of the poor from 1950 to 1954 in Haiti. Looking back on this time at a seminar on “Service among the poor,” held at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, he declared: “What I am now going to say is based on my experience with the poorest of the poor in all of the Americas. . . . [On] Haiti, where I worked in the poor villages—90% could neither read nor write and so on and so on. . . . I was with them every day and since then they are always with me.” Looking back later he added: “It was in Haiti where my faith was tested the hardest, but also enriched in a wonderful way. It was also there, that I got to know the power of the biblical stories to speak to the people in their real situations and to empower them.” From this time onward his orientation was determined by the service of the churches empowering and liberating the poor. The World Mission Conference in 1980, in Melbourne, took this as its subject and Potter identified himself in the same way with the “Option for the Poor” of the Latin American liberation theology as articulated by his valued colleague on the WCC staff, Julio de Santa Ana. Also to be seen in this context is the biblical-theological concern with “Justice,” which runs through his life as a recurrent theme: even to the Bible study he held on his eightieth birthday in the Loccum Academy, Germany: Justice—no philosophical principle, rather a life in relationships, in which people share with each other.

Potter’s Personal Life On a visit to West Africa as the person responsible for the Mission work of his Meth- odist Church in London, Potter was welcomed there with the honorable name “Son comes home.” His hosts had recognized, quite correctly, that it was unmistakably his African roots that give him strength and throughout his life have given him a black consciousness. This also includes his way of doing theology. However, he differentiates himself from the so-called contextual theologies, such as the African or Latin Ameri- can with their own specific regional context, in that he retains for himself the global perspective that he has inherited from European theological history. With this perspective, he clearly remains a critical discussion partner for Third World theologians. He always reflected globally—as did his ecumenical mentor Visser’t Hooft—saying: “The world is my parish.” This however also required a direct application of the biblical texts to a distinct social, economic or human situation. Just as the biblical texts grew Biography xxvii out of a concrete historical situation, they must also relate directly to our present-day challenges. Through him this form of Bible study became a source of inspiration for the ecumenical movement, for example in his vision of “A House of Living Stones” in 1983 in Vancouver. His descent from black slaves however is paired in his case with his descent from aristocratic circles. His grandmother Emilia, on his father’s side, was a nobleman’s daughter with a family tree that goes back to the Normans. In the twelfth century her ancestors had supported the English King Henry II at the conquest of Ireland and were rewarded for this with the Irish County of Kilkenny and raised to the nobility. It is typical that Potter only concerned himself with this part of his family history long after the end of his working life. On a visit to his ancestor’s Ormond Castle, this connection was made real by a gravestone with the name Emilia, confirming it to be a common name in the family. From being nine years old, the advice that his grandmother Emilia gave to him on her deathbed accompanied him: “Always remain a gentleman, Philip!” It follows that his easy manner, when dealing at eye level with the powerful of this world, can be seen in connection with this inheritance; visible for example at his meetings with the three Popes, Paul VI, John Paul I and II, and with the Soviet Prime Minis- ter Kosygin, whom he invited to “Call me brother!” Even Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands valued him as a trusted advisor. In this context his activities after his law studies as assistant to the Crown Lawyer for Dominica should also be mentioned, and his solid literary and philosophical British education. The fact that he belonged to the Methodist world community, in which each independent church was in partnership and fellowship with the others, gave him a different kind of naturalness. For within this church, commitment to World Mission was a matter of course. While missiologists in Europe critically concerned themselves with the enmeshment of missionary activities with European colonial rule, a black person whose ancestors had themselves been objects of this Mission could work in great freedom, and as a result of positive experiences in a worldwide international church community deal constructively with the mission of the church. According to his tradition, it was part of the nature of the church. However, in his article “From Missions to Mission,” he underlines the fact that, “Christian World Mission is Christ’s Mission not our own.” As the Secretary for West Africa and the Caribbean in the Methodist central offices in London, Potter said the following to missionaries preparing to be sent out: “It must be absolutely clear to you that service overseas does not depend on the fact that we have anything to offer!” In 1972, at the end of his time of responsibility for the mission work of the WCC, he summed it up by saying that our task is still to discover anew the mission of the church: “The most urgent task remains to recreate the credibility of xxviii Biography

Christian mission by being a living church for others,” thus spoken in a speech to the Roman Bishops’ Synod on the subject of World Evangelism in 1974. His personal credibility derives from the fact that he is a joyous Christian who practices his piety in daily life. But this kind of piety would not be comprehensible were it not for the breeding ground of black Methodism in which it grew. Specifically in the Caribbean, Methodist traditions of Anglo-Saxon origin had become fused with black spirituality. This then led to a fusion of Wesleyan and Catholic liturgical traditions that were still alive in the Caribbean. They were founded on the very personal experience of the closeness to God that affected the daily lives of the slaves, how they read their Bible, their language, and their songs. Their Negro Spirituals are a powerful expression of what has enriched the whole ecumenical world. Whoever was there will never forget how Potter moved the gathered masses of people at the Kirchentag in Germany, when he sang the Caribbean version of the Lord’s Prayer, which has in the meantime been taken into our official hymn book. It was the same for him at home, where one could often meet Potter with his first wife, Doreen, sitting at the grand piano and singing. Doreen came from a Methodist manse in Jamaica and was a passionate musician and composer of songs. Fittingly, Cantate Domino! is written on her gravestone in Geneva. But it was also decisive that spirituality remained indivisibly linked to diaconal service. Methodists speak of scrip- tural holiness. This holistic approach enabled Potter to talk about salvation and healing, and life in a healing community as the source of health—as he did in his report to the Central Committee in 1981 in Dresden on the occasion of the presentation of a study programme of the WCC Health Commission. Black society in the Caribbean, as in other places, has been formed in a special way by strong women who hold the threads of living together firmly in their hands. His mother was one of these women, who ensured the daily life of the small family, without a husband, with determination, and single-mindedly held her own against prejudice and reservations in the neighborhood and church congregation. It will have been her example that taught Potter his deep respect toward women and what women can move in church and society. Later his experience of partnership between women and men in the Christian Student Movement strengthened this experience. His Bible studies for example were influenced decisively by Suzanne de Dietrich from Alsace. The equality between men and women also played an important role in his work in Geneva. During this time women increasingly gained in influence. The ecumenical ten-year program, “The Community of Women and Men in the Church,” would never have come about without him. Women bear witness to this. Biography xxix

The Progamme was decided at the General Assembly in 1975 in Nairobi. Potter’s ground-breaking efforts for this program are reflected in the speech he gave in 1974 at the Berlin Women’s Conference, as the only man—apart from a word of greeting by Bishop Scharf. This “Women’s Decade” eased the way for women in the member churches of the WCC—at least the Protestant ones—to come into high offices of church leadership. As in Germany, when in 1992 Maria Jepsen became the first woman Lutheran Bishop in Hamburg, and later Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter, who has been married to Philip Potter for more than 25 years, became Bishop of Lübeck and Holstein.

The Larger Framework The dynamic new beginning for the ecumenical movement after the Second World War was inspired at that time in history by a great longing for peace. It was a question of finding a new peace order after the incomparably bloodiest war in the history of humankind and in face of humanity’s new capacity to destroy itself with nuclear weapons. The ecumenical movement was able to contribute far-reaching messages, such as the one at the WCC’s inauguration Assembly in 1948 in Amsterdam: “War is contrary to the will of God.” Prominent members of the ecumenical community were also among those who worked on the General Charter of Human Rights that was passed in the same year. The closeness of the WCC to the United Nations, which was just coming into being, remained over the years. The WCC especially got involved in the struggle for disarmament. In this situation the practicing pacifist Potter was a good representative. His statement on the church position about the reduction of weapon arsenals, held before the Special Assembly of the UN in 1978 in New York, was a highlight of his time as General Secretary. The WCC Assembly in 1983 in Vancouver stood uncompromisingly against the use, production, and storing of atomic weapons, inspired by his leadership as General Secretary. Bringing about peace remained his theme and his contribution, as evidenced in his speech on the occasion of his receiving the Niwano Peace Prize in 1986 in Tokyo. It is moving that a Japanese Buddhist initiative honored him for his commitment to peace. It is at the same time an expression that the interreligious efforts of the WCC, which he supported, had been taken note of in the world of the religions. But already in 1948 there was a shadow of a new division in the world. It hung over the Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948, and would soon lead to the permanent condition of the Cold War. The fronts of this war ran right through the middle of the member churches of the WCC, which were divided into almost equal parts between the West and the East, especially after the complete entry of the family of the Russian Orthodox xxx Biography churches in 1961. In this way the East-West confrontation influenced the ecumenical agenda in many ways between 1948 and 1990 and demanded mediation activities between the two blocs. Potter regularly found himself between the fronts and became the victim of public slander campaigns that stamped him as a friend of the communists. There is little of this visible in the texts of this volume, due among other things to the confidential nature of his personal mediation attempts that were not published as a rule. However, as General Secretary of the WCC, Potter was untiringly on the move for this cause, in order to try to build bridges between Bucharest or Moscow with London or New York. Philip Potter flew thousands of miles in the service of peace and reconciliation! It is good to take this opportunity to remind ourselves how many of the contributions and speeches in this book were literally written on the move, in either a transit lounge or a hotel room. Bridge building of a quite different kind was necessary and made possible by the ecumenical new beginning in Rome. While in 1948 the Pope forbade any Catholic to attend the inauguration Assembly of the WCC, ten years later Pope John XXIII decid- edly changed course when he called for an ecumenical Reform Council. At the 2nd Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 the WCC member churches were not only able to take part with prominent personalities as ecumenical observers, but were also able to influence to an astounding degree the wording of statements and decisions taken that concerned both the member churches of the WCC and the Catholic Church. Between Rome and Geneva a comprehensive dialogue developed in which Potter was actively involved as the Director of the Department for World Mission in Geneva from 1967, especially concerning the implementation of the decisions of the Council. First of all it was a question of reorganizing the field of Mission activities which were traditionally very important for the Roman World Church. Was it possible to find a common biblical and theological orientation for this? Potter had put together fundamental ideas on this subject for the Ecumenical Community in Geneva and had presented them to the WCC Central Committee in 1967 in Heraklion. In 1974, when world evangelism became the subject of the Roman Bishops’ Synod, Pope Paul VI invited Potter to come and give the keynote address on this subject. The deliberations of this synod then flowed into the Papal encyclical on “Evangelisation in the World of Today “ in 1975. A further important new area of cooperation between Geneva and Rome came about in the area of church world responsibility. Besides a joint working group and the participation of the Vatican in the WCC commission for “Faith and Church Constitu- tion,” in 1968 the Committee for Society, Development, and Peace (SODEPAX) was founded jointly by the Holy See and the WCC. With headquarters in Geneva and its own staff, SODEPAX organized conferences and deliberations until 1980 that set new Biography xxxi standards (in Beirut, Montreal and Montreux), influenced the rapidly growing fields of the church development services, and also the church statements on social issues and questions of society. Potter took an active part in many SODEPAX conferences and pointed the way forward with many of his programmatic statements. In the same way it was he who suggested comprehensive global institutions and programs to the Geneva ecumenical community or pushed them through: The Ecumenical Development Commission with the Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society (EDCS, founded in 1975) or the Christian Health Commission are instances of this. It was characteristic for these, as already seen in the PCR or the Urban and Industrial Mission, that the WCC went beyond studies and coordination and took the initiative itself. There is no question that this rapid extension of the ecumenical movement went together with the rapid development of a global world society as we know it today: “Third World centers” became overnight “One World centers.” The debate on the role of transnational companies increasingly dominated ecumenical social ethics. This was followed by the electronic revolution which, as far as communication was concerned, created conditions so far unknown in the world. The ecumenical movement was itself not only part of this but also an active protagonist in pushing the process further. For them the question was not whether they wished for globalization but rather which form of globalization was desirable. At a fundamental level the theological context between the moving toward unity among the churches, and their relationship to the One World to which we all belong came closer together. In the 1970s when the North- South conflicts were central, Potter took it upon himself to stress the role of the “third world” for the ecumenical movement –quite obvious for example in his speech on the occasion of his receiving an honorary doctorate in 1974 in Hamburg. It was his particular contribution to emphasise the tensions that arose from the facts: on the one hand to be an advocate for the One Christianity in the One Humanity, and at the same time to make the Christians and the Churches more sensitive to the great diversity of cultures in which Christianity exists, and to further intercultural dialogue. To work on how the Gospel could be embedded in each culture became one of his aims, as also the strengthening of interreligious dialogue. In this sense he also deepened the understanding of Christians seeking for unity, as a search for a larger and deeper unity in, with and among our diversity and our differences, our various ways of life, our ways of witnessing and decision-making processes. As the development toward a common world society had so far been dominated by economic interest and speculative financial crises, the economic questions became more and more important on the agenda of the Ecumenical Community. xxxii Biography

The connection between ecumenism and economy had already intrigued Potter at a very early stage. Then in the 80s and 90s the subject became increasingly explosive and brought his commitment to justice to a new climax. He sought for biblical criteria that could make Economy possible under just conditions. He questioned the international system from a biblical point of view and warned against speculative Casino-Capitalism. There are examples of his prophetic witness documented in the collection of texts that have been put together in this volume. For the General Assembly in Harare he finally worked on a memorandum with the characteristic title: “Resist global powers!” In it he wrote: “the most serious aspect of globalization today is the absence of political and social correctives. To a large extent the national political institutions have lost control over global financial and economic processes. . . . Which leads to economic and social marginalization and the exclusion (from the life of society) of the majority of the people in many countries.” As an alternative guideline he quoted from the statement of the Catholics Bishop’s Conference in 1986 in the USA: “Every economic decision and institution must be judged in the light of whether it protects the dignity of each human person or whether it under- mines it. All human beings have a right to share in the economic life of a society.” At the General Assembly of the WCC in 1998 in Harare, Potter gave a speech, together with the then President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, that was received with standing ovations. At the last General Assembly, in 2005 in Porto Alegre, he was the only person who could stand up when the question was raised as to who had taken part in all nine ecumenical assemblies since Amsterdam in 1948. His biography, and also the selection of contributions in this volume, span a unique period of six decades of decisive ecumenical history, connected in the same way to the dramatic history of the times: “the twentieth century as an ecumenical century,” as Potter likes to formulate it. Over all these years he has taken part in a Methodist Covenant Service at the beginning of each year, most recently in a small group in his Lübeck home. In this celebration of new commitment, the congregation confesses: “Christ has many services to be done; some are easy, others are difficult; some bring honor, others bring reproach.” And the congregation promises, “Let me be exalted for you or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty; I willingly offer all I have and am to serve you, as and when you choose.” The spirit and the vision of this New Covenant that he has made every year have accompanied him throughout his life and have also accompanied his work for the whole of the ecumenical movement. Part 1 Mutual Sharing of Riches Cultural Identities within a Global Context

ost commentators on Potter’s work and theology recognize that a hermeneutical Mkey to unlocking his theology can be located in his articulation on the theme of “dialogue of cultures.” Potter was not only ahead of the thinking of his day in his exploration of this theme; he also managed to pre-empt much of the current discourse on intercultural God-talk and the need for all to be mutually inconvenienced in the sharing of the riches we embody. Potter’s views on “dialogue of cultures” evolved over the years, beginning from as early as his SCM years (1950), with much of his articulation happening on the frontier of ecumenical activism and not in an academy. The two selected essays in this chapter, “Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures” (Madras, 1978) and “WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures” (Geneva, 1989), intend to offer insights into this key articulation of Potter. What is evident from the selected key essays is the influence of Potter’s Caribbean heritage. Embodying multiple cultural heritages, as legacy of colonial history, and ensuing intercultural dialogue was experiential for Potter. It is his experience of the Caribbean context of encounter and dialogue of cultures that shaped his understanding of the ‘varied grace and wisdom’ of God in Christ. He learned that the meeting of cultures is not a threat but full of promise, full of fruitful and enriching possibilities. In his ecumenical work, Potter discerned that many of the divisions of the churches also have cultural motivations, and that the question of the unity of the church cannot be separated from the issue of cultures. He sensed, therefore, a need for a common framework for mutual conversation about our life together. Some of the fundamental questions he raised are: What does God in Christ say about cultures? Does Christ want to de-culturalize a person to convert him/ her? How should the church come to terms with people’s cultural identities? What is the 2 At Home with God and in the World relation of the Gospel and of Christian witness to such identities? How can we critique our culture and seek the Gospel’s critique of it, while our way of judging the culture and our way of reading the Bible are themselves shaped by our own culture? What is the importance of cultures in dialogue and the expected benefits for our life together? 1 Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures

ike many other of Potter’s publications, this essay was delivered under a slightly differ- Lent title (1977) as part of the Birks Lectures of McGill University, Canada. It was then developed around the above title and offered as a contribution to a book of essays in honor of Joshua Russell Chandran, entitled A Vision for Man (Madras: 1978, 315–25). The essay is a significant exploration of a key theme of Potter’s thinking, that is, the “dialogue of cultures.”

It is an honor and pleasure to salute my old friend Russell Chandran, on his 60th birthday in this volume of essays. We both had our international ecumenical baptism at the Second World Christian Youth Conference at Oslo in 1947. We were both actively present at the inauguration of the World Council of Churches at Amsterdam in 1948. We shared a common interest in postgraduate studies in Britain on the Alexandrian Fathers, and especially on Origen, who taught us so much of the extraordinary richness of the encounter of the Christian faith with other cultures. We have since been involved in the ecumenical movement in all its dimensions. As a tribute to Russell Chandran, I would like to reflect on an essential aspect of the ecumenical vision that is only now coming to the fore in ecumenical thought and action. In the first twenty years of the life of the World Council of Churches, the emphasis of the ecumenical vision was the call of the churches to unity, renewal and mission. During the past ten years or so the emphasis has been extended to include the unity of mankind as the task of the ecumenical movement through one Church, renewed for mission. This quest for the unity of mankind is seen as the struggle for a just society in which barriers of class, race and sex are broken down, the divisions of peoples and nations are reconciled in peace, and the environment is made sustainable for the well being of all. Now, thanks to the theological insights coming from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Afro-Americans in North America, and also from

3 4 At Home with God and in the World dialogue with people of living faiths and ideologies, there is another dimension of the ecumenical vision that demands our attention. I would call it the universal dialogue of cultures. Russell Chandran has made a notable contribution to this development through his involvement in theological education in India and his active participation in dialogue with people of living faiths and ideologies. It is, therefore, appropriate to attempt some notes toward the universal dialogue of cultures. It is strange that although oikoumene means the whole inhabited earth, humanity, we have given little attention to what this community of peoples in all their variety of cultures could mean in ecumenical perspective. What is the Christian vision of such a community? Perhaps it is not so strange when we realize that for the past four or five centuries the oikoumene has been seen in Western terms. In the Roman Empire the oikoumene signified the so-called civilized world, that is, the world under Roman sway. Other countries, peoples and cultures were regarded as barbarian. In the same way, there has long been a tendency to regard Western civilization, which some still call Christian, to be the norm of what the oikoumene should be. The events of the past forty years have shattered this limited vision, which was based on Western military, economic and political power through its scientific and technological process. Roger Garaudy, the well-known French Marxist thinker and writer, has this year produced a book, Pour un dialogue des civilisations (Toward a Dialogue of Civiliza- tions), with the sub-title “L’Occident est un accident” (The West Is an Accident). For him, the dominance of the West is an accident in two senses. One is that in the time span of human history, Western dominance is of short duration. The other is that it has been a disaster both for the West and for the rest of the world that so much that was precious regarding people’s relations with nature, society and the supernatural has been distorted or destroyed. We must recover all the dimensions of the human which have been developed in all the cultures of the world. This can only happen through a universal dialogue of cultures. Let us follow this cue and see what it yields in terms of the Christian ecumenical vision. Early in the letter to the Hebrews, the writer declares: “For it was not to angels that God subjugated the oikoumene to come, of which we are speaking” (2:5). Already he has referred to the incarnation in the words: “And again, when he brings or presents the first born to the oikoumene (1:6), whom the angels are summoned to worship.” The oikoumene to come, the new order of humanity, is evoked by the words of the Psalmist:

What is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou carest for him? Thou didst make him for a little while lower than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. (2:6-8, quoting Psalm 8:4-6) Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 5

Man, humanity, was created by God to share his glory and honor, his manifest being, and to bring the whole creation into the sphere of that being, God’s purpose of good. The writer goes on to declare that it is Jesus who has fulfilled the vision of the Psalmist. He it is who is “crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one. For it was fitting that God, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many persons to glory, should make the Pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering” (Heb. 2:9-10). What the writer is saying is that something radically wrong has happened to the present oikoumene. It has failed to live up to the purpose of God and has rebelled against him. The one thing that has the oikoumene in its grip is the fear of death, the fear of its annihilation. Where God’s life, his glory and honor, has been refused, then death reigns. But Jesus is the pioneer of the salvation of the oikoumene. Already the writer has spoken of the angels as servants of those who are to obtain salvation (1:14), and we are asked how can we escape a just retribution if we neglect such a great salvation as is offered in this Jesus, he who saves (2:3). Now, the familiar word salvation, soteria, comes from a verb sozo, and an even earlier verb sao, which itself has a Sanskrit root sarva, meaning “whole.” The corresponding Latin word salus, also derives from this Sanskrit root. The basic meaning is wholeness, totality, integrity, plenitude, authenticity, health. The human being who has received salvation is one who is truly and authentically himself or herself. The reality in which we human beings live is that we are alienated from our true selves, lost and disjointed and unable to realize the fullness of our being. Hence the discord, divisions and degradation which exist in and between us as persons and peoples, and the fear and reality of lostness and death. All our cultures are efforts at overcoming this alienation, this fear of destruction and death. What the letter to the Hebrews is saying is that the oikoumene to come, the new humanity, is already manifest in Jesus, he who saves, he who is himself authentic, integral, whole, human as we are destined to be. He is the pioneer, the representative of this coming oikoumene, and we become part of it when we see Jesus, and follow his pioneering representative steps. We can put it in another way, using the Old Testament understanding of salvation, yeshua, which comes from the verb ‘yasha,’ to be wide, spacious, and therefore not confined, hemmed in, constricted, choked, imprisoned, oppressed. Hence to save is to liberate, to enable one to have space to be oneself. One can be imprisoned or constricted by illness, or within oneself, or by an alien power, or by oneself using power selfishly. God’s salvation is liberation from illness or from our own selfish enslavement or from oppressive forces, and liberation for a healthy, open, free existence. Again, Jesus is he who came as Immanuel, God with us, to liberate us so that we can be truly 6 At Home with God and in the World ourselves with space in which to move in his world. This is the whole story of God’s covenant dealing with the people of Israel and with the world in Christ. Thus the real meaning of “the oikoumene to come” is the fulfilment of what it means to be human as God wills and to live in the oikoumene as in an open house (oikos). At the end of the Letter to the Hebrews, the writer describes the oikoumene to come as “the city to come,” reminding us that the Greeks often substituted oikoumene for polis. He says: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Heb. 13:14-16). Earlier he declares more explicitly, “you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God” (Heb. 12:22). It is important to note that the life in this city is a sacrifice, an offering of praise to God and of doing good and sharing what we have. The true life of the oikoumene, the polis, is this offering of the self to our Creator and sharing ourselves with each other. That is what it means to be truly human. It is left to the Book of Revelation to complete the picture of this polis, city, this new Jerusalem, this new heaven and earth, this oikoumene to come (Rev. 21:2). To understand this vision of the city as the symbol of the fulfillment of history, we must turn to the story of the attempt to build a city going up to heaven called Babel (Gen. 11:1-9). The motive was to ensure that the people would not be scattered all over the earth and also to make a name for themselves. The unity of mankind was regarded as mankind making a name for itself over against God. The name indicates the true character of a person, his or her power or inner being. When God challenges this act he says “this is only the beginning of what they will do and nothing that they propose to do will be impossible for them” (Gen. 11:6). This is a marvellous description of what was already a fact of history. The inner character of empires and powerful states is to unify peoples under their domination, to homogenize nations into one culture, one language, one style of living under one human power. So God punishes the people and at the same time reasserts his plan that there be many nations as a sign of the manifold character of his creative purpose. But the punishment is soon turned into a promise, because in the next chapter God calls Abraham out of his home and culture in Ur of the Chaldees and gives him the promise “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3). To bless, barak, means to share one’s strength, one’s being with another, to be with the other. All the families of the earth will, by their faith commitment to Abra- ham’s God, be enabled to share their cultures, their languages, their identities with one another in all their rich variety. Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 7

It is, therefore, not surprising that Revelation takes up the human story of the building of the city and shows how God deals with the varied nations and cultures of the oikoumene. Indeed, Babel means quite simply, “gate of God.” The original gate would have been one within which all peoples were forced as a manifestation of imperial ambitions. In Revelation, we are told that the walls of this city are adorned with precious stones of every kind. Its gates are always open to all and it is full of light, the light of the Lord God Almighty and of the Lamb, the Jesus who tasted death for every one. “By its light shall the nations walk and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it . . . they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations” (Rev. 21:18-26). Moreover, they will be turned to God and to the Lamb, “and they shall see his face and his name shall be on their foreheads” (Rev. 22:4). They will bear his name, his inner character of sacrificial love, rather than assert and impose their name over others. Their true being will be in God, and the manifestations of that being will be seen in all their manifold creativity. The oikoumene to come, the city to come, is open to all and is full of the variety of the riches of creation, culture, which all the peoples bring. In short, it is the place of the universal dialogue of cultures. Lewis Mumford, at the end of his long and detailed study of The City in History, outlines a similar vision for the city to come:

The task of the coming city . . . is to put the highest concerns of man at the centre of all his activities: to unite the scattered fragments of the human personality, turning artificially dismembered men—bureaucrats, specialists, “experts,” depersonalized agents—into complete human beings, repairing the damage that has been done by vocational separation, by social segregation, by the over-cultivation of a favored function, by tribalisms and nationalisms, by the absence of organic partnerships and ideal purpose. . . . We must now conceive the city, accordingly, not primarily as a place of business or government, but as an essential organ for expressing and actualizing the new human personality—that of “One World Man.” (652–53)

The point I want to make is that this universal dialogue of cultures is not a new idea that Roger Garaudy or anyone else has just thought up because of our new situation in which the peoples and cultures of the world have been brought closer together. It is in fact central to the Christian message which is concerned about the oikoumene to be, that is, the earth becoming a home, oikos, in which all are open to each other and can share a common life in all its interweaving variousness. Our task is to spell this out in terms of our actual situation today. But if we are to proceed with our quest, it may be well to consider what we mean by “culture” and “dialogue.” 8 At Home with God and in the World

“Culture” is a notoriously difficult word to define because so many different things are meant by it. So I am forced to indulge in my habit of going back to its origins and trying to see what the basic meanings are which have developed. Culture is a very Latin word and comes from the verb colo, colere which had a whole range of meanings: (a) to cultivate, till, take care of, cherish, preserve, from which we get agriculture; (b) to abide, dwell, stay in a place, which became through colonus, colony; (c) to protect, devote to, revere, honor with worship, from which we get cultus, cult; (d) to dress, clothe, adorn, attend to; and there is the old French word couture, and the Latin adverb culte means elegantly, with taste; (e) live through or in, experience, pass the time, or simply live. From all this it can be deduced that the principal meaning derives from husbandry, the tending of natural growth. One can say that the Latins had a deep sense of intercourse of people with nature, of the need to trust and care for creation in a manner which makes it fit and pleasing for human habitation. It is in that intercourse, that profound and abiding relationship, that all the faculties of human beings come into play. Thus in course of time culture came to signify three things: (1) the general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development as one engages in tending creation, the environment; (2) a whole way of life of people, including their technology, their customs, beliefs, religion, their systems of values, whether expressed or implicit; and (3) actual works and practices of intellectual and artistic activity. Cicero wrote of cultivating the mind or of a cultured mind. Culture therefore has to do with the life of the oikoumene, the inhabited earth. However, strange things have happened to this word. In the West there has been a tendency to speak of “cultured” in two ways which are intended to discriminate and exclude. One is to contrast a cultured from an uncultured person in terms of one who is highly educated and is versed in the high arts, over against the masses. In our time, the phrase “mass culture” has acquired a very pejorative sense. More pertinent to our purpose is the tendency to equate culture with civilization and to apply it to the massive power of Western artifacts through science and technology and the particular ways in which the human mind has developed, especially since printing and other media came into use. With colonialism, that is, people going abroad and setting up their own culture or style of life as a counter to that of the surrounding peoples and rapidly acquiring a sense of superiority, the colon mentality developed in the West. The German writer Herder in his unfinished book, Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1784-91), attacked the way in which Europeans were subjugating and dominating the peoples of other continents. He wrote:

Men of all the quarters of the globe, who have perished over the ages, you have not lived solely to manure the earth with your ashes, so that at the end of time your posterity Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 9

should be made happy by European culture. The very thought of a superior European culture is a blatant insult to the majesty of Nature.

There is an important dimension of culture which was developed by the Romans. When Cicero and others spoke of the culture of the mind they were not referring only to employing it for making the earth, the elements of creation, more habitable and enjoyable. Rather the culture of the mind became the cultivation of taste, discernment, judgement on how the earth, the world should look, how it can be really made fit for mankind, how it can be humanized. It is a political activity, concerning life among people. As Hannah Arendt puts it, in a brilliant essay on “The Crisis of Culture” in her book Between Past and Future:

Culture and politics, then, belong together because it is not knowledge or truth which is at stake, but rather judgment and decision, the judicious exchange of opinion about the sphere of public life and the common world, and the decision what manner of action is to be taken in it, as well as to how it is to look henceforth, what kind of things are to appear in it. (223)

Lionel Trilling, the noted American literary critic, has written in his collected essays, Beyond Culture:

To make a coherent life, to confront the terrors of the outer and the inner world, to establish the ritual and art, the pieties and duties which make possible the life of the group and the individual—these are culture. (100)

There is a sense in which a person can be truly human and fully himself or herself only if he or she is in tune with the environment or culture. But it is equally true that only if the environment or culture is in accord with the best tendencies of the person can he or she become truly human and truly himself or herself. So again we are back at the political character of culture. Trilling writes:

it is no longer possible to think of politics except as the politics of culture, the organization of human life toward some end or other, toward the modification of sentiments, that is, the quality of human life.

Culture and the quality of life remind us of God’s will for humanity. Through his Spirit, God created man, male and female, in his own image, giving them his power and being (blessing them) to be fruitful and replenish the earth and bring it into his purpose of good (Genesis 1:26-31). The prophets understood this culture of creation in all its forms as a political activity, that is, as the conscious awareness that it is based 10 At Home with God and in the World on and expressed by justice and peace. Isaiah reflects on the devastation of the earth which results from the rapacious, unjust behavior of the ruling groups and on their disastrous political alliances. His Vision is that God’s Spirit is again “poured upon us from on high”:

And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever. (Isa. 32:15-17)

It is interesting that current ecumenical discussion on Human Development has emphasized this understanding of culture and the quality of life in theological perspective. The WCC’s Nairobi Assembly said:

The quality of life problem is at root a theological problem. It concerns the nature of humanity as made in the image of God. In the Biblical tradition, being human is not dependent upon human achievement or success. Rather, our worth is dependent upon acceptance by God, in spite of our shortcomings. God wills for us to be his faithful stewards, enjoying and caring for his creation. At the same time, he also wills for us to be his agents, promoting love, peace, harmony, reconciliation, and justice, within individuals, among neighbors, within societies, between nations, and in the cosmos. The basic Christian principle in this regard is faith in God, love toward him and our neighbors, and hope for salvation in Christ through the Holy Spirit. (Breaking Barriers, 135)

Our investigation of the meaning of culture has also indicated its variousness, and the importance of this variousness. This issue justly becomes a central concern of the ecumenical movement. The cultural identity of peoples must be respected if we and they are to be authentic human beings and be mutually enriching. The Bang- kok Conference on Salvation Today asserted that “culture shapes the human voice that answers the voice of Christ.” The Nairobi Assembly spoke in similar terms when it said:

Jesus Christ does not make copies; he makes originals. We have found this confession of Christ out of our various cultural contexts to be not only a mutually inspiring, but also a mutually corrective exchange. Without this sharing our individual affirmations would gradually become poorer and narrower. We need each other to regain the lost dimensions of confessing Christ and even to discover dimensions unknown to us before. Sharing in this way we are all changed and our cultures are transformed. (Breaking Barriers, 46) Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 11

Our Christian faith is founded on our Lord’s Incarnation, that “scandal of particularity,” whereby he came into a given place and culture, Israel. The text of the Gospel was communicated within the particular context of Israel. The work of redemption was accomplished within that Hebraic culture, thus renewing and enabling it to be the vehicle of Christ’s universal Lordship of the world. The universal dialogue of cultures on which we are embarked must therefore be seen in relation to the vision of the oikoumene, the city to come, where the riches of the varied cultures of the world will be shared in the light of God’s redeeming work in the Lamb and of his purpose of justice and peace. Let us, then, further develop our argument by looking at the word dialogue. The Greek word as it occurs in the classical writers and later in the Greek Bible has the meanings of converse, discuss, confer, negotiate, persuade, investigate, contend with, treat with someone, ponder, consider, reckon, and even balance accounts. It is essentially an activity between persons. In fact, the Latin word nearest to it is conversari from which we get conversation. But this word conversari means to turn to another in the sense of to live with, have intercourse with, keep company with someone. It is a relationship. It is interesting that the Authorized Version of the Bible translates polit- eia, citizenship, by the word “conversation” (Phil. 3:20). Dialogue is not an intellectual exercise and as such unrelated to others; it is a conversation with our environment, our culture, our fellow human beings. It is the sharing of life with life whereby one is confronted with the issues of life, of our culture, and whereby we express our character as human beings. We are told that the Romans used the words “to live” and “to be among men” (inter homines esse) as synonyms. No one has so profoundly enabled us to understand what dialogue is as the Jewish thinker Martin Buber. In his books, I and Thou, and Between Man and Man, as well as in his many essays, his purpose is to promote dialogue in its deepest sense. For him real life is meeting. The history of the world is the dialogue between human beings and God. The fundamental fact of human existence is person with person—dialogue. Where there is no dialogue, no sharing, there is no reality. The basic movement of the life of dialogue is the turning toward the other. The limits of the possibility of dialogue are the limits of awareness. It is, however, in his lecture on “Hope for this Hour,” delivered in New York in 1952, that he has spoken most pertinently to our condition. He takes his cue from the enunciation by Robert Hutchins of the possibility of a Civilization of the Dialogue. Hutchins wrote: “The essence of the Civilization of the Dialogue is communication. The Civilization of the Dialogue presupposes mutual respect and understanding; it does not presuppose agreement.” Buber uses this proposal, so congenial to his mind, in 12 At Home with God and in the World order to say a great deal about our present plight in the world and the challenge of the hour. I will just give a number of his sayings:

The essential presupposition for this (Civilization of the Dialogue) is that it is necessary to overcome the massive mistrust in others and also in ourselves ... Nothing stands so much in the way of the rise of a Civilization of Dialogue as the demonic power which rules our world, the demony of basic mistrust. . . . Direct, frank dialogue is becoming ever more difficult and more rare; the abyss between man and man threatens ever more pitilessly to become unbridgeable . . . What one calls the creative spirit of men has never been anything other than the address, the cogitative or artistic address, of those called to speak to those really able and prepared to hear. That which is concentrated here is the universal dynamism of dialogue. . . . Man wishes to be confirmed by man as he who is, and there is genuine confirmation only in mutuality. . . . There is no salvation save through the renewal of the dialogical relation, and this means, above all, through the overcoming of existential mistrust.

The hope for this hour is “the renewal of dialogical immediacy between men,” which will depend on “their unreserved honesty, their good will with its scorn of empty phrases, their courageous personal engagement.” I have given in some fullness the insights of Martin Buber because he is speaking directly to the inner meaning of culture, and to what we are seeking to describe here as a universal dialogue of cultures as an essential dimension of the ecumenical vision. This understanding of dialogue has in fact been practiced for some time within the ecumenical movement, thanks to the courageous pioneering thinking and witness of Asian and especially Indian theologians. The latest discussion on dialogue took place at an International Theological Consultation at Chiang Mai, Thailand, in April 1977. The Consultation declared:

We see dialogue as a fundamental part of our Christian service within community. In dialogue we actively respond to the command “to love God and your neighbor as yourself.” As an expression of our love our engagement in dialogue testifies to the love we have experienced in Christ. It is our joyful affirmation of life against chaos, and our participation with all who are allies of life in seeking the provisional goals of a better human community. Thus we soundly reject any idea of “dialogue in community” as a secret weapon in the armory of an aggressive Christian militancy. We adopt it rather as a means of living out our faith in Christ in service of community with our neighbors. (Faith in the midst of Faiths, 144) Toward a Universal Dialogue of Cultures 13

We are reminded of the words of Peter to the churches of Asia Minor: “In your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet. 3:15). We are to show to others the same reverence, or profound respect and awe, that we show to Christ. And with it must be the gentleness expressed in caring concern for the other—the willingness to receive as well as to give, to listen as well as to speak. It is this respect and caring which Christ displayed to us and which he demands of us and demands, too, that we should manifest to others. That is the spirit with which we embark on this universal dialogue of cultures. In conclusion, let us recapitulate the points that have emerged from this prelimi- nary study. First, we have spoken about the Epistle to the Hebrew’s conception of the oikoumene to come, the city to come, depending on our salvation, that is, on our being whole, authentic, truly ourselves and truly human in Christ. Secondly, this means, as the Book of Revelation shows, sharing life in the city to come, which is an open city where none are excluded and where all share the riches of the nations in all their variety before God and the Lamb. Thirdly, we have seen that culture is fundamentally a relationship with our world and with our fellow human beings whereby the world is made into a habitation which all can share and enjoy. Moreover culture is political, it concerns the city, the community, because it indicates having taste, discernment, good judgment about the ways—physical, material, aesthetic, and spiritual—in which our habitat and society can be organized toward a quality of life which enables us to be truly and fully human in the purpose of God. Fourthly, we have seen that dialogue is the indispensable means by which we as human beings can work for and share this open existence, this authentic life in Christ, of mutual respect and trust. Thus, all these ideas fit together into our quest for the ecumenical vision of the universal dialogue of cultures.

2 The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures

his essay was published in The Ecumenical Review in January 1989 (41, no. 1: 4–12) Tin a volume dedicated to recognize and engage with Hendrik Kramer’s The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World (1944). In this essay, Potter critically evaluates the significance of Kramer’s contribution through an insightful overview of ways in which the WCC engaged religions and cultures.

It was at the beginning of my theological studies in 1944 that I became acquainted with Hendrik Kraemer through his book, “The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World.” There were two convictions that struck me forcibly. The first was about the need for the renewal of the church. I was impressed by the fact that in 1937 when he wrote the book, Kraemer started it with the statement: “The general trend of events in the world necessarily affects one as gloomy and dark.” It seemed to me in 1944 that his description of the divided yet “single planetary world” was fairly accurate. . . . Kraemer ended his analysis at the end of the first chapter on “A World in Transition” with an appeal to the church, stating: “But one demand universally emerges from the situation everywhere, that is, back to the recapturing of the vision of what God in Christ meant the Christian community to be—a fellowship of believers, rooted in God and his divine redemptive order, and therefore committed to the service and the salvation of the world; going to the bottom in its criticism of and opposition to the evil in the world, but at the same time going to the bottom in its identification with the sufferings and needs of the world” (London, Edinburgh House, 2d ed., 1947, 30). This was a particularly relevant statement because Kraemer in this book was also strongly calling for indigenous churches in the so-called mission lands to become self- governing in order to be the base of mission and service within their own cultural and religious setting.

15 16 At Home with God and in the World

The second conviction I gained from Kraemer was his well-known insistence on “biblical realism.” He started by saying that what we needed in our approach to the mission of the church was “realism,” that is, “a radically honest openness to total reality, which leads on to a plane different from mere optimism or pessimism or even a well-balanced equilibrium of both” (63). Since the crisis of mission was a crisis of faith, the only way we could face it was through “biblical realism.” He declared: “The radical religious realism of the Bible revelation, in which all religious and moral life revolves around one point only, namely the creative and redemptive will of the living, holy, righteous God of love, the exclusive ground of nature and history, of man and the world, has to be the standard of reference” (40). Therefore, said Kraemer, “real contact with the Bible means a constantly recurring process of conversion of our ‘normal’ thinking and judgment” (63). Through these challenges Kraemer deeply affected the whole direction of my theological thinking and of my ministry. I want publicly to express my profound gratitude for what I received then and later from Kraemer personally and from his writings. I first met Kraemer in August 1948 at a missionary study conference organized by the World Student Christian Federation in Woudschoten, Netherlands. K. H. Ting, president of the China Christian Council, was responsible for this meeting on the eve of the inaugural Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948. Our theme then was “The Growing Church,” making use of the report of the Tambaram Missionary Conference, “The World Mission of the Church,” where the influence of Kraemer was everywhere evident. In one of the preparatory books for the Assembly, The Church’s Witness to God’s Design, Kraemer had written the first essay on “A World Task,” in which he asserted: “Evangelism, the proclamation of the Gospel to all men, in all lands, in all situations and civilizations, in all conditions and circumstances, to and in all spheres of life; witnessing to God’s redemptive order in Jesus Christ by word and deed, in the situation of the revolutionary world today. This is literally a task of worldwide dimensions” (London, SCM, 1948, 14). The Assembly itself adopted the famous phrase, which was clearly inspired by Krae- mer: “the whole Church with the whole Gospel to the whole world.” Since for Kraemer the whole world meant the world of cultures and religions, we may ask how has the WCC and the ecumenical movement generally been faithful to this mandate? In fact, how far have we faced the challenges put to the churches by Kraemer in his several books, especially World Cultures and World Religions (I960)? This is a vast subject (as Kraemer was in the habit of saying and writing) and I can only make some introductory remarks out of my own experience and reflection during these past forty years. The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures 17

I Fifty years ago Kraemer invoked the above-cited necessity for biblical realism in facing a mounting crisis. The WCC has, from its beginning in 1948, tried to apply this biblical realism to our situation. Its very inauguration, three years after the Second World War and after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, took place under the theme “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” That phrase, “God’s design,” was directly taken from the letter to the Ephesians: “For God has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a design (oikonomia) for the fullness of the times, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (1:9-10). God’s oikonomia, working design, is to unite all people and all things in Christ. God’s revelation in history and God’s eschatological promise were concerned about the affirmation, renewal and fulfilment of humanity and community, and through it of creation. The First Assembly’s Message spoke in unforgettably ringing tones of our calling to make the whole Gospel known and lived among people of all cultures and religions. There was an attempt at outlining a responsible society and a more just and peaceful international order. There was a strong statement on human rights and religious liberty which was directed to respecting human dignity and the God-given freedom of people to believe and practice their beliefs, as well as either change them or cease to believe. This First Assembly set the pattern for the work of the WCC and the ecumenical movement as a whole. I want to mention a few examples of this effort to apply a rigorous realism in our understanding of our societies and of the world on the basis of biblical realism. After the Second Assembly at Evanston in 1954, the Council agreed in 1955 to launch three studies on “The Word of God and the Living Faiths of Men,” “The Lordship of Christ over the Church and the World,” and “Common Christian Responsibility toward Areas of Rapid Social Change.” This was not fortuitous. There was an interconnection between these three studies. But it was the third one on Areas of Rapid Social Change which brought out, during the following four years, the actual situation of people especially in what has been called the third world, but is more accurately the two-thirds population of the world. It was in the course of this study that the issues of culture and religion and social change became very apparent and raised questions of how the people of the world could participate together in promoting human dignity, justice and peace. One place where this was increasingly perceived and carried out was through the study centers on religion and society, particularly in Asia. I do not have to go through the well-known recital of the many conferences, consultations, programmes and projects that followed, on development of all peoples and the 18 At Home with God and in the World whole person, which Pope Paul VI in 1967 described as another name for peace; on the combatting of the violation of human rights, especially through racism, sexism and classism; the setting up of a secretariat on Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies, and all it has accomplished in creating a climate of mutual respect, trust, exchange and openness and the sharing of life with life in the actualities of human existence; studies on Humanum through reflection on the programmes of the Council to pinpoint the strivings of people to be and remain human on the basis of biblical realism; and the growing concern for what has now been articulated as Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation in the perspective of the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness. Independently created in 1970 was a World Conference on Religion and Peace which has brought together representatives of the major faiths in seeking justice and peace in our world. But even more significant has been the way in which biblical realism has been brought to bear on situations of deep human deprivation around the world. I refer to the flowering of various regional theologies in Black America, Latin America, Asia and Africa, which have been developed in what Kraemer counselled as “a radically honest openness to total reality.” There are also the efforts being made by Christians in socialist states to rethink their faith and reorient the life and witness of the churches in the context of a radically secular ideology, which is aimed at overcoming pervasive human alienation toward a shared life in community. There is, too, an even more searching exercise in biblical realism in terms of the core of God’s revelation in Christ regarding the nature and role of women, especially as the biblical record allows of its use for perpetuating a patriarchal discrimination against women, no less different in practice than in other religious systems and customs. Liberation, Black, African, Asian and Feminist theologies have for the past twelve years entered into dialogue with each other through the Ecumenical Association of Third-World Theologians, but they have not been able to establish very meaningful dialogue with theologians in Europe and North America. This is very difficult and distressing because it is precisely from Europe and North America with their long Christian tradition that, for the last nearly five hundred years, the aggressive forces of imperial domination, through superior science and technology and the assertion of a godless human autonomy, have denied or impeded the humanity of other peoples. In the last twenty years or so there has not appeared to be, in the churches generally, a corresponding “radically honest openness to total reality” through biblical realism in Europe and North America. A prevailing tendency to retreat into speaking of post- Christian societies has simply begged the question as to whether those societies had in any profound way been Christian in the sense of applying a relentless biblical realism The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures 19 to their thought and life, and to their relations over the centuries with other peoples, especially peoples of other faiths.

II This is the context in which the issue of world cultures and world religions has explicitly come on the ecumenical agenda since the Fifth Assembly of the WCC in 1975, and more purposefully since the Sixth Assembly in 1983. At the Fifth Assembly, culture was discussed in two main sections, “Confessing Christ Today” and “Seeking Community: the Common Search of People of Various Faiths, Cultures and Ideologies.” It was in the latter section that a definition was attempted: “Culture includes the worldview and way of life of a people. It has its roots in history and is subject to continual change and revision. Culture is dynamic, not static. Culture embodies a people’s style of life, religion, technology, literature, and the arts. People are bound up with culture. To each, culture is a fact, a challenge, and a blessing. Different peoples have different cultures, and as people meet, cultures interact” (Breaking Barri- ers, Nairobi 1975, London, SPCK, 1975, 78). At the Vancouver Assembly in 1983, in the issue on “Witnessing in a Divided World,” further comments were made on culture: “While we affirm and celebrate cultures as expressing the plural wonder of God’s creation, we recognize that not all aspects of every culture are necessarily good. There are aspects within each culture that deny life and oppress people. Also emerging in our time are certain forms of religious culture and sub-cultures which are demonic because they manipulate people and project a worldview and values which are life-denying rather than life-affirming. Given on the one hand the richness and variety of cultures and on the other the conflict between life-affirming and life-denying aspects within each culture, we need to look again at the whole issue of Christ and culture in the present historical situation” (Gathered for Life, Vancouver 1983, Geneva, WCC, 1983, 32). From this came the mandate to the WCC to “help member churches in developing an understanding of the relationship between evangelism and culture in respect of both the contextual proclamation of the Gospel in all cultures and the transforming power of the Gospel in any culture” (Ibid., 254).

III I would like to interject two comments on how we have reached this point of commitment. The first is that we have come to see that religions cannot be characterized as “total entities,” as Kraemer liked to say. It is not just that the actual day-to-day practice by believers of those religions has been very much influenced by a variety of factors 20 At Home with God and in the World which did not conform to the perceived classical corpus of doctrine and rituals. It is rather that in this planetary world the secular forces of science and technology, urban- ization, industrial development, the mass media, and socio-political structures have broken up the traditional supposed unity of religion and culture, and there have been adaptations going on in all the religions, including impulses from Christianity itself. Any “radically honest openness to total reality” has to take these factors into account. There is the further observation that most believers of other faiths are now in one way or another involved in struggling for human dignity, justice and peace. There is a profound search going on directly or indirectly on how to be truly human in community. This search cuts across religious loyalties. This has certainly been the experience of Christians engaged in interreligious dialogue as a sharing of life with life in mutual respect, trust and caring. In this perspective, I subscribe to Prof. van Peursen’s perception of culture: “Culture is not a noun but a verb, not a thing or quality but an activity. It is human policy in the widest sense: as the original Latin word suggests, from agriculture to religious cult. Daily work, not that of animals but of men and women, is culture because it implies an awareness of tasks for the future, well-deliberated cooperation, social and changing organization. In agriculture, marriage, the arts, games, religion, management, in all this we find an experience of human activity guided by plans, time sense, awareness of risks and the overwhelming powers of cosmos, ancestors, divine influences. The human being had always to come to terms with oneself, which implies at the same time the confrontation with something outside oneself: criteria, norms, gods or family tradition. Culture is policy and responding to challenges, being responsible. This planning and deciding make cultures different... Human culture is always specific... Our experiences are moulded in the context of a culture. Culture conditions our experience; our experiences determine the way we perceive or think” (Ecumenical Review 39, no. 2 [April 1987]: 189–90). The whole debate about religions has to be seen in the wider and more changing context of cultures in all their specificity. In this regard, I did find it intriguing that in his great book, World Cultures and World Religions, Kraemer gave so little attention to culture in terms of “the coming dialogue.” It almost seemed as though culture was a function of religion and not in dialectical relation to it, as the title of his book would suggest. My second comment is on how we have learnt in the ecumenical movement to understand “biblical realism” or “the whole Gospel.” I have already referred to the theme of the First Assembly of the WCC. The Third Assembly meeting in New Delhi in 1961 was significant in many respects: The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures 21

Firstly, the theme, “Jesus Christ the Light of the World,” reminded us that, as John’s Gospel declares, in the Word “was life and this life was the light of people . . . the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world” (1:4,9). Secondly, the major address of Joseph Sittler drew attention to God’s creative, redemptive and eschatological purpose embracing all persons, people and things. He referred to Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “Christ is the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions or principalities or authorities— all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (1:15- 20). The mystery of God’s economy in Christ was and is being revealed in all creation, and in the various cultures and religions. Moreover, Sittler was the first person in ecumenical circles, to my knowledge, to raise the ecological issues of the right attitude to and use of creation and its relation to grace. It has since been strongly brought to our attention that many religions and cultures have shown greater sensitivity and respect for nature and our relation to it than mainstream Christianity has, except in particular medieval mystics. Thirdly, the Indian theologian, P.D. Devanandan, in his address on witness very delicately but firmly questioned the sweeping over-againstness of the position of Krae- mer, not least in his book, Religion and the Christian Faith, while agreeing with the criterion of Christian faith in our relations with people of other faiths. The Assembly certainly emphasized the solidarity with people of different faiths and ideologies in working for true humanity. It is not without significance that this was the Assembly where the integration of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches took place.

IV Recent theological reflection has centered more on our common calling as human beings made in the image of God, God’s covenant with the whole creation, and the fact that, as Paul said to the people of Athens, “and God made from one every nation of people to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel after him and find him...” (Acts 17:26-27). Paul develops this in Romans 2:1-16, and I quote verses 14-16: 22 At Home with God and in the World

“When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my Gospel, God judges the secrets of all by Christ Jesus.” Yes, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but as the Eastern Ortho- dox have maintained rightly, though fallen we are still the image of God and still seek to be truly human. It is this mystery of God’s continuing grace which makes us much more sensitive in our encounter with people of other faiths and ideologies. My own conviction is that Kraemer’s insight was right about the primacy of “biblical realism,” but the content of biblical realism ought to take into account the deep intent and scope of God’s purpose for human beings in creation. A true doctrine of the sovereignty of God in creation, redemption and eschatological fulfilment must make room for an anthropology which allows for God to be acting in and through all persons who earnestly seek to be truly human. It is the good news of the humanity of God in Christ which makes exciting the dialogue between Gospel and culture. There is another sense in which culture was described at the WCC’s Nairobi Assem- bly in 1975. The Assembly took up a discussion from the conference of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism on “Salvation Today” which was held at Bangkok at the end of 1972. There was a particularly lively debate on “Culture and Identity” which suggested that personal identity is closely related to cultural identity: “Culture shapes the human voice that answers the voice of Christ.” Many Christians who have received the Gospel through Western agents ask the question: “Is it really I who answers Christ? Is it not another instead of me?” This points to the problem of so-called missionary alienation. Too often, in the history of Western missions, the culture of those who received the Gospel was either ignored or condemned. At best, it was studied as a subject of missiology. However, the problem is: How can we ourselves be fully responsible when receiving salvation from Christ? How can we responsibly answer the voice of Christ instead of copying foreign models of conversion—imposed, not truly accepted? We refuse merely to be raw materials used for other people to achieve their own salvation. The one faith must be made to be at home in every context and yet it can never be completely identical with it. Therefore there will be a rich diversity (Bangkok Assembly 1973, Geneva, WCC, 1973, 73). The Nairobi Assembly Section on “Confessing Christ Today” took up this challenge and went on to say: “Jesus Christ does not make copies; he makes originals. We have found this confession of Christ out of our various cultural contexts to be not only mutually inspiring, but also a mutually corrective exchange. Without this sharing our individual affirmations The WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures 23 would gradually become poorer and narrower. We need each other to regain the lost dimensions of confessing Christ and even to discover dimensions unknown to us before. Sharing in this way we are all changed and our cultures are transformed... We believe that in addition to listening to one another, we need to know what people of other faiths and no faith are saying about Jesus Christ and his followers” (Breaking Barriers, 46). This is a dimension that is very relevant for us in the discussion of world cultures and world religions. Kraemer himself insisted that biblical realism was the criterion for judging Christianity itself in its varied forms, and judging it, too, from its encounter with other faiths when neglected aspects of the Christian faith have often been redis- covered. This is a vital task of the ecumenical movement and of our being together in the fellowship of the World Council of Churches. We who are called to engage in dialogue with and witness to people of other faiths have yet to learn how to share with one another the ways in which, through our cultures and our histories, different churches have apprehended, lived and witnessed to the core of the Gospel. In our global village, we need this mutual sharing, correction and enrichment in order more effectively and credibly to engage in dialogue with people of other faiths. When Kraemer and others called for the whole church to go forth with the whole Gospel to the whole world, they were aware that the whole church was made up of churches which had received the Gospel in particular cultures and expressed it in varied ways. Indeed, the division of the churches has in large measure been caused by this very fact and by the inability of the churches to have any serious dialogue about it. The divided churches and their non-dialogical attitude to each other have greatly impeded their missionary witness to people of other faiths. The ecumenical movement and the WCC in particular exist to gather the churches together in meaningful dialogue so that they may render an authentic witness to the world of cultures and religions. That dialogue has happily begun between the churches during these forty years, East and West and North and South, in the perspective of the unity in diversity of the church as sign and symbol of God’s design (oikonomia) to unite all peoples and all things in their diversity in Christ. Hendrik Kraemer wrote thirty years ago about the coming dialogue of the Chris- tian church with world cultures and world religions. The dialogue is now under way and we have learnt a great deal about its character, its difficulty and its urgency. We have also learned that this dialogue is multi-faceted and interconnected in ways which Kraemer did not express or perceive, and that it poses many questions for our churches which are so captive to their cultures and their histories and are so prone to be introverted, defensive and unfaithful to their missionary calling. Kraemer’s words at the end of his book, World Cultures and World Religions, are very pertinent for us all: 24 At Home with God and in the World

“To be a true Church, that is to say, a Christ-centered, Christ-inspired, Christ- obeying community in word and deed, in solidarity with the world serving everybody without discrimination, is the only answer and authentication to be given in the present and the future, both full of challenges” (London: Lutterworth, 1960, 376). Part 21 TogetherMutual SeekingSharing ofGod’s Riches Face CulturalMission Identities and within Evangelization a Global Context

hilip Potter was one of the few theologians from the South who entered the European Pecumenical scene after the Second World War as a man who was born and had grown up in a church established by missionaries of the Methodist Church in the West Indies. He himself became the first non-British missionary working for his church in Haiti. He knew very well the interconnection between colonialism and mission in the West Indies. However, he expressed very clearly his appreciation and thankfulness that the church in his context had become part of the identity of a very diverse population, drawn from many different social and cultural backgrounds, which helped them to survive the dire conditions of life created by the colonial powers. But at the same time he would criticize the attitude of European missionaries who did not see themselves so much as brothers, sisters, and partners of people to whom they were sent, but as teachers and masters coming not only with the gospel but also with a culture which they believed was superior and genuinely Christian. The text “Meditation on Romans 12” is one of his early sermons as secretary for West Africa and the Caribbean in the Methodist Missionary Society in which he addressed women missionaries in a commissioning service before they left for their placements “overseas.” He made them—with a good sense of humor—aware of the danger inherent in an attitude that does not respect the dignity of the culture of those to whom they were sent. In this context, he reminds them that it is God’s own mission, for which they are instruments in his hands, going not as masters but as servants. Three years before he had participated in the World Mission Conference in Mexico where he was invited to present Bible Studies together with Hendrikus Berkhof. In his Bible study, “At home with God—God’s household” he focused on the biblical term, “household of God.” Without even mentioning the term “mission,” he unfolded the aim 26 At Home with God and in the World of God’s plan for his world, as comprising the whole earth, the whole creation, and all its peoples and their cultures, a concept of mission that opened the way to a comprehensive understanding of the Oikumene that Potter finally presented to the Sixth Assembly in Vancouver 1983. In view of his ecumenical commitment documented in the texts “Healing and Salva- tion” and “Evangelism and the World Council of Churches,” it became obvious that Potter’s work as General Secretary of the WCC was undergirded by this broad understanding of mission, aimed at bringing God’s mission in grace and love to the whole creation. One of Potter’s characteristics was to remind his listeners of the historical background that led to the present theological insights. “From Missions to Mission” is one of his great presentations, one that documents the development of the theological debate about mission in the twentieth century. 3 At Home with God—God’s Household

he following text, a Bible study on Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Ephesians 2:18-22, is one Tof the daily Bible studies Philip Potter and Hendrikus Berkhof delivered at the World Mission Conference in Mexico City, 1963. These studies were ranked highly at the time. According to participants of this conference, they became part of the discussions and influenced significantly the conference’s theme, “Mission in Six Continents.” They were published as Keywords of the Gospel with a preface by Lesslie Newbigin (SCM, London, 1964). Through his bible studies in Mexico City, Potter became known to a wider public, and they played a major role in furthering his ecumenical vocation.

The New Testament describes the Christian Community in many different ways. One of them is “the household of God” (Eph. 2:19). The word in Greek is oikeioi, which derives from oikos, house. Oikeios is an adjective that means one’s own rather than another’s, domestic, of the household or family, intimate, akin to. It also means fit for, appropriate to, belonging to the nature or essence of, a thing. In the Old Testament the word house, bayith, usually represents the covenant people of God and the place where they gather for worship. The word oikos, house, is increasingly being used in academic circles to describe the various communities, structures and ways of life, simple or complex, in which men are organized. Of course, there is nothing particularly new about this. We speak of business houses (including the London Stock Exchange, which has been called “The House,” and the House of Rothschild), of royal houses like the House of Windsor or the House of Orange, and of houses of assembly or parliament. The pupils in British public and grammar schools are divided into houses. All these imply communities, institutions and structures. Even a word like “economics” derives from the Greek oikonomia, the management of the house, oikos—national housekeeping.

27 28 At Home with God and in the World

This prevalence of the word and conception of oikos, house, and oikeios, house- holder, invites the consideration of the distinctive nature and task of the household of God in relation to and within the different oikoi, households, of men. When we were dealing with the covenant with Abraham we noticed that God called him out of his father’s house, bayith, oikos (Gen. 12:2), that is, out of his nation and culture, to form a new house, oikos, through the covenant, an oikos based on his faith in and obedience to his Father (Gen. 15:6; 17:12-13). This oikos is in its essential emphasis the place of the presence of the covenant God wherever the covenant people might be— Jacob’s experience at Bethel (Gen. 28:17). This new house has found itself swallowed up in the “house of bondage,” that is, the whole way of life shaped and controlled by bondage. They are delivered from Pharaoh (which comes from per-aa, the Great House) and made the house of Israel. This house has a way of life which is based on the deliverance from Egypt and is directed by the liberating word of the Covenant (Ex. 19-23). As a means of keeping the house of Israel fully and continuously conscious of the nature of their existence and task there is established the house of God, the place of worship, where men offer their life and their labor to God and receive his renewing grace. This house of God, this temple, lodges the ark of the covenant which contains the Book of the Covenant. The drama of Israel’s history is a twofold one—in their endeavor to live within the Canaanite oikoi and in relation with other nation-oikoi, they lose their loyalty to God and this is seen particularly in their accommodation to the ethical and spiritual attitudes of the surrounding oikoi; and secondly, in their failure so to conduct the affairs of their oikos as a people that they could include all men within the household of God. This was the burden of the prophetic criticism of the house of Israel. This was particularly true of the prophet Jeremiah. Now Jeremiah began his prophetic ministry when the household of Israel was already in disarray—the Northern Kingdom was no more and the Southern Kingdom was soon to be destroyed. He was appointed, we are told, to be a prophet in the nations (1:5). This in itself is significant, for he sees his ministry to his people in the wider context of their mission to include the nations in God’s purpose. In him, the word of God becomes again the word of the creator:

Behold I have put my words in your mouth. See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, To pluck up and to break down, To destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant (1:9-10).

The God who created by the word is the same God who judges and renews. Jere- miah pays particular attention to the covenant people, the house of Israel, and to the center of their life in the Lord’s house: At Home with God—God’s Household 29

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates in worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your ways and your doings, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever. Behold, you trust in deceptive words to not avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are delivered”—only to go on doing all these abomi- nations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the Lord. (7:1-11)

The implication of this passage is clear. The Lord’s people, the house of Israel, are constituted on certain qualities and obligations—righteousness and mercy, and utter loyalty to God the Father of the house, that is, they are constituted on the Torah, the Law, the words of the Covenant. A house is truly built on those qualities that enable its inhabitants to live together in community and in common well-being. Where these qualities are lacking the house cannot stand. Thus the house depends on the house- holders. Institutions and structures, oikoi, acquire their demonic nature when men have lost that strength of being, that clear integrity and sense of purpose which enable them to discern, to correct, to change and to master their situation. There comes a time, therefore, when those structures have to be destroyed in order that new structures, new oikoi can be put in their place. But these new structures will have to grow and be built up (31:27-28). This process of bringing order out of chaos requires two conditions: First, every man must become once more a responsible human being—responsible for himself and for his part and place in the house, the oikos, or structure. There can be no real renewal or change so long as we hide behind the traditions, the errors and wrongs of our fathers. It is part of our character as persons made in the image of our covenant God that we should master the rest of creation, and that includes structures inherited from the past, traditions and all that go to make the house, oikos, of our existence, and not be mastered by them. Jeremiah, making use of a current saying, puts the stark reality before the covenant house of Israel—31:29-30. Each member of the house is responsible before God—responsible to God for himself and for his fellows. If he does not join in the building and planting of the house, he will be relegated to the dust heap 30 At Home with God and in the World of a broken, decayed and destroyed house. This is the challenge to every oikos not built and planted on those qualities which make for the unity, community and well-being of all. That is the central preoccupation of the prophets. It is interesting to find that Paul has the same preoccupation in his letter to the Galatians where he calls on believers to be responsible for themselves and for all men, especially “those who are of the household of the faith” (Gal. 6:1-10). Jeremiah and Paul are both challenging our oikoi, our congregations, to be true households of God if they are to be a challenge and an example to the different communities, oikoi of men. But what is to be done to enable the members of the house to be responsible house- holders? Here we come to Jeremiah’s second preoccupation, his second condition. A new covenant must be made with the house of Israel. Everyone must be an Abraham. There must be a new center of being, a new heart, which will enable each person to do as Abraham did: “Walk before God in integrity,” know him, be in communion with him in order to know and do his will. Only the circumcision of the heart will enable the members of God. 4 Meditations on Romans 12

his is an early text of Philip Potter, a sermon held on the occasion of a commissioning Tservice for British women missionaries on June 22, 1966. At that time Potter was serving as Secretary for West Africa and the Caribbean in the Methodist Missionary Society. The sermon shows a high level of empathy and an awareness of problems involved in missionary work that reflect his experiences both as a recipient of missionary work and as an active missionary in Haiti.

This service is an opportunity for those of us who have had a hand in testing your call to missionary service, and who will carry responsibility for you on behalf of the Church, to commit ourselves with you to the task which lies ahead. We do so in the place where we offer daily our prayers on behalf of the Church overseas and of those who go from here to work with them. We have heard your own brief accounts of what has led you to offer for this work and what you are going to do. All that you have said and all that you will say and do overseas depends on the mercies of God—what God has shown Himself to be through His activity in history and especially in Christ. I need hardly remind you that service overseas is not based on our feeling that we have something to offer, or on a sense of sympathy for Asians, Africans and West Indians, or on trying to show people overseas a better side of European civilisation or British life, or on a sense of adventure, or on any other motive of a human character. Our call is based on the mercies of God. You will be severely tested overseas. Indeed, you will make some very horrid discoveries. You will discover how threadbare are your faith and confidence. You will discover how impossibly difficult it is to make much impression on people, even to communicate with them (note not to communicate to them—there is a world of difference between these two prepositions “with” and “to”). You will discover, too, how very

31 32 At Home with God and in the World

British you are, and how odd the British are! You will make bad mistakes. You may even betray Christ and yourself. Remember—never cease remembering—the mercies of God—that great “in spite of” which makes us what we are: God’s mercies, His outgo- ing and self-giving love which creates, sustains, redeems, renews and perfects—His grace, as this passage keeps on saying. Remember, too, that your call and ours to service, our life in Christ, is a big “therefore.” It is that which follows from humbly receiving God’s mercy. We do not initiate our service. We never did and we never shall. It is all his work. The realization that what we are and what we are going to do is a “therefore” should give us a wonderful sense of freedom. It should liberate us from always referring back to ourselves—our consecration, our obedience, our abilities, our achievements, our failures. We are also liberated from the past, from always looking back either at the fine persons we were or at the fail- ings that dogged us and keep dogging us. “Therefore” means liberation from the past and freedom for the future. “Therefore”—that is where we stand and from there we go to offer once for all, no matter what happens in future, our bodies as a sacrifice which is living, holy and acceptable to God. Note that Paul says “our bodies.” That is to say, our whole being, our personality, that which makes us and shows us up for what we are, our “I,” with all its roots in Britain, in our families, in our personal histories. Those to whom we go are also bodies, with their own personalities, cultures, histories. Our bodies are what make us one with other men, one in difference and diversity. It is in and through our bodies that we have to live and work and witness. There is nothing abstract or “spiritual” about that. It is very stubbornly, awkwardly concrete. That is what Christianity is about. That is its scandal. It concerns life in the body, because it proclaims a Christ who came in the flesh, in the body. That is where the life of God was poured and manifested and waits to be poured and manifested. That is what Christian mission is about, over against the major emphasis of other religions with their marvelous techniques for persuading people to escape from the embarrassment and ambiguities of the body. It is our bodies that we must “offer.” The Latin rendering of this word is “exhibit.” This indicates the public nature of the existence we shall be called to carry out. The Christian, the one who has received the mercies of God, who has grasped the great “therefore” of faith, moves from a private to a public existence. This will be particularly true of you. You are moving from your comparatively private life in this country to a terribly public one abroad. You will not be able to help it. You go overseas from the start as an exhibit—an exhibit of Christ, an exhibit of the Church here, an exhibit of your British way of life and of your own particular gifts and competence. You go as an exhibit, not as an exhibitionist; you show, but you do not show off! For you exhibit Meditations on Romans 12 33 your bodies as a sacrifice, as that which is offered to God because it is of God. And it is a sacrifice which is living, not static or ready-made, but which is ever new, dynamic, active; holy, wholly devoted to God and to His will; and which is acceptable to God, which gives Him pleasure, not dutifully grim and humorless. That, says Paul, “is our logical worship.” It is logical precisely because it follows naturally from God’s mercies as revealed in Christ for all men. It is Christ who came in the body, in the flesh of sinful, wayward man with all God’s grace. It is He who declared: “My body given for you, my blood split for you.” That was His eucharist, His thank-offering, His sacrifice. Your sacrifice, your thank-offering, your eucharist follows logically, is the “therefore” of all that Christ has done. There is nothing self- conscious or sentimental about it. There is in fact no other way in which we can exhibit our calling, except by this total, free and joyful offer of ourselves. And this should be the logic of our worship and our prayers. Later in this chapter (verse 12), Paul says:” Be constant in prayer.” Prayer, as an act of worship, means this continued, logical offering of ourselves with our petitions to God and for those for whom we pray. Now there are four tests of this “therefore,” this offering of ourselves, this logical worship, which Paul goes on to recommend. It is noticeable that, in the Greek, they are all given in the present tense. That means they demand present, continuous action. Firstly, we must begin and continue not to accept or conform to the existing scheme or pattern of our lives and of society. The offering of our bodies means that we are willing to have our style of life, our culture, challenged, broken, changed and re-made according to God’s will. We are in a very real sense called to be non-conformists. You will have been told, almost ad nauseam, that you must have solidarity and identify yourselves with the people amongst whom you will be working. That is true, and it will be a challenge to your accustomed ways of thinking and behaving. But what Paul says here applies equally to the patterns of life of the society to which you will go. Your life overseas, therefore, will be constant struggle in which the culture from which you have come and that to which you go will be involved. This is not at all easy, for your tendency will be, as soon as you come up against the shock of a different culture or against inevitable opposition, to withdraw into your own ways, to perpetuate what used to be called the missionary compound mentality. I have noticed in my own area of the West Indies how easily missionaries, who observe our all too obvious weakness fall back into idealizing their own culture and church life back home. Paul is warning us against this tendency and summoning us to carry on this unremitting warfare with ourselves and with those with whom we shall live and work on the basis of the mercies of God and of His will and purpose. Secondly, and more positively, we must begin and continue to be transformed by the renewal of the mind. Here we come to the heart of the human problem. Our mind, 34 At Home with God and in the World our attitude to people and things, our ways of thinking constitute our strength and also our gravest danger. Indeed, the New Testament word for “repentance” is metanoia, which means a radical change of the mind. That is what is most resistant to accepting humbly the mercies of God and being open to know and do his will. Paul uses the word nous for mind. I am sure you have often been told to use your nous! You will have to use plenty of nous in trying to adapt yourselves overseas, But it is precisely this nous that needs to be transformed, renewed. For that is the only way in which you will be able to probe, judge, discern God’s will in the midst of the strange, complex and exasperating circumstances in which you will find yourselves. Paul’s third test follows naturally from the first two. We must not go on over-rating or over-estimating ourselves or our ideas. Paul realizes that this is so important that he prefaces his warning with the words: “In virtue of the gift that God in his grace has given me ...” (verse 3). This implies that he is aware of the danger in which a Christian can be when he is convinced of his high calling and of his gifts. This is particularly true of a missionary who goes from a developed country and an old and stable church life to a developing country and young church, particularly if, as in your case, he has such high competence and skills. He can easily feel superior, and even conceited, though he may try to hide it even from himself. The Christian whose patterns of thinking and acting are being challenged and changed, and whose mind is being transformed, is one who behaves with becoming modesty, and never sets himself up as a criterion. He remembers that he is what he is by the grace of God and by the measure of faith he has received. Paul, with uncanny wisdom, goes on to remind us of the fact that we belong to the one Body of Christ, even if we are many limbs and organs, all with different functions. We are all part of the life of the Church, with all its weaknesses. It is interesting that Paul, and the New Testament in general, never speak of the body of Christians, but of the body of Christ. There is a wealth of difference between these two phrases. When we have learnt the humility of Christ, the “therefore” of the mercies of God, then we are granted that good-humored modesty and sobriety which are so essential for real living and especially for missionary work. There is a Zulu proverb which says: “When the thorn gets into the toe the whole body stoops to pick it out” (see I Cor. 12:26). You will discover many thorns, both in yourselves and in others, but the modesty which comes from awareness of God’s humble grace in Christ, will enable you and the others to remove them. Paul’s fourth test lies in the way we deploy our gifts, always recalling that our skills and professional competence have their source and sustenance in the grace of God. Being a Christian missionary means simply using whatever gift or skill we have to its Meditations on Romans 12 35 fullest. It is in employing that gift that we are witnessing to the mercies of God and invite men and women to receive of His grace. The missionary doctor, who complained in my hearing that he considered it to be a thing of the devil that he was so preoccupied with looking after patients that he had no time to do evangelistic work, had not really applied the test which Paul is enunciating here. He had not learnt that it is in the body, in the particular gift and skill he was endowed with and acquired, that the offer of Christ must be made through his total dedication to discerning and doing God’s will in it. Nor had he learnt the hilarity of Christ who, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebr. 12:2b). This functional approach to our mission is no more than an expression of the freedom, the “therefore” of our faith, which is both daring, and modest, and unfailingly good-humored. These four tests, then, are to be constantly applied to our life and work, remembering that they are tests of the grace of God, of that love which is both firm and resilient. When I myself was about to go to work in Haiti, I saw a French film, “Monsieur Vincent”—about the seventeenth century Roman Catholic priest, Vincent de Paul, who worked and struggled with and for the grossly neglected poor of France in the resplen- dent days of Louis XIV. At the end of his ministry he called the latest recruit for service among the poor and said to her in the last words of that remarkable film, which was made by an unbelieving Marxist: “It is only by your love that the poor will forgive you for your bowl of soup and your loaf of bread.” This word aptly sums up our calling to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice whether at home or abroad. Whatever our profession or skill or measure of faith, what matters is that love which keeps going out and giving out unremittingly. It is the joyful love of Christ in whose name we go. All this is not of ourselves, and never can be. That is why Paul prefaced this great chapter with the doxology: “O depth of wealth, wisdom and knowledge in God! How unsearchable his judgments, how untraceable his ways! Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counsellor? Who has ever made a gift to him, to receive a gift in return? Source, Guide, and Goal of all that is—to him be glory for ever! Amen” (Rom. 11:33-36).

5 Evangelism and the World Council of Churches

n this presentation to the Central Committee, meeting in August 1967 in Heraklion, ICrete/Greece, Philip Potter, in his capacity as Director of the Division of World Mission and Evangelism (DWME), gives a detailed assessment of the theological connection between evangelism and mission, interreligious dialogue and social action.

One of the preparatory leaflets for the Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1954 was entitled: “Evangelism: The Church’s Neglected Vocation.” This title was inspired by a confession made at the Central Committee meeting at Rolle, Switzerland, in 1951: “We have to confess with deep penitence that the normal life of our Churches does not express the truth that to be a Christian is necessarily to be involved in a mission to the whole world.” How far is this confession still true today? I propose in this paper to examine three major areas: (1) the concern of the World Council for evangelism, (2) evangelism in ecumenical thinking, and (3) the task of the World Council in evangelism today.

The Concern of the World Council for Evangelism The proposed Constitution of the WCC drawn up at the Utrecht, Netherlands, Confer- ence of the Provisional Committee in 1938 contained no reference to evangelism. It was at the Buck Hill Falls, USA; meeting of the Committee in April 1947 that a seventh function was added: “VII. To support the churches in their task of evangelization.” At that same meeting it was agreed to recommend that a Secretariat for Evangelism be set up in order “to stimulate and assist the Churches in meeting more adequately their responsibilities for the proclamation of the Gospel of Christ to all men everywhere in all their individual and social relationships.” The Committee went on to state: “The proposal is

37 38 At Home with God and in the World based on the conviction that today more than ever evangelism is the supreme task of the Churches and that in this task they should assist each other to the utmost of their ability.” The main function of this Secretariat would be “to discover what approaches to and forms of evangelism prove to be adequate in our present situation. Rather than studying or stimulating evangelism in general, it should concentrate on the concrete problems of evangelism among specific groups. And it should make available the results of significant studies and of pioneering activities in such definite areas to all Churches which desire to evangelize but which need further help on the baffling problem of communicating with the unchurched” (Documents of the WCC, 1948, 61–63). It is evident, from the description given of the task of the Secretariat, that the emphasis was to be on the situation in the West among the older churches, no doubt leaving to the International Missionary Council the concern for non-Western countries. But the Committee did go on to state, in referring to the necessity for close collaboration with the IMC in this field: “There is no other area in which the older Churches have so much to learn from the younger Churches. And the situation in the West becomes increasingly similar to that in the East. The common concern for evangelism should prove a uniting force binding the Churches of all parts of the world close together.” At any rate, those who had responsibility for introducing this study, especially the writers of the pre-First Assembly book, “The Church’s Witness to God’s Design,” saw the task as being “of worldwide dimensions.” The Preface to this volume declared: “For the first time it has been recognized that the problems of the proclamation of the Gospel in East and West are fundamentally the same, and that old distinctions are out of date.” This was taken up by the First Assembly of the WCC. After surveying the situation of the world and of the Church, it declared: “The evident demand of God in this situation is that the whole Church set itself to the total task of winning the whole world for Christ.” The Assembly accepted the recommendation that a Secretariat for Evangelism be set up, and by the beginning of 1949, Dr. Hans Hoekendijk started his work. The period from 1949 to 1954 was rich in consultations and the production of surveys on evangelism. Early in 1949 a Study Conference was held at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey on Evangelism and a study on “The Evangelisation of Man in Modern Mass Society” was launched. The Autumn 1949 number of The Ecumenical Review carried three articles on evangelism which the editor, Dr. Visser‘t Hooft, described as “the ecumenical theme par excellence.” In the following years pamphlets were published giving the results of surveys on evangelism in Finland, Netherlands, France, India, Scotland, Latin America, Germany, Ceylon and USA. The Central Committee meeting at Rolle in 1951 adopted a statement on “The Calling of the Church to Mission and to Unity” in which the churches Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 39 were reminded that the word “ecumenical” “is properly used to describe everything that relates to the whole task of the whole Church to bring the Gospel to the whole world.” The Second Assembly at Evanston, USA, marked another stage in the concern of the WCC for evangelism. As a preparation for it an ecumenical survey was produced on “Evangelism—the mission of the Church to those outside her life.” The Introduction very pointedly states: “The day of separation between ‘mission’ and ‘evangelism’ is, or should be, over. Hence, a beginning is made in this survey to deal with the missionary task of the Church on an equality with evangelism as a specialized activity. The union, or reunion, of the concepts ‘mission’ and ‘evangelism’ should mark a step forward in ecumenical discourse.” This survey gave a summary of what the churches were doing and thinking in different countries around the world. There was an admission that the study launched in 1949 had not yielded any spectacular results. “The slow progress seems to be due mainly to an almost chaotic confusion as to the meaning and scope of evangelism. Evangelism has indeed become the ecumenical theme par excellence, but we have hardly begun to make it a concern of serious ecumenical study.” At the Second WCC Assembly the Secretariat for Evangelism became a department in the Division of Studies but without a full-time secretary. However, a “Monthly Letter about Evangelism” was regularly published, and in the following years there was much ecumenical thinking on the meaning of evangelism, culminating in a consultation in March 1958 which produced the widely used pamphlet, “Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism.” . . . Meanwhile, the Laity Department was pursuing with great vigor the theme of “The Role of the Laity in the Missionary Outreach of the Church”—the subject of a conference at Yale in 1957. An IMC pamphlet on “One Body, One Gospel, One World,” which took up much the same issues, reached a very wide constituency. Soon the emphasis shifted to the subject of “Evangelism and the Structure of the Church.” Actually, in a survey on evangelism made in preparation for the First WCC Assembly in Amsterdam, Bishop Stephen Neill wrote: “Without the conversion of the Church, world-evangelism cannot be more than a name.” Dr. Visser‘t Hooft in his 1949 editorial referred to the boomerang effect of the evangelism question: “The Church which would call the world to order is suddenly called to order itself. The question it would throw into the world—“Do you not know that you belong to Christ?”—comes back as an echo. The church discovers that it cannot truly evangelize, that its message is unconvincing unless it lets itself be transformed and renewed, unless it becomes what it believes it is.” The Third WCC Assembly’s report on Witness gave powerful expression to this emphasis: “We must examine the conventional structure of our churches in order to 40 At Home with God and in the World see whether they assist or hinder the work of evangelism.” The hope was that “the church may become the Pilgrim Church, which goes forth boldly as Abraham did into the unknown future, not afraid to leave behind the securities of its conventional structures, glad to dwell in the tent of perpetual adaptation, looking to the city whose builder and maker is God.” Under the leadership of Dr. Hans-Jochen Margull, a wide-ranging study was undertaken on “The Missionary Structure of the Congregation.” Study groups were formed in Europe and North America to reflect on the work of evangelism and particularly on experiments being carried out in industrial cities. An impressive number of publications were produced, the two most notable being “Planning for Mission,” and “The Church for Others,” which give the results of these studies. It can confidently be said that no other WCC study has in recent years been so keenly supported by groups in Europe and the USA as this one. It is a curious fact, however, that this study on “The Missionary Structure of the Congregation” was not seriously taken up in Asia, Africa and Latin America. One reason given for this is that the study was developed in ways which would more readily engage the attention of churches within traditional Christendom. But this does not mean that the churches of Asia, Africa and Latin America have ignored the issues involved in evangelism. All the major regional meetings, from that in Asia in 1949 onward, have given central attention to the task and call to evangelism. Dr. Visser‘t Hooft commented on the Asian Confer- ence at Bangkok 1949 as follows: “There lives in these churches a deep and genuine conviction that the Church’s very existence depends upon its readiness to evangelize. And that is then the boomerang which returns from the daughter Churches to the mother Churches—the insistent question whether the Western Churches, who have exported a dynamic, evangelistic conception of the Church, can recapture that conception for themselves.” I would imagine that this comment can be made of both the daughter and mother churches today. Moreover, the IMC which became the Division of World Mission and Evangelism (DWME) after New Delhi, initiated a series of studies on mission comparable to those on evangelism, with the last big survey on evangelism being done in preparation for the World Missionary Conference in Tambaram, India, in 1938. Often the same people were involved in producing the studies. This is clearly seen in the appearance in 1961 of the companion to “A Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism” entitled “The Missionary Task of the Church—Theological Reflections.” Two commissioned books appeared later—“The Missionary Nature of the Church” by Dr. J. Blauw and “Upon the Earth” by Dr. D. T. Niles. These have been supported by a series of missionary research pamphlets and also by a series of studies of Churches in the missionary situation in Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 41 different parts of the world. They have all had much to say about the evangelistic situation and task in different countries. The DWME also helped the All Africa Conference of Churches to undertake a survey of the situation in West Africa which disclosed large areas which have not been evangelized. Nine French-speaking churches in Africa and Oceania have taken up the challenge of one area in Dahomey (Benin). Further, a study has been carried out in cooperation with the United Bible Societies on “The Use of the Bible in Evangelism.” There has therefore been considerable activity within the World Council in the field of evangelism. A massive job of surveying and sharing information about and experiments in evangelism has gone on. Discussions of the nature and scope of evangelism and on the necessity for an evangelizing Church have been vigorously pursued with a wide variety of people participating, and the results have been made available to the churches. Other Departments of the World Council have conceived of their work in terms of witness and service to the world. The Division of Ecumenical Action has, in particular, played a significant role in challenging youth, laymen and laywomen and the clergy to their evangelistic calling as the missionary people of God. It can be said that the WCC has been haunted by the word of Bishop Stephen Neill in the pre-Amsterdam Assembly book: “The problem of the Church’s mission is the crisis of the ecumenical movement. If an ecumenical movement is not primarily a strategy of worldwide evangelism, then it is nothing but an interesting academic exercise.” Has the WCC been in fact “a strategy of worldwide evangelism” during its nineteen years of existence? The criticisms levelled at the Council might suggest that it has not been, or at least not adequately so. But much depends on how evangelism has been conceived. We must therefore turn to a consideration of the understandings of evangelism which have emerged in the thinking and activities of the Council.

Evangelism in Ecumenical Thinking The most authoritative sources for a definition of evangelism and a description of its scope are the three Assembly statements—“The Church’s Witness to God’s Design” (Amsterdam) ; “Evangelism—The Mission of the Church to those outside her life” (Evanston) ; “Witness” (New Delhi). Two other sources, giving the results of the thinking and discussion of representative groups, are: “A Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism” (1958) and “The Church for Others” (1967). I shall first of all attempt to summarize the points which seem to indicate a general consensus, and then indicate the issues which are the subject of disagreement and debate within the fellowship of the WCC. The points of agreement seem to be: 42 At Home with God and in the World

The Nature of Evangelism The last big effort to define evangelism before the formation of the WCC was at the World Missionary Conference at Tambaram, India, in 1938. This was conceived as applying to “the lands of both the older and the younger churches”: “By evangelism we understand that the Church Universal, in all its branches and through the service of all its members, must so present Christ Jesus to the world in the power of the Holy Spirit that men shall come to put their trust in God through him, accept him as their savior and serve him as their Lord in the fellowship of his Church.” The following subsequent definitions were attempted: “To the Church is given the privilege of so making Christ known to men that each is confronted with the necessity of a personal decision, yes or no” (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1948). “Evangelism is witness for Christ directed toward all men and seeking to claim for him every department of life both personal and public. This witness is given by proclamation, fellowship and service” (Willingen, Germany, 1952). “Jesus Christ is the Gospel we proclaim. He is also himself the Evangelist... To evangelize is to participate in his life and in his ministry to the world... [Evangelism is] the bringing of persons to Christ as Savior and Lord that they may share in his eternal life. Here is the heart of the matter. There must be personal encounter with Christ. . . . For on his relationship to God in Christ depends the eternal destiny of man” (Evanston, USA, 1954). There is quite evidently here an agreement in ecumenical thinking on the basic meaning of evangelism. There is also general agreement about what it is not: Evange- lism is not propaganda. It is not the purveying of a particular confessional doctrine or way of life, or of a so-called superior Christian culture. This is implied in the Evanston statement which reminds us that Jesus Christ is both the Evangel and the Evangelist. It was stated even more unequivocally by the IMC Conference in 1957 in Ghana: “The mission is God’s, not ours.” “If mission is basically understood as God working out His purpose for His creation, the Church does not have a separate mission of its own. It is called to participate in God’s mission” (The Church for Others, 75). Evangelism is not proselytism. The decisive statement on this was made in 1960, later adopted by the New Delhi Assembly in 1961, entitled “Christian Witness, Pros- elytism and Religious Liberty in the Setting of the WCC”: “Proselytism . . . is the corruption of witness. Witness is corrupted when cajolery, bribery, undue pressure or intimidation is used—subtly or openly—to bring about seeming conversion; when we put the success of our church before the honor of Christ; when we commit the dishon- esty of comparing the ideal of our own church with the actual achievement of another; Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 43 when we seek to advance our own cause by bearing false witness against another church; when personal or corporate self-seeking replaces love for every individual soul with whom we are concerned. Such corruption of the Christian witness indicates lack of confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit, lack of respect for the nature of man and lack of recognition of the true character of the Gospel” (WCC Central Committee Minutes, 1960, 240).

The Authority for and Urgency of Evangelism “The basic urgency of evangelism arises, therefore, from the nature and content of the Gospel itself, and its authority lies in the recognition by all believers that they have been claimed by Christ precisely for the purpose of becoming his witnesses. The imperative of evangelism lies in the deeds of God which are its message, and its inevitability lies in the fact that they who evangelize are those who have been grasped by God’s action, and know that their witness in word, deed, and oneness is the reflex of their faith-relation to their Lord. The love of Christ constrains them” (Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism, p. 15). “The urgency of the Church’s evangelistic task arises from the Gospel itself, because it is the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (New Delhi, India, 1961). “As we have studied evangelism in its ecumenical setting we have been burdened by a sense of urgency... If the Gospel really is a matter of life and death, it seems intolerable that any human being now in the world should live out his life without ever having the chance to hear and receive it. . . . Now, not tomorrow, is the time to act” (Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1948).

The Dimensions of Evangelism “Evangelism is no specialized or separable or periodic activity, but is rather a dimension of the total activity of the Church. Everything the Church does is of evangelizing significance” (Evanston, USA, 1954). This conception of the dimensions of evangelism cannot be stressed too strongly, for it constitutes a crucial element in the history of the missionary movement and particularly in the life and work of the World Coun- cil of Churches in all its Divisions and Departments. It is most fully expressed in the pamphlet, “Theological Reflection on the Work of Evangelism”: “There is no single way to witness to Jesus Christ. The Church has borne witness in different times and places in different ways. This is important. There are occasions when dynamic action in society is called for; there are others when a word must be spoken; others when the behavior of Christians one to another is the telling witness. On still other occasions the simple presence of a worshipping community or man is the witness. These different dimensions of witness to the one Lord are always a matter of concrete obedience. To 44 At Home with God and in the World take them in isolation from one another is to distort the Gospel. They are inextricably bound together, and together give the true dimension of evangelism. The important thing is that God’s redeeming Word be proclaimed and heard” (21).

The Evangelizing Church There is a clear consensus that evangelism is not the task of the specialists or of a few but of the whole Christian community. The following statement is representative of what has been asserted at every ecumenical gathering: “The commission given to the whole Church to be obeyed at all times and places is: ‘You shall be my witnesses.’ Evan- gelism is of the nature of the calling of the Church. It is a false differentiation to speak of the Church in its congregational expression on the one hand and its evangelistic mission on the other. The truth is not that the Church has a mission to the world but that it is God’s mission to the world. It bears the Gospel of Jesus Christ and lives by its calling to belong to his continuing ministry” (Theological Reflection, 14). It is this insight which has led to the ecumenical enquiry on the obstacles in the life of the churches which hinder them from becoming and acting like the apostolic, pilgrim band which Christ intended his Church to be, and also on the kind of structures which the churches should have in order resolutely and joyfully to live up to their evangelistic calling. Special attention has also been given to the vital role of the laity as “the missionaries of Christ in every secular sphere” and therefore of their need for training “in the contents of the Christian faith and in the significance of that faith for obedience and witness in the different contexts of lay life” (Evanston, 1954).

The Goal of Evangelism Ecumenical thinking on evangelism has been deepened by the recovery of the eschatological nature of the Gospel. This was given clear expression by the Advisory Commission on “Christ—the Hope of the World” (1954) that described the Church’s mission as “participation in the work of God which takes place between the coming of Jesus Christ to inaugurate God’s Kingdom on earth, and His coming again in glory to bring that Kingdom to its consummation... Our work until His coming again is but the result of our share in the work which He is doing all the time and everywhere. The Church’s mission is thus the most important thing that is happening in history. And yet because the mission of the Church points beyond history to the close of the age, it has this significance too, that it is itself among the signs that the end of history has begun. The hope of our calling is set toward the hope of His coming” (16–17). The more recent discussion on the goal of God’s mission has concentrated on humanization “because we believe that more than others it communicates in our period Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 45 of history the meaning of the messianic goal. . . . Today the fundamental question is much more that of true man, and the dominant concern of the missionary congregation must therefore be to point to the humanity in Christ as the goal of mission” (The Church for Others, 78.). These then are the main emphases in ecumenical discussion on evangelism that we can call a consensus. But within this consensus there are important aspects of evangelism about which there is much debate and even disagreement. Here are some of them: A. The relation of mission and evangelism. There are two different approaches to this. First, there are still those who claim that mission takes place in continents where the Gospel has never been heard while evangelism is directed to those who are alienated from the churches and to new generations within the sphere of the Christian community. The debate is further complicated by the fact that those alienated from the Church are often baptized and as such have been sealed as members of the Body of Christ. As far back as the Tambaram, India, Conference and even more explicitly at Amsterdam, it was strongly held that the distinction of mission from evangelism cannot be maintained in this way. This derives from the discovery that there are now millions of people in the so-called Christian West who live in societies which are quite alien to the life and witness of the Church. We are called to “mission in six continents” and that mission is the apostolate of the Evangel, the Good News of Christ. In fact ecumenical literature since Amsterdam has used “mission,” “witness,” and “evangelism” interchangeably. Secondly, there is a tendency to speak of “mission” as the Church’s total involvement in Christ’s ministry among men in life and service, while “evangelism” is the calling of men to faith in Christ. One finds in ecumenical circles and also among those involved in the work of the WCC a preference for “mission” over against “evangelism.” Even the word “mission” is deemed to smack so much of “missions” (the organized missionary work of churches through boards or societies) as to acquire a pejorative sense, and there is a marked preference for “service.” The distinction between the two concepts has been maintained in the Division of World Mission and Evangelism, though the aim of the Division is “to further the proclamation to the whole of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the end that all men may believe in Him and be saved.” There is certainly need for probing deeper into the meaning and significance of these two words to discover what are the legitimate and illegitimate distinctions between them and their significance for our understanding of God’s calling to His people. B. The relation of evangelism and social concern. This is a perennial debate between the conservative Evangelicals and others. There are those who say that the World Coun- cil is more concerned about social betterment or “development” than about evangelism. It is, however, noteworthy that at the World Conference on Evangelism in Berlin last year, a very strong statement was made on race and the final declaration was entitled 46 At Home with God and in the World

“One Race, One Gospel, One Task.” Here was a tacit acknowledgement that it is part of the evangelistic message that in Christ the walls which divide men into races, cultures, nations and classes have been broken down. Ecumenical pronouncements have been biblically and theologically impeccable in refusing to separate proclamation, fellowship and service that belong inseparably to the good news of salvation. Evangelism is not only in word but in deed and in life. And yet there is a definite recognition that everyone ought to have an opportunity freely to meet Christ and to say yes or no to him. We are agreed on all this. But there is a distinct shyness in our ranks from pushing our evangelism to the point of decision. One well-known inter-church service agency has a slogan which goes something like this: “Giving without asking anything in return— not even faith.” On the surface it sounds right. Christian giving and service should be disinterested and not used as a subterfuge or a bait for trying to win men. That would be proselytism. And yet, it can easily fall into a subtle form of propaganda—a convenient way of extracting money from those who are critical or even hostile to the total claims of the Gospel as a means of showing how relevant the Church is in a secular world. We need to remind ourselves that the love of Christ constrains us to act and to speak humbly, sensitively, joyfully and without making any prior judgments about what is necessary or useful. The World Council will have to guard against the ever-present danger of upgrading service and prophetic witness on social and economic issues and downgrading evangelism or vice-versa. Let us not sever what God has joined in His creative and redemptive action in history and in His promise at the end of history. C. The relation of dialogue, presence and evangelism. “Dialogue” and “presence” are very much in vogue today in ecumenical discussions. They call attention to two dangers in evangelism. First, the aggressive attitude of believing that we know men’s minds and have the answers ready, that we have everything to give and nothing to receive, that our stance is that of “Thus saith the Lord” without the prophetic solidarity with the people and wrestling with God on their behalf to receive His Word. Secondly, there is a tendency toward evangelistic campaigns or special missions or individual sorties aimed at winning folk for Christ and rescuing them from the world into our apparently unworldly churches, which would increase their introversion. These attitudes and actions have been rightly condemned in all our ecumenical conferences. We are all for “dialogue” and “presence.” The latest attempt at defining “dialogue” was made at a Protestant/Orthodox/Roman Catholic consultation at Kandy, Sri Lanka, this year. Under the title, “Christians in Dialogue with Men of Other Faiths” it said:

Dialogue means a positive effort to attain a deeper understanding of the truth through mutual awareness of one another’s convictions and witness. It involves an expectation of something new happening—the opening of a new dimension of which one was not aware before. Dialogue implies a readiness to be changed as well as to influence others. Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 47

Good dialogue develops when one partner speaks in such a way that the other feels drawn to listen, and likewise when one listens so that the other is drawn to speak. The outcome of the dialogue is the work of the Spirit. . . . True dialogue is a progressive and cumulative process, which takes place not only through verbal communication, but through the dynamic contact of life with life. Christians today may meet men of other faiths anywhere in the world. Nothing less than living in dialogue is the responsibility and privilege to which we are called.” (Study Encounter 3, no. 2, 54)

This attitude of dialogue is the main feature of the encounter of Christians and Marxists especially in Eastern Europe. One Czech Marxist philosopher has expressed himself movingly on this: “Dialogue,” he writes, “is the supreme form of contact between human beings... Dialogue is the encounter of individuals or groups in which there is a complete opening of each one toward the other... it is existential interaction.” “Pres- ence” is the current word used for such phrases as “solidarity” and “identification.” We said at Evanston: “The Church must break out of its isolation and introversion, meeting the individual where he is with the compassion and comprehension of Christ.” The idea of “presence” is strongly influenced by French Roman Catholic missionary experience first in North Africa among Moslems and then in France itself after the Second World War. Lately the World Student Christian Federation has produced a statement which seems to substitute “presence” for “witness” as being more faithful to the evangelistic task today, and uses even the phrase “authentic silence.” This Christian presence in a pluralistic society will mean the emergence of an increasing number of varying forms of church life (The Church for Others, 29).

“Dialogue” and “presence” have brought much enrichment to our understanding of faithful evangelism, but they raise the question of the place of, proclamation, or the confrontation of men, with the message of Christ, challenging them to decision for or against him. The Kandy, Sri Lanka, Consultation recognizes the problem: “Dialogue and proclamation are not identical but related. At any time or place within the course of our living in dialogue, moments for proclamation of the Gospel may be given. For Christians, proclamation is the sharing of the Good News about God’s action in history through Jesus Christ. Proclamation is made in other ways besides dialogue, but should always be made in the spirit of dialogue. On the other hand, dialogue may include proclamation, since it must always be undertaken in the spirit of those who have good news to share.” (Study Encounter 3, no. 2, 55)

D. The relation of evangelism and church membership. It has been a datum of evangelism that conversion to Christ means incorporation into the fellowship of the Church through baptism. But there is widespread disillusionment with the congregation as it is. Someone engaged in experiments in evangelism in a big city has remarked that “the 48 At Home with God and in the World spiritual poverty and unpreparedness of the Church is such that no one can desire a large number of those now outside to enter the churches as they are.” The Kandy Consultation also admitted the lack of agreement about the inevitability of baptism and Church membership as a consequence of conversion in cases where one lives within the great non-Christian religious communities. Indeed, there was a moment of serious crisis at the meeting of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism at Mexico City in 1963 when it was claimed that there is evidence of changed lives in communities other than those of the recognized church. This is a challenge to the long held conviction that outside the Church there is no salvation. The debate becomes even more acute as para-parochial groups multiply which are not directly connected with congregational life. The issue is perhaps best posed in terms of the need for our churches to be radically renewed and flexible to meet man within his natural communities. E. The relation of evangelism and unity. From the beginning of the ecumenical movement, evangelism or mission and unity have always been seen together in response to our Lord’s prayer “that they may all be one that the world may believe.” The Rolle Central Committee statement was an effort to make this clear as a conviction and an aim of the WCC. Every Assembly has been eloquent in exposing the ineffec- tualness of our evangelistic action because of our divisions. “Unity is destroyed where there are confessional antagonisms, nor will unity of faith and life among Christians be achieved except as Churches increasingly work together to bring the Gospel to the whole world” (Evanston). But this is precisely the problem: How can churches with apparently opposing confessions and ecclesiologies and yet which, as members of the WCC, accept the same christological basis, engage in common evangelistic effort? At the Amsterdam Assembly it was asserted that the Church today “desires to treat evangelism as a common task of all the churches” and it exhorted the churches to cooperate in evangelism and move forward toward “united proclamation of the word of life.” There was in the early days of the World Council much talk of “ecumenical evangelism, that is, evangelistic activities carried out by representatives of different churches together,” and of the task of the new Secretariat on Evangelism to help the member churches in such ecumenical evangelism. However, while various efforts were made in different countries in the years immediately after the Second World War, there have not been conspicuous attempts lately on an official level to engage in evangelistic activities together. Certainly there are many creative experiments being made in different places by individuals and teams, though the churches have not been conspicuous for supporting fully these experiments. Nor have they shown much disposition to be sufficiently challenged to examine radically their congregational and institutional structures in light of these experiments. Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 49

At the New Delhi Assembly, the new DWME was given the responsibility of launching an emphasis on Joint Action for Mission whereby “churches and their related missionary agencies in a given geographical area should come together to face together, as God’s people in that place, their total missionary task, and to seek for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in fulfilling it.” The first efforts in promoting Joint Action for Mission have disclosed how resistant are the confessional and institutional structures of churches and missionary agencies (both national and foreign). The New Delhi Assembly also directed that a Secretary for Evangelism be appointed within the DWME “to develop means for ascertaining what kinds of help the World Council can offer to the churches in their evangelistic work.” In spite of all these requests and appeals and our nearly twenty years of being together in the World Council, it cannot be said that cooperation in evangelism has been a high priority as an expression of the unity we have so far attained and as a means toward fuller unity. Indeed, there are critics of the World Council who say that the preoccupation with questions of “faith and order” and with unity has inhibited member churches from vigorous evangelism.

The Task of the World Council in Evangelism Today I have attempted in this paper to give a documented account of the ways in which the World Council has endeavored “to support the churches in their task of evangelization.” The studies, consultations, conferences held, and the books, pamphlets and articles published are quite impressive. No doubt many would rightly retort that far more could have been done. But it is fair to say that the activities of all the Divisions of the World Council have had the aim of helping the churches and all men to grasp and proclaim in word and deed the wholeness of the Good News of the triune God’s redemptive action in the world. And yet there is uneasiness within our fellowship that we are not doing enough. First of all we must recognize the limitations of the World Council. It cannot actually do the work of evangelism for the churches. It cannot organize evangelistic campaigns or sponsor what has been called “ecumenical evangelism,” unless specifically asked to do so. As it is not a church or, as some fearfully say, a super- church, it is barred from taking such initiatives. This was very clearly recognized when the proposal for a department was made: “The Department will have to hold rigorously to the principle underlying all World Council activity, that nothing is to be imposed on the Churches against their will” and that the Council exists “to serve the Churches, not to control them.” I believe it is true to say that the Department and the World Council as a whole have definitely stuck to this principle. The question for us, twenty years after, is: have we as churches grown together sufficiently in trust and mutual understanding to embark on 50 At Home with God and in the World bolder initiatives in joint action in evangelism with the help of the Council? There is, however, another limitation to bear in mind. Our study and reflection on the work of evangelism have demonstrated that evangelism is no abstract activity, with definite techniques and strategies which can be applied everywhere. We have learned to take men, their cultures, their religions and communities very seriously, and to see these in their totality in each place. The scope and methods of evangelism will depend on the particular situation. There can therefore be no detailed global strategy or blueprint for evangelism. Thus the World Council cannot carry out evangelistic work as such. It can certainly help those thus engaged around the world to learn from each other and share their experiences, and it can act as a stimulus and even irritant to the churches to this end. The main task remains with congregations as the people of God being active witnesses in each place. We must nevertheless endeavor to see how the existing activities of the different Divisions and Departments can make more explicit the concern of the World Council for evangelism. I say “more explicit” because every Divi- sion or Department has in its aims and functions some reference to the missionary and evangelistic task of the Church. I can only draw attention here to a few examples. The Commission on Faith and Order sponsored recently a consultation on Church union negotiations. One of the recommendations was “that the churches enter into ‘covenant’ with one another or otherwise decisively commit themselves to each other in seeking union.” Many suggestions were made to give effect to this, but they did not include any joint evangelistic action of churches in a given place. Should not the Commission on Faith and Order press home to such churches this vital dimension of their convenant- ing together? It is only as churches cross confessional frontiers and seek to witness together that they will make discoveries about themselves and about God’s purpose for them as the missionary people. As they struggle to find forms of missionary presence they will begin to discern the form of a united evangelizing Church. The Department on Church and Society has been given the function of undertaking and organizing “studies in the light of the Christian faith and the world mission of the Church... on the most urgent problems of society throughout the world . . . (and on) racial and ethnic relations.” From the very beginning of its life the World Council has declared its conviction that speaking and acting on social and political issues is part of the evangelistic task of the Church. The living God proclaimed by the prophets and by Jesus Christ was and is the God of righteousness and of mercy who calls men to turn to Him and become just and merciful. Why then do some critics, even those within our active fellowship, keep saying that the World Council is more concerned about social justice than about evangelism? Perhaps unwittingly we ourselves have failed sufficiently to connect the two. The connection was made at the conference held in Thessalonika, Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 51

Greece, in 1959 that summed up the five-year study on areas of rapid social change. The conference spoke of the evangelistic function of the Church in rapid social change: “God, who in His love sent His Son into the world, also sent His Church into the world for its redemption and reconciliation. The apostolate is therefore the deepest expression of the Church’s concern for man. This concern is that all men should be in right relation to God—that they should be brought to acknowledge Christ as Lord and to live in him... The task of the Church is to discover how the deep change which the Gospel demands in man is relevant to the radical change at present taking place in society. This calls for an urgent rethinking, within the ecumenical movement, of the theology of mission and evangelism, and a re-appraisal of our patterns of witness. It will also involve the creation of new structures of Christian unity.” Another example of the connection of evangelism and social concern was offered at the Evanston Assembly. Section II on Evangelism outlined one of the concerns of evangelism as being “so to proclaim the Gospel that it will transform the groupings and patterns of society in which men and women are involved, to the end that human institutions and structures may more nearly conform to the divine intention, and respect the limiting prerogative of God.” Section III described “The Responsible Society” as “a criterion by which we judge all existing social orders and at the same time a standard to guide us in the specific choices we have to make. Christians are called to live responsibly, live in response to God’s act of redemption in Christ, in any society, even within the most unfavorable social structures.” There is surely a decided connection between these two statements. Similarly, there is a close connection between the massive work done toward and at the World Conference on Church and Society and the equally massive efforts on “The Missionary Structure of the Congregation,” not to speak of the wide-ranging work of CICARWS, and the DWME programme on Urban and Indus- trial Mission. Moreover, the current study on “Conversion to God and Service to Man” makes the connection admirably. This is an urgent task which the Council should not relinquish. DICARWS aims at expressing “the ecumenical solidarity of the Churches through mutual aid in order to strengthen them in their life and mission and especially in their service to the world around them...” In pursuit of this aim there is now a close cooperation with DWME in projects which enable churches to carry out their calling to mission and service. But this cooperation could be more boldly and imaginatively conceived and fulfilled. The Division of Ecumenical Action and its Departments focus their attention and activities on the laos, the people of God, whether youth, laymen, laywomen or clergy. The range of their activities includes the concern for effective missionary presence in society. There is much that they can do to help the whole Christian Community 52 At Home with God and in the World to be more eager and active in relevant evangelism. The DWME is directly charged “to further the proclamation to the whole world of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the end that all men may believe in him and be saved.” This is the most explicit reference to the purpose of mission and evangelism in all the Divisions and Departments of the World Council. A very special responsibility, therefore, lies on this Division to ensure that the concern for evangelism is given its central place in the life of the Council and of the member churches and councils. This is not the place to give a detailed account of how the process of integration has gone on and how the Division has sought “to deepen evangelistic concern in the whole life and work of the WCC.” Six years since integration is a short time in which to accomplish this necessary function, and DWME has during this period lacked sufficient staff and presence in Geneva to make much headway in the kinds of cooperation and cross-fertilization which are required. But its current programmes and the work of its sponsored agencies are all in this direction. I would like to outline four specific tasks which the World Council and member churches might consider. First, there is need for increasing conversations with conservative Evangelicals and Roman Catholics with a view to gaining greater mutual understanding of our common evangelistic calling and creating a better climate for considering joint evangelistic activity. Recent statements from conservative Evangelical conferences and the Vatican Decrees all point to the possibilities of joint evangelistic action. Consultations already held with these groups suggest that there is a fruitful field here. Secondly, we should press on with the study of those issues which I indicated earlier in this paper are still the subject of disagreement or debate among us. Thirdly, we need to engage in dialogue with those theologians and writers who raise questions about the relevance of the very content of the Good News we are expected to proclaim. Most of these theologians belong to member churches and there are critics of the World Council who even unfairly claim that the views of these theologians are representative of those of the Council, while some of our ecumenical leaders have spoken strongly against these writers. The combination of “the demythologizing of the Gospel,” “Honest to God,” and “Death of God” theologies, which are responses to the secular challenge, and also of the new hesitancy about the uniqueness of Christ vis-à- vis the non-Christian religions, has brought about a failure of nerve among Christians concerning their evangelistic witness. While we have reached a certain consensus on the nature of evangelism, the very content of evangelism is now under fire. We can no longer shirk the challenge for a big effort to wrestle with and declare to men of today the faith which is the Good News of the one, new, reconciled humanity in Christ. Fourthly, we must continue our efforts to find a suitable Secretary for Evangelism who shall work within the DWME and with the Department on Studies in Mission and Evangelism. Evangelism and the World Council of Churches 53

His main tasks could be described as: (a) helping to carry forward the study and research done by the Department on Studies in Mission and Evangelism into experiment and action; (b) working closely with a variety of agencies concerned with evangelism in churches and in Christian Councils; (c) seeking out and keeping in touch with centers of experiment and involvement in evangelism in various parts of the world and endeavoring to assess the lessons to be learnt from them, as well as encouraging new experiments in evangelism in places where little is happening; (d) giving particular attention to strategic groups in the life of the churches, for example, the ordained ministry, theological students, missionary candidates, lay groups, and so on; (e) disseminating information about and providing encouragement to new and experimental forms of missionary and evangelistic action, whether in congregational life or otherwise, making use of the “Monthly Letter about Evangelism”; (f) keeping in touch and organizing consultations with evangelists and conservative Evangelicals. The work of this Secretary would be greatly helped by a staff working party representing all the Divisions and Departments. It must, however, be remembered that the World Council is only the servant of the member churches. At the end of the day the test of our obedience to our evangelistic calling is whether the member churches and every congregation are rigorously prepared to be so renewed and changed in their life and attitudes as to become truly evangelizing churches. Since our coming together at Amsterdam this challenge has again and again been addressed to us. We have hardly heeded. Our credibility and integrity are called in question today, as we are all well aware, by the restlessness of our church members and the unwillingness of clergy to devote themselves to the local pastorate. Now we are preparing for the Fourth Assem- bly, when we shall proclaim the eschatological promise: “Behold, I make all things new.” Let us hope, as we prepare ourselves, that we shall hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches, and on hearing shall obey and be the means of calling men and nations to acknowledge the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb and to share a common renewed humanity as His one people.

6 Healing and Salvation

his report by Philip Potter, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, was Tpresented to the Central Committee in Dresden, German Democratic Republic, in August 1981. It focuses on the biblical meaning of healing and salvation and relates it to the evils and sicknesses in Church and society of the present time, and also to the “black day in human history” when Dresden was bombed in February 1945.

This is the second time in the life of the World Council of Churches that the Central Committee is meeting in a socialist state in Eastern Europe. It is a joy for us, who come from different parts of the world, to gather together here as representatives of the people of God, sharing a common confession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior, which transcends and challenges all ideological, political, economic, racial and social positions. We are deeply grateful that so much has been done by the churches in the GDR to facilitate this meeting, and especially to make it possible for us to encounter our sisters and brothers in Christ in the local congregations in the next few days. Our coming here is also an expression of our gratitude for the active and creative participation of the GDR churches in the life and work of the WCC since its inception in 1948. Our thanks are further due to the civil authorities that rendered many services in preparing for this event. There is, however, special significance in meeting in Dresden. While this city has a name in history as a center of culture in Central Europe, for most of us it is known because of that black day in human history in February 1945 when Dresden was practically leveled to the ground by bombing and over one hundred thousand civilians were killed by incineration. This senseless act was justified on the grounds of breaking the morale of the enemy population, not of destroying military or industrial targets,

55 56 At Home with God and in the World although by then the result of the war in Europe was no longer in doubt. True enough, the enemy had inflicted destruction on cities, for example Coventry in England. But this was the most deliberately massive, single act perpetrated on a city in Europe during the Second World War. The English Bishop, George Bell, who had for many years played a key role in the ecumenical movement and later became the first moderator of the WCC Central Committee, had done much to maintain fraternal relations with Christians in Germany both before and during the war. It was he who had raised his voice publicly against the policy of obliteration bombing of civilian targets by all sides in the war. In a heated debate in the British House of Lords, he asked: “Why is there this inability to reckon with the moral and spiritual facts? Why is there this forgetfulness of the ideals by which our cause is inspired?” It was, in fact, the precedent set by what happened in Dresden which made it easier for the anti-Fascist allies to agree to an even more devastating act—the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. I well remember that, when the news of the bombing of Dresden reached us in Jamaica, we students, with our own experience of the effects of the barbarity of slavery and its aftermath, spoke of the sickness of the nations of the world and of our societies. How are we to be healed from the deadly sickness which afflicts us personally, socially, nationally and internationally? How can the churches witness to the healing power of the Gospel when their divisions both within and between them are not healed? These questions preoccupied us in the Student Christian Movement, that nursery of the ecumenical movement. They preoccupy us still. Indeed, I would say that the ecumenical movement and the WCC in particular exist precisely to be agents of the healing power of God in our world and in all dimensions of our life. This task is all the more urgent now that the great powers are contemplating the possibility of what they call limited nuclear war; when political conflicts result in deep social disorder and in millions of people being refugees; when the gap between rich and poor in and between nations has become an endemic disease in the body of our common humanity; when the relations between women and men have been persis- tently perverted and poisoned by male domination and insensitivity, backed by long tradition, including church traditions. These are, of course, concerns which will occupy our attention at this meeting of the Central Committee. It is humbling to recall that at Galyatetö, Hungary, in 1956, the Central Committee wrestled with the role of the churches in the building of a responsible international society. In its statement the Committee described such a society as follows: “This means a society where all men can act in freedom with consideration for the needs and rights of others; and where the several members have regard for the wellbeing of one Healing and Salvation 57 another and that of the whole family of men. Such a society will recognize its allegiance to God who is the Sovereign Ruler of the nations.” It was on this understanding of a responsible international society that the Commit- tee made the following observations of the human plight: “Man is in danger physically, morally and spiritually. As followers of the one who loved all men and bore the burden of their sin and suffering, we cannot be indifferent to man’s peril. A great gulf separates rich and poor on an international scale. In this the churches cannot acquiesce, but must strive with all their power to bridge this gulf. When one nation dominates another politically or economically, the dependent or subject people is deprived of the possibility of developing a fully responsible society. . . . Mankind is fearful of actual or potential danger from experimental tests of nuclear weapons. We call upon the churches to appeal to their governments and the United Nations to negotiate such an agreement for the discontinuance, or limitation and control, of these tests as an end to any such danger. . . . The world wants peace, but will not gain it unless men are ready to make sacrifices for peace and to abandon practices which make for war.” Twenty-five years later we are facing the same ills, only they have become more widespread throughout the whole human body politic, and there are few signs of a healing process at work. This is certainly a challenge to the ecumenical movement and in particular to the World Council of Churches. It is therefore appropriate to focus our attention on the healing ministry which is committed to us as our common calling to the glory of our triune God.

Healing, Disease, and Disobedience The healing power and gift of God is central in the biblical revelation. In the Old Testa- ment sickness, disease and disabilities are regarded not merely as physical realities which are inevitable, but as the results of individual disobedience or, as in the case of Job, as the permitted work of the Adversary, the personification of the evil forces in the world. The Psalmist calls on the believer to bless the Lord “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases” (Ps. 103:3). The prophets, however, address the covenant people of God as a whole. Jeremiah, in particular, speaks constantly of the wounds and ills suffered by the people because “every one deceives his neighbor, and no one speaks the truth; they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they commit iniquity and are too weary to repent. Heaping oppression upon oppression, and deceit upon deceit, they refuse to know me, says the Lord” (Jer. 9:4-6). The civil and religious leaders, “from the least to the greatest, every one is greedy for unjust gain; from prophet to priest every one deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jer. 6:13-14; 8:10-11). If the 58 At Home with God and in the World people call upon the Lord in penitence, then: “Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them and reveal to them abundance of prosperity and security (truth)” (Jer. 33:6). This vision of God healing the people from all their iniquity—their rebellion against him and their injustice to one another—is not confined to Israel. The earlier prophet Isaiah sees Egypt and Assyria, representatives of the world power, as participating with Israel in God’s healing and blessing, thus bringing about the end of war and oppression: “And the Lord will smite Egypt, smiting and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and he will heed their supplications and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrians will come into Egypt, and the Egyptians into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage” (Isa. 19:22-25). Moreover, healing comes not by purely ritual acts of repentance, like fasting, but by responding to God’s call to work for the liberation of the oppressed, and to care for the needy and deprived: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isa. 58:6-9). But it is the servant of the Lord who is called to bring justice and be a light to the nations, who lives before God to receive his word, in order to sustain others, who is constantly persecuted and despised—it is he who takes on all our wounds and diseases: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53:5; see 42:1-7; 49:1-6; 50:4-9). This prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus, according to Matthew (8:1-17). The lepers, the Gentile paralyzed servant, the sick, the demon possessed are no longer, as in Hebrew custom, alienated from society. Their infirmities and diseases are taken on by Jesus and are healed by the power of God’s kingly rule acting through him. The healing of the body and the forgiveness of sins are one action and this action is based on Jesus’ will to heal and people’s faith and trust in him, their openness to him, their willingness to be exposed to his judgment on what divides them in themselves and from others. Healing and Salvation 59

There is no dualism between body and spirit. Healing means the restoration of wholeness to the person and restoration to the life of the community. Hence Jesus’ typical word to the healed is: “Your faith has saved you; go in peace” (Luke 8:48). Healing means salvation and peace. In Hebrew, Greek and the other Indo-European languages, salvation has the meaning of integrity, integral-ness, authenticity, fullness, wholeness, realized totality. The person saved is freed from all alienating elements, and is authentically himself/herself. Peace, shalom, has a similar meaning of wellbeing, wholeness, having the strength to be oneself. And what is true for one person is true for the whole community, and indeed for the world, as the prophets saw. And healing is associated with righteousness (Isa. 58: 8), that right relationship with God and with our fellow human beings which makes for a true community of sharing.

The Church’s Participation in Healing It is in the light of these perceptions of health and healing that I would like to comment on how we as churches and as a Council can participate in this ministry of healing. For it is a task laid upon us. Jesus called his disciples to go out to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom and heal the sick and cast out demons (Luke 9:1-2). Within the Church, as the Body of Christ, is accorded the gift of the Spirit to heal (1 Cor. 12:9, 28, 30). But is this gift being exercised through the common calling of the churches? First we have been learning, especially through the Christian Medical Commission, that the healing process involves the sick being enabled to participate in the diagnosis of their disorder, and in the responsibility for finding and carrying out its cure. Only thus can they mobilize their “life-force” for being healed. Too often have people been left mystified and ignorant about what is going on, and so the process of healing has been impeded. Too often have they felt their situation to be hopeless and have resigned themselves to their fate in despair. By engaging people in facing up to the real nature of their illness, they can be encouraged to have the will to be healed. This is precisely what we have been learning in the ecumenical movement not only about persons but about our societies. All the work of the World Council of Churches is geared to promote this process of healing through participation. This is in the spirit of the prophets, especially Hosea and Jeremiah, who risked their lives in opening people’s eyes to the true character of their sickness, rather than producing false palliatives or the dangerously misleading propaganda of the self-seeking and oppressive elite, both civil and religious, or remaining in silence or reducing the people to silence. We are here dealing with the fundamental human right of people to know, to be fully informed about their condition, to be able to discern the sources of their disease both within them as persons and societies and 60 At Home with God and in the World without them in other nations. Their consciousness needs to be awakened, their awareness sharpened, their possibilities mobilized. Our extensive and active programme on human rights must be seen in this perspective. But it can only be effective when all the churches in every state are prepared, in the fellowship of our being together in the Council, to play their part in this process. Similarly, all our work in the field of education, whether in literacy and popular education, or in education for mission and development, seeks to involve people fully as persons and communities who develop a critical and global consciousness about themselves and their relations with each other and with other peoples. The combat against racism has been carried out principally on two fronts. The first is facilitating the means by which the racially oppressed themselves can discover and assert their dignity as made in God’s image, and therefore the intolerable nature of their apartheid, their separation from the body politic, thus awakening and strengthening their will to struggle for their liberation. The second is the more difficult task of opening the eyes of the oppressors and all those who are accomplices with them through their attitudes, economic investments, bank loans, and military alliances, so that they may see that the denial of the humanity of others is dehumanizing and is a sickness unto death. This fear of acknowledging their sickness and its real character needs to be conquered, so that they can be liberated from their fate as desperate instruments of death. The same is true for all that is being done through the Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service (CICARWS), the Commission on the Churches Participation in Development (CCPD) and the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) to enable both the poor and the sick to realize the true anatomy of poverty in a world of plenty and the dangers to the future of humanity of the yawning gap between poor and rich. The programme on militarism and disarmament and our statements on threats to world peace and human survival are aimed at dispelling the mystification and ignorance surrounding the mad race for nuclear superiority by the powers and the mindless traffic of arms with irresponsible rulers, dictators and terrorists. It is an attempt to help us to diagnose the war psychosis which has us all in its grip. This Committee will be receiving a full report on the study on the Community of Women and Men in the Church. The main thrust of this worldwide study, which has involved hundreds of groups of women and men, is first of all an exposé of our broken relationships through institutionalized male domination not only in societies but in the Church. We shall be asked to look afresh at received attitudes and interpretations of scripture as well as our entrenched practices in the light of God’s design for humanity as a community of women and men. But it is important to recognize that it has Healing and Salvation 61 been mainly the sufferers, women, who have become articulately aware of the diseased structures of distortion and of domination in which both women and men are caught, but of which women have been the main victims. It is also they who are pointing to at least some of the courses we should adopt if we are all to be healed. The question for us and our churches is how much are we all really promoting this process of healing through participation. Too often the churches and especially their leaders speak in generalities about the human situation and are afraid to expose and be exposed to the realities in which people find themselves. Too often, as soon as vested interests are involved, they either claim ignorance of the diagnosis of the ills of our society which affect us as persons and as communities and say they are not involved in politics, or they allow themselves to be bullied by the ruling powers to stay out of politics. That is exactly what the prophets were told by the power elite. But the issue begins with our own relations as churches. We often speak glibly of our unhappy divisions and pray for the healing of these divisions. But how eager are our churches to know and make known the real nature of our divisions and all that we have learnt together during the past sixty years which could enable us to be actively engaged in the process of healing? The impression one gets is that there is still a fear of unity rather than a great and passionate conviction of the essential oneness of the people of God and of God’s will to heal his people. One test coming before us will be how the member churches of the WCC receive the convergent statements on baptism, the eucharist and the ministry and how they move together in each place and in all places to enable the people of God to know more clearly who they are and what mars their fellowship and how they may participate in the healing process of the broken and bleeding Body of Christ. For it is only as the churches fearlessly face their own sickness and seek through God’s discerning and enabling Spirit to deal with it, that they will credibly participate in the process of healing the ills of persons, communities and the world.

Strengthening and Sustaining the Weak Another factor in the process of healing is the need for repairing or strengthening the sick part of the body so as to reestablish the proper functioning of the whole body. This can happen in two ways. One is that the rest of the body rushes aid to the broken part of the body to stop the breach. The other is medical or surgical intervention either to remove the alien growth, or to empower the sick organ to cope better. Indeed, it is a well-known fact that early medical diagnosis and intervention are often essential if the whole body is to be saved. This is an evident fact about our physical bodies. And yet, we find it extremely difficult either to recognize or to act on this fact when we think of 62 At Home with God and in the World our corporate life in society and as nations, or in the Church. It is our conviction as a Council, as evidenced by the various programmes mandated by the Assembly and by this Committee, that the emphasis of our work should be on supporting, strengthening and sustaining the weak, the sick, the maimed, the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed and deprived, and acting quickly when the ills of our society are clearly recognized so as to prevent its further disintegration. The Christian Medical Commission has been making a big effort to persuade Christian medical institutions and congregations to give more persistent attention to community health care in which all can participate in reaching the most needy and make it possible for them to have a decent health. This Year of Disabled Persons has given us an opportunity to recognize the needs of disabled people and to affirm their claim to be full partners in life. In this connection, may I say what a splendid example is given by the churches in the GDR which have maintained a devoted ministry to the old, the very young and disabled persons as a clear witness to the Gospel of the kingly rule of God. It is, however, in other programmes that Christians encounter opposition and even hostility, as we challenge each other to face our own sicknesses. When we support by a special fund or by project money the efforts of people struggling for racial liberation to maintain their cause through humanitarian means, we receive fierce criticism. When we early proposed that nonviolent means, such as withdrawal of investments, not giving loans, and other forms of economic sanctions, were urgent and effective means of bringing racist regimes to acknowledge the deadly sickness of their institutionalized violent apartheid, we have been told that the diagnosis was not clear and that the regimes should be allowed indefinite time to come to their senses. When in our development projects in CICARWS, CCPD, Urban and Rural Mission and in corresponding church agencies, we provide resources for people to organize themselves in self-reliance so that they can participate in decision-making by challenging the unjust economic and social structures questions are immediately raised about the propriety of our actions by both church and state. Churches are still reluctant to act decisively on the ecumenical sharing of resources, and prefer the retention of power through bilateral aid. There is constant resistance to the plea that women and youth should be given a bigger place in the life of the Church and of society so that they can be strengthened to make their contribution toward the health of our communities. And yet, this strengthening and enabling of the weak was the distinctive hallmark of the ministry of Jesus and particularly of his healing ministry. In the Old Testament, there was a strong tradition of marginalizing the sick, the infirm, the destitute, the mentally ill. It was an ancient version of the Darwinian prin- Healing and Salvation 63 ciple of “the survival of the fittest,” which governs so much of our relations in Church, community and state. Jesus reversed this tradition and deliberately chose to bring all the powers of the life of the kingdom to bear precisely on those people, because sickness was alien to God’s creative purpose which was health, the unity with and between persons through reconciliation with God. So that when he was challenged for associat- ing with such people, he replied: “Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what it means to desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matt. 9:12-13). Paul reaffirms Christ’s healing way of dealing with people when he writes to the Romans: “We who are strong ought to carry the afflictions of the weak, and not to please ourselves; let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself” (Rom. 15:l-3a). It is significant that Paul goes on to express the meaning of the health of the community when he prays: “May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:5-6).

Healing: Victory over the Powers of Death This leads us to a third, and the most important factor in the process of healing to which I wish to draw your attention. The essential nature of health is its source in God, that is beyond our own physical and social resources to the transcendent ground of our being. Medical and psychiatric research and practice are discovering more than ever that the real causes of illness are not just physical and social, but moral and spiritual and that the healing process can only take place when the resources of the Spirit are mobilized for dealing with our ills. Medical intervention, or positive changes in our economic and social environment, are not enough to achieve real health. The new perception of health as wholeness has opened up a new emphasis on harmony and reconciliation with the self, with other human beings and with God. This clearly tends to point to the teaching of the prophets and the proclamation in word and deed of Jesus. What does this convey to us as churches and as the World Council of Churches? It is easy for us to get pious at this point and heave a sigh of relief that we are now back on familiar ground—the centrality of the message of reconciliation with God in Christ as being the heart of what health means. But much more is involved in this message of reconciliation than is implied in our sometimes-easy exhortations. An early consultation on Health and Healing in 1964 declared: “The specific character of the Christian understanding of health and healing arises from its place in the whole Christian belief about God’s plan of salvation for 64 At Home with God and in the World mankind. . . . Health is a continuous and victorious encounter with the powers that deny the existence and goodness of God. It is a participation in an invasion of the realm of evil, in which final victory lies beyond death, but the power of the victory is known now in the gift of the life-giving Spirit. It is a kind of life which has overcome death and the anxiety which is the shadow of death. Whether in the desperate squalor of over- populated and underdeveloped areas, or in the spiritual wasteland of affluent societies, it is a sign of God’s victory and a summons to his service.” What is affirmed here is that health and the process of healing is a participation in the decisive encounter of the triune God with the forces of evil, the principalities and powers which are everywhere active. It requires the direct, whole-hearted and continuous engagement of those who believe in God’s revelation in Christ. I have just read to you what Jesus said to the religious authorities who questioned his association with the sick in body and mind and with the outcasts. He quoted the words of Hosea: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (6:6). Hosea went on to say: “And the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea writes a lot about sickness and healing—fickle Ephraim and Judah forsaking Jahweh and seeking healing from the world power, Assyria, rather than turning truly to him who has, with love and compassion, healed and brought them out as his children from Egypt; who is still waiting to heal them from their faith- lessness, their turning away from being truly before him (5:13, 6:1, 6:11-7:1, 11:1-4, 14:4). It is not the mere profession of faith in traditional, formal fashion which brings healing and makes us participate in God’s healing work. Rather it is a total attitude of mercy (hesed), utter loyalty to God issuing in caring love of others, and the knowledge of God, that constant living before God in communion with him and his purpose. We saw earlier that Hosea’s spiritual successor, Jeremiah, also spoke a great deal about Israel’s sickness and wounds and God’s will to heal. Jeremiah relentlessly and recklessly diagnosed the ills of his people, calling them to the source of healing in the covenant God. But such was his identification with his people that he himself felt deeply the burden of their ills, and in his intimate controversy with God he cried out to him: “Why is my pain unceasing, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Wilt thou be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail?” “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved; for thou art my praise” (Jer. 15:18; 17:14). The process of healing operates only as we turn away from our sickly selves and enter fully by faith into a living communion with God and as we faithfully give ourselves in solidarity with the sick persons and communities for their healing. In many parts of the world Christians, in their struggle for justice and human rights, have discovered that, within the struggle, as they expose the evils around them with the living word of God, and as they express their costly solidarity with the oppressed, they are given a Healing and Salvation 65 new and refreshing access to the healing power of God. They are brought closer to the healing presence of God in prayer and praise, in authenticity and wholeness. Despair and death have no longer any power over them. They have already tasted the risen life of Christ and so have become ministers of God’s healing, life-sustaining grace in the midst of the sicknesses of our world. That is what we have been learning from our various contact groups, the base communities, the many persons and action groups who are the subject of imprisonment, torture and death because of their witness to the health, wholeness, which God offers in broken, bleeding societies.

Some Searching Questions The question for me is: Are we and our churches such healing communities? Are we really engaging ourselves with God’s controversy with those who spread sickness around? Are we enabling our sick people and societies to diagnose their true sickness and find the resources for healing? Are we prepared to place ourselves beside the sick, the deprived, the oppressed with the healing power of God? Are we ready to join with our Lord in his self-giving struggle with evil even to the cross in order that healing, reconciliation and wholeness may become manifest in a world which is sick unto death? These questions are not indictments. They are a call to all of us in the churches and in our fellowship in the World Council of Churches to a constant renewal of our life and work so as to become more apt to participate in the process of healing toward wholeness which our world so desperately needs today. The vision of a healed humanity is directed first at us as churches and as an ecumenical movement to allow God’s work of healing to be operated in us, and to do so as we involve ourselves with all we are and all we have received in the task of healing the nations. It is in this understanding that we can greet each other with that old German word for salvation, health, and wholeness—Heil.

7 From Missions to Mission

ritten on the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the International Review Wof Mission (IRM), this text is a personal and theological review of the development of the ecumencial theology of mission, written in 1987 in Jamaica. Philip Potter looks back at the most important landmarks of the ecumenical debate on mission and evangelization. He acknowledges the contribution made by the IRM and points to events and personalities that had a formative impact on him.

A few months ago I went to the Missionary Research Library of the United Theological Seminary in New York. My purpose was to consult back numbers of the International Review of Mission (IRM). I discovered that the card index system divided the IRM into two periods and the issues were located in two different places according to the title: International Review of Missions and the International Review of Mission. This change of title took place in April 1969. I was editor at the time. But the editorial, “Dropping the S,” was written by my colleague, William H. Crane. The decision to drop the “s” was taken after long discussion with colleagues, the editorial board and the committee of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME). It was the logic of all that had happened since the Edinburgh World Missionary Conference in 1910 and of the high and honest thinking that had found expression in this Review. Nonetheless, in those days I thought it prudent, being a third world man, to ask someone whose traditional missionary credentials were impeccable to write the editorial. Hank Crane had been a missionary in Zaire and was the son of missionaries of the Presbyterian Church in the United States serving in Zaire. He was well respected by the missionary establishment. Apart from drawing attention to the fact that the Commis- sion itself was concerned with “World Mission” and that for some time wide currency

67 68 At Home with God and in the World was given to the concept of “Mission in Six Continents,” Hank Crane made a very pertinent point: “Missions in the plural have a certain justification in the diplomatic, political, and economic spheres of international relations where their nature, scope and authority are defined by the interests of both those who initiate and those who receive them, but the mission of the church is singular in that it issues from the one triune God and his intention for the salvation of all. His commission to the church is one, even though the ministries given to the church for this mission, and the given responses of particular churches in particular situations to the commission, are manifold” (April 1969, 141–42). The story of this change from “missions,” the concept of organized missionary work from western christendom to what was called the non-Christian countries, to “mission” as the inescapable task of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church through its members, individually and corporately, wherever they may be located geographically, is the story of this first and now longest existing ecumenical journal. The discovery and articulation of this change and of its consequences have been, in varying forms, the main subject of articles in this Review. It would therefore be of interest to follow the development through the years as it has been expressed in the IRM. When I was asked to write these reflections on seventy-five years of the publication of the IRM, I was at first very hesitant. It would have been better to ask an experienced missiologist or missionary personality. In any case, I am no longer at the center of things, with a well-stocked missionary and ecumenical library with all the issues of the IRM since 1912. This was not the case in New York, let alone in Kingston, Jamaica, where the IRM starts from 1943. Nor would I have the possibility of intensive discussions with well informed colleagues. In any case, all my energies have now to be devoted to discover what is my missionary task here in very troubled and destabilized Jamaica, and indeed the Caribbean as a whole. It was difficult, however, to refuse the invitation to express my appreciation for a journal that has been of such creative and critical importance for the worldwide missionary movement. Much of my own personal biography and ministry is linked with the International Missionary Council (IMC) and the CWME, and also with the IRM. I would therefore like to try to articulate some reflections in the context of my own involvement. As soon as I assumed my responsibilities as director of CWME and editor of the IRM, one of my first actions was to read the first issue of the IRM in 1912. It was intriguing to compare the ways in which John R. Mott and J. H. Oldham outlined the purpose of the Review. Of course, Mott was reporting the decision of the 1911 meeting of the Continuation Committee of the Edinburgh Conference. He wrote: “This periodical will appear quarterly, and will be scientific in character. While this is the From Missions to Mission 69 organ of the Continuation Committee, its pages are open for the free expression of views divergent from those held by the Committee. It will serve as a means of communication between the Continuation Committee and the leaders of missionary thought and action throughout the world. It will be of real service to all other missionary peri- odicals, treating missions, as it will, from the world point of view. It will fix thought on the non-Christian world as a whole, and on the missionary enterprise as a whole. It will keep to the front great principles, thus helping workers who are tempted to become absorbed with details. It will facilitate the study and discussion of great and pressing questions. Workers, scholars, and statesmen will have opportunity to influence missionary policy, and constructive Christian statesmanship will be promoted” (January 1912, 71). J. H. Oldham was the secretary of the Continuation Committee and was writing as the editor. He faithfully indicated the purpose and scope of the Review. Oldham was fully conscious, however, of the situation in professedly Christian countries, including his own. A few voices had tried to draw attention to this at Edinburgh, but those voices were drowned by the great and deafening cry to take the Gospel to the peoples outside of Christendom. In his characteristically sensitive and perceptive way, he stated: “In the kingdom of God truth is apprehended, not by those who stand by as spectators but by those who do and serve. The task of evangelizing the non-Christian world is most intimately related to that of meeting the unbelief and intellectual perplexity so widespread at the present time, and only by attempting both tasks together can the church hope to accomplish either. The challenge is one that stirs the blood. It is a call to high spiritual adventure. There is force in the criticism often made by Orientals who are familiar with western thought and life, that the Christian faith, which seeks to propagate itself in the east is widely rejected and is on its defence in the lands from which it comes. In such a situation the most daring course is the wisest. In boldly claiming the allegiance of every race and nation to Christ, in confronting all thought and all life with the Gospel, Christian faith will become aware of the depth and strength of its inner resources, and receive fresh confirmation of its truth. Its most convincing vindication will be its world-conquering power” (January 1912, 8). In spite of what Oldham says here, it seemed to me that a potentially dangerous dichotomy between the mission to an unbelieving so-called Christian world and the vast enterprise of missions to the non-Christian world was being unwittingly created. Oldham was aware of this, but he had a functional approach to the scope of this Review. He wrote: “The scope of the Review will be limited to work among non-Christian peoples and questions that are related more or less directly to the carrying on of that work. This is not because other forms of missionary effort, and other tasks for which 70 At Home with God and in the World the church is responsible, seem to us to be of less importance and urgency. Not only in itself, but as a means to the conversion of the non-Christian world, the spread of true religion in professedly Christian countries is a matter of the highest moment. The Review will always be in the fullest sympathy with sincere endeavors everywhere to bring men and women into vital relations with God in Christ, and with every attempt to make social conditions and institutions reflect more worthily the mind of Christ. The limitation of scope will appear to some to be an arbitrary exclusion of part of the activities of individual mission boards. But by its adoption no kind of judgement is passed with regard to the comparative importance of different forms of Christian work. Some limitation of the scope of the Review is necessary, and the line of division cannot follow the principles of organization of any particular missionary society, but must be sought in the broad distinctions that exist in the actual world. No division has been found so simple and convenient as that which distinguishes for practical purposes the non- Christian world from that which is professedly Christian. Work among non-Christians has a unity of its own and presents problems of a distinctive kind. . . . Moreover, co-operation in work among non-Christian peoples is possible for those who might find it difficult to co-operate in other forms of Christian activity” (9–10). Reading this first issue of the IRM fifty-five years after, I was keenly sensitive to the way we had been led by God into a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of mission, not only through God’s word but also through events under God’s control- ling providence. This whetted my appetite to follow up what I already knew about the missionary story, but also what was written in this Review. The first test was how the situation was perceived when the First World War unexpectedly came as a shattering blow in 1914. In the October 1914 issue, Oldham wrote a long article on “The War and Missions.” It was an honest, courageous and painful assessment of the predicament in which European Christendom found itself. Since twenty-five years later another war was waged in and from Europe, with Japan participating, it is instructive to read some of the things that Oldham said in 1914: “When the war is viewed in the light of God’s intention for the world, it appears as a hideous sin . . . The war is a signal and crowning proof of the refusal of the Christian nations to be ruled by the law of Christ . . . The intellectual classes of Europe have to a large extent turned their back upon Christ. The rejection of him as the Savior of the world has been accompanied by a repudiation of his ethical teaching. The doctrine that enlightened self-interest should regulate the conduct both of individuals and of nations has been boldly taught and widely accepted. . . . But is it not necessary to recognize that the spirit of materialism and selfishness and the belief in the might of the stronger have entwined themselves round the roots of western civilization? Far more important From Missions to Mission 71 than the immediate causes of the war are the conditions that made it possible. It is the product of a false and unchristian conception of the relations of men to one another. Of this conception the antagonisms of the western nations are only one expression. The same wrong attitude is seen in the racial prejudice and hatred that is one of the most sinister features of our time. It expresses itself in the industrial warfare and class alienation that disturb the life of all western nations. The whole commercial system of the west is based largely on the principle of securing advantages at the cost of someone else; and it is noteworthy that conflicting commercial interests have been one of the chief influences that have fostered national antagonisms. . . . The situation in Europe drives home the question whether a wholehearted acceptance of Christ’s teaching is the only sound basis on which society can be built. If this is true, the war is a call to a great repentance. . . . The church must recognize its failure to permeate western society with its distinctive principles. . . . The question is whether the church has ever really set itself to apply the law of Christ to social and national relations. Has there not in the past been a compromise of fundamental Christian principle? What has been lacking is not merely a proper emphasis on some corollaries of the Gospel. It is the intimate heart and core of the Gospel revealed in the cross of Christ that has to a large extent been missed. . . . The non-Christian races fear, not without cause, that the object of western peoples is to exploit them. Missions must convince them that the church exists to help and serve them, and the desire to serve them must be made evident in ways that they can understand. The task of missions thus grows broader than we at first conceived . . . For the failure of Europe has lain in the attempt to build up a civilization on another foundation than that of Christ. If a new and better civilization is to be built, he must be the corner-stone” (628–31, 633). The significance of this prophetic statement of Oldham is its relevance to all that has happened to the nations in the past seventy years and particularly for the church. What I miss in what he wrote with such clarity and truth is a call for the church in Europe to be renewed for mission in Europe and the gigantic task that this entailed for the churches, in concert with the mission to people of other faiths. In his editorial note immediately after the First World War, Oldham wondered whether, “the qualities of courage, unselfish sacrifice, loyalty and fellowship so splendidly manifested in war can be effectively enlisted in the service of the constructive tasks of peace,” and he had in mind particularly the foreign missionary task (IRM, January 1919, 3). Somehow, the implications of what he wrote in 1914 were not brought out for the whole church in the post-war era. But, in that same issue of the IRM, he published an article on “The Eternal Sense of Mission” from the point of view of a parish priest in Britain, J.S.B. Brough. This article asserted that the average western Christian regarded 72 At Home with God and in the World foreign missions as the boring fad of a few cranks. Between seventy and ninety percent of men in Britain had no vital connection with any forms of organized or institutionalized religion. One fundamental reason for this was “the poverty and unattractiveness of our normal church life, its apparent remoteness from the ordinary concerns of the average man, and its air of smug respectability and cautious safety.” (9) He went on to say that the apathy of the churches was “traceable largely to the inadequate representation of our faith in relation to life as a whole,” (16) He did not stop at an analysis of the situation of the church in Britain. He expressed some convictions which were to come years after into the center of the discussion on mission. Brough declared that “the trinitarian statement of God is a missionary proclamation” (11). It was the triune God being in the heart of the strife, urging, persuading, respecting, suffering—for God is love. Brough went on to say: “Hence the challenge of Christendom, that we should as a whole gain a world outlook which claims and seeks to employ for God every activity of man everywhere, is something far greater and more deeply rooted than what is ordinarily understood as an appeal for foreign missions; nothing less fundamental is at stake than whether the church is to win and state by word and life the true nature of God. . . . We shall never understand the meaning of the Gospel we preach until we have carried it to India, China and Africa, and have received back from them the insight that they can give into the heart of the Gospel . . . God being what he is cannot be understood by us unless we have in us a real message of this missionary nature, and unless our knowledge of him is enriched from worldwide sources . . . ” (11–12). Brough went on to declare that our missionary function is part and parcel of the sacramental principle, “whereby God uses the external and temporal to mediate the eternal and spiritual, which running through all God’s dealings with man finds its supreme expression in the Incarnation” (14). I have quoted Brough at some length, because he saw clearly as far back as 1919 that the mission was one around the world, that it was based on a trinitarian and sacramental understanding of God, and that the proclamation of the Gospel in one place could enrich another place. Another moment when the challenge of the oneness of the mission was sounded was at the Jerusalem meeting of the IMC in 1928. The main intention of this meeting was to discuss, “The Christian Life and Message in Relation to Non-Christian Systems of Thought and Life.” When I look at the preparatory papers in Volume I on “The Christian Message,” it is incredible to observe that all the writers were westerners. The general drift of their position was that Christianity was the fulfilment of other faiths— a position that was a matter of understandable controversy. But in the middle of this debate came a preparatory paper by the American Quaker, Rufus M. Jones, on “Secular Civilization and the Christian Task.” He drew attention to a phenomenon, western in From Missions to Mission 73 origin and character through modern science and technology, which was engulfing the world. He started his paper with the statement: “No student of the deeper problems of life can very well fail to see that the greatest rival of Christianity in the world today is not Mohammedanism, or Buddhism, or Hinduism, or Confucianism, but a worldwide secular way of life and interpretation of the nature of things” (Jerusalem Meeting). After describing what to him were the positive and negative aspects of this secular civilization, Jones pointed out that it was a threat to all religions that should unite to face it. But he ended with the challenge to the church: “The church has in its keeping a Gospel—a message of hope and “good news.” It knows of a kingdom of God to be realized among men and of an eternal life to complete the temporal one. It can meet frustration and futility with a way of life that transcends and overcomes the hollowness and the defeat. Its note is one of victory and its experts testify that they “more than overcome.” How urgently then the secular world needs the experience and the message of a revivified church!” (265) The Jerusalem Conference itself, after considerable debate, came up with a message: “Our message is Jesus Christ. He is the revelation of what God is and of what man through him may become. In him we come face to face with the ultimate reality of the universe; he makes known to us God as our Father, perfect and infinite in love and in righteousness; for in him we find God incarnate, the final, yet ever unfolding, revelation of the God in whom we live and move and have our being . . . Christ is our motive and Christ is our end. We must give nothing less, and we can give nothing more” (402, 407). William Paton, who had become editor of the IRM in 1927, after a very effective service in India, and who brought to the IMC a massive mind of vast horizons, saw the significance of this new debate, and published an article on “What is secularism?” in the IRM in which he tried to sort out the issues that were at stake. He wrote: “The essence of secularism is simply this, that things which belong to one another have become separate and self-dependent . . . leading to the separation of the departments of life from the center to which they belong, so that they become kingdoms in their own right, self-dependent, acknowledging no common suzerainty” (July 1929, pp. 352,354). Unfortunately, the discussion on secularism and its challenge not only to Chris- tianity but to other faiths was not directly pursued. What loomed on the horizon in the 1930s was the spectre of totalitarian states (Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain and of course the USSR), claiming the total allegiance of people. The only counter to that was what J.H. Oldham described as “the universal community of the loyal” (a phrase he got from the American philosopher, Josiah Royce), that is, the church. In fact it was J.H. Oldham who organized the world conference on “Church, Community and State” in 1937 in which the slogan became current: “Let the church be the church.” 74 At Home with God and in the World

But in 1935, Oldham wrote an article in the IRM, “After Twenty-Five Years” (since the Edinburgh Conference), in which he commented: “The dividing line between Chris- tian and non-Christian countries is tending to disappear, and we have to accustom ourselves more and more to thinking of the one universal (though unhappily divided) Christian church confronting a world which notwithstanding its differences is at one in the repudiation of the authority of the Christian revelation. . . . The battle is one and is joined along the whole world front. We are plainly at the opening of a new chapter in international missionary co-operation” (July 1935, p. 301). Evidently he meant that the dividing line between “missions” from the West and the “mission” of the church throughout the world was tending to disappear. This point was reinforced by Hendrik Kraemer in his preparatory book for the Tambaram Conference, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World. And that is where I come in, because this book was my first encounter with the IMC. I had read about it. So when I started my formal theological education in 1944 I immediately seized it and read in particular the first three and the last chapters. This was a landmark in my theological education and ministerial formation. After his description of a world in transition, a world dominated by the totalitarian ideologies of the time, and of the shattering of the Corpus Christianum as conceived in the dominant west, as well as the challenges to the churches elsewhere, Kraemer stated: “But one demand universally emerges from the situation everywhere, that is, back to the recapturing of the vision of what God in Christ meant the Christian community to be—a fellowship of believers, rooted in God and his divine redemptive order, and therefore committed to the service and the salvation of the world; going to the bottom in its criticism of and opposition to the evil of the world, but at the same time going to the bottom in its identification with the sufferings and needs of the world” (30). Kraemer went on to express his hope—a hope that was not deceived—that the World Conference in Tambaram would achieve “a deepened sense of direction and a renewed consciousness of the meaning and purpose of the Christian mission in the world under any circumstances, whether quiet and evolutionary or turbulent and revolutionary.” (31) He next tackled the question: “Whither missions?” He drew attention to the optimistic mood at Edinburgh 1910 of people like John R. Mott, who had spoken and written since his early book of 1897 about “Strategic Points of World Conquest.” Mott began his closing address at Edinburgh with the words: “The end of the Conference is the beginning of the conquest.” By 1937, when Kraemer wrote his book, there was a mood everywhere of pessimism or deep disillusionment, as was evident in the secular world, but also of what was called “realism,” which he perceived to have an element of cynical or pessimistic judgement. No people have been for From Missions to Mission 75 so long as “realistic” as we people in the Caribbean, with our tragic world history going back to 1492. Middle class “realism” was in fact being countered by peasant and unemployed direct violent action in 1937–1938. Kraemer wrote: “The “realism” that we really need is of a far deeper quality. It is a radically honest openness to total reality, which leads on to a plane different from mere optimism or pessimism or even a well-balanced equilibrium of both. As such it is an essentially Christian virtue. The Gospel itself, in the tension of its two paradoxical poles, is the example of divine realism, and therefore its teacher. Its divine realism is that it takes man and God radically and seriously: man in his high origin and destiny as well as in his utter corruption and frustration; God in his radical rejection and condemnation of man, and in his never-weakening faith in and saving grace for man. Here we can learn the right and saving kind of realism that looks realities honestly in the face and exposes them to the light of the divine judgement. We learn from the Gospel that God is not to be treated as an appendix—usually a rather disconnected one—to our human reasonings and analyses, but as the all-pervading center in total reality” (40–41). He then proceeded more specifically to speak about “biblical realism”: “This intense religious realism of the Bible proclaims and asserts realities. It does not intend to present a “worldview,” but it challenges man in his total being to confront himself with these realities and accordingly take decisions. It does not ask for agreement with world- and lifeviews, not even with ‘Christian’ views of life and the world. . . . It could not be better expressed that the essential message and content of the Bible is always the living, eternally-active God, the indubitable reality, from whom, by whom, and to whom all things are. . . . The Bible in its direct, intense realism presents no theology. It presents the witness of prophets and apostles” (64–65). This declaration of Kraemer, who had actively participated in the debate about other faiths and about secularism in Jerusalem, gave me a new orientation for my own theological development and for my ministry in the Caribbean where people live with a realism of survival, without much hope, while practicing in general the Christian religion in different ways. Kraemer also, without my realizing it at the time, gave me a leitmotiv for my future participation in the missionary and ecumenical movement. Although Kraemer’s book only mentioned the IRM twice, I later recognized that it was a monumental attempt to be in conversation and controversy with all that had been published in the IRM since 1912. Armed with the introduction to the IMC and IRM, I went to England to complete my basic theological education in 1947. By 1948 I was asked to be Overseas Secretary of the British Student Christian Movement (SCM). The Overseas Department included the promotion of missionary education and vocation through the Student Volunteer Missionary Union (SVMU), 76 At Home with God and in the World

(which predated the SCM), international affairs, work among foreign students, and encouraging support for World University Service. As such I was in a notable line of succession, because the first two editors of the IRM, J. H. Oldham and William Paton, had been missionary secretaries of the SCM and responsible for the SVMU. On the eve of taking up office, I participated in a world consultation sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation, under the leadership of K. H. Ting of China at Woud- schoten, near Zeist, Netherlands. The theme was “The Growing Church” and the main study book was the report of the 1938 Tambaram IMC meeting, “The World Mission of the Church.” At this conference we were confronted with such statements as the following from Tambaram: “In a world of struggling and competing ideologies we emphasize again the urgency of this hour. World peace will never be achieved without world evangelization. . . . Can the church summon Christians everywhere to a new adventure for the kingdom of God? Can it give to youth a new vision of the purpose of God for the world? Can it challenge men to live dangerously for the sake of the Gospel? Perils increase and “safety first” cannot be the watchword in this hour. Every fact of the world situation is an appeal to the church to advance. We summon the churches to unite in the supreme work of world evangelization until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our Lord” (Report, 39–40). The person who impressed us most, apart from K. H. Ting, was Hans Hoekendijk, who did so much to stimulate thinking on the evangelistic task of the church and on the missionary structure of the congregation. He said things to us that I recognized many years later in an article he wrote in the IRM on the watchword, “The Evange- lization of the World in this Generation.” (January‚ 1970, 23–31) He said, “A global horizon is the only possible adequate setting for God’s gracious rule, so that his will may be done on earth.” But he went on to say that the Gospel could only come to life in authentic situations when those who seek to proclaim it put their bodies on the line and do not proclaim what does not make sense in their own lives. He quoted an Afri- can proverb: “Leave reading books and learn to know man.” And we could only know human beings as we learned to know Jesus, the authentic human being, by ourselves becoming human in solidarity with human beings at home or abroad. One of the issues in the Tambaram report that received intensive discussion was the part modestly called “The Economic Basis of the Church.” This, we were told, was based on the extensive studies and surveys made by a man who has been far too under-rated by the missionary movement, J. Merle Davis (1875–1960). He laid the foundations for the so-called younger churches of those days to reflect and act in a down-to-earth way on how they could become self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating in their own environment. Merle Davis, through his many studies and writings, was From Missions to Mission 77 one of the most vigorous and outstanding advocates of the movement from missions to mission on six continents. What I learned from him more than anything else was to discern and set out the priorities for practical, day-to-day action by each church on the basis of the missionary message. I developed the habit of looking out for articles in the IRM that described what was being done to enable the churches to achieve their selfhood as the body of Christ in each place and to express it in concrete ways in their settings in faithfulness to the Gospel of the kingdom of God and God’s justice. Many of us went from that meeting to the inaugural assembly of the World Coun- cil of Churches in Amsterdam. The theme of the assembly was “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design,” and there was a section on “The Church’s Witness to God’s Design.” We heard the theologian, Emil Brunner, say: “The church exists for mission as fire exists for burning.” The section report described the church as a community “that today desires to treat evangelism as the common task of all the churches, and transcends the traditional distinction between the so-called Christian and so-called non-Christian lands.” The strategy that was called for was that “the whole church should set itself to the total task of winning the whole world for Christ.” The question that perturbed us was how this was to be done when there continued the rigid distinction between missions and mission. It was with this exposure that I began my work with the British Student Christian Movement. How was I to go about my job? Well, I immediately got in touch with the IMC office in London, and sought the advice of that erudite and sensitive missiologist, Bengt Sundkler. It became obvious from conversation with him that one of the indispensable tools for promoting missionary education and vocation was the IRM. I plunged into reading back issues from 1912. For our immediate task, however, the issues from 1947 to 1950 (the year I left for Haiti) became the materials for reading, reflection and discussion in groups and at student conferences. In these issues were aired such concerns as education and evangelism, mission in a Christian university, toward a theology of mission, the missionary legacy to the church universal, motives for mission, race, and so on. Of special importance was the reporting and debate on the 1947 meeting of the IMC at Whitby, Ontario, Canada on the theme: “Renewal and Advance: Christian Witness in a Revolutionary World” with the emphasis on “Partnership in Obedience”—meaning, of course, the partnership between the older and younger churches, a phrase that was already becoming rather embarrassing and unnecessary. What was the result of this exercise? The students, both British and foreign, perceived that the concerns addressed in the IRM and by the Whitby meeting were their concerns in Britain as well as in other countries near and far. Those of us who came from the so-called “younger churches” 78 At Home with God and in the World were able, not without some sinful self-satisfaction, to press this home to students in what was called a post-Christian west. But what was more creative was that the experiences described and reflected upon in the IRM were relevant to the tasks and methods that seemed to be appropriate in the universities and colleges and in the cities and communities in Britain. The mission was one, and each had to learn from and share with all in discerning and discharging that mission. The need of Britain was no less great and urgent than in Africa, Asia or wherever. One concrete action was the decision in 1950 to cease to promote the Student Volunteer Missionary Union and to affirm that the whole Student Christian Move- ment had at its heart a missionary calling both in Britain and abroad. This was a clear option to move from missions to mission. This was in the spirit of William Paton who, before his untimely death in 1943, in one of his last weighty articles in the IRM on “The Future of the Missionary Enterprise,” declared: “We have to find the way . . . to a realized purpose of world evangelization in which the whole church, young and old, takes part and ‘home base’ is everywhere. We are only at the beginning of the Christian missionary movement” (October 1942, 393). It was in the light of these experiences and of the things I had learned and noted from the IRM that I went to Haiti, in 1950. It was a curious adventure. I was leaving the intellectual and academic world of the universities and colleges of Britain and elsewhere and was going to work mainly in villages with people ninety percent of whom were illiterate. Moreover, this was the first time the people would not be having a missionary from Britain, but a Caribbean man. There were also serious barriers to proclaiming the Gospel to a people who were the most poor and deprived of the Americas and were in a situation where freedom of speech and action was severely limited. There were no church institutions like hospitals, clinics, social welfare centers, or flourishing schools. I had no disposable funds, except that I was painfully aware that I had material security which the people totally lacked. As I reflect on the four years during which I was permitted to serve in Haiti, there are four things that stand out: First, there was an attempt, through prayer and worship and teaching, to be conscious of being a local expression of the one, holy catholic and apostolic church. I endeavored to keep the people informed about the churches in other countries, making use of notes I had taken from the surveys and articles in the IRM. Interces- sions for the churches in mission around the world were normal and regular. One effect of this was the moving occasion when I told the village communities about a calamitous drought in India. Out of their extreme poverty they collected US$ 12 to be sent to the church in India. From Missions to Mission 79

Second, with the inspiration of J. Merle Davis and others, I encouraged the congregations to discover their gifts, to pool their resources, to seek to become self- reliant and to share. The congregations and I myself found that in expressing our selfhood in simple ways, God was giving us infinitely more than we thought we had. The people found, too, that in mutual self-help and sharing they could do missionary outreach to neighboring villages. Third, Kraemer’s “biblical realism” was something I had to put into practice with the people, who were experiencing the grim realities of oppression and penury. It was in Haiti that my faith was most severely tested and also miraculously enriched. It was there, too, that I learned the power of the stories of the Bible to communicate to and empower the people in their actual situations, but only insofar as I immersed myself in their condition and listened to them and therefore to what God was saying. Fourth, I discovered the immense importance of being present with the people, listening to them, learning from them, entering into their history, their culture, their folklore, their tragic existence. I recalled an arresting article by William Paton in the IRM. He was writing about the proclamation of the Gospel. But he remarked that too many missionaries and church workers spent their time running institutions organizing, managing, speaking. Although they preached, exhorted and counselled, they had little time to sit and listen to the people. This situation called for creating areas of still- ness, face to face with people, of sharing of life with life, if the living word of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit was to be authentically communicated. Since leaving Haiti, my own work was precisely of this busy kind, and I have felt impoverished as a disciple and missionary servant of Christ. From 1954 to 1985 I was resident in Geneva mainly, in London for some years, and in New York for fifteen crowded months. My principal assignment was with the WCC in the Youth Department, later in CWME and then as General Secretary. In London I had responsibility for West Africa and the Caribbean in the Method- ist Missionary Society, working for the autonomous selfhood of the churches in those areas, while spending a great deal of time interpreting the missionary nature and calling of the church. I was a Bible study leader at the Ghana IMC meeting in 1957/8 when the decision for integration with the WCC was taken, and when we affirmed: “The Christian world mission is Christ’s not ours.” I was again a Bible study leader at my first meeting of the new CWME in Mexico when the emphasis was on “Mission in Six Continents.” I carried the leading responsibility for the next meeting of the Commission at Bangkok in 1972/3 when participants from the third world spoke in no uncertain terms that we all had to be liberated from our stereotypes in order to engage in genuine mission with one another, even if this meant having for 80 At Home with God and in the World a while to observe a period of pause for earnest and prayerful reflection and strat- egizing—moratorium. I have participated in all the six assemblies of the WCC when mission and evangelism were discussed. Nor can I forget the great privilege of being chairman of the World Student Christian Federation (which Mott founded in 1895) from 1960 to 1968 when we wrestled with the missionary message and obedience as Christian presence. In 1969, then, we dropped the “s” from the International Review of Missions. I was reading lately the autobiography (1985) of my esteemed immediate predecessor as director of CWME, Bishop Lesslie Newbigin, in which he records the years when the integration of the WCC and IMC had to be worked out concretely. I should remark, before quoting Newbigin, that our experiences were not dissimilar. He spent a great deal of his life as a European in India. I spent a great deal of mine as a Caribbean in Europe. I hope that it can be conceded that we were both missionaries. The dilemma with which I constantly wrestled was how to achieve a permeation of all the activities of the Council with a missionary concern, and at the same time to preserve and sharpen a specific concern for missions as enterprises explicitly intended to cross the frontier between faith and no-faith. Many of the most influential leaders in the mission boards wanted to eliminate the narrow category of missions and to speak only of the total mission of the church. I resisted the pressure and, in the face of considerable opposition, retained the “s” in the title of our journal, the International Review of Missions. It was only after I left Geneva that the “s” was removed. What is curious about this statement is that the obligation “to cross the frontier between faith and no-faith” is put in the context of Newbigin’s debate with “influential leaders of the mission boards,” thus emphasizing the traditional North/South institutional preoccupations with missions. In his recent writings Newbigin has made it quite clear that “the frontier between faith and unfaith” is everywhere. That surely should be the concern of the CWME and of the IRM—which in fact has been so over these past twenty years. Certainly this was envisaged at the WCC Third Assembly in Delhi when integration took place. The report said: “The integration of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches brings into being a new instrument of common consultation and action to serve the churches in their missionary task under the new conditions of the second half of the twentieth century. In it we see the good hand of God leading us into the next phase of the church’s mission. It is at the same time a fitting symbol of the fact that missionary responsibility cannot be separated from any other aspect of the church’s life and teaching. The Christian mission is one throughout the world, for there is but one Gospel of salvation for all men, one savior and Lord, who is the light of the From Missions to Mission 81 world . . . Every Christian congregation is part of that mission, with a responsibility to bear witness to Christ in its own neighborhood and to share in the bearing of that witness to the ends of the earth” (New Delhi Report, 249). The statement made by the WCC Central Committee in 1982 on “Mission and Evangelism—an Ecumenical Affirmation” is the latest and fullest expression of these convictions. Perhaps I can formulate my concluding reflections in terms of the “unfinished agenda” (the title of Newbigin’s autobiography) of the movement from missions to mission. What are some of the elements of this unfinished agenda for the CWME and its organ, the IRM? First, we all urgently need to throw ourselves on the judgement and mercy of God in conscious and open acts of constant repentance for the attitudes we have inherited and maintained wittingly or unwittingly and have displayed to one another. Those who come from the countries that had “missions” to what were called non-Christian lands must be enabled to feel the full weight of a history of missions that went hand in hand with colonial and imperial expansion and rule, with economic exploitation, with blatant racism, with reckless insensitivity to the persons and cultures of other peoples, and with the unavowed superiority of money, expertise, institutions and theology. Those of us who come from countries that have been at the receiving end of missions have to repent for the deep and destructive resentments we have cherished against mission agencies and missionaries; for the ways in which we have used the resources we received and continue to receive for purposes other than the evangelistic task and for making a name for our churches; for our own complicity in allying ourselves to the centers of power for our own advantage or for maintaining our own power positions; for the ways in which those of us who, in contempt for missionary and service agencies and for our church leaders, have engaged in mission to the poor, the deprived and oppressed, by extracting “reparation” funds that we have used with all the privileged power complexes we so vehemently deplore; and for our failure to express our selfhood as churches in imaginative forms of mission by constantly bemoaning the foreign nature of our churches. The litany could be extended. What I do want to say is that it is high time we come out clean with one another in the presence of God. We need a real metanoia, a radical change of mind and heart—a process that will be a continuing one until God’s kingdom comes in glory. Second, we will have to “bear fruit that befits repentance” by making joint action for mission an exercise in which all our churches, congregations and agencies involved in each place participate. It is now twenty-five years since the CWME put out a pamphlet on Joint Action for Mission (JAM) that called for the following survey and process of action: 82 At Home with God and in the World

1. Factors indicating the need for reexamination of the use of resources in the missionary task of the churches in specific geographical areas. 2. A necessary step toward advance in mission in some areas is that the churches within an area, with their related missionary agencies, together survey the needs and opportunities confronting them in the area, and the total resources available to meet them. 3. This process of survey should be followed by a consultation of the churches and mission bodies in the area, aimed at securing real and effective redeployment of resources in the area in the light of the agreed goals. 4. This process of survey, agreement and action in the redeployment of resources for the more fruitful discharge of responsibilities in mission will call for repentance and reconciliation on the part of all the bodies concerned. The problem with this great step forward in missionary strategy was that it tended to be directed only to the lands of “missions.” JAM should be applied to churches in council everywhere. We have had some experience of the difficulties and the opportunities. In the late 1950s and the 1960s, CWME was involved in two kinds of studies. One was “The Missionary Structure of the Congregations,” which was concentrated on Europe and North America. It was out of that study that the controversial paper was produced for discussion at the WCC Uppsala Assembly in 1968 on “Renewal in Mission.” There was another series of World Studies of Churches in Mission. What emerged were fifteen fascinating books—two on situations in Europe, one in the USA, and twelve on churches in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. These fifteen studies were reviewed and a research pamphlet, “Can Churches be Compared?” resulted. What has never happened was a reflection on the two sets of studies together—one entirely in the North and the other predominantly in the South. I take some responsibility for our failure to do this. But I still feel that we have not found a way of getting a deep on-going discussion of these studies together to see what they say to us about mission today and what we can learn from one another as churches. In fact, one of the problems that this raises is that, despite the WCC/IMC integration over twenty-five years ago, CWME and the member churches and councils have not yet discovered how to bring mission at home and participation in mission abroad into fruitful interaction and sharing of experiences and resources. Certainly, opportunities have been seized. The Theological Education Fund, directed at first to meet the pressing needs of churches in the third world, has become the Programme on Theological Education with the emphasis on doing theology and ministerial formation for mission in context. The Christian Medical Commission, which has had a mandate to enable mission established medical institutions to be more oriented toward community health care, has from the start tried to involve the From Missions to Mission 83 churches around the world in reflecting on and carrying out the ministry of healing of the church in a context of community health care. Similarly, the programme on Urban Rural Mission has had a worldwide network of mutual consultation and support. These three examples indicate the opportunities for the churches to reflect on their mission in holistic terms. How is the Gospel of the kingdom of God and God’s justice to be proclaimed in words and deed? How is God’s will being done? Third, we ought to ask ourselves what happened to the conviction expressed in the Rolle meeting of the WCC Central Committee in 1951 in its statement on “The Calling of the Church to Mission and Unity,” and the comment made by the Joint WCC/IMC Committee in 1952 that “the inseparable oneness of mission and unity, as the deep meaning of the church’s existence, is basic to all the issues the church has to face in the ecumenical movement.” It is a matter for rejoicing that the Orthodox churches are now deeply engaged in the ecumenical discussion on mission, and that the Roman Catholic Church since Vatican II is willing to join in common witness with other churches. But the pressure of our common calling to unity in mission and mission toward unity is not as evident in these last years, certainly not among the churches of the Reformation. There must be all sorts of factors at play, including the flourishing confessionalism with its slogan of “reconciled diversity,” and also the strengthening of denominational bilateral relations, especially from rich to poorer countries. Nevertheless, CWME and the IRM must continue vigorously to call the churches to make their own the prayer of our Lord that, in communion with the Godhead and with each other, they may become one that the world may believe. Fourth, I am not sure that we have faced the implications for the one mission of God throughout the world of the prophetic positions that the missionary movement has taken, not only in word but in action. I will mention only two examples here. When the IMC was formed in 1921, one of its decisions was to ask J. H. Oldham to do a study on the race problem. The result was his magisterial book: Christi- anity and the Race Problem (1924), which was equally magisterially reviewed by William Temple in the IRM in July, 1924. (449–54) Oldham wrote: “Christianity is not primarily a philosophy but a crusade . . . Hence when Christians find in the world a state of things that is not in accord with the truth which they have learned from Christ, their concern is not that it should be explained but that it should be ended. In that temper we must approach everything in relations between races that cannot be reconciled with the Christian ideal” (26). But it took forty-five years for the ecumenical movement to take action. And it was the Executive Committee of the CWME that took the first action in making a contribution from its reserves for the proposed special fund for humanitarian support of the 84 At Home with God and in the World liberation movements. The Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugees and World Service and the Central Committee followed. It cannot be said that churches around the world, not least in the third world and even in Africa, have seen this support of the Programme to Combat Racism as part of our missionary calling. Similarly, the missionary movement saw its task as reaching the total life of people. CWME strongly supported the setting up of the Commission of the Churches’ Partici- pation in Development and it was through the CWME that the first substantial funds were made available that would be used for research, consultation and projects in unmasking the unjust economic and social structures of society and helping people to be empowered for self-reliance and a more just community in mutual sharing. Today, this concrete prophetic witness, as part of the Christian mission, is widely questioned and divisive in our churches—a division that is being exploited by the political powers and various religious groups that are armed with large tempting funds for charita- ble projects. It is necessary that this prophetic element in the Christian mission be a constant subject for discussion in this Review. It was Oldham who taught us long ago that “we must dare in order to know.” Fifth, there is the task that has always haunted the missionary movement—the missionary message. Several attempts have been made, especially in Jerusalem 1928 and in Willingen 1952. Major ecumenical meetings, especially the CWME meeting in Melbourne in 1980, have tried to express theologically the basis and scope of our missionary obligation. During the last twenty years several theologies have been and are being articulated. In post-Auschwitz Europe it is a theology of hope. In Latin Amer- ica it is liberation theology. In racist USA and Africa it has been Black and African theology. In Asia, with its ancient well-documented religions and cultures, it has been Asian theology. The dialogue with people of living faiths and ideologies has produced many new insights in our understanding of the Christian faith and witness. Of special importance for our reflection on mission today is the lively feminist theology being articulated around the world. This is a vivid reminder that the first witness to the risen Lord Jesus Christ was Mary Magdalene whom the ancient church called the “apostle to the apostles.” Theology is the servant of the church’s proclamation and witness in service. There has not, to my knowledge, been any concerted effort to discern what are the mutually enriching missionary messages that are emerging from these flourishing theologies. This is clearly a task that the IRM could enthusiastically assume. The IRM is a significant ecumenical journal, as well as being the oldest. It owes a great deal to its editors over the years, but even more to its assistant editors—all women, like G.A. Gollock, Muriel Underhill, Margaret Sinclair, Jean Fraser, Ruth Sovik and Jean Stromberg—who From Missions to Mission 85 have maintained its high standard of content and production. After seventy-five years, we are, thanks to the IRM, more than ever challenged to the one mission that the triune God has pioneered in all its co-inherent diversity, and has called us to continue in the footsteps of Christ as the pilgrim people under the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit. We can only make our own what J.H. Oldham so prayerfully wrote in his first editorial in 1912: “Conscious of ignorance and weakness and of far distance from the mind of Christ, we lift up our eyes to him from whom cometh our help, and ask that this Review may be a means by which he may lead his servants into a knowledge of the truth; that in it and through it his name may be hallowed, his kingdom may come, and his will may be done, as in heaven, so on earth.” At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 1. A child, Mwuselele Myoni, is presented by her mother at the WCC Assembly at Vancouver in 1983. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 2. Potter with Mwuselele Myoni at the WCC Assembly in Harare. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 3. Potter at the age of 9, Dominica. Fig. 4. Violet Peters, Potter’s mother. On the side board are photos from Potter and his first wife Doreen. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 5. Potter at the Central Committee in Utrecht in 1972. At the presiding table on the right side are Pauline Webb, M. M. Thomas, and Eugene Carson Blake. Fig. 6. Potter and his first wife, Doreen, probably 1974. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 7. Potter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the WCC’s VI. Assembly in Vancouver, 1983. Fig. 8. Potter addresses the WCC’s VI. Assembly in Vancouver, 1983. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 9. Potter during a speech at the WCC’s VI. Assembly in Vancouver, 1983. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 10. Three General Secretaries of the WCC: Potter together with Willem A. Visser‘t Hooft as first General Secretary and Eugene Carson Blake as second General Secretary. Fig. 11. Dalai Lama visits the WCC, 11 July 1985. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 12. Pope John Paul II visits the WCC, 12 June 1984 At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 13. Potter during a visit in Australia, 1990. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 14. Potter and his wife Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter in their house in Lübeck, Germany. At Home with God and in the World

Fig. 15. Potter, 2006. Fig. 16. Potter at the inauguration of the “Philip Potter Library” at the Ecumenical Center, Geneva, 27 November 2009. To his left is then–General Secretary of the WCC, Rev. Dr. Samuel Kobia. To his right is his wife, Bärbel Wartenberg-Potter. Part 3 Eucharistic Ways of Living Prophetic Theology

he contributions of this chapter relate to the rapidly changing political and social Tcontexts in the 70s and 80s, which challenge the ecumenical movement to deal with global issues of peace and justice, growing North-South conflict, contextualization of theology, liberation movements in the global South, the failure of the first development decade, and the changing roles of women in church and society. Potter’s lecture in London on “The Love of Power, or the Power of Love” is a personal reflection on an intervention he made during the Second World Conference of Christian Youth at Oslo in 1947. The statement “To confess Jesus Christ as Lord is to live not by the love of power but by the power of love” reveals the inner rationale of the ecumenical movement, which is about reordering the values of antagonistic and power-greedy societies. Continuing with a profound explanation and understanding of what ecumenism is all about, the lecture on “Covenant for participation in God’s economy” builds on a wider understanding of God’s economy, oikonomia, as the will to unite all things in Christ; this has a direct relation to the most dominant fact in the world today—the realm of economy. The church is described as the universal body of Christ, giving visibility and witness to the covenant of God, which includes God’s claim not only on the people of the covenant but on all the earth, the whole creation. Potter, both in this lecture from 1976 as well as the address on “Peace: The Fruit of Justice,” from 1979, anticipates the need for a conciliar process of commitment and covenant, and the interrelatedness of justice, peace and integrity of creation which would become a major issue for the WCC only after the Vancouver Assembly in 1983. The lecture given on “The Prophetic ministry of the Church” in Bad Boll, 1981, reveals some of the conflicts which the WCC had encountered in raising issues, political and ethical, to which not all of their member churches were prepared to listen; such as the context of Anti-Apartheid, resistance against the nuclear arms race, and military dictatorship in 88 At Home with God and in the World the 70s.He holds that the fear that a prophetic stance will divide the churches is less important and legitimate than the concern that the truth of the Gospel, in all its dimensions, would be denied or compromised by the people of God. How to serve the unity and dialogue of Christian theology in an era of increased tensions and conflicts between the North and the South? This issue is thoroughly reflected in the historic contribution from 1983 of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT), which was planned and decided upon during the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Nairobi in 1975. The paper not only pleads for more honest dialogue between First World and Third World theologians, but also provides a profound summary of alternative viewpoints raised by contextual Third World theologies. The famous speech of Potter at the Sheffield conference, 1983, on overcoming sexism, provides a fascinating account of the historical journey which member churches of the WCC have shared with regard to the situation of women and men in church and society. A wide range of gradual transformation is depicted, starting with the First Conference on Faith and Order on the issues of unity in 1927 at Lausanne, which had only six women present among hundreds of men, to the Assembly of Amsterdam in 1948, where it was boldly stated that “the church as the body of Christ consists of men and women created as responsible persons to glorify God and to do his will.” The last lecture, on “Justice in a Globalized World,” from Vienna, 2001, anticipates a very modern debate as the current phase of the world economic system, which presents itself with the slogan of “globalization,” is critically analyzed in relating back again to core biblical concepts of justice and peace. Which ways are to be lived out by Christians in order to challenge the principalities and powers of the world, including the capitalistic world economic system? This has been a lasting question in the work and theology of Philip Potter. 8 The Love of Power or the Power of Love

hilip Potter gave the following lecture upon invitation of the International Fellowship Pof Reconciliation (IFOR) on 26 February 1974 in the Hinde Street Methodist Church in London. His contribution was part of the regular Alex-Wood-Memorial-Lecture. The IFOR, founded 1915 in Cambridge/UK, considers love, revealed and practiced by Christ, the foundation for a truly human society and calls for peace and mutual respect.

It was foolhardy of me to accept your invitation to deliver the Alex Wood Lecture this year. Not because my rather crowded and peripatetic existence makes it difficult to reflect, and to organize my reflection for such a sensitive and articulate gathering. Nor because the purpose of this Lectureship of dealing with “the bearing of the Christian Gospel upon some aspect of the International, National and Social Order” has been abundantly carried out by the many lectures which have been given. Rather, I feel a deep sense of inadequacy in speaking on the basis of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, that is, “the enthronement of love in personal, commercial and national life.” I have frankly been reduced to silence and a certain blankness when confronted with the realities of my own life history, as one belonging to oppressed peoples who have known the worst manifestations of the denial of love in slavery, and yet as one who has enjoyed and enjoys now a certain position of privilege. Moreover, my own work in the World Council of Churches brings me daily into close contact with the grim and intractable realities of a world which is so full of lovelessness, so out of joint, so reeking of hatred and despair, of oppression and violence, of complacency and cyni- cism, that I sometimes feel overwhelmed. Even my journey from Geneva to London is a painful experience in itself. As one who comes from an island which has been under British rule for nearly two hundred

89 90 At Home with God and in the World years, my passport states that I am a “British Subject: citizen of the United Kingdom, Associated States and Colonies.” But it also observes that “Holder is subject to control under the Commonwealth Immigrants Acts.” That means I must obtain a visa (euphe- mistically called “entry certificate”) which is valid for six months and which entitles the immigration officers to ask me the most extraordinary questions. (Incidentally, this is the only country in Western Europe where I am required to have a visa.) I have therefore chosen, on my arrival in this country, whose passport I carry, to present myself to the counter marked “Aliens.” It is, perhaps, a distinction of sorts to be the first Alex Wood lecturer to be given this kind of bizarre treatment. It is also, however, all the more daunting to have to go on to address myself to the subject, “The Love of Power, or the Power of Love.” Let me recount how this phrase first came to me. It was in August 1947 when I attended the Second World Conference of Christian Youth on the theme “Jesus Christ is Lord,” at Oslo, Norway. I came to this conference from the Caribbean and it was my first exposure to a world gathering. I had elected to participate in the section dealing with the role of the local congregation, no doubt because as a small islander I wanted to come to grips with the issues of our world as they were being faced in a local community. Our chairman was a lively and handsome young Czech—handsome, except for a scar on her oval face. In our group were young people from many countries. As we got to know each other we spoke more frankly about our different situations. A white South African explained apartheid in the Church by saying that the congregation was like any community in which people participated on the basis of sharing their life together. He claimed, “If we can’t be friends, we can’t feel at home with each other. Therefore it is better to be separated. Blacks don’t feel at home with us, or we with them. Hence the separation.” In the course of this explanation our chairman became red in the face—the scar becoming more evident and then she turned pale. She burst out: “I do not understand what you are talking about. You speak of the church as a community of friends. But that is not the church of God. Friendship is what man makes. Fellowship is what God gives.” Later I had a chat with this girl. She told me about her experience when the Nazis brutally occupied her country in 1938. She like many girls was attacked by young German soldiers. In the struggle with one who tried to rape her, he slashed her face— hence the scar. Later a German soldier tried to join her church youth group. There was a violent debate about this, and it was she who persuaded the group to welcome the soldier. Her passionate response to the white South African came out of that experience. That conference of more than 1300 young people from all over the world, meeting two years after the Second World War, was bound to come to a point of profound crisis. How could one speak of Jesus Christ as Lord when at that very moment the The Love of Power or the Power of Love 91

Dutch were conducting what they were pleased to call “police action” against the Indo- nesians? When the Indians were in the midst of the last phase of their struggle for independence? When so many of us were suffering from the agonies of colonial and racial oppression? When Europeans were bearing the fresh scars of the recent war? When the Norwegian king had refused to attend the Conference because Germans were present? When the Chinese were still suffering from the humiliation of ruthless Japanese occupation and the even greater humiliation of corruption in high places and of civil war? When the Japanese were the only ones prevented from coming—by the Americans? The very fact that we shared a common faith in Christ as Lord made us more sharply and deeply aware of our divisions and of the godless forces which seemed to hold us in their grip. We seemed at an impasse, the conference was breaking up, and the demonic spirit of apartheid was tearing us apart from each other. My Czech chairman was a member of the steering committee that had to agonize over this crisis. It decided to ask five young people to speak to the whole conference from their experience. She proposed that I be one of the speakers. I can well remember the extreme difficulty I had in finding words to express what needed to be said at this crucial point toward the end of the conference. As I struggled with my life experience and my experience in the conference, it was given to me to say: “To confess Jesus Christ as Lord is to live not by the love of power but by the power of love.” That word had a double significance for me. On the one hand, it was an affirmation of a conviction which had been mine for many years. Being one whose people had suffered long from the naked exercise of power, still in force under a more benevolent guise, my Christian faith had taught me that only the power of love could heal the wounds of the past and make me and my fellows free to struggle for a shared life in community. In those horrifying years of the 1930s, I had chosen the pacifist option—I could never take up arms against another human being. This has remained my commitment, though I have declined to join any pacifist organization. On the other hand, what I said at Oslo was an expression of a conversion experience. At that meeting I had been radically turned, away from myself and my life history in the Caribbean, toward my fellow human beings of every race and nation and therefore toward devoting my life to the enthronement of Jesus Christ as Lord—and that meant for me the enthronement of love. My consciousness was awakened to the true meaning of the ecumenical movement. I want, therefore, to set our theme, “the love of power or the power of love,” in the context of the ecumenical movement. What does “ecumenical” mean? There is a tendency to think of it in purely inter- ecclesiastical terms. For instance, the World Council of Churches is regarded by many 92 At Home with God and in the World as a body which should be solely concerned with drawing the churches together and working for Christian unity. But in fact that is not what “ecumenical” really means. It derives from a secular Greek word, oikoumene, which came into use particularly in the time of Alexander the Great and, in the first century A.D., became a title of the Roman Emperor who was called “Lord of the oikoumene.” This word was used by the Greek translators of the Old Testament to mean “the whole inhabited earth.” For example, the Psalmist affirms “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world (oikoumene) and they who dwell in it” (24:1). Jesus says: “And this Gospel of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the earth (oikoumene) as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). In these and other passages, the challenge is issued to the Roman Emperor and all who exercise power over human beings. The world belongs to the Lord, not to a Roman Emperor or any human power. And God has revealed his Lordship in the Gospel of the Kingdom exemplified in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The love of power, as displayed by the Greek and Roman Empires, was opposed by the power of love as revealed in God’s action in history through the people of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ. The Roman Empire operated on the basis of the domination of the many by the few and of the separation of Greeks or Romans from barbarians, of the free from slaves, of Jews from Gentiles. This separation can be seen in the very conception of the city. The word polis originally had the sense of a “ring wall,” the Latin equivalent, urbs, expressed the idea of a circle and had the same root as orbis. The English word “town” and its early German equivalent Zaun meant a surrounding fence. While for the Romans “to live” was synonymous with “be among men” (inter homines esse), there was a very clear demarcation between those who were citizens and those who were not. The principle of exclusion was basic to their understanding of life together. It was in the midst of this principle of exclusion that Christ came preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, that power of love which includes all men and all things, which breaks through the barriers of separation and exclusiveness. The oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, is the sphere of God’s Reign, and his is the reign of love, the re-uniting of humanity from separation, from apartheid. The ecumenical movement is therefore God’s call to us to become participants in his purpose of bringing the whole oikoumene under his power of love. No human being, nothing that belongs to human life, is excluded from his purpose. God has in Christ broken the separation by assuming our humanity and reconciling us to himself and to each other by his blood. That is the central reality of our faith. The ecumenical movement is, therefore, the testing ground of our faith. That is why the World Council of Churches, as an expression of this movement, has become The Love of Power or the Power of Love 93 increasingly and concretely involved in the issues which most burningly concern human beings today, like the development of all peoples and of the whole man and woman, the combat against racism, human rights, violence and nonviolence in the struggle for justice, to name only a few. Such concrete involvement, of course, means controversy. The World Council of Churches has learned to expect criticism, sometimes fierce and bitter, when it takes seriously this larger vision of its task. Given the injustice and parochialism rampant in our world, the ecumenical movement will cease to be controversial only if it ceases to move. I am glad to report that I see no such prospect in view! I have no doubt that if Alex Wood were alive today he would be one of the gurus of the ecumenical movement. Although I lived here in England during the last three years of his life, during which I frequently visited Cambridge as overseas secretary of the Student Christian Movement, I never met him. But I heard a lot about him from people like Canon Charles Raven. Reading Raven’s tribute to him in the first lecture in this series I have a sense that here was an ecumenical man par excellence. His scientific work and his involvement in the cause of peace and justice were based on and informed by his unshaken faith in Christ and his self-giving for mankind. Alex Wood lived the lyrical words of Paul as one who was caught up in “God’s plan (oikonomia) for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph. 1:10). And I want here to pay a tribute to the Fellowship of Reconciliation, which he so signally served, for the steady witness it has made to the enthronement of Christ and his love in human affairs, and for the support it has given at certain critical points to the work of the World Council, especially in the controversy surrounding our humanitarian aid to liberation movements struggling against oppressive racist regimes in Southern Africa and elsewhere. The time has now come to define our terms more closely and to draw out the significance of our theme for today, as we seek to be ecumenical in the biblical sense. “The love of power or the power of love” is a convenient rhetorical phrase which conveys perhaps a deep truth, but on closer examination may be dangerously ambiguous. “Love” and “power” in the alternatives may well be claimed to mean different things. These two words can also be defined differently and we could indulge in a fascinating word game. However, for our purposes I want to highlight “the power of love” as an expression which points to the Kingly Rule of God in Christ over the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, as well as to our calling to be messengers in word and deed of this Kingly Rule of God. “The love of power” is just a convenient way of indicating its opposite. What follows is therefore directed toward drawing out the implications of the rambling thoughts I have so far shared with you. 94 At Home with God and in the World

The English word “power” comes from an old French word which today is spelt pouvoir, a verb turned noun which meant, like its Latin equivalent potere, posse, with the noun potentia, to be able, to have the possibility to do. Power is therefore not an unchangeable, measureable factor like “physical strength,” “military might” or “Gross National Product.” It isn’t fixed. For example, in the days of the British raj in India the astonishing thing was that so few people could rule a vast and populated country. Similarly Mahatma Gandhi was able to mobilise great power in the people and make nonsense of British rule in India by nonviolent means. Two things can therefore be said about power. First, power is the capacity to initiate the new, to realise the possible, to change, to do the unexpected. As such it is an essentially human quality, the capacity to resist what threatens to destroy one’s being and to extend or fulfil one’s being. Secondly, power depends for its exercise on the living together of people in word and deed, and on their vocational consciousness. The power of the British raj was the collective sense of a superior destiny to extend the being of the British people on another people. On the other hand, Gandhi and his followers exercised power because of their will to self-affirmation, to liberate themselves from that which threatened their being, their potential as a people. It is interesting to observe in history that tyranny, the concerted use of violence, depends on the isolation, separation, of the tyrant from his subjects, with the resultant isolation of the subjects from each other through mutual suspicion and fear. Divide and rule becomes the way of the tyrant. E. M. Forster’s justly famous novel, A Passage to India, brings out that self-defeating element in the British raj. Such tyranny kills any capacity for change, for the really new. It becomes static, wooden, mechanical and finally impotent and dead. We do not speak of “self-power,” but of “self-control.” “Self-power” is a contradiction in terms, because “power” depends on relationships while “self-control” is the means by which one limits one’s self-assertiveness for the sake of participating in the power of the group which responds to one’s own sense of destiny, of self-fulfilment. Power is therefore essentially political, concerned with life together as people speak and act, seeking to fulfil their destiny as human beings. Hannah Arendt, in her penetrating analysis of power in her book, The Human Condition, writes: “Power is actualized only where word and deed have not parted company, where words are not empty and deeds not brutal, where words are not used to veil intentions but to disclose realities, and deeds are not used to violate and destroy but to establish relations and create new realities.” Such a splendid understanding of power points beyond power to a reality which acts as its aim and motivation. It is the actualization of something which is beyond The Love of Power or the Power of Love 95 the normal behavior of people. It is this reality which we call love. Paul has admirably brought out the impotence of power without love in his immortal words: “I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy, and know every hidden truth: I may have faith strong enough to move mountains; but if I have no love, I am nothing. I may dole out all I possess, or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better” (1 Cor. 13:1-3). Love, as Paul Tillich used to say, “is the ultimate power of union, the ultimate victory over separation.” Love is the re-union of the separated, the isolated. The fundamental reality of our human existence is the fact of our separation from one another—a separation which belongs to our nature as persons, yet has become corrupted by the multifarious ways in which we have erected walls of separation from one another both individually and collectively. This separation reveals itself in all sorts of divisions—class, caste, race, culture, nation. It results in and is often caused by division within oneself, the lack of centeredness, and therefore the loss of power to achieve one’s potentiality in relation to and in contact with others. Separa- tion leads to impotence and death. Love is therefore the foundation of power, because power cannot flourish in separation. The human task is therefore how to conquer separation, how to work for reunion, for fullness of life, for the enthronement of love. But it is a task which mankind has abundantly demonstrated in its long turbulent history to be beyond its capacity to accomplish; because the real separation is between persons and communities and the ground of their being, God. It is unnecessary, and in fact impossible in one lecture, to embark on a biblical exposition of power and love, especially in such a company of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. But it will help our argument to indicate a few elements in the Biblical presentation of God as love and power, and its implications for us. One New Testament passage immediately imposes itself: “Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God. Everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God, but the unloving know nothing of God. For God is love; and his love was disclosed to us in this, that he sent his only Son into the world to bring us life. The love I speak of is not our love for God, but the love he showed to us in sending his Son as the remedy for the defilement of our sins. If God thus loved us, dear friends we in turn are bound to love one another. Though God has never been seen by any man, God himself dwells in us if we love one another; his love is brought to perfection within us. Here is the proof that we dwell in him and he dwells in us: he has imparted his Spirit to us. Moreover, we have seen for ourselves, and we attest, that the Father sent the Son to be the savior of the world, and if a man acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he dwells in God. Thus we have come to 96 At Home with God and in the World know and believe the love God has for us. God is love; he who dwells in love is dwelling in God, and God in him. This is for us the perfection of love, to have confidence on the day of judgment, and this we can have, because even in this world we are as he is. There is no room for fear in love; perfect love banishes fear. For fear brings with it the pains of judgment, and anyone who is afraid has not attained to love in its perfection. We love because he loved us first. But if a man says, ‘I love God,’ while hating his brother, he is a liar. If he does not love the brother whom he has seen, it cannot be that he loves God whom he has not seen. And indeed this command comes to us from Christ himself: that he who loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:7-21). God is love because he has deployed his power in his Son Jesus Christ to remove the obstacles which separate us from him, the ground of our being, and from other human beings, and this means life. And this love was manifest in that Christ laid down his life for us (John 3:16). Receiving his love and life, we are given his Spirit, his power, which both unites us to him through the acknowledgment of our fellowship with his Son and impels us to break down our separation from one another. God’s love of us and our returning love of him propel us to our fellows, to a political life, to the exercise of power. Hence love is a dwelling, a living with one another by living with God. Loving others means recognising the presence of God. The Rabbis used to say: “Whenever a poor man is at your door, remember the Lord is beside him.” Indeed, the Hebrew word Lord, Yahweh, means he who is present. It is no surprise that when the Rabbis interpreted Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord,” they translated “I am the Lord” by the phrase, “I am he who is there.” Equally significant is the Hebrew meaning of the words “as yourself,” that is “as you are, made in the Image of God.” We are reminded of the familiar words concerning the unveiling of the Kingdom of God and the judgment on the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, when Jesus says: “Anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did it for me” (Matt. 25:40). This means a quickened and sensitive perception of others so as to remove all that separates them from themselves and others. Seeing others in love means seeing God—the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the imprisoned in body or spirit. Fear then comes from a life of separation, of excluding and being excluded. It is the effect of apartheid of any kind. Fear results in one closing oneself in and becoming powerless to be oneself and to speak and act creatively. It carries its own judgment of death rather than life. There is a further thought which John discloses about love. Unless there is a unity of speaking and acting, there is no love, no communion with God and man. “If a man The Love of Power or the Power of Love 97 says, ‘I love God,’” while hating his brother, he is a liar.” “The Kingdom of God,” said Paul to the factious Corinthians, “is not a matter of talk, but of power” (1 Cor. 4:20). Thus love is nothing natural to human beings, and yet it is the indispensable require- ment for any meaningful existence. Only in God is love possible. That is why it is a command, a summons to actualize our potentiality for making real the unity of the oikoumene. Love is an inescapable task. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in an unfinished chapter of his Ethics, sums up this love which is of God as follows: Love, therefore, is the name for what God does to man in overcoming the disunion in which man lives. This deed of God is Jesus Christ, is reconciliation. And so love is something which happens to man, something passive, something over which he does not himself dispose, simply because it lies beyond his existence in disunion. Love means the undergoing of the transformation of one’s entire existence by God; it means being drawn in into the world as it lives and must live before God and in God. Love, therefore, is not man’s choice, but it is the election of man by God. It is evident that so many of the realities we have to deal with as human beings, as the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as the World Council of Churches, are the denial of love. They demand from us the utmost exercise of the power of love. What are some of these realities? I am going to give a few random examples which illustrate the tragic separation which grips the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, today, and indicate some pointers to our task. One example of the tragic realities which grip our world is Southern Africa—the Portuguese held territories of Mozambique and Angola, Rhodesia, Namibia and South Africa. Here colonial and racial oppression has become institutionalized. The whole legal, economic, political and even religious structure is directed to one aim—the separation of whites from blacks, in a manner which deprives the blacks of any meaningful existence. And yet, South Africa, to name one of those countries, is rich in gold, diamonds, the purest and most coveted uranium in the world, and in industries. I do not need to inform you that the system is sustained by foreign investment (58 per cent of which comes from the United Kingdom), by the sale of arms from European countries under the guise of the defence of the Indian Ocean, and by white immigration. There is no shortage of evidence pointing, without the shadow of a doubt, to the ways in which we are all involved in maintaining the institutionalized violence of the system. In fact, this country carries a very heavy responsibility for creating the situation in South Africa as well as in Rhodesia. We Christians have had no difficulty in speaking out against racism, in making protests and in encouraging people, especially privileged whites, to work for change and for overcoming the separation, apartheid, which has become intolerable. But have we fully recognized our responsibility for what has happened and is happening, and imaginatively and 98 At Home with God and in the World wholeheartedly entered into the struggle, alongside those who are oppressed, for their liberation and for the reunion of the separated? Here again, a fearful judgment awaits us all as the holocaust looms steadily larger. Another example, the Middle East. A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of Chris- tians concerned about Biblical interpretation and the Middle East. An unusual thing took place—a dialogue between an Israeli youth leader and a young Palestinian leader. Both described the agony their peoples have suffered through history—a suffering in which the world, especially the Christian world, has played its part. They were one in their suffering and yet they found themselves caught in the gulf of mutual fear and mistrust which, since 1948, have led Arabs and Israelis into recurring bouts of war and violence. As the Jewish thinker, Martin Buber, said: “There is no salvation save through the renewal of the dialogical relation, and this means, above all, through the overcoming of existential mistrust.” There is no need to continue this depressing list of situations, to which one could add the tragic irony of Eastern Europe where a revolutionary effort at overcoming these separations has led to new forms of separation and oppression. What I am trying to point out here is that we as the human family have reached a crucial stage of our existence. Are we going to continue acquiescing in this situation and wait in resignation for disaster to overtake us all? Or are we going to escape into privatist or parochial or, to use a new British word, patrial exclusiveness? Or shall we take, as our first concern, to keep our hands pure and undefiled from the ambiguities and compromises of political engagement, while contenting ourselves with individual or collective good works here and there? Or shall we be daring enough to take with radical seriousness our calling to enter into the struggle for a just society here and elsewhere and to demonstrate in word and deed the power of love? In this connection, I would like to share with you some questions posed to those of us who take the pacifist position in the Statement issued by the Churches Central Commit- tee last August on “Violence and Nonviolence in the Struggle for Justice”: Advocates of nonviolence as a matter of principle need to ask themselves such questions as: • Are you taking with sufficient seriousness the tenacity and depth of violence in the structures of society, and the social disruption its diminution is likely to require? • May nonviolent action emasculate effective resistance at crucial points in a struggle? • In adhering to this as an absolute principle, are you not in danger of giving the means (nonviolence, that is, reduced revolutionary violence) priority over the end sought (justice, that is reduced structural violence)? • Are you more concerned with your own “good” conscience than with the good of the oppressed? The Love of Power or the Power of Love 99

I want in these remaining minutes to outline some of the elements in what “the power of love” could mean for us, on the basis of a biblical understanding of love. May I suggest three elements in the power of love in action—listening, giving, and forgiving. Listening is the process by which we recognise the other person or persons as sharing a common life together with us. It is the way of dialogue, the sharing of life with life, mutual respect. Listening is a highly political act, the way of life of the polis, city. Listening means seeing the other eye to eye and mouth to mouth, being open to learn, to be informed, to be judged, to know —in the biblical sense of an intimate relationship, to communicate with each other. Listening, learning, communication—here is love in word and act overcoming the barriers of existential mistrust. Ethiopia, South Africa, Brazil, the Middle East, Eastern Europe—these are not disagreeable realities to which we close our eyes. They are part of our life and woe betide us if we do not allow ourselves to know them fully, to live in and with them until the separation, the disunion burns into our very beings and becomes so utterly intolerable that we must let all others know that we and they may act. One of the main reasons why I have not joined any pacifist organization is the fear of becoming so militant in my convictions that I lose the capacity to listen to, to stand beside, to enter deeply into the agonies of those who have taken a different position to myself in pursuit of the same goal of justice. In this connection I am happy to read what Raven says of Alex Wood in relation to the First World War: “Neither then nor at any time did he find it impossible to work with people who did not share his views; and he felt too strong an affection for those who saw their duty in active service to wish to put himself in aggressive opposition to them.” In the same spirit, many pacifists have enthusiastically supported the World Council of Churches grants to liberation movements struggling against racial oppression, because they are committed to compassionate solidarity with the oppressed and refuse to demand a pacifist commitment as a prerequisite for it. A few months before he was murdered, Eduardo Mondlane, the leader of the Mozambique Liberation Move- ment (FRELIMO), told me of a conversation he had had with Che Guevara, the famous Argentine revolutionary. Che offered his services to fight against the Portuguese. He argued that the one task which could be undertaken was the overthrow of Portuguese colonial power. Mondlane countered by saying that he felt another equally important task was necessary—that of involving his people in awareness of who they were and preparing themselves for the constructive tasks of building up a just society through their active participation. Che Guevara regarded this as a waste of effort and went off to Bolivia with his small band of elite friends where they fought in the mountains against the oppressive government forces on behalf of the peasants, but with little contact with them. In the end, he was betrayed by the uncomprehending and scared peasants and shot. 100 At Home with God and in the World

Listening, learning, sharing is an indispensable prerequisite for mobilizing the potentiality of people for newness and change. It is an essential element of the power of love. Giving is certainly a more obviously recognized element of love as a power of overcoming separation and disunion. But it depends on what we understand by giving. Paul warned: “I may dole out all I possess, or even give my body to be burnt (some manuscripts read: even seek glory by self-sacrifice), but if I have no love, I am none the better.” (1 Cor. 13:3). “The gift without the giver is bare.” Giving is of no value, unless it is part of that listening, learning, sharing attitude of which we spoke a while ago. The only giving which works for the reunion of the separated is that which carries with it the cry of crucifixion: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Only when we allow ourselves to experience the full force of separation, by being fully with the separated, can we become instruments of reconciliation. It is in the weakness of self-giving that the power of love can release the healing, reconciling love of God. Forgiving is the most searching test of the power of love. “Power” as the capacity to do something new, unexpected, creative, as part of our inescapable relations with others, and “love” as self-giving for others, are most signally manifest in forgiving. One often forgets to look at the very word “forgive.” In old English, the prefix “for” implied intensive force, something done in excess, through and through, all over, very, extremely, overwhelmingly, overpoweringly. It therefore means to give through and through with overwhelming power. What is natural to human beings is vengeance, the matching of injury by injury, of violence by violence, of oppression by oppression, of hatred by hatred. It is not an action, but a re-action. It is not creative, and life affirming or life promoting, but destructive and life denying or life discouraging. And vengeance is not only a re-action, but an attitude expressed in our postures, judgments and words. For example, I am painfully aware that at the opening of this lecture I gave expression to my natural feelings about the slavery and colonial domination of the past, and about the indignities of the present inflicted on my people and on me by your people and by you—because you are responsible for the acts of your government and people. I know in my inner being how hard it is to overcome the past and present, and the separation which this has caused between me and you, all the more hard because most of you in this country are so insensitive and complacent about it all, though you utter lofty words of concern without costly acts of reconciliation. I know, too, how all this is woven into my own inability to forgive myself for the contempt I have for white people and the resulting contempt I feel for myself. I know that I have myself caused separation with others by my own self-assertiveness and indifference to them, and this blocks and warps my personality, preventing me from being free with and for others, from being open to the future—the future disclosed in the Kingly Rule The Love of Power or the Power of Love 101 of God which is the power of love. Perhaps what I have said about myself may find an echo in your own hearts. To be committed to the Fellowship of Reconciliation demands that we become fully conscious of this endemic separation which we have inherited, and which we have furthered by what we have said or done, or what we have failed to say or do, and above all by our attitudes. No amount of good words and good works, yes, no amount of annual Alex Wood lectures, can avail here to release us from this condemnation to impotence and death. Because our separation is founded on our separation from the ground of our being, from the God of love. The nerve of the Gospel is that in our impotence and deathly existence, God in his freedom and almighty power has entered into our lot in the flesh and blood of his Son in self-giving love. He it is who has given himself utterly, through and through, with overwhelming power for our release, our liberation, and through us for the liberation of the whole creation (see Rom. 8:18-22). In his ministry, we see him listening to, sharing the lot of and communicating with the poor and the oppressed, and with the rich and the oppressors. We see him giving himself in acts of healing, creative power. We see his love being displayed by that relentless clarity with which he exposed the conscious and unconscious selfishness of human beings, which brought about the extraordinary compact of the Jewish religious authorities, mimicked by the uncomprehending crowd, with the Roman authorities, who recognized in him the subverter of all they stood for. And this bloody compact encompassed his crucifixion—a political act, accomplished in the public place of Golgotha. It was in the agony of the cross that he prayed: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” It was in the hour of impotence, of death, that he cried out: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” We are identified with those who crucified and crucify him afresh, and, if we have learned to listen and to give, we too are identified with him in his groan of separation from God. Thus and only thus can we be forgiven, released again and again from our separation from God and from each other, and made anew in the power of his risen life to be reconciled and enlisted in his reconciling work. Thus and only thus can we be enabled to share his burning wrath against the separations caused by human sinfulness, and his unwearying compassion for the sinners. Forgiveness is, therefore, the most clear evidence of the power of love. It means, as Tillich so forcefully put it in one of his sermons, “reconciliation in spite of estrangement; it means reunion in spite of hostility; it means acceptance of those who are unacceptable, and it means reception of those who are rejected. . . . Forgiveness is the answer, the divine answer, to the question implied in our existence. . . . He who is forgiven knows what it means to love God. And he who loves God is also able to accept life and to love it.” 102 At Home with God and in the World

Thus forgiveness gives us the possibility of starting afresh and beginning something new. As Paul put it in the key passage which defines the Fellowship of Reconciliation: “When anyone is united to Christ, there is a new world, a new act of creation; the old order has gone, the old life is over; and a new order, a new life has already begun” (2 Cor. 5:17). That is what I learned from my Czech friend at Oslo in 1947 and which converted me to seek the reunion of the oikoumene, human beings of every race, nation and culture. It is this newness, this overcoming of separation, which is the summons to love with overwhelming power. And this love is a political act, it is the life of the polis, the city, which consists in listening, giving and forgiving. It is not without significance that the last book of the Bible, Revelation, ends with the vision of the new polis, city, whose foundations are adorned with all the varied richness of creation. Its gates are never shut, and all the wealth and splendor of the nations in all their variety are brought into it. No more is the oikoumene divided by closed walls. The very leaves of the trees are for the healing of broken humanity (Rev. 21–22). Significantly, only two kinds of people are excluded from that city: “As for the cowardly, the faithless and the vile; as for murderers, fornicators, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars of every kind, their lot will be the second death, in the lake that bums with sulphurous flames” (Rev. 21:8). Put in other terms, those who either, in self-protecting cowardice, avoid involving themselves in the struggle against separation and disunion; or those who ruthlessly distort, exploit and destroy human beings, thus strengthening the walls of separation. These will exclude themselves from the life of the new polis, the city of God. A clear alternative is placed before us –the love of power which produces and maintains separation, leading to death; or the power of love, which travails for the breaking down of separation and for the reunion of the oikoumene, humanity, that we may all share the endless life of the open city. The power of love is hope in action—action founded on the divine promise: “Behold, I’m making all things new.” 9 Peace The Fruit of Justice

he following contribution is an address by Philip Potter to a gathering of the Peace TFellowships of the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church in the United States, held in Kansas City in May 1979, in conjunction with the two denominations’ General Assemblies. Here Potter deals with the interconnectedness between justice, righteousness, and peace.

“Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. And the fruit of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, undisturbed security forever” (Isa. 32:15-17). This is one of the many prophetic statements of the vision of a new world of people and of nature. It is relevant for us today. The key words here are righteousness, justice, peace, and undisturbed security. Familiar words, all too familiar. But in their Hebrew forms, they are packed with meaning. Righteousness, tsedeq, comes from a Semitic word which means to be straight, firm, steel-like; as opposed to evil, rasha, to be loose or slack, to ignore or forget. To be just is to be straight, right, attentive, being and acting according to one’s inner being, having integrity of character. For example, the Arabic equivalent of tsedeq is used to describe a date which is fully mature, which tastes as it ought to taste. This is precisely what God has been. God is revealed as utterly true and utterly faithful because God promises good to the Covenant people. God has been concerned about their highest interests and concerned that the divine image in them should be realized. God therefore demands that the people should be righteous, have integrity of being before God and in their dealings with each other as sharing a common humanity. As

103 104 At Home with God and in the World

John Skinner says, for the prophets, righteousness “includes a large hearted construction of the claims of humanity; it is . . . the humanitarian virtue par excellence.” Therefore, to be righteous is to be fully human, firm, strong, integrated into God’s purpose of good for others and for the whole of creation. Justice (mishpat) comes from the verb to judge, and has the sense of behaving according to God’s declared righteous will, practicing fair dealing. Justice is the day-today conduct of one who is righteous. It is righteousness in action. Peace, shalom, means entirety, totality, wholeness; it is the undisturbed freedom of life and movement, the unchecked growth and expansion of the self; it is the state prevailing in those who are united in acting together for the common good; it represents the Hebrew conception of history as harmonious community. It does not mean just absence of conflict and war, but rather the state in which all human beings and all things are able to be and fulfil themselves, unchecked and undisturbed. Security, betach, means being able to trust one another, to abandon oneself to mutual confidence. Related to it in the text is the word quietness, shaqet, which means being undisturbed, unchecked. What the prophet is saying is that in the chaos of injustice, conflict and war, God pours out his life-giving and power-enabling Spirit, as God did at creation. There, at the beginning, in the chaos, God created order and in the void God created form and substance through the Spirit. What God created God called good. Above all, God created man and woman in the divine image to deal with creation in a spirit of good and to replenish the earth for good. Now there is chaos, the evil which humanity has brought on the earth. Things have become slack and loose. There is no firmness, no sense of wholeness, no trust or security among people. Creation itself is out of joint, despoiled and in danger of being destroyed. In this situation God sends the Spirit to bring righteousness, justice, peace, and undisturbed security among men and women, and in creation itself which becomes fruitful. It is all God’s work, not ours. This is basic for our endeavors for justice and peace. We can never achieve them ourselves. We can only receive them from God as a gift according to God’s design. But what is God’s gift is also our work as those made in the image of God. The prophet says at the beginning of this chapter 32: “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and his rulers rule with justice, and a man shall be a refuge from the wind and a shelter from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry ground, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land” (Isa. 32:1-2). What is God’s gift is humanity’s task. The king and the rulers are representatives of what everyone should be—righteous and just, having integrity and dealing rightly with others according to God’s will and Peace 105 action. The prophet provides a beautiful image of what this means. In the storms which arise in the desert, it is good to have a rock which can provide refuge from the wind and shelter from the storm. Moreover, the rock prevents the ground from becoming dried out and so arrests the drift of the soil into the desert. What the prophet is saying is that a righteous, just person is one who is of rocklike character, who prevents the drift into chaos and disaster, who provides shelter and becomes a source of growth for others. Note how justice is related to fruitful soil and the right use of creation. A just society depends on just persons of rocklike integrity. No less is required of us. In our discussion on war and peace, on militarism, the arms race and disarmament, we often spend a great deal of energy analyzing the various situations and making proposals about what needs to be done. We have not sufficiently emphasized the absolute importance of personal involvement and responsibility. That has been the genius of bodies like the Peace Fellowships and the International Fellowship of Reconcilia- tion. We have become so overwhelmed by systems, structures, powers, the faceless men and women, and the frightening dimensions of the conflicts in our world, that we are inclined to lose a sense of our personal and corporate responsibility. This is what the prophet is saying to us. God’s design and promise demand that we are each and all engaged in God’s work of justice and peace. At the Special Session of the U.N. General Assembly on Disarmament in 1978, I said: Disarmament is not the affair of statesmen and experts only, but of every man and woman of every nation. We are dealing here with the issues of life and death for humankind. The churches here have a very distinctive role to play because they have the criterion of faith in the God of hope, whose purpose is that all should be responsible for each other in justice and peace. Therefore they will continue to rouse the conscience of people and encourage them to demonstrate by attitude, word, and act that peace and justice are not ideals to be cherished but realities to be achieved. The arms race is the decision and creation of human beings. Disarmament must also be willed and won by human beings. What kind of persons are we called to be who work for peace as the achieved work of justice? Put in another way, what are the human causes and cure of injustice and conflicts? This is precisely what the prophet seeks to face in this chapter. He says that when each person practices justice and is rocklike in integrity of character: “Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will listen. The anxious heart will understand and know, and the tongue of the stammerers will speak readily and distinctly” (Isa. 32:3-4). What the prophet is saying is that in the struggle for justice and peace, one of the big stumbling blocks is when people refuse to see the issues and to hear about the realities around them. He puts it more precisely when he appeals to the women as 106 At Home with God and in the World representative of this tragic human habit: “Rise up, you women who are at ease, hear my voice; you complacent young women, give ear to my speech. In little more than a year you will shudder, you complacent women; for the vintage will fail, the fruit harvest will not come. Tremble, you women who are at ease, shudder, you complacent ones; strip, and make yourselves bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins” (Isa. 32:9-11). What the prophet is describing so graphically has been the experience of our lifetime. In spite of the First World War and the depression of the early 1930s, the Western world remained at ease and complacent, seeing and yet refusing to see, hearing and yet refusing to listen. The result was the Second World War and the holocaust. The biggest danger of our consumer societies, both economically and in terms of the mass media, is that we just accept things as they are, that we refuse to probe deeper into things and so work for change. This is particularly the case at present with regard to the arms race. The tendency is to feel that nothing can be done about it, and all we can do is to wait for the holocaust which will engulf us all. In the meantime, we will take our ease and be complacent, though deep down there is a sense of fatalism, fear, and despair. In other societies, tyrants and militarists make sure that people neither see nor hear and are left with their anxious hearts and stammering tongues, unable to understand and know and speak up. The challenge to us who are bearers of justice and peace is to seek the power of the Spirit to enable people to see, speak, and listen in love. For it is precisely this which marks us out as human beings made in the image of God. When people cannot or will not speak or listen, then they lose their humanity—and that is the absence of justice and peace and security. We experience God and therefore come into the sphere of justice and peace when we can reach beyond ourselves in solidarity with others, rather than sit at ease and in complacency, and when we can speak the word which needs to be said and listen to what is being spoken to us. It is in such speaking and listening that we can move into the future, God’s future of justice and peace. This can be perceived in the current talk of national security. It has been exalted into a dogma which is employed to justify arms build-ups, military take-overs, the suppression of civilian political institutions and the violation of human rights. In the defence of “law and order” sinister instruments of torture, police and prison hardware, and sophisticated means of intelligence gathering have been produced. Moreover, in the name of national security, the mass media and educational institutions are frequently misused to foster a psychosis of fear and mistrust and to prevent any other way of looking at the resolution of conflicts than in military terms. Indeed, national security becomes a means of muzzling and blinding people. As I said to the UN General Assembly in 1978, “we must challenge the idol of a distorted concept of national secu- Peace 107 rity which is directed to encouraging fear and mistrust resulting in greater insecurity. The only security worthy of its name lies in enabling people to participate fully in the life of their nation and to establish relations of trust between peoples of different nations. It is only when there is a real dialogue—a sharing of life with life in mutual trust and respect—that there can be true security.” That is the sense of righteousness and justice which results in unrestricted, undisturbed security. One of the most astonishing things about our unstable and unjust world is the way in which realities are covered up and false estimates and values are made about them. The powerful cover up their folly and villainy by high-sounding names and postures. Things are not called by their proper names. For example, the ideologies of capitalism and communism are used as slogans to hide various forms of national self-interest. Whenever and wherever people revolt against oppression—whether racial, economic, or political—the slogans are immediately invoked. The Americans and Westerners accuse them of being communists and that becomes an excuse for supporting tyrants and knaves. The Russians and socialist states call them running dogs of capitalist imperialism and so justify their brutal suppression of peoples or imprisonment of persons. Furthermore, there is the conventional wisdom of the various ideologies which leave no room for examination or change. One glaring example of this is South Africa which claims to be defending Christian values and civilization and the sacred system of free enterprise by practicing apartheid and ruthlessly oppressing the black people. Western investments and arms sales help to maintain the racist system, and the rationale which is given is that these steps defend capitalist free enterprise against the encroachment of communist collectivism. In this situation words and values lose their meaning and people are so confused that they are no longer able to discern the issues. And so, injustice and armed conflict, as well as senseless violence, result. The prophet is calling on us to have the moral insight and courage to expose this folly and villainy which “ruin the poor with lies and deny justice to the needy” (Isa. 32:7b) To be just and to seek peace is to be noble, that is, open-hearted, open-handed, magnanimous, firm, having integrity, calling things by their proper names, and treating human beings humanly, not ignoring or separating ourselves from them. The vision of a just society is the challenge to be just persons, to let ourselves be guided and governed, enlivened and empowered by the Spirit of God. Jesus, the embodiment of justice and peace, told us: “Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the children of God” (Matt. 5:9). In seeking to make peace we are placing ourselves in the way of God’s will, fulfilling God’s design that we become truly human and just and be God’s children by sharing this life with our brothers and sisters.

10 A Chance to Change The Community of Women and Men in the Church

t the closing plenary session on the Study on the Community of Women and Men in Athe Church in Sheffield in 1981, Philip Potter reminded his audience of the impact women had on the ecumenical movement since its inception, from the beginning of the twentieth century until the Sheffield Conference. He also highlights the need for gender justice in societal and church structures.

This is the second time that I have been involved in a conference in Sheffield. In 1949, as secretary for the Student Christian Movement, I organized a conference here on Britain and Africa, with British and African students. At that conference there was for the first time in the post-war period a real confrontation between the African and British students, and between the students and the authorities, because we had here the secretary of state for the colonies and two former colonial governors. I can well remember the ways in which they were made to tremble and fumble by the radical questioning from both the African and British students who raised the issues of power, of domination and oppression, and of racism. That was in 1949, and the struggle continues today. Indeed the struggle has become clearer as the issues have had to be taken up not just by students but by the churches themselves. In many cases extraordinary things have happened in the course of these thirty-two years, helping to prepare the ground for the meeting in Sheffield. What then is our agenda here? It is to consider the issues of liberation from sexism, the systematic, historical, and present subordination of women by men, and their liberation for a truly human life as a community of women and men in church and society. How have we come here? To understand how, we need to go back to the First Conference on Faith and Order on the issues of unity in 1927 at Lausanne. There were,

109 110 At Home with God and in the World believe it or not, as many as six women present there among hundreds of men. And they were not only present, but they presented a statement in which they asserted, “that the right place of women in the church is a question of grave moment and should be in the hearts and minds of all.” That of course was the polite language of the time. They reminded the church fathers also that if the churches were seeking deeper unity they would have to reexamine the question between the relationship of women and men. Ready as usual, the churches repeated these phrases for several years until we met together for the inauguration of the World Council of Churches in 1948. At that first assembly, we declared that “the church as the body of Christ consists of men and women created as responsible persons to glorify God and to do his will.” And the statement immediately went on to say, “this truth, accepted in theory, is too often ignored in practice.” For years the World Council of Churches went no further in speaking about the cooperation of women and men in the church, family, and society. But between 1974 and 1975 there was a conference in Berlin, and there was also an Assembly where two things happened. One was in the section entitled “What Unity Requires,” which spoke of the community of women and men and the wholeness of the body of Christ. The section saw that, “the unity of the church requires that women be free to live out the lives which God has given to them and to respond to their calling to share fully in the life and witness of the church.” Incidentally, the same section that dealt with the issues of a fully committed conciliar fellowship in each place and in all places, reminded the churches of the call to convergence on the issues of Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry. As I understand it, what the 1975 Assembly was trying to say was that all these issues were at stake and had to be considered together. It was in that sense that we set out on our work. And how did we go about it? Certainly not from above. It was not possible at all for Geneva to do anything from above on this issue. In fact the history of the ecumenical movement is the history of the things that have happened because they happened from below. And much of the work that brought us to the Nairobi Assembly was done through women’s groups from below. Indeed, before the World Council of Churches was formed in 1948, there was a worldwide study done from local situations all over the world, and it was out of that study that the Assembly took the action it did. But it also asked a very able and committed woman, Kathleen Bliss, to write a book on the subject of the service and witness of women in the church, coming out of this study. Because of the work from below, people like Kathleen Bliss and Madeleine Barot, who for so many years guided that work, were able to carry out their task. Indeed, Made- leine Barot did not come from above. She had been the founder of Cimade during the A Chance to Change 111 war—that most pioneering and creative enterprise from which women and men were together rescued even from the jaws of death and enabled to live. So, it was on account of that embodied work which Madeleine carried out among women all over the world that we have come to this point today. And Madeleine Barot is only the symbol of so many others whom I could mention here. The other impulse came from the Assembly section on “Structures of Injustice and Struggles for Liberation.” It concluded its analysis of the injustice of sexism by asserting: “The freedom and unity of Jesus Christ includes both halves of the human community; therefore it is imperative to the unity of the church and society that the full participation of women be given urgent consideration and immediate implementation.” I would like to share with you what I have learned from just reading the reports which have come out of these three years of study on the Community of Women and Men in the Church. I have read these reports, but I have also read between the lines, because as an old ecumenic I know that reports are only a sort of algebraic sign of a very great depth of well-buried meaning. What I have learned from this decoding exercise is that, compared for example with the anger and frustration of the 1974 Berlin conference on sexism, I felt here through this enormous study which has gone on in so many parts of the world, the incredible pain and agony of it all—and with it the extraordinary love and patient endurance and perseverance which lie behind it. I perceived also the tremendous insights and wisdom—which have been lying there wasted for so many years and which are still emerging, thank God, for our enrichment—which have come out of this common effort, largely by women. I have been aware, reading these reports, of the impotence of our male-dominated churches to see, hear, feel, decide, and act. And incensed with this impotence, I wait for the potency which God’s Spirit can bring to us. For me, this study is a veritable test of our faith and of the ecumenical movement which is concerned about the unity of the whole people of God, as a sign and sacrament of the unity of all the peoples of the world. Now, what are some of the issues which have arisen from this process and which are urgent and inevitable for our attention as churches and as Christians? First of all, throughout this study, what has emerged most powerfully for me is the need to rethink the whole question of authority and interpretation of Scripture. The more I meditate on it, the more I realize that even more than the issues of racism and social injustice, the way in which the relations of men and women have been dealt with in the Scriptures themselves and the way in which we have interpreted what the Scriptures have said have brought seriously into question how we understand the total revelation of God in Christ expressed in the whole canon of the Scriptures. We have systematically left aside as our criterion of judgment the central nature of God’s revelation and have clung to all 112 At Home with God and in the World the things that strengthen and confirm our attitudes of domination and of hierarchical oppression. It seems to me that this discovery challenges the way in which we deal with the Scriptures, and we shall have to do some hard thinking about this. Secondly, we have to come to terms with our ecclesiology, our understanding of the church, the laos, the laity, the whole people of God. What do we mean when we speak of the church as “the whole people of God,” as we have been saying in the ecumenical movement for the past nearly forty years? What does it mean for the way that the church functions? What do we mean when we say loftily in our ecumenical documents that the unity we seek is a unity in which there is a conciliar fellowship in each place and in all places? If there is a fellowship, a real sharing of life with life in which we are all in council together, then it means both women and men are in council together, that decisions are made together, and that decisions are made by those who have the gifts required without regard to sex or culture. Then our whole conception of ministry has to change. We have used the word “ministry” which means being the servants, but “ministry” has been turned into “hierarchy,” into “patriarchy.” We know that the servant is the one who empties himself or herself, not seeking to have power and domination. We talk about the servant church but, in the whole length and breadth of the life of the church, we have set up all kinds of individual and corporate forms of hierarchy which enshrine power attitudes and structures. And may I say, women and men both have acquiesced in it. This provides one of the challenges to which this meeting will speak. And then there is our whole understanding of tradition and traditions. We have made a great sacred cow of our different traditions, but what I find, as a student of history, is an urgent need to rewrite church history as the history of women and men in mission and service. Our existing church history is largely a history of men. One of the things this conference ought to do is to send us all back to do our homework so that we can begin to discover the real tradition in the life of the churches and why the churches became so male-oriented in the way that they did. Furthermore, it will be interesting for us to see what the role of women was in the renewal movements of the church. My impression is that wherever there were renewal movements women were often in the lead. Consider the women prophets in the early centuries, then the vast number of women mystics and the books they wrote, and combined with that mysticism their active service in the community in the Middle Ages. Then after the Reformation in this country there were the Quakers, of whom we have heard so much, where there was equality between men and women, as also among the Moravians and even the Methodists. The Methodist movement in the eighteenth century owed a tremendous debt to women, up and down these islands, and indeed in other parts of the world. Today, all around the world, wherever there are renewal A Chance to Change 113 movements, base communities of people who are developing their consciousness and going out and daring the oppressive authorities, there are women in the vanguard. In the same way, women played a distinctive role in the missionary movement both at home and abroad from the very earliest centuries. This fact needs much more historical research, as does the role of women in the ecumenical movement, starting with the YWCA and the Student Christian Movement in which so many of us men learned how to live with women as equals, without knowing how to carry it on from there. What I have further observed in these writings gathered by the community study is a deepening of our theological understanding of what it means to be human—and in quite new ways. First of all, our whole understanding of sexuality is challenged. We are called to take it more seriously, especially in our theology. Secondly, we are challenged to see that being human means dealing with the issue of dualism. The whole division between flesh and spirit, often putting flesh as woman and assuming spirit implicitly in terms of man, has been a heresy, even worse than a heresy in the life of the church; or again the dualism of private and public—women being private and men public—keeping men with the mentality in which the ordinary human virtues were private while in public it was the survival of the fittest which reigned. This dualism is also challenged by our new understanding of what it is to be human. And the third dualism which is being challenged is that of meekness over against power—that meekness belongs to women and power to man. Because of the inability to relate these two things, our humanity has been brutalized, and we are in this pursuit of death by rearmament and war. Another thing I have seen in this study is the central relationship between identity and community. The heart of God’s revelation of humanity was male and female. In that, he indicated to us that there is no homogeneous, uniform way by which God wills that we should live, but rather in full recognition of our diversities and through those diversities we find our unity and community. And lastly, what I have learned from these studies has been a fresh impetus for our call to justice and peace. We have been talking a great deal about development as self-reliance. But we have not noticed that in most of the world, especially the poor world, it is the women who have been carrying the tremendous burden of poverty and development. And it is they who have been showing what self-reliance can mean. Just to take one simple example, we talk in our development work about appropriate technology, when technology itself originated in ancient cultures largely due to the efforts and ingenuity of women. The struggle for peace in a war-obsessed world is only possible when women are deeply and decisively engaged politically. Some years ago, I had to prepare for a women’s conference a study on the first chapters of Luke and especially the Magnificat, and I read a commentary by Lagrange, 114 At Home with God and in the World the great Roman Catholic Semitic scholar. In that study he brought out, and I later pursued, the origins of the word “Mary,” that other person who has been used and abused by the churches concerning the role of woman. Now, Mary comes from a verb mara which has two roots. One root means to be fat, and to be fat in Semitic terms in those days meant to be beautiful. Of course, I dare say this was a very acceptable thing, as we can see in the whole iconography of Mary. In fact Lagrange decided that this was the better root of the word. But he was honest enough to say that there is another meaning of the word mara and that is to revolt—to lead a revolution. That is clear if you read the Magnificat where the mighty are brought down from their seats, including ecclesiastics, and the humble and meek are exalted. Now that in itself is an indication of our problem. Even in terms of our scientific and biblical work on the meaning of the word mara, we men deliberately chose it to mean just to be fat and beautiful but not to revolt, to work for change. And yet what Mary as the Theotokos, God bearer, came to teach us was the beauty of holiness, the total commitment to God and to God’s purpose, but also the power of healing and renewing love for a chance to change men and women toward one family in justice and peace. 11 The Prophetic Ministry of the Church

he following address was given by Philip Potter at Bad Boll Evangelical Academy, TGermany, at a Consultation on the Prophetic Ministry of the Church, May 6, 1981.

It is a joy to be back again in Bad Boll and to participate in this meeting when an important issue facing the churches and the ecumenical movement is being tackled. The pamphlet inviting you to this meeting draws attention to the controversial reactions, especially in the Württemberg church, provoked by the World Council’s public activities. It indicates that some regard these actions as promoting the renewal of the church and of society, while others fear that the foundations of our faith are in danger of being compromised. Moreover, there is the urgent question of whether, on making declarations and acting on public issues, the churches and the Council might not desert the Gospel for human ideologies, and whether in so doing they might not become a divisive, rather than a reconciling force which is their proper function. What is here being challenged is whether or not the churches and a body like the World Council of Churches have a prophetic function to proclaim the Gospel in its significance for the present and the future. No one can dispute the fact that the early church commended the ministry of prophecy (1 Thess. 5:19-22; 1 Cor. 12:4-7, 27-31; 14:1-40; Rom. 12:3-8; Eph. 4:11- 16). Indeed, Paul goes so far as to say to the Corinthian church: “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy” (1 Cor. 14:1). It is recognized that John the Baptist came as a prophet and that Jesus’ ministry was prophetic. The early church did not think that with Jesus prophecy came to an end, because, as we have just seen, Paul clearly asserts that the Church was called to continue the prophetic ministry of Jesus. Moreover, this was a ministry to which the

115 116 At Home with God and in the World whole Christian community was called as the Body of Christ, though it was accepted that some were more endowed by the Spirit for this ministry than others. Nevertheless, it is evident from the early centuries that this ministry of prophecy diminished. Already, the Didaché, or “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles to the Nations,” while emphasizing the office of prophet, hedges it around with so many conditions that there must already have been some doubt about it, especially as the more regular ministry of “bishops and deacons” was taking over power. By the time we meet the phenomenon of Montanism in the third century, we realize two things about prophecy. First, the emphasis was apparently placed about predicting the end of the world and the setting up of the reign of Christ on earth. Secondly, during the following centuries, prophecy as proclamation and call to renewal of life was taken over as part of the preaching and teaching of the church. By the time the church was officially recognized and the Constantinian era was installed, the prophetic witness of the judgment of God in righteousness of the peoples and nations became muted, and was confined to the inner life of the church. At the Reformation two tendencies became evident. In Lutheran circles, on the one hand, the prophets were seen as interpreters of the Mosaic law, and this view persisted to the middle of the nineteenth century. Wellhausen, after a pioneering study of the prophets in their historical setting, wrote that “the element in which the prophets live is the storm of the world’s history.” This placing of the prophets as simply exponents of the Mosaic Law may well have restricted and distorted the church’s understanding of prophecy, the effects of which are with us now. Prophecy was practically reduced to pastoral care and moral teaching for the inner order of the church and for the ethical life of individual believers. Calvin, on the other hand, did revive an old tradition of considering the three offices of Christ as prophet, priest and king. For him the very name “Christ,” the anointed, appointed one, applied to all three offices. He cites, as regards Christ’s prophetic office, Isaiah 61:1-2, which, as we know, was precisely the passage quoted at the beginning of Christ’s ministry and which he claimed to fulfil (Luke 4:16-30). Calvin states that Christ’s proclamation puts an end to all the Messianic prophecies, but he also states that the prophetic proclamation of the Gospel of Christ is “for his whole body that the preaching of the Gospel might continually be attended with the power of the Spirit.” Calvin further states that “the tendency of the prophetic dignity in Christ is to assure us that all the branches of perfect wisdom are included in the system of doctrine which he has given us” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter XV, para. II). Incidentally, when Calvin speaks of “system of doctrine,” he is using a phrase which we would today call Heilsgeschichte and when he speaks of “all the branches of perfect The Prophetic Ministry of the Church 117 wisdom,” he includes within the Heilsgeschichte all that the biblical revelation has to say about the justice of God in community and among the nations. However, it is interesting to observe that while the churches have no difficulty in speaking about their priestly or pastoral and servant roles, they are more hesitant about asserting their prophetic role. I suppose that they would claim that the prophetic role is included in the role of preaching and teaching. Nevertheless, it must be said that, among the churches of the Reformation, it has been those most influenced by the teaching of Calvin which have from time to time raised their voices in prophetic witness. I would like to tread, now, on very delicate ground by saying that one of the principal reasons why the churches in this country are suspicious of the prophetic ministry of the church is the central place given to the doctrine of the two kingdoms. I do not want to go into an exposition of what the teaching of the two kingdoms is about, though I would be willing to do so in discussion. What I do want to say is that, from my reading of Luther’s teaching, this doctrine assumed the corpus christianum. However the churches or the princes may behave—and Luther could say very harsh things about both—the conviction was that both were subject and could be made subject to the Law of God. But what happens when the state becomes secular and no longer accepts to hear God’s Law or to be an instrument of God’s kingly rule? What happens when the state, comprising not only government but also the economic, political and military forces, adopts and practises economic and political ideologies which are opposed to the biblical teaching on justice and the social order and to God’s purpose for humanity and for creation? In fact, it has been precisely during this century that Christians have recovered this prophetic dimension of their faith. Karl Barth brings this out clearly in his Dogmatik (Vol. IV, Part 3) when he deals with the three-fold office of Christ. He writes: “From all kinds of new angles there has been revealed, not merely the godlessness and evil of general orders and disorders, but the existence of a public and institutional as well as a private and individual paganism in all kinds of previous Christian activities such as had never before been suspected, let alone made the subject of serious concern or attack” (29, English version). He makes the observation that while the world has tried to push the church to the margin or into a ghetto, there are signs that the church, in many of its manifestations, has more than ever before been penetrating into the life of society with the judging and renewing prophetic Word of God. Of course, in terms of recent German church history, the most outstanding example of this counter-attack of the church was the Barmen Declaration. As you know this Confession was made by a small minority, a remnant, as the prophets would say, and the guiding spirit behind it was the Swiss Reformed Karl Barth. But I want to remind 118 At Home with God and in the World us—you and me—of the sharp and clear rejections of the false doctrines perceived by what were called the “German Christians.” It stated: “We reject the false doctrine that: • the Church can and must acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, beside and in addition to this one Word of God, other events, powers, forms and truths as the revelation of God... • there are spheres of our life in which we belong not to Jesus Christ, but to other masters, realms where we do not need to be justified and sanctified by Him... • the Church is permitted to form its message or its order according to its own desire or according to prevailing philosophical or political convictions... • the Church is able or at liberty apart from this ministry to take to itself or to accept special “leaders” equipped with power to rule... • the State should or can beyond its special task become the sole and total order of human life, thus fulfilling also the Church’s vocation... • the Church should or can beyond its special task assume characteristics, functions and dignity of the State, thus itself becoming an organ of the State... • the Church can, in human glorification of itself, put the Word and the Work of the Lord to the service of any desires, purposes and plans, chosen on her own authority.” I have quoted from this statement because it has recently been used in criticism of the statements and actions of the World Council of Churches. I will come back to this in a moment. But I do want to ask the question: Have the churches in Germany been applying the Barmen Confession and these rejections to the actualities of German life today, particularly in view of the churches’ dependence on the church tax system and all the dangers inherent in that more subtle conformity with the secular powers than was apparent during the Nazi regime? I suspect that this is a very difficult stance for the church to take, not least because it still clings to an understanding of the two kingdoms which does not take sufficiently into account that the age of Christendom is long over. I also detect the fear that a prophetic stance will divide the churches. The people who made and professed the Barmen Confession were not afraid of that. They were more afraid that the truth of the Gospel in all its dimensions would be denied or compromised by the people of God. It seems to me that one reason why the churches have not been able to apply the Barmen Confession to the realities of today is that there is a marked lack of historical thinking in the church in Germany. Church history is a Cinderella of our faculties of theology. I understand that the book which is still in use is that of Heussi which covered the whole spectrum of church history in a schematic way in one volume. Friends have pointed to me a few books written, especially since the period of the German Reich. The Prophetic Ministry of the Church 119

But I do not hear of a tradition of critical historical writing of the history of the church in Germany since the Reformation and particularly since the revolution of the intellectuals in 1848 which plunged Germany pell-mell into such vast changes in outlook and action that Germany became the center of our troubled world history for the following hundred years. Outside observers comment that the role of the German church during this tumultuous history has been at best ambiguous and at worst conforming with the powers. It is time that Christians and the churches in Germany take a hard look at their history in the light of events and trends and above all in the light of the Gospel. In fact, that was precisely what the prophets of old did for Israel, and what Jesus meant when he accused the religious leaders of not discerning the signs of the times. I would venture to say that it is this ahistorical approach of the churches to their life and the life of the society around them which predisposes them to be suspicious of the prophetic ministry of the church. I have so far made a few observations on why I think that there is so much suspicion about the prophetic ministry of the churches in this country. I would simply conclude this part of my paper by saying that, in fact, there has not been a strong tradition of a prophetic ministry in the church in Germany, and that Christians are ready neither to participate in this ministry nor to receive it. There have been notable exceptions in the history of the German church, not least since the time of Christoph Blumhardt right down to today in groups that many of you here represent. What I would like to do now is to re-state some of the convictions which have guided the World Council of Churches in its prophetic ministry to the member churches and to the world. I will thus proceed by attempting to deal with four questions: What is the nature of prophecy? Who are the prophets? Is the ministry of prophecy inconsistent with the church’s efforts at arriving at consensus within its ranks and of being an instrument of reconciliation? What are the ways in which the prophetic ministry is exercised today?

What Is the Nature of Prophecy? Certainly, prophecy is not just foretelling the future in a clairvoyant sort of way, with all the fantasies which go with it. That is what the church early rejected, especially in the phenomenon of Montanism, and rightly so. Prophecy is rather the forthtelling of the Word of God as revealed in his mighty, saving acts in history and in his covenant with his people for the sake of all peoples. Martin Buber, in his masterly book, The Prophetic Faith, writes: “The world of prophetic faith is in fact historic reality, seen in the bold and penetrating glance of the man who dares to believe. What here prevails is indeed a special kind of politics, theopolitics, which is concerned to establish a certain people in a certain 120 At Home with God and in the World historical situation under the divine sovereignty, so that this people is brought nearer the fulfilment of its task, to become the beginning of the kingdom of God” (135). It is the totality of the Heilsgeschichte which is involved in the prophetic ministry. I want to draw attention to two recent texts which emphasize this. They come out of the work of the Joint Working Group of the Roman Catholic Church and of the World Council of Churches during the last five years. The first one is a study document entitled “Toward a Confession of the Common Faith.” The document reminds us that “the ancient professions of faith and the great conciliar definitions were very often in response to the challenges posed by tensions between the adequate expression of the faith and the new cultures, or to the internal problems of the Christian community.” While giving a central place to the traditional creeds as expressions of the biblical revelation, the document points out that the churches are being led “to give new emphasis to aspects of the apostolic texts which in the past were not included in the explicit object of professions of faith.” It goes on to say: “Confessing Christ implies today a special insistence of the connection between Christian salvation and the realization in our world of a state of justice and peace, abolishing discriminations, and thus announcing the reign of God inaugurated in Jesus. This can become a priority when there is question of defending the dignity of the person in regions or circumstances where it is threatened. It is clear, however, that this verbal profession will be authentic only if what it expresses in words finds its practical expression in the activity of ecclesial communities to second the efforts being made everywhere in the world for the establishment of this justice and of respect for these human rights. For this is a matter of confessing the same apostolic faith, but now in its ‘existential’ aspect without which the profession of the creeds of the past would be seriously weakened. The confession of Christ through action is, in fact, the logical outcome of adherence to the fundamental articles of faith in God the Creator and in the Incarnation ‘for us men and for our salvation’“ (9–10). Similarly the document on “Common Witness” declares: “In bearing this witness Christians are committing themselves to the service of others, for it is the Good News of God they are bringing (Acts 13:32,33). Through proclaiming the cross and resurrection of Christ they affirm that God wills the salvation of his people in all dimensions of their being, both eternal and earthly. . . . The search for Gospel values such as human dignity, justice, peace and fraternity invites participation by a common witness, which always points to Jesus Christ as Lord and savior of all. This means Christian involvement in matters of social justice in the name of the poor and the oppressed. We must relearn the patristic lesson that the Church is the mouth and the voice of the oppressed in the presence of the powers that be. Thus Christian witness will The Prophetic Ministry of the Church 121 mean participation in the struggle for human rights, at all levels, in economic sharing and in liberation from social and political oppression. All are parts of the task required by obedience to the truth of God and its consequences.” (Paras. 35, 37) Necessity is therefore laid on us to declare this message of the Kingdom of God and his righteousness over every person and people and over the whole of his creation in the context of the actualities in which we live and of which we are a part.

Who Are the Prophets? This question is often posed in order to show that prophecy was confined to certain individuals who had a special calling and claimed to have authority direct from God. The argument is that these persons, particularly the writing prophets of the Old Testa- ment, completed their work in the life and ministry of Jesus, and that this type of person is no longer necessary . . . The prophet Joel writes: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even upon the menservants and maidservants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit” (2:28-29). It was this word of Joel which was recalled on the day of Pentecost. It is this promise which is considered by Paul in his letters, especially his first letter to the Corinthians, as a normal fact of the life of the Church. The whole Christian community has a prophetic ministry. Karl Barth gives powerful expression to this in his Dogmatik:

The action of the community in the ministry of its witness is a prophetic action, that is, an action based on perception into the meaning of the current events, relationships and forms both of its own history and that of the world around in their positive and negative connexion to the imminent kingdom of God attested by it and therefore in their significance for the concrete form of this witness. . . . In the prophetic element and character of its ministry the community looks and grasps and moves in and from its present into the future, not arbitrarily nor on the basis of analyses, prognostications and projects, but in attention to the voice of its Lord who is also the Lord of the world, who repeats what He said when He called, established and commissioned it in what now takes place within it and the world as spheres of His lordship, who thus points and leads it to the future, and lays on its lips in a new form, though with no material change, the witness entrusted to it. Today and here is heard the voice of the One who was and is and is to come. Today and here it is to be heard by His community and attested as His voice. But “today and here” means in His work, in the divinely controlled history of the community and the world in its present form.” (Church Dogmatics, vol. 4, part 3, 895–96) 122 At Home with God and in the World

The special character of the ecumenical movement and especially of the fellowship of churches in the World Council of Churches is that the Gospel and current realities are seen in a world perspective, that is, in terms of the totality of the human family and in every aspect of the life of humanity and of creation, thus bringing out the interrelatedness of nations and peoples. Moreover, in the fellowship of the World Council of Churches, there is ample space for mutual correction and warning, so that what is said and done is not the whim of a few, but represents a broad spectrum of insight and conviction of the worldwide Christian community. Therefore, the positions taken by the World Council have to be treated with the utmost seriousness. Ernst Lange was right in pointing out, especially with reference to his own native Germany, that the church needs to be converted from its parochial, provincial understanding of God’s word and world and to develop a global, truly ecumenical consciousness. And this involves the whole people of God, the laos, laity. Here is a challenge which the church in Germany ignores to its own peril and that of the world, because Germany is at the very center of the world’s conflicts and opportunities today.

Is the ministry of prophecy inconsistent with the church’s efforts at arriving at consensus within its ranks and of being an instrument of reconciliation? The first thing to be said is that reconciliation has no meaning without facing up to the realities of the enmity which exists between people and God and between people and each other. The prophets were very clear about this. The false prophets, the priests and rulers, tended to force a national consensus in terms of accommodation so that their particular interests could be kept intact. The prophets were ruthless in exposing this sham consensus, and the iniquities and injustices which lay behind them. This was precisely what John the Baptist and especially Jesus did in their challenge to the people and the religious authorities. From the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus’ prophetic message caused conflict and the authorities sought to kill him (Luke 4:16-30). In the context in which Jesus speaks about discerning the signs of the decisive opportunities (kairoi), he says: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division” (Luke 12:49-56). Reconciliation depends on penitence and renewal and upon being brought to the cross of crucifixion of all that rebels against God’s righteousness, so that the risen life of Christ may become manifest in our personal and corporate bodies in healing and righteous peace. That is the clear message of the Gospel. And that clear message becomes more apparent as Christians and churches, which participate in all the divisions and conflicts of our world, are enabled to hear and receive together the Gospel of the Kingly Rule of God and his righteousness. As has been rightly said: “The nearer we draw to the cross, the closer we come together.” The Prophetic Ministry of the Church 123

And this coming closer together means that dialogue, the sharing of life with life in mutual respect and caring, becomes more and more a reality. Our experience in the World Council of Churches during these thirty years or so has been that it is precisely as we have come increasingly to grips with the conflicts in our life as churches and in our societies that the dialogue between the churches in the fellowship of the Council has increased. This dialogue is undoubtedly very painful for all of us, but we are learning more and more to bear each other’s burdens of history and to speak to each other in love. Any church which attempts to opt out of this painful dialogue for the sake of maintaining peace at all costs within its ranks is being unfaithful to the integrity of the Gospel and to the evident call of God today.

What are the ways in which the prophetic ministry is exercised today? Through the ecumenical movement, our churches are being called to renewal and unity, in the spirit of the call of the prophets and of Christ and the apostles. What I want to indicate here briefly are two kinds of prophetic witness in which we are engaged. The first is the challenge to social and economic justice and to political peace in our world. The churches and the World Council of Churches become engaged in this challenge because the whole Heilsgeschichte as revealed in the Old and New Testaments demands that we are so engaged in proclamation and action. There is no way by which we can spiritualize the biblical message and avoid its implications today. Moreover, the biblical message shows a distinct bias for the poor, the deprived, the exploited, the oppressed. It does this because God’s Kingly Rule, his righteousness, requires that all should share his covenant life and his blessings. Those who are outside his life and his blessings, whether by their own wilfulness or by the wilfulness of others, are the subjects of his prophetic call and ministry. The second kind of prophetic witness is the attempt to draw out in thought and action the implications of the Gospel where these are not directly stated. In the first century, for example, slavery was taken as a given fact of society. Paul exhorts slaves to obedience in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord (Col. 3:22; Eph. 6:5-9). However, Paul also declared: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:27-28). And again: “you have put off the old nature with its practices and have put on the new nature, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3: 9b-11). It is evident in his letter to Philemon that Paul had difficulties in reconciling his clear conviction of what Christ had done for slave and free alike with his acquiescing in the institution itself. It took centuries for the Church to come to the understanding that 124 At Home with God and in the World slavery was incompatible with the purpose and work of God in Christ for all human beings. It was, in fact, the prophetic witness of persons and groups within the church which created the climate whereby slavery was finally abolished. The same is true today about the prophetic witness and action of the churches and of the World Council of Churches regarding racism and sexism, based on those very clear words of Paul. Here again churches and Christians used the Scriptures in a very one-sided way to prove that discrimination against non-Aryans and against women was justifiable. The ruling minority in South Africa even speaks of their racist policies in terms of maintaining Christian civilization. In our own lifetime, we have experienced a radical change in the attitudes of Christians and churches, thanks to the prophetic witness of Christians and churches. Of course, we are divided as to the means to be taken whereby change can take place. The value of our fellowship in the ecumenical movement is that we can test one another about the means. But there can be no doubt about our calling to solidarity with the victims of racism and sexism, in the spirit of the prophet as suffering servant and above all of Christ, who exercised his ministry for and with those who were deprived or deprived themselves of communion with God and with one another, which is the true state of righteousness. In all this, Christians and the churches have been enlightened and enriched by researches in the social and economic sciences and in the tough analysis of society which has developed in the last hundred years. We are no longer permitted to indulge in simplistic judgments about ourselves and society. Indeed, it can be said that the results of political and socio-economic analysis have reinforced the relevance of the biblical message of the righteousness of God. For Christians, this message is the criterion on which our prophetic witness and action must be based. And this we invoke through ecumenical dialogue across the various ideological and cultural divisions in our world. Here again the ecumenical dialogue enables us to weigh what is said and done and to be subject to one another in a spirit of love. It is in this spirit that we can scrutinize each other to discern whether the truth of the Gospel is being maintained or compromised. But we cannot do so by standing apart in uninvolved self-righteousness. As members in the Body of Christ we are inextricably bound together in suffering and in joy, and in the judgment and mercy of God. That is the proper stance for a valid prophetic ministry of the church. 12 Doing Theology in a Divided World

he following speech was delivered by Philip Potter in his capacity as General Secre- Ttary of the World Council of Churches at a “Dialogue-Conference between First- and Third-World Theologians,” held in Geneva/Switzerland, 5–13 January, 1983. In his speech, Potter emphasizes the contribution made by the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT), founded in Dar-es-Salaam/Tanzania in 1976. He summarizes the challenges emerging from a world torn apart and points to the role of theology in overcoming the divisive and life-threatening realities of today’s world.

It is a delight for me to welcome you to this significant dialogue between First World and Third World theologians, sponsored by the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT). This is very appropriate, because, if I am not mistaken, it was at the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Nairobi in 1975 that plans were made to meet in Dar-es-Salaam in 1976 and to set up the Association. I also well remember the attempt made here in a meeting organized by our Programme Unit on Education and Renewal in 1973 to promote a dialogue between First World and Third World theologians. It was a brave effort, but also a painful experience of mutual incomprehension. After these ten momentous years of very intensive theological reflection in the midst of costly witness in our divided world, I hope that this encounter will be more fruitful, and will open up fresh dimensions of doing theology in a truly ecumenical way. Certainly, we in the WCC have been greatly enriched by the work of EATWOT as we have endeavored to carry out our ecumenical mandate since the last Assembly and as we prepare for the Sixth Assembly in July this year on the theme, “Jesus Christ—the Life of the World.” I must confess that while I readily agreed to speak at this meeting, I have

125 126 At Home with God and in the World gone through agonies about what I can say which has not already been said by the many Third World theologians in their now formidable array of books, articles, manifestos, not to speak of the statements produced by the five meetings of EATWOT. I can hardly claim to have read, let alone mastered, the vast output of theological writing by Third World scholars during these last twenty years. However, I do feel a deep sense of solidarity with them, being a Third World man from the Caribbean who was trained especially in biblical and historical theology, and out of a background of the practice of law and as a student of history. My real apprenticeship in doing theology was my service as a pastor in Haiti over thirty years ago. As you know, Haiti was the first Third World country to free itself from slavery and from colonial rule and through a popular uprising. The French were routed in the field of battle in 1803 precisely in the area where I worked in Cap Haitien. This was quickly followed by the independence of several Latin American countries. Alas, though Haiti led the way, it ended up as the poorest and most exploited country in the Americas. When I went there in 1950, 90% of the people were illiterate and living in desperate circumstances under an oligarchy dominated by the USA. There was no freedom to speak directly about the political and economic situation. But I could tell the stories of the Bible, and do so in such a way that the people immediately understood their own situation in the light of the biblical message of God’s dealing with Israel and the nations, and of the life and ministry of Jesus. Then I would listen to them tell their own story in relation to the message of the Kingdom of God and of their own history. Their consciousness was awakened and so was mine. They began to be engaged in new communities of prayer and action with and for one another. I immersed myself in their history both oral and written, studied their economic and political plight, listened, received and shared. My faith was tested almost to breaking point. Of course, I did not go to Haiti without some preparation. In the Student Christian Movement, I had learnt that we must have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. There was not much news available in print in Haiti, but there was the news of the people themselves that I heard, saw and felt. I had also learnt that theology is the encounter of theos, God through his Word revealed in Scripture and especially in the Word made flesh in Christ, and logos, the words of people, the harsh realities in which they live, and their anguished cries. My calling was to enter into this encounter and to invite the people to participate in it. And as I tried to do so, I began to understand the cry of agony of Jesus on the cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?.” Theology was not an intellectual exercise, but rather entering into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ in the power of his resurrection, and entering in anguish and hope into the sufferings of the people. Doing Theology in a Divided World 127

But my most significant preparation was my participation in the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948 and the Message which was sent to the churches and which we pledged to make our own as we covenanted to stay together and go forward together as the whole Church with the whole Gospel to the whole person in the whole world. The words of the Message which kept ringing in my ears all the time I was in Haiti and ever since are the following: “We have to remind ourselves and all men that God has put down the mighty from their seats and exalted the humble and meek. We have to learn afresh together to speak boldly in Christ’s name both to those in power and to the people, to oppose terror, cruelty and race discrimination, to stand by the outcast, the prisoner and the refugee. We have to make of the Church in every place a voice for those who have no voice, and a home where every man will be at home. We have to learn afresh together what is the duty of the Christian man or woman in industry, in agriculture, in politics, in the professions and in the home. We have to ask God to teach us together to say “No” and to say “Yes” in truth. “No,” to all that flouts the love of Christ, to every system, every programme and every person that treats any man as though he were an irresponsible thing or a means of profit, to the defenders of injustice in the name of order, to those who sow the seeds of war or urge war as inevitable; “Yes,” to all that conforms to the love of Christ, to all who seek for justice, to the peacemakers, to all who hope, fight and suffer for the cause of man, to all who even without knowing it look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelled righteousness” (Amsterdam Report, 10). It is out of this experience and all that has happened to me in the course of these tumultuous years that I have tried to understand what Third World theologians have been saying and writing, out of the anguish of their own involvement in the struggles of the poor, the deprived, the marginalised who form the great majority of the world’s population and in whose name they speak and write. In particular, I have tried to digest the statements coming out of the five encounters of Third World theologians at Dar- es-Salaam (1976), Accra (1977), Colombo (1979), São Paulo (1980) and New Delhi (1981). It might therefore be appropriate to indicate and comment on what I have learnt from these statements as an introduction to this meeting. First, in the Third World, theology has to be done in a context of the most tragic and devastating history of domination, exploitation and destruction which humanity has ever known and perpetrated. For the last nearly five hundred years, and particularly since the Industrial Revolution of the eighteenth century, Europe and later North America, and the outposts of Europe in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, joined in this century by Japan, have been engaged in a massive onslaught on the peoples, lands and resources of the Third World. While slavery had been practised in 128 At Home with God and in the World many parts of the world, the slave trade of the seventeenth to the nineteenth century conducted by Europe from Africa to the Americas, and the institution of slavery, was a new demonic phenomenon in history, the effects of which still remain, not least in the form of white racism. These events took place around the time of the Renaissance, and the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in Europe, and were accelerated in the era of the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century and the French Revolution in the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. These are the historical facts, and those of us who come from the Third World know those facts from within. They are the fabric of our existence, even if we, who are represented here, thanks to our bourgeois privileges, cannot speak about it with the same agony and pertinence as the vast millions of sufferers. But on the other hand, our very status as bourgeois intellectuals has enabled us to make use of the now available tools of historical and socio-economic analysis. We are aware of the whole tangled web of crushing oppression to which our people have been and are being subjected. We also know that our own societies were predisposed to be the victims of this onslaught, because of our own inherited history of oppression backed by sexism, caste, tribalism and religio-cultural structures. For example, Afri- cans sold their fellow Africans into slavery for next to nothing. Asians were transported to other countries as indentured laborers without much protest. The exploitation and domination of women has been a crying shame on us all. As Christians and churchmen, we know the role that was played by the churches in justifying, furthering or acquiescing in these events. Theology was consciously or unconsciously the handmaid of the whole process. There is therefore an awesome responsibility laid upon us as Third World persons to receive, proclaim and interpret the biblical faith in this context with all the rigour and the passion which it demands. Otherwise, we are being totally unfaithful to the Gospel, and turn God into a lie. The text of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and his justice must be read and conveyed in the context of our catastrophic situation. Context, indeed, because it accompanies (the sense of the prefix “con”) the text. Necessity is laid upon us, and we have at last taken on this task in the last twenty to thirty years. But it is significant to observe that we were forced to it by the largely secular tools of analysis which have become available, especially Marxist analysis. We have perceived the global character of the dehumanis- ing injustice in our world, and the extraordinary interlinkages of oppression which have become more evident and strident since the Second World War. For example, it is estimated that over 50% of scientists and technologists are engaged in arms research and development. The arms produced form one of the major exports to the Third World. We know that since the Second World War nearly all the over 130 wars which have taken place and are going on have been in the Third World and have cost over twenty-five million lives, and have further destabilized all our societies. I do not need Doing Theology in a Divided World 129 to go on with this litany of woe. Thus our fellow Christians and theologians in the First World and Second World too must understand that we have no other option than to be engaged and to do theology in this context of the idolatrous denial of God’s purpose for humanity and creation. They must also appreciate that we will have to do so even more intensively now and in these dangerous years which lie ahead of us. That is the first and most persistent point which Third World theologians have been making, and they are not going to be detracted by accusations of being political, Marxist, Commu- nist and other hysterical epithets coming precisely from the First World and echoed by our power elites in the Third World. This leads me to the second insight which we have learned about doing theology in the Third World. Doing theology means becoming the messengers of the Gospel of good news to the poor and liberation for the oppressed. Doing theology means being missionary, evangelistic, and in the spirit and style of the Hebrew prophets and especially of Jesus. Our stance has to be one of confrontation and resistance to the forces of evil. But this confrontation and resistance starts with ourselves. We have to be constantly challenged and purged from all our complicity in attitude, thinking and action with sex, race and class oppression and from our ignorance or denigration of our own religious and cultural history. But this confrontation and resistance means putting ourselves on the line, committing our whole persons in word and act to the battle of God against the forces of evil in our midst and in the world. This demands great discipline, that is, the way of life of the disciple, and a spirituality that enables us to place ourselves at the disposal of the Holy Spirit who corrects, illu- mines, and empowers us in the secret places of our being and together with the people of God and, indeed, through those who belong to other faiths. This is not new. The prophets long ago took this stance and in doing so experienced the agony of rejection and persecution. For example, Jeremiah was even forced to argue with God about his calling, but there was no way out: “O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all the day; every one mocks me. For whenever I speak, I cry out, I shout, ‘Violence and destruction!’ For the word of the Lord has become for me a reproach and derision all day long. If I say, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,’ there is in my heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot.” (Jer. 20:7-9) Jesus made this very clear to us in his life and teaching and nowhere clearer than in John’s Gospel, especially chapter 15, about his being the vine and we the branches which must bear fruit. Our calling is one of abiding in Christ in love and therefore carrying out his commandment of love, which means laying down our lives for each other. Third-world theologians are discovering in the storms of their engagement and in the struggles of 130 At Home with God and in the World the people that the biblical faith is yeast, leaven, for the people. The early Fathers of the Church also saw theology as an activity which took place in the immersion of the person in adoration and prayer to the Triune God revealed in his Word, and which was for the sake of mission. The seventh-century Father Maxim the Confessor wrote that “a theology without action is the theology of demons.” In the same spirit Martin Luther wrote: “Not reading and speculation, but living, dying, and being condemned make a real theologian.” This is what Third World theologians are learning by hard experience. C. S. Song sums it all up when he writes that the beginning of theology is the aching of the heart as God’s heart aches for sinful, suffering humanity and that “theology is the love of God-and-man in action.” If theology is the love of God-and-man in action, then all who are branches of the vine, all who accept God in Christ in love are engaged in doing theology. This is the third insight which has emerged from the writings of Third World theologians. They do not do theology for the people but with them. The poor themselves in the base Christian communities are doing theology in their stories as they relate the biblical story to their own cultural stories, legends, myths, songs and theatre which have arisen from lived history of struggling for justice. These base communities are creating new songs, new liturgies, new prayers, and are forming new groups of solidarity for their rights as human beings with and for others. This is particularly so in Asia and Latin America. They know what “living, dying and being condemned” means. They are witnesses, martyrs in love, and are bringing out the inner, revolutionary message of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. They are the laos, the whole people of God, who discern God’s will as they seek to do it. They respond to Paul’s exhortation to the Corinthians, following what he says about the gifts of grace (charismata); and about the body and its members which have their own identity but are bound together and indispensable for one another in love. Paul says: “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. . . . Whoever prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation . . . and edifies the Church” (1 Cor. 14:1,3-4). That is doing theology and doing it for the sake of the Church becoming a prophetic, caring, servant community in the world. The fourth insight which the Third World theologians are bringing to our attention is therefore the need for a new ecclesiology of the whole people of God which de facto means, in the Third World, in great majority “the wretched of the earth,” as my fellow Caribbean, Franz Fanon, called them in his book with that title. This was particularly brought out in the São Paulo meeting on “Ecclesiology of Popular Christian Commu- nities.” The question is how do we understand the marks of the Church in a new and liberating way in relation to the reality and goal of the Kingdom of God? How is the Doing Theology in a Divided World 131

Church one, holy, catholic and apostolic in both belief and action? We are learning that the unity of the Church is being built on the basis of the common calling to a mission of liberation through life and action in communion with God in Christ and with each other. Unity is both given and is a task. But the task is carried out in the design of God to unite all people and all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). The unity of the Church as the Body of Christ, the fullness of him who fills all things, is inextricably bound with the struggle for the unity in diversity of humankind, in justice and peace. The holiness of the Church has to be seen in the biblical meaning of holy. The Hebrew word qodesh literally means “separation.” It signifies separation from and taking our distance from all that denies God’s sovereign purpose; and it means total commitment to God and availability to him in making his Kingly Rule known and acknowledged. The Church is holy in so far as it takes its distance from the demonic and idolatrous powers, and commits itself to God’s creative will for “good.” And, as has been rightly said, the good is that which increases communication and multiplies responsibilities. The spirituality which such holiness requires is one which overcomes the dualism of faith and life, prayer and action, contemplation and struggle. The catholicity of the Church is its concern for the whole world and the whole of life in space and time, in full recognition of the rich diversities of culture and of the expressions of faith and life, and yet held together in mutual sharing and communion. This is what the peoples of the Third World are yearning for and seeking to express in the manifoldness of the grace of God. The apostolicity of the Church is its very raison d’être. The ecclesia is the assembly of the people of God called out by God and belonging to the Lord (Kyriake, hence church, kirche, kirk) in order to be sent out (apostolic). Such a church is no longer fixed and attached in time and place, but is a pilgrim, diaspora church living in the midst of the people as the people of the Lord, Yahweh, he who is present. The diaspora nature of the Church is also a sign of its provisional character, always being renewed, recalled and sent. We are learning afresh the insight of the Reformers that the Church should be the ecclesia reformanda, the church always in process of being reformed. As the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches meeting in New Delhi said in 1961: “The Assembly wishes only to urge that those who know themselves to be called to the responsibility of Christian witness in their own locality should examine afresh the structures of their church life with a view to meeting the challenge and opportunity of a new day. In a spirit of penitence and of willingness to be led by the Spirit of God into new ways of witness, the whole Church must recognize that her divine mission calls for the most dynamic and costly flexibility. . . . (Thus) the Church may become the Pilgrim Church, which goes forth boldly as Abraham did into the unknown future, not afraid 132 At Home with God and in the World to leave behind the securities of its conventional structures, glad to dwell in the tent of perpetual adaptation, looking to the city whose builder and maker is God” (New Delhi Report, 28). This expresses the eschatological nature of the Church’s apostolicity as the agent and sign of the Kingly Rule of God which is active now, but for which we work, wait and pray with the whole of our lives as the people of God, who will himself bring in his final reign when and how he wills. This brings me to the purpose of this meeting, which is a dialogue between First World and Third World theologians. In the light of what has emerged in doing theology in the Third World, what are the elements for such a dialogue? They are implicit in what I have already said. I can only indicate them in summary fashion: First, we share a common humanity and live in one world which at the same time is deeply divided between North and South, East and West, rich and poor, as well as being divided as sexes and races, castes, tribes, and nations. We face a common threat of the annihilation of the whole human race. The realities I have earlier described are global realities, that is, what happens in one part of the world affects all the other parts. There is a common agenda here. The question posed to First World theologians is, are they seeking to do their theology in context, that is, with a radical analysis of the socio- economic and religio-cultural realities in the First World? Genuine dialogue can only take place when both partners face their contexts and recognize that these contexts are interrelated. Secondly, we have the common ground of the biblical tradition, and the tradition of the whole Church throughout the ages. But we have to discuss together the ways in which we interpret Scripture, and our ecclesiological understanding. What Third World theologians have been saying is that the theological tradition in which they have been trained and which comes from the First World is alienated from the realities and is based on an interpretation of Scripture which is alienating. In this respect it is interesting to discover that those Western theologians who have tried to liberate themselves from this alienating theological tradition have themselves been often marginalized by their colleagues and especially by the churches. As regards ecclesiology, we have to deal with the captivity of the Church in both North and South, East and West to static structures. The posture of the ecclesia reformanda is yet to be, or is manifest only here and there. Efforts at ecclesiological renewal are regarded with great suspicion in both North and South. Moreover, we are witnessing today the emergence of a militant, reactionary but sophisticated politico-religious movement which is challenging the theological tradition in the North in a way which is alarming for the Third World, because it is providing theological justification for a type of nineteenth century capitalism thrust, of social Darwinianism of the survival of the fittest. This dangerous tendency calls for urgent dialogue between First World and Third World theologians. Doing Theology in a Divided World 133

To this must be added an observed tendency, with notable exceptions, toward a regressive confessionalism in the churches in the First World which is being exported to the Third World. One of the effects of this confessionalism is to put pressure on theologians to do theology in certain clearly defined traditional ways. Lastly, both First World and Third World theologians have to reckon with the fact of the ecumenical movement and especially with the World Council of Churches and with the consequences of Vatican II. All that the Third World theologians have been saying and writing has been the substance of the statements, programmes and activities of the World Council and have been its task and calling since its inception. What is the significance of the existence and work of the World Council for doing theology? How can the World Council provide a genuine and permanent forum for dialogue between First World, Second World and Third World theologians? I am not sure that these questions have been explicitly faced by many theologians and by institutions engaged in theological education and discussion. This is not a criticism. It is a plea and a cry for mutual help and support. I am sure that Third World theologians would be the first to admit that they are only at the beginning of a long process. What I have described about their work still touches but a small segment of the life of the Church. There are burning issues which have not yet been squarely faced, like the fact and use of power for social change toward a more just, more participatory and sustainable society, and for the renewal of our churches; and especially the issue of the interpretation of Scripture and tradition as regards the identity of women and the full community of women and men in Church and Society. As we meet in this feast of the Epiphany, we remember that in the Word which became flesh was life, and the life was the light of people. The spirit in which we meet here this coming week can best be expressed in the words of Paul to the Corinthians: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies... So we do not lose heart” (2 Cor. 4:6-10, 16a).

13 Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy

his is an unpublished paper of Potter delivered at the Kirchentag in Frankfurt, TGermany, 1989. It is part of a series with two other lectures titled “God’s economy in Creation” and “The integrity of Creation in Justice and Peace.” The paper explores the notion of covenant in working for justice, peace and integrity of creation, the historical/ ecclesial notions of covenanting and the implications of covenanting for Christian participation in all aspects of life, for the flourishing of all.

Let me start by stating that God’s economy, oikonomia, as the will to unite all things in Christ, has a direct relation to the most dominant fact in our world today—the economy. It is the economy which most clearly reveals where we are as created order in contrast to what God has revealed in the history of Israel and supremely in Christ and in the prayer we utter that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Similarly, we have been reminded that the integrity of creation is a witness to and is dependent on the integrity of God the Creator. This integrity is described also as the recognition of the separateness and the relatedness of the created order, which must be held in fruitful tension, as well as the necessary limits which must be observed—limits which the Creator has observed in the ones made in God’s image for responsible dominion and rule over the earth. Creation is associated with God’s action in history, liberating a people, preserving them and the world in truth, righteousness and in steadfast love. Paul in his letter to the Romans states that the creation has been groaning in travail, waiting with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God (Rom. 8:19-22). This powerful insight and appeal brings to mind poignant words written by a prophet during the exile of the children of Israel: “The earth mourns and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies

135 136 At Home with God and in the World polluted under its inhabitants; for they have transgressed the law, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth, and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched, and few men are left” (Isa. 24:4-6). In the same period a word of comfort and hope was also given to the people: “For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you . . . All your children shall be taught by the Lord, and great shall be their peace. In righteousness you shall be established, you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you” (Isa. 54:10, 13-14). No one can be left unmoved by the passionate truth of the condition of creation and of vast millions of people around the world that the first passage expresses so poetically. Nor can we be insensitive to the unmerited and unlimited compassion of our Creator God in wanting to restore us as partners in the covenant of justice and peace. It is in this spirit that we need to reflect on what it means to engage the churches in a conciliar process of commitment (covenant) for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. This first thing which strikes one is that the word “covenant” is put in parenthesis. Covenant is literally hedged around. This may seem strange and is strange considering the central place that covenant plays in the Bible, which is in fact the Books of the Old and New Testaments. There are two reasons given for the reluctance to give prominence to the covenant in working for justice, peace and integrity of creation. The first reason given is by the theological pundits who insist that covenant is not, in the biblical tradition, something which is done by persons on their own initiative or as a mutual act with God. In the Old Testament there are few cases when persons enter into a covenant with one another within the covenant which God has made with the people. A striking example was the covenant of friendship between Jonathan and David. But the dominant understanding is that it is God who alone makes, establishes, sets, commands, gives, enters into the covenant with the people. Therefore, what appears to be a definition of covenant as mutual commitment is in this view improper. The second reason is that, in Christian history, especially since the Reformation, there has been a tendency for churches, particularly of the Reformed tradition, to covenant together in defence of their faith and often, as in the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, to impose their brand of faith and life on the people and to become politically and otherwise expansionist at the expense of others, especially the Indians. The various covenants drawn up by the League of Nations, and now the covenants relating to human rights of the United Nations, have often not been ratified, let alone observed. Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy 137

While these criticisms have validity, they do not do justice to the biblical understanding of covenant between God and the people. When God rescued the people of Israel from Egypt and accompanied them in the wilderness, we read that Moses goes to the mountain where he hears the word of the Lord: “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among the peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and holy nation. These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel” (Ex. 19:3-6). It is to be noted that this covenant with the people includes God’s claim not only on the people but on all the earth, the whole creation. The important point, however, is that God gives content to the covenant for which the people must be responsible with their lives. It is summed up in the Ten Commandments in Exodus. There are four basic features about this Decalogue. First is the proclamation of a fact. The people’s existence derives solely from the Lord Yahweh, the one who has been present with them, hearing their cry and saving them from slavery in Egypt and leading them in the desert. That is the foundation and the living reality of the covenant. Secondly, God demands that the consequence of this fact is having no other gods, that is, not giving their allegiance to other powers or ideologies or styles of life which do not conform to what it means to be a people liberated from oppression for a life such as God manifested to them. There must be no graven images or representations of God other than the constant awareness that they themselves, like all human beings, bear the image and likeness of God. Nor can there be any attempt to manipulate God through magic. Idolatry and magic are a denial of God and of the integrity of our created life as people and things. Thirdly, the covenant with God calls for the observance of a proper use of space and time. That entails the celebration of Sabbath, which enables people to pause and recollect their place in creation and the possibilities for a rhythm of respecting the identity of all creatures and the interdependence with them under God. The covenant also reminds us to give due reverence to the parents as the bearers in time of God’s creation and preservation of humanity. Fourthly, as part of the very center of the covenant, is the solemn call to respect and maintain the integrity of all persons in community, as well as living creatures (Ex. 20: 1-17). The essential point is that the Decalogue is one. Faith in the one God remains faith only as it is practiced in the way which is unfolded, and that means in all the 138 At Home with God and in the World realms of life. There is no question of a confession of faith on the one side and ethical norms on the other. Faith is ethics and ethics is faith. When the elaboration of the Decalogue is completed (Ex. 20:18-23:33), the undivided nature of faith and ethics is sealed by the act of the covenant, berith, the bond, obligation, commitment. The solemnity of the act is shown by Moses reading the book of the covenant to which the people respond: “All the Lord has spoken will we do, and we will be obedient” (Ex. 24:7). As before the reading there was the offering of the blood to God, there is now the sprinkling of the blood on the people, as Moses says: “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Ex. 24:8). The covenant engages the people in the whole of their existence in creation because the Lord whom they confess requires nothing less and is present in the midst of their life in the world. The symbol of this is the bloodshed, which represents the life offered to God which binds them together as a people to be witness in word and life to the people of the world. The subsequent history of this covenant people is the long drama of how they kept the covenant, and especially how they broke it with disastrous consequences for themselves. The writings of the prophets make it clear that the covenant with God covered all aspects of their life together—their proper worship and devotion to God; their attitudes and behavior to one another, especially to the weak, the widows, the needy; their concern for justice, right relations with one another as an expression of right relations with God; their handling of conflict situations among themselves or with other peoples in the spirit of the covenant of peace. No one was as devastating about the comprehensive violation of the covenant as Jeremiah or as deeply committed to God renewing the covenant with the broken people in a broken world. It is in his unwavering loyalty to God and the people that Jeremiah announces God’s promise of a new covenant. The decisive thing about it is that every one, whatever the rank or age, would know God and walk with God in a relationship of responsible faithfulness in their whole life together and in creation (Jer. 31:31-34). This new covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. But who is this Jesus? It is he who calls people to a radical change of mind and attitude and to believe the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in righteousness. It is he who announces the realization in his person of the promise of the prophet that through the Spirit of the Lord good news is preached to the poor, release to the captives, recovering of sight to the blind, liberty to the oppressed, and the welcoming year of the Lord. His whole ministry is to enable people to be liberated from all that diminishes them and find their proper balance, shalom. Jesus draws his message through parables from the life of creation as a means of making known the integrity of God. He shares the paschal meal with his disciples Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy 139 with the words: “This is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for you” (Luke 22:20). And, indeed, in the presence of the destroying powers of the world at the cross, his blood is poured out for the life of the world. Jesus not only proclaims the message of the covenant, but is in his person the covenant. In communion with him in his body and blood, we offer our body and our blood for the life of the world. This exercise of recalling the covenant of God with the people of Israel and now with the Church, the body of Christ, is intended to make the assertion that we cannot speak of the covenant as though it were solely a matter of God’s unmerited grace. So it is, but it requires of us constant commitment in the daily realities of our existence. And because we are members one of another in the worldwide Body of Christ, the Church, our commitment must be a mutual one carried out in a continuous process of having counsel together on ways in which we can be obedient to our covenant God. The real problem as I see it is that, on the life and death issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation, the churches have not perceived them to be part of “the intimate heart and core of the Gospel.” They have not declared them to have a status confessionis. There are some factors which have not predisposed the churches to this position. First, in the New Testament, particularly in the letters of Paul and Peter, two things agitate the apostles and the small-scattered communities. One is the expected final coming of Christ in glory. The other is the overpowering presence of the Roman imperial power and culture. While they courageously announce the Gospel and risk their lives in the struggle with the religious and political authorities, they are only able to give prudential advice to people in the provisional situation in which they see themselves. Moreover, they are very young churches and have hardly had the time to think through how their faith can become truly incarnate. Alas, over these nearly two thousand years the church has for the most part not tried to draw out the implications of the great affirmations of faith, but have generally considered the apostolic ethical teaching as final, while it was provisional. This is especially so on what we now call the web of oppression of class, race and sex domination, and about the attitude to the state as contained in Romans 13:1-7 and I Peter 2:13-17. Secondly, with the Constantinian establishment of the church, and for the next 1200 years, the Church’s thinking, teaching and witnessing on the issues of justice and peace were frozen, or mixed up with Greco-Roman philosophical ideas. A well-articulated and complex Scholasticism saw to it, in both Eastern and Western churches, that there was a symphony between church and state, with the community being forced to conform. The attitude of church fathers like Augustine to creation determined the stand of the Church. In his Soliloquies he confides: “I desire to have knowledge of God and the soul. Of nothing else? No, of nothing else whatsoever.” However, in the 140 At Home with God and in the World

Middle Ages there were mystics and activists who were sensitive to God’s presence and work in creation and therefore to the life of people in creation. Among them were Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard von Bingen, Mechthild von Magde- burg, and Meister Eckhart. During those long centuries justice became an entirely juridical affair with all kinds of courts, including ecclesiastical courts, to administer it. The just war was almost an article of faith and was entrenched as an expedience of both defence and aggression. Thirdly, the Reformation opened the people out of the centralities of the faith, but a Pandora’s box of the realities of living in the world was opened. Faith was no longer a matter of creedal consent, and Christian living on a personal level was brought under the scrutiny of the biblical ethical teaching. But with the confusion of individualism on the one hand and the growing nationalism on the other hand, many of the Mediaeval restraints were removed. For example, as a child of the late medieval world, Luther spoke out strongly against usury. So eloquent was he on the matter that Karl Marx in his book, Das Kapital, approvingly quotes him three times at length. Marx perceived that usury was the foundation of the early capitalist system. And yet the same Luther did not connect usury and all its ramifications with the causes of the peasants’ griev- ances and was ruthless in his judgment about their revolt. He and the churches ever since have all too frequently sided with the prince or dictator or reactionary forces than with the revolutionaries who were seeking to bring about more just structures. The Protestant ethic, which in some places was linked to the covenant idea in an individualistic way, often ended up in exaltation of property, money and profit, as the blood of the Leviathan that they drank in idolatrous devotion. The history of the past four hundred years is there to show how confused and confusing the churches have been in their pronouncements but even more in their life and actions with regard to the public issues of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. There is a fourth factor which can be and happily is no longer overlooked. The Church had early to define the faith, either for catechetical purposes or even more importantly against heresies, by agreeing on the Creeds in ecumenical Councils. These are succinct and subtly worded statements on God as Creator, Christ as Redeemer, the Holy Spirit as Lord and giver of life, the Church, the forgiveness of sins, and our hope of the life everlasting. In 1980 a Faith and Order paper, “Toward a Confession of the Common Faith,” was produced by theologians of all the major confessions. It stated that “the ancient professions of faith and the great conciliar definitions were very often in response either to the challenges posed by tensions between the adequate expression of the faith and the new cultures, or to the internal problems of the Christian community.” The paper went on to say that “the Church needs to discover how to live Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy 141 the faith in such a way that will meet the aspirations on which peoples and persons set their hopes today, and how to proclaim this faith unanimously by overcoming its divisions.” It declared: “Confessing Christ implies today a special insistence on the connection between Christian salvation and the realization in our world of a state of justice and peace, abolishing discriminations, and thus announcing the reign of God inaugurated in Jesus. This can become a priority when there is a question of defending the dignity of the person in regions or circumstances where it is threatened. It is clear, however, that this verbal profession will be authentic only if what it expresses in words finds its practical expression in the activity of ecclesial communities to second the efforts being made everywhere in the world for the establishment of this justice and of respect for these human rights. For this is a matter of confessing the same apostolic faith, but now in its “existential” aspect without which the profession of the creeds of the past would be seriously weakened. The confession of Christ through action is, in fact, the logical outcome of adherence to the fundamental articles of faith in God the Creator and in the Incarnation ‘for us men and for our salvation’” Two things strike me about this splendid statement. It is more clear about relating matters of justice and of human rights to the apostolic faith than about peace. Creation does not seem to call for the same attention in spite of our belief in God the Creator. The point I want to make is that the churches are weak in relating their theological and catechetical teaching of the faith to the burning issues of our life together as a human race on this planet earth. Nevertheless, it is true to say that in critical moments in history, when the Church has had to confess its faith when assaulted by a totalitarian state, at least a minority has been conscious of the total commitment which the faith demands for our life in the world. For example, the second thesis and refutation of the 1934 Barmen Decla- ration states: “As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness he is also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life. Through him befalls us a joyful deliverance from the godless fetters of this world for a free, grateful service to his creatures. We reject the false doctrine: as though there were areas of our life in which we could not belong to Jesus Christ, but to other lords—areas in which we would not need justification and sanctification through him.” The following year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a paper on “The Confessing Church and the Ecumenical Movement” in which he commented that “ecumenical relationships have been largely regarded from the viewpoint of church-political tactics.” He ended his searching critique with the urgent plea: 142 At Home with God and in the World

“Whether the hopes laid on Ecumenical Council of Evangelical Christendom will be fulfilled, whether such a council will not only bear witness to the truth and the unity of the church of Christ with authority, but also be able to bear witness against the enemies of Christianity throughout the world, whether it will speak a word of judgment about war, race hatred and social exploitation, whether through such true ecumenical unity of all evangelical Christians among all nations war itself will become impossible, whether the witness of such council will find ears to hear—all this depends on our obedience toward the question which has been put to us and on the way in which God will use our obedience. What is set up is not an ideal, but a command and a promise— what is demanded is not our own realization of our own aims, but obedience.” The issue raised by Bonhoeffer is certainly with us now in our struggle to find a way of covenanting for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Thus, when the World Council of Churches was formed in 1948, its leaders were very conscious of Bonhoeffer’s insights. In its Message, the Council expressed itself in the language of the covenant: “Christ has made us his own and he is not divided. In seeking him we find one another. Here at Amsterdam we have committed ourselves afresh to him, and have covenanted with one another in constituting this World Council of Churches. We intend to stay together. We call upon Christian congregations everywhere to endorse and fulfill this covenant in their relations with one another. In thankfulness to God we commit the future to him” (Amsterdam Report, 9). The Assembly condemned injustice in all its forms in the world and called for a responsible society. It declared that war was contrary to the will of God and peace required an attack on the causes of conflict between the powers. It spoke of the wast- ing of God’s gift of the soil and other natural resources. It appealed to Christians and Christian congregations to be more loyal witnesses to their faith as those who await the final victory of God in Christ. This stance by the World Council of Churches, and by some churches and many Christian groups, has become over these forty years more clear, more concrete, and more inclusive in a world which has become so much smaller and so much more populous, more developed technologically, and a lot more threatened. It is against this background that we are called to a conciliar process of mutual commitment, covenant, for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. What are we doing about it and what can we do? 1. The churches have to affirm their self-understanding, their ecclesiology, which measures up to God’s economy in Christ to bring to a head, to unite all things in Christ. The same Christ is the head of the body, the Church, the fullness of him who fills all things. The Church is a constitutive part of God’s economy for creation. It is the task of Covenant for Participation in God’s Economy 143 the church to carry out God’s economy to expose all the demonic forces which are at work in our world and also in the churches. They do this with the manifold and varied wisdom of God which is emerging from the wrestling of the churches all over the world with those forces. They do so with the inspiration of the word of God and their worship and prayers, and through their solidarity with all those who are in the struggle for justice, peace and the integrity of creation. One of the urgent needs of the churches in this conciliar process is to share with each other what they are thinking and discovering in their own life commitment. 2. This self-understanding of the Church includes the fact that every member is a part of God’s economy and is a covenant partner in it. Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that those who are liberated from their idolatrous existence by the grace of God in Christ through faith receive a new existence. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Later in this letter he appeals to believers: “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on a new person, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph. 4:23-24). This conciliar process of mutual commitment is a time for us to be renewed in our covenant faith. This involves an intense inner relationship one with another for mutual correction, building up in the faith, and support. It is instructive to note that Karl Marx, as far back as 1856, wrote: “The new forces in society need new persons in order to accomplish good work.” 3. The commitment of the churches in God’s economy in Christ is to be a community where people are “no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19), growing together through their varied gifts to the fullness of life in love and being instruments of peace (Eph. 4:1-16). Elsewhere in his letters Paul says that our new creation in Christ means that the divisions of race, class, sex and culture are overcome because we are persons accepted as made in God’s image and related to all in their otherness. The conciliar process of commitment and covenant takes place where we are in our neighborhoods and is extending to embrace the world. 4. If there is any merit in my thesis that the core of the problems which underlie the lack of justice, peace and the integrity of creation lies in the prevailing world economy, then we have our hands full as Christians. We need to understand the dynamics of the world economy, with all its ramifications which touch every aspect of our lives and the multiple ways in which we are caught in it as consumers or as victims. We shall have to uncover all the power interests which create so much imbalance, pain, and unnecessary death especially among two-thirds of the world’s population. We shall have to develop ways of great and more varied alliances of participation in decision-making 144 At Home with God and in the World and in taking symbolic and authentic action for a more just, peaceful and ecologically sane society. This requires a massive mobilization of trust, goodwill, courage, clarity of mind, a sense of humor and a vast outpouring of self-giving love in action. In the final analysis, God’s economy to unite all creation in Christ is his work. But we are called to play our part as those whom God has graciously included in the covenant in Christ. We know that the forces of darkness, evil and chaos are always at work threatening to overtake us. But as the apostle Peter told us: “The end of all things is at hand; therefore keep sane and sober for your prayers. Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift employ it for one another as good steward (oikonomoi) of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:7-10). 14 Justice in a Globalized World

n the occasion of being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Vienna, OAustria, in October 2001, Philip Potter held the following lecture on “Justice in a Globalized World” in which he analyzed the neoliberal economic globalization and questioned its potential for justice.

Dear friends, I wish to reflect with you on the theme “Justice in a globalized world.” Certainly Gerechtigkeit, justice, has been the Leitmotiv of my life for over fifty years. I had known the words “righteousness” and “justice,” and I thought I knew what they meant, because when I matriculated from school I went to work with a lawyer and later I was assistant to the Attorney General. But when I later switched from law to theology and began to learn Hebrew, I found out that “righteousness” did not bring out the proper sense of the word Sedeq, Sedaqah, which means “right relations” with God, with persons and also with creation. The heart of our biblical faith is concerned with relationships. How do we effectively relate to God, our fellow human beings and to creation? And how are right relationships maintained? There is a classical statement on “sedeq,” “ sedaqah,” which I often quote from Gerhard von Rad’s Theology of the Old Testament (1975, I:370–71): “There is absolutely no concept in the Old Testament which is so central a significance for all the relationships of human life as that of Sedaqah. It is the standard not only for men’s relationship to God, but also for his relationships to his fellows, reaching right down to the most petty wranglings—indeed, it is even the standard for men’s relationship to the animals and to his natural environment. Sedaqah can be described without more ado as the highest value in life, that upon which all life rests when it is properly ordered” (370). The discovery of the biblical roots of justice were the leading impulse to the ecumenical movement from its inception. The biblical concept of justice became especially a

145 146 At Home with God and in the World paradigm for ecumenical social ethics. Already the notion of a responsible society in the years around the formation of the WCC in 1948 have been guided by it. This was even more true of the notion which succeeded it, that of a “just, participatory and sustainable society,” which developed in the seventies in confronting the challenges of development. Finally, justice became the leading concern of the conciliar process, as starting point for peace and the preservation of creation. The vision of a more just world has enlightened the ecumenical movement throughout its different periods. But what does this vision mean in today’s world as we are facing globalization? What is the new challenge to justice in a globalizing world? To answer this we need to analyze what is new in globalization. “Globalization” is the name that was given to the current phase of the world economic system that started to be constructed five centuries ago. It is a hierarchical construction, where the centers prevail over the peripheries. In itself, therefore, it is a system where there is injustice, because the interests of the center are considered generally more important than the needs of the peripheries. “Globalization” is understood as integration of markets in the world economic system, following the model (paradigm) of the integration of financial markets. Most of the markets have become integrated. However, there is one important market that has not been integrated: it is the labor market, where remarkable differentiations exist among workers of different parts of the world that perform comparable activities of production. “Globalization” is developed on the basis of scientific and technological advances in the realm of informatics and communication. Marshall McLuhan coined a few decades ago a concept that we live now in a “global village.” This is a fact, but it must be noted that there are many who cannot afford to participate in the present “global town.” It is possible to think that the ongoing progress in the realm of the informatics industry will allow us to expand the borders of this “global village.” We shall all benefit from this. However, in the meantime, we cannot ignore this unjust differentiation between those who participate in the diverse networks of our world and those who are excluded. The process of “globalization” has been mainly oriented by a dominant ideology that now is more and more questioned by an increasing number of people. Economic neoliberalism, which claims that “free markets” are more effective than any other human instruments to resolve social and economic problems, has imposed its view during the last decade. Now, the slogan “more markets, less state” is being abandoned. During the last year and a half, and in an accelerated way during the last few weeks that followed the dramatic events caused by the terrorist attacks in the USA, the state is gaining importance again. However, it is not clear what kind of state will be constructed in the time to come. This is one of the major challenges in front of us. Justice in a Globalized World 147

In a neoliberal ideology, there are those who are “in” and those who are “out.” At this point we must take notice of the phenomenon of exclusion, which affects so painfully men and women in both South and North, but more particularly the people of the South. In this “globalized world” human beings construct networks of different types: economic, political, religious, cultural, and so on. Some of these networks affirm the trend of the neoliberal ideology. Others try to introduce elements for the reorienta- tion of the process of globalization. That is, some accept and contribute to consolidate the injustice which is inherent to the world economic system, while others aim at the construction of justice. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur has written that the birth of the search for justice happens when we experience the unbearable, unsupportable, unacceptable injustice. It is this type of experience that moves men and women in this one world to search for justice, aiming at the diminishing of inequalities. To work for justice is a way to look for meaning in what for those who experience injustice is a meaningless world. There are a great number of people on our planet who feel that the situations that they experience are inhuman. And a waste of life. The problem is how to seek justice. To work toward that end means to apply the biblical guidance to the economy as well as to the socio-political realities. It was through the ecumenical movement that a more determined effort has been made to deal with the sociopolitical realities in a biblical perspective. In fact, the theme of the first Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1948 was: “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” This was strategically chosen to bring out the significance of God’s economy for our world. It was based on the letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 8b-10: “With all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan (oikonomia) for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” The phrase “God’s plan or design” is a translation of the Greek word oikonomia, which is derived from oikos, house, and nomia from nemo, which means to manage, administer, and also to pasture, graze, feed the flock. It means the management, the administra- tion (in the sense of ministering to), the taking care of the house. The word oikos has a rich meaning in the Bible as representing the covenant people of Israel, as also in most cultures, indicating how human beings live together within an environment (ecosys- tem), in a household and in wider communities, within the whole inhabited earth. Now the New Testament writers used the word oikonomia and its related oikono- mos, economist, steward, sparingly but to good effect. It was current in the spoken and commercial Greek of the first century. It was very much used by Aristotle in his politics 148 At Home with God and in the World in which he saw the political realm as the proper management, oikonomia, of the polis, city or city-states. He says: “A polis is constituted by the association of families and villages in a perfect and self sufficing existence; and such an existence, in our definition, consists in a life of true felicity and goodness” (Book III, Chapter IX, 14). Thus the oikonomia of the city is the way of achieving “true felicity and goodness.” It is therefore not surprising that the writer of the encyclical letter to the churches in the rich Roman province of Asia Minor, including Ephesus, sees God’s revelation, the saving, liberating, and reconciling work in the story of God’s dealing with the house of Israel, and supremely in Christ, as representing God’s economy to unite, when the appropriate times (kairoi) have been fullfilled, all peoples and all things in creation in Christ, the head of the Church, the fullness of the one who wills all in all. The whole letter is an exposition of the cosmic, eschatological significance of all that Christ incarnate, crucified and risen has brought into the disordered creation to offer to all what Aristotle called “true felicity and goodness,” through a responsible economy. In chapter 2 of the Letter to the Ephesians, verses 11-21, Paul speaks of the world divided between Jews and Gentiles. He tells us how Christ, by his death, his self-giving love in the crucifixion, brought peace and reconciliation to a divided humanity and broke down the dividing wall of hostility between persons and peoples living in different economic systems. Because of this liberating act in Christ on the cross, Paul can announce to his readers as he does to us: “You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.” The word household, oikos, means one who belongs to the house, the family of God, sharing with the others the life of God in Christ, and that includes our economic life. Paul speaks of the household of God as a description of the Church which he also calls earlier in this letter “the body of Christ, the fullness of the one who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23)—and that again includes our economic life. Paul is saying that the Church, the household of God, the body of Christ, is the sphere where God’s economy should be in process of being revealed in the world as a prophetic and servant witness to the world’s economy. Paul employs the word oikonomia in yet another chapter of this letter to the Ephe- sians, chapter 3, verses 2, 9, and 10. He writes that God has entrusted to him for the Church the ministry of the economy of God’s grace because God’s economy, God’s self- giving love which was manifested in Christ, is grace. But Paul goes further. He asserts that his task is “to make people see what is the economy of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all, that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers.” This means that the Church, like the Hebrew prophets of old, has the task of making God’s economy in Christ known Justice in a Globalized World 149 to all the powers which are dominating and oppressive in our world—to name those powers, such as the present capitalistic world economic order, to expose all those things which deny the grace of God, which prevent human beings from being fully themselves in a caring and sharing community, and which are destructive of God’s creation. At the end of this letter Paul describes the weapons which Christians must use to challenge the principalities and powers of the world, including the capitalistic world economic system. The whole armour of God to be worn by committed believers, as they witness to the world and its economic and political structures, are truth, righteousness or justice, peace, faith and faithfulness, salvation, liberation, the Word of God, and always in a spirit of prayer and supplication, living before God in order to be before the world bearers and witnesses of God’s economy to the world’s economy. In a word, God’s economy is that justice and peace should become incarnate among human beings and that creation be cared for and preserved to be at the service of all. That is why we use the word oikoumene, ecumenical, to describe the movement in which the churches are seeking to make God’s economy known and effective in our world.

Part 4 Growing Together The Ecumenical Vocation

epresentatives of the member churches of the World Council of Churches often come Rto their ecumenical vocation after years spent within confessional or denominational bodies. Consequently, ecumenism is seen as significant but secondary, an appendage added to their core church responsibilities. By contrast, Potter’s ecumenical vocation started at the youthful outset of his ministry and was always viewed as primary. The ecumenical vision was of the essence of Christ’s Church, not something to be treated as an optional extra. Potter’s ecumenical imperative, to declare the whole gospel of God, required the “growing together” of the whole Church. His guiding emphasis for the life of the member churches was the biblical truth of growing together as we grow into Jesus, the life of the world. His biblical image of a “house of living stones” stressed that the WCC’s spiritual pursuits must be determinative of its social agenda. As living stones, the family of churches become the oikoumene, the home of humanity and creation, in which the redeeming God is present in the fullness of life. In 1948 Potter addressed the WCC on behalf of his youth delegation. With grace and integrity he informed his elders that the enthusiasm of going forward together into manifest unity, was being stifled by the member churches themselves. As a product of the third world, familiar with marginalization and poverty, he challenged the WCC from this personal perspective. His contribution toward the Third World Church, and its emergence from paternalistic shadows, was huge. As a black person, long associated with the evils of racism, he declared the task ahead in responding to both oppressed and oppressor in apartheid South Africa. As a leader of courage and conviction, he called for “one obedience to the whole gospel,” while aware that being true to Christ, as the Head of the Church, would result 152 At Home with God and in the World in painful, “costly ecumenism.” A man of genuine humility, but of pride in the ecumenical hope, he used the visit of Pope John Paul ll to affirm the unity sought by the WCC; a conciliar fellowship of local churches, manifesting a rich diversity and expression, within the shared integrity of the one apostolic faith. And as a scholar, of both history and human nature, his knowledge of the past and anticipation of the future helped the WCC to engage in social and missiological developments when they were still in their infancy. His annual reporting when General Secretary of the WCC was masterly. He could reflect that the proclamation of God’s Kingdom of justice and peace had become the self-evident pursuit of churches seeking faithfulness. It was not always so. 15 “Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy”

lready in Amsterdam in 1948, a Youth Delegation participated in the First General AAssembly of the newly founded World Council of Churches. The delegation of one hundred young women and men met already before the General Assembly in order to discuss the tasks of the future Youth Department of the WCC. Philip Potter was the speaker who read to the Assembly the following address. Questions were raised and problems highlighted that would play an important role in the future development of the WCC.

We, the Youth Delegation, welcome warmly this opportunity of expressing our deep gratitude for the privilege given us to take an active part in the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches. We represent many thousands of young people who are seeking in loyalty to Christ to serve the Church in the world, and who, during the last year or two, have been giving much prayer and thought to the Assembly. Indeed, we can claim to be a really representative group. There are one hundred of us who come from forty-eight different countries and who belong to a very wide variety of confessions. Further there is a fair balance of sexes and callings among us which indicates more nearly the actual situation in the churches from which we come. We have lived and eaten together in the same place during these days and have realized the depth of our fellowship in Christ and with each other. The Youth Delegation has been in session since August 20 and has spent much time, under the guidance of our Chairmen and Secretaries, in discussing the place of the Youth Department within the World Council of Churches. But, in the main, the work of the Assembly has engaged our keen attention. One of our first acts, on assembling together, was to read again the story of the first Pentecost. There we were reminded, of the prophecy of Joel: “In the last days, saith the Lord, I shall pour forth my Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and daughters shall

153 154 At Home with God and in the World prophesy; your young men shall see visions and your old men dream dreams.” In these words we read, the promise of God to us all even as we waited upon Him in prayer and listened to His challenge to proclaim salvation to mankind. God has called us to another Pentecost here, not as spectacular perhaps as the first outpouring of His Spirit, but no less real and powerful. We young people have, throughout this Assembly, been waiting upon God and have not ceased to make intercession on your behalf that God may use both you and us in His great design for His Church in His world. We want, therefore, to assure you that even though we have been aware of the rather considerable difference in years and experience between you, the fathers, and ourselves, we have nevertheless felt our oneness with you in the same Lord and in the same task. Your dreams and our visions find their source and center in the one Holy Spirit who unites us in our diversities and who gives to us that humble love and obedience, which was the very character of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior. May I say, in passing, how much we deplore the statement which appeared in the “New York Tribune” of September 1, in the name of one of our delegates to the effect that the Council was “getting too much bogged down in theory instead of practically promoting the Ecumenical Christian movement.” That statement was never made in that way. We are very distressed by the unfortunate impression left by the Press in this matter. Again, we desire to state very clearly that we are not here to raise the old bogey of youth and age. We are called here, young and old together, to listen to God’s word and do it. But besides the refreshing experience of living with each other, we have found a new vision of thought and understanding. Like you, we have had some sessions on the main theme of the Assembly, “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design.” During the last few months the Study Department has furnished us, not only with the preparatory volumes, but also with summaries of these volumes and brief statements on the four principal subjects—for all of which we are very thankful. Certain significant emphases emerged from our discussions. Throughout we kept before our minds the centrality of God’s Design, already mightily accomplished in Jesus Christ and appropriated by faith in Him and through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. So that, although we were brought face to face with the grim disorder of mankind and the immense difficulty of making Christ known to men and accepted by them, we were all the time aware that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Just because, too, Jesus Christ was the center of our thought we were able to hear His insistent call to be His witnesses in all the world. This sense of assurance in the ultimate victory of God’s purposes and of urgency to make them known by life and witness, took far away from us the prevailing despair and apathy of men, whose faith is dim or who are without Christ. “Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy” 155

But along with the emphasis on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, went our conviction that the Church, which is the agent of His redemptive purpose in the world, was in very urgent need of renewal both in life and thought. We cannot express too strongly how pained we are by the divisions of the churches. At every point in our discussions, whether on the Universal Church, the Church’s Witness to God’s Design, the Church and the disorder of society or international affairs, we were brought up against the inability of the churches to be clear and authoritative in these matters because of their disunity on the basic issue of the nature of the Church. This was particularly so because we have, in these days, realized together as never before our oneness in Christ. The involvement of the Churches in the disorder of society has come to us with a more sharpened sense of penitence than hitherto. We are convinced that the time has come when the churches must speak to each other in love of the stumbling blocks which mar our fellowship and which drive men and women, and especially youth, away from us. We are also concerned about the general lack of Biblical preaching and teaching in the churches. There was never a time when people were in greater need of God’s word as now, and yet today few people read, let alone listen, to God’s message. Nothing but a rediscovery of the Biblical view of life will enable a disordered world to learn and follow God’s Design. However, we are sure that men cannot be persuaded to obey God’s will unless they see in the churches that will is for them in their condition and is being glori- ously worked out in them. The churches must be the center of the living community of persons. This imperative task involves the continued loving witness of Christians in their daily work and intercourse with people. It is here that we young people feel that our vocation lies, and we urge the churches to a far more determined effort to encourage every Christian, man and woman, to pursue his and her evangelistic task. We feel strongly that the way to finding new means of coming together as churches is not only through Faith and Order conversations, but most emphatically through corporate evangelistic endeavors. We need not so much ecumenical understanding as ecumenical obedience. It is not without significance that when some of our Lord’s disciples would argue about their place in the Kingdom, He said, “The Son of man has not come to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for man.” As we, too, give ourselves utterly to the impelling task of proclaiming the Savior to men, we shall be drawn together by a new unity which will not be of our making, but the gift of our pardoning God. In this respect, as in others, we fear that the Assem- bly has made too little stress on the constructive experiences of what are called the “younger churches,” and we hope that in any future Assembly both the representation and contribution of these churches will be larger and more effectively recognized. 156 At Home with God and in the World

We gave particular attention to the plight of youth in the present disorder of the world. We were forced to lay far more emphasis than the Assembly Commissions thought fit on the breakdown of family life. For we believe that the family is the first training ground in mutual responsibility and understanding, and for the transcendent values of life. Anyhow, the Communists in Russia are at present recognizing the primary place of proper family life for the stability of the classless society. A generation of youth is growing up today with a scanty sense of loyalty and responsibility. Moreover, we are persuaded that the present educational method with its preoccupation with objective research and efficiency, has failed to teach standards of values and to encourage responsible thought. The group which discussed “The Church’s Witness to God’s Design” was very deeply concerned that the evangelization of youth was being made extremely difficult, for the spiritual demands of life are treated as merely optional. The churches must display even greater vigilance and seek the co-operation of all Christian professors and teachers in this matter. We note, in this connection, the excellent work being done by the World Student Christian Federation. There can be no doubt that the task of the Churches in the evangelization of the young people of this generation is an immense one. We are sure, therefore, that it cannot be attempted by the senior members of the churches without the young people, or vice versa. The times demand a forward movement of the whole Church, knowing that the vanguard of the attack must be Christian youth, who, at any rate, are in closest contact with other young people. The vanguard indeed, for we know that behind us are the prayers and guidance of our elders. When the constitution of the Youth Department was in process of debate here, someone stated that youth could be the explosive element in the church. Very true. But we are reminded of the words of a sage Bishop who, when called a “back number,” retorted, “Yes, I am a back number. But, remember, you take back numbers to light the fire.” In the wintry cold of the present day unfaith, the Pentecostal fire for which the Church is expectant can only come when we actively recognize each other as fellow- witnesses in God’s design. What, then, is the place of youth in the ecumenical movement? Of course, we have already taken an active part in the movement in one form or another, whether in the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) and other inter-denominational societies. The involvement of leaders of them such as Drs. John R. Mott and Visser’t Hooft, in the formation of this Council, is well known. We are humbly proud to be inheritors of such a crusading tradition. It is this same spirit of crusade that we are endeavoring to bring to the ecumenical movement. Many of us were delegates to “Your Sons and Daughters Shall Prophesy” 157 the Second World Conference of Christian Youth at Oslo last year. Some of us have been among the more than 300 young people from many lands who have been in the first eight world camps to be organized by the World Council of Churches through the Youth Department. We value very highly this vital experience of living and working with so many others in common projects of service in distressed areas of various countries, and are making plans for more widespread work of this kind in the coming years. We are looking forward to planning and holding national, regional and local conferences at which we can convey the reality and the challenge of the Universal Church to ordinary young people in the churches and in other Christian organizations. Then already, we are beginning to organize, along with the YMCA, YWCA, WSCF, and others, the Third World Conference of Christian Youth in 1952 somewhere, perhaps, in Asia. We sincerely hope that every facility will be afforded the Youth Department to help young Christians throughout the world to a clearer and moving understanding of the World Church. In this respect, we cannot resist the hope that at the next Assembly not only will there be a larger representation of laymen and laywomen, but that young people will be included as delegates as well as guests. But, in the end, we are brought back to the fact that Pentecost was not only a time of vision. It also brought power to those who had seen God’s design. Power, its nature, its use, its manifestation in peace and war, has forced itself upon our thoughts during these days. And if we realised our own impotence, we know also in penitence that this was caused by our imperfect obedience to the will of God. With you, therefore, we resolve to go forth from here with the vision of the compelling and consuming task before us, and yet with the firm assurance that our sufficiency is of God.

16 Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity

t the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, India, in 1961, AGeneral Secretary Dr. Visser’t Hooft commended the call of earlier ecumenical leaders to work for the unity of Christ’s Church. In response, and speaking from the perspective of young Christians, Philip Potter asks why the ecumenical fellowship is made secondary to denominational activities and confessional boundaries.

At the opening of this Assembly,1 Dr. Visser‘t Hooft reminded us that the earlier ecumenical leaders felt constrained to work for the unity of the Church of Christ under a strong sense of Dieu le veut. He went on to say: “It is that same conviction that will have to live in all our hearts, if we are to be worthy of our predecessors and to go forward together.” I would like to speak this evening on our calling to go forward together into manifest unity, and I would like to do so specifically out of my own experience among youth and students, and as a member of the younger churches at present living in an older church as a staff member of its missionary society. For it is an undoubted fact that the real pressure and urgency for going forward together into manifest unity came precisely from youth and students, the missionary movement, and the churches set in predominantly non-Christian environments. The common element in these three groups is their deep concern for the Church’s mission to the world for which Christ died—the Christ who is not divided; for the frontier between faith and unfaith; for a Church which is footloose and equipped to be truly the Church militant, the Pilgrim People of God here on earth—the Church under the cross and not the church under the weather. In other words, they cherish a dynamic rather than a static conception of the Church, and tend to think of the institutional forms of the Church in terms of its purpose to proclaim by word and act the

1. New Delhi, November 1961. See also The Ecumenical Review 14, no. 2 (January 1962): 188–202.

159 160 At Home with God and in the World

Gospel of reconciliation of the crucified and risen Lord until he comes. The reception and confession of what God has done once-for-all in Christ and mediated in history through the Church is seen to be not a fetter to the traditions of the past, but openness for the present and future in acts of obedience to God’s will in the here and now. That is why Christian youth and students are so deeply committed to the ecumenical movement which is concerned with the unity of the missionary church in process of renewal. That is why the younger churches are so eager to work for church union and to participate in the ecumenical movement, seeking membership in the World Council of Churches as soon as they gain their selfhood as self-governing churches. That is why, in many countries in the West, it is the missionary societies and those involved in the mission and service of the church, both at home and abroad, who play their part most actively in the ecumenical movement. It is therefore necessary for the WCC to take heed of the very urgent questions they pose for Faith and Order. In doing so they would all declare themselves in the words of the European Ecumenical Youth Assembly meeting last year at Lausanne: “We are grateful to God for the witness of generations of Christians to the Oneness of the Church of Jesus Christ and particularly for the work and service of the World Council of Churches as a manifestation of this ecumenical movement.” But they would also go on to speak in the same terms as the Lund Conference on Faith and Order in 1952: “The measure of unity which it has been given to the Churches to experience together must now find clearer manifestation. A faith in the one Church of Christ that is not implemented by acts of obedience is dead. There are truths about the nature of God and his Church which will remain for ever closed to us unless we act together in obedience to the unity which is already ours. We would, therefore, earnestly request our churches to consider whether they are doing all they ought to do to manifest the oneness of the people of God” (Report, 15–16.). This issue has, in my experience, been put forward most acutely by the thousands of Christian youth who have participated in the ecumenical movement since the end of the war. The peculiarity of this generation of younger people has been their sense of churchmanship, their growing participation in the life of their churches as critical, responsible members. This churchmanship expresses itself in a profound awareness of their calling to witness and service in a turbulent, exciting, changing and travailing world. And such a churchmanship drives them to seek out their brethren in the faith in their locality and beyond, so that they can together witness to the faith which is given and is therefore to be shared. But this vision of churchmanship is not actively evident in their churches, which, however, are officially members of the WCC. The existence and activities of the Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity 161 ecumenical movement often play no part in the teaching ministry of the churches. As a group of youth leaders put it recently: “The agreements already reached in ecumenical discussion and stated in reports should be part of the catechetical instruction of youth”—but they generally are not, or are given as an addendum, rather than as an integral part of it. Moreover, young people are distinctly not encouraged to be with their peers in Christ in the local community in a common life and witness. Denominational activities having a mainly introverted bias, take decided precedence. Indeed, young people who try to be partners in obedience with their fellow Christians in other confessions are frowned on by their churches, if not regarded as lost, particularly if they go out into frontier activities beyond the institutional church boundaries. And this attitude is adopted in spite of the proven fact that the ecumenical fellowship which young people experience is far more meaningful to them than the current life of their local churches. May I suggest that this constitutes a very perilous situation for the ecumenical movement and for Faith and Order. We are in serious danger of driving young people into despair of the churches and therefore into flight away from them. The work of Faith and Order may perish for lack of younger men and women to take it up, because they despair of anything really happening. This is not a matter of youthful impetuos- ity and ignorance. It is the clear-eyed, agonizing realization that the churches are not yet willing to manifest the unity which is not only given in Christ, but which is given here and now in so much about which there is definite agreement. The point I want to make is that perhaps the most important task of Faith and Order in the next years is to challenge the churches to take into their life, and into their relations with one another, what God has given them in the ecumenical movement, and to trust his grace to lead them into obedience to the truth they now have together received. Hence the cardinal importance of the function of the Faith and Order Commission: “To proclaim the essential oneness of the Church of Christ and to keep prominently before the World Council and the Churches the obligation to manifest that unity and its urgency for world mission and evangelism.” Another issue which engages the concern of youth and students is the relation of church and even ecumenical institutions to the call to mission and unity. This was brought out very sharply in the world conference on the Life and Mission of the Church sponsored by the World Student Christian Federation last year at Strasbourg. These students, coming from all over the world, were conscious of the need to find new ways of reaching man, in a dynamic technological age, with the eternal, contemporary Gospel. And yet, wherever they have turned in thinking, discussion or efforts at action, they see themselves hedged in and hampered by ecclesiastical, missionary and even, at times, ecumenical structures. The churches’ institutions are such that they cannot 162 At Home with God and in the World move quickly or relevantly enough to meet the new and tough political, economic and cultural frontiers where men are. There was at Strasbourg a deep feeling of anger and anguish over this inability of our churches to be liberated from the past and to be open to the present. And this anger and anguish were all the more poignant because of the conviction that the frontier is precisely the focus around which we begin to manifest our unity and find new forms of church-life, and that our institutions are the focus around which we bar ourselves from manifesting our unity and become sterile. What they are seeking to remind us of is that it is only the Church militant, the Church on the march, which can truly manifest the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Here again, particular importance is attached to the study of Faith and Order on institutionalism. There is one further issue raised by youth and students as they gladly participate in the ecumenical movement. This received much publicity through the Lausanne Youth Assembly, but has been and is being experienced in other conferences, ecumenical work camps and other inter-confessional activities. A group of people who have received the one Baptism, and have been incorporated into the Body of Christ, come together with the blessing of their churches under one theme, like “Jesus Christ, the Light of the World.” They submit themselves to the one Word of God in the context of one world. They rejoice together in common praise, and repent together in common prayer. They hear together God’s call to willing and obedient service, and offer up the world to God in intercession, and themselves to him in consecration. They have a deep and abiding sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit binding them together into a true community of the people of God called to live in and for the world. Is there not a new and wonderful unity given here which demands that it be sealed with receiving the One Bread and the One Cup of the Body and Blood of Christ? Is there not in such an ecumenical fellowship something given, and manifestly given, which shatters our confessional barriers and our ecumenical rules concerning intercommunion? Is it legitimate to describe this event as being merely temporary, emotional and eccentric? Is the sense of unity in this act of a living sacrifice any less real and compelling than that which made men of different confessions in concentration camps, and in the fires of deadly war, break through to a common Holy Communion? Are the People of God, evidently mobilized for carrying on God’s warfare in the world, to be denied together the rations he offers in the Body and Blood of his Son? Are we not devaluing the depth and reality of Holy Communion, especially as those who are thus caught into a new manifest unity, feel more profoundly the sense of being members incorporate in the Body of Christ than they do in their local denominational communities? These are questions which Faith and Order must urgently face, for the challenge of the ecumenical movement comes at the point where churches in a given locality really Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity 163 engage themselves together in the battle of faith within that locality. Intercommunion is not a battle-cry of Protestant malcontents shrilly outcried by well-armed Catholic stalwarts. It is the deepest inner reality of the People of God without which they cannot truly render a common witness to the world. What I have said about youth and students could equally be said about the younger churches for whom, as Bishop Azariah of Dornakal said to the Edinburgh Conference in Faith and Order in 1937, “the problem of union is one of life and death.” This is not true of all the younger churches, certainly not of churches which are still firmly tied to the apron strings of their mother-churches in Europe and America, or which have not been drawn into the ecumenical movement. That is why the plans of the Faith and Order Commission to intensify its work in Asia and extend it to Africa are so relevant and welcome. However, this extension does pose a problem for Faith and Order. So far, its categories of thinking and expression have been definitely Western, with a strong scholastic emphasis. Will the churches in Africa and Asia have to acquire the whole baggage of scholastic terminology and formulations in order to take part in Faith and Order discussions? Now that conversations within the fellowship of the WCC may become more nearly worldwide, is there any possibility that we may have to find new and more concrete ways of speaking of the Church’s Faith and Order? May this not liberate Faith and Order from the sole province of the Western Schoolmen and bring it into the market place of the laity and of churches cradled in radically different cultural and intellectual environments? Let us make no mistake about it. For many intelligent laymen and alert younger churchmen, the vast accumulation of traditional formulations on the Church and its order give the impression of becoming stumbling blocks toward going forward together into manifest unity. In any case, many of these formulations encourage the suspicion that they have philosophical presuppositions going back to pre-Christian times which are no longer current, and which are very much questioned even in academic circles. I hope that Faith and Order will be willing to expose its thought-forms and expressions, and those of our member churches, to the scrutiny not only of sociologists, but of histo- rians and philosophers. And I hope too that Faith and Order will be prepared really to hear those who speak out of Asian and African traditions of thought and culture. We are immediately thrown into another issue which is coming into the center of ecumenical debate. I mean the relation between autonomous younger churches seeking to enter into union with other churches to become one church in and for the nation, and the pressures of world confessionalism in the ecumenical era. It is a well-known fact that, since the ecumenical movement gained momentum, there has been a growth in confessional world bodies, which are now reputedly eight in number. Their activities 164 At Home with God and in the World have become more extensive as the years have gone by. It is true that they all state that their aim is not to combat the ecumenical movement, but to help it along by enabling the members of their respective confessions to bring a richer contribution to it. The leaders of the world confessional bodies are certainly trusted friends and leaders of the World Council of Churches itself. It is also true that they help to bring churches out of national and local isolation into a worldwide fellowship of a shared confession and ethos. But the development of world confessional bodies is creating great concern among the younger churches. This was brought out forcibly in a meeting of the East Asia Christian Conference held here in India just prior to this Assembly. While recognizing the valuable functions of these world confessional organizations, they expressed the following anxieties: (a) In spite of the good intentions of these bodies their operations tend to result “in the perpetuation and reinforcement of patterns of paternalism and continued exercise of control.” In this respect they do not greatly differ from the traditional missionary societies and boards. (b) They “stand for rival loyalties to particular forms of Christianity,” whose main history lies in Europe and North America. (c) The younger churches will always remain permanently weaker partners with such world bodies whose centers of power emanate from the older churches in the West. Now the younger churches have a passionate sense of their call to mission to their environment. To that end they realize the necessity for understanding anew the Faith delivered to them through the Word of God preached and taught by the various confessions. They are not against receiving help from their confessions in this task. Nevertheless, this help must be directed, not to embracing more fervently the traditional confession, which in any case belongs to a particular place and time, but to making a new confession of faith with all in each place. Furthermore, the younger churches have an equal passion for going forward together into manifest unity. All their contacts with the ecumenical movement, the world confessional bodies, and the missionary societies, must be seen in terms of this one aim of realizing, in the providence of God, the one, missionary Church in and for the nation and area, and reaching out within the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in the fellowship of life and witness. It is therefore timely and fitting for Faith and Order to enter into serious theological conversation with the world confessional bodies, especially in view of the new statement on the unity we seek and of the work of its Commissions. And such a conversation should be directed not only to the confessional statements of belief and practice, but also to the operations and ethos of these bodies. I appreciate that this is a delicate matter demanding much goodwill and determination on both sides. But it is part of our covenant of being together in the World Council of Churches that we should rigorously examine those intentions and actions which Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity 165 may help or hinder our declared purpose of manifesting together the unity which God wills for us all. It is also gratifying to know that the new Division of World Mission and Evangelism will be challenging the different confessional missionary societies of Europe and North America to joint action for mission with the younger churches, because the same anxieties and possibilities apply to the missionary societies as to the world confessional bodies. It was the youth representatives at the Lund Faith and Order Conference who said:

Our task is once again to lay ourselves open to the working of the Holy Spirit that he may lead us into all truth and to follow fearlessly and resolutely as he leads us along new paths. We should never forget that we are a “Pilgrim People” on a journey, and that to refuse to follow where God leads is utterly wrong, nor should we forget that the end of the journey is the Supper in the presence of God. At Amsterdam we pledged to stay together. At Evanston we thanked God for having stayed together and pledged ourselves to grow together. May we be given the grace to consecrate ourselves to God to go forth together from New Delhi to manifest the unity we have already received and will receive from Christ the Light of the world, that we too may “shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.” (Phil. 2:15-16)

17 The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement

hilip Potter, in his capacity as chairperson of the World Council of Churches PProgramme Unit I—Faith and Witness, and Director of its Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, gave this address on the occasion of being awarded an honorary doctorate by the Theological Faculty of the University of Hamburg, Germany, on June 25, 1971. The oft-unheralded contribution of the Third World to the ecumenical movement is highlighted in this address.

“The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement”—this is a very large subject that cannot be adequately treated in one address. Little has been written about it in any systematic way. The only exception is the admirable study by Hans Ruedi Weber, “Asia and the Ecumenical Movement, 1895–1961,” which provides many valuable clues. Moreover, we cannot speak on this subject without paying some attention to the political realities which have both conditioned and accompanied the relation of the Third World to the ecumenical movement. The very phrase “Third World” has a political connotation. It was coined by the French, le tiers monde, as an expression of the situation of the Cold War, in distinction from the First World, presumably the North Atlantic community (North America, Britain, Western Europe, together with their associates, Australasia and the South African state), and also in distinction from the Second World considered as the USSR and the Eastern European socialist states. The rest of the world, with the exception of Japan, was thus lumped together as the Third World, made up largely of non-white peoples who have been under the influence and domination of the North Atlantic since the journeys of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and of Vasco da Gama in 1498. The Third World has the bulk of the world’s population. Indeed, it would be truer to describe it as the “two-thirds world.” It is, further, the world of over-population, poverty, illiteracy. In the economic race it is increasingly being outpaced by the first

167 168 At Home with God and in the World and second worlds because of the immense scientific and technological power which is concentrated in the Northern hemisphere. Yet both the first and second worlds have tried to woo it to their political advantage. I need hardly add that the Third World has also been the sphere of the great missionary movement of the last two centuries, particularly from the North Atlantic world. It is in this context that we must discuss the ecumenical movement which has been traditionally defined as expressing “the nature of the modern movement for co-operation and unity which seeks to manifest the fundamental unity and universality of the Church of Christ” (Visser‘t Hooft, in History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517–1948, 740). In view of this political character of the phrase “Third World,” I propose to divide my comments on the relation of the Third World to the ecumenical movement between two main periods —1895–1948 and 1948–1971—for by 1948 the Cold War had become a reality. I have chosen 1895 as ushering in the modern ecumenical movement because it was on that date that the World Student Christian Federation came into being, and of course 1948 was the inauguration of the World Council of Churches.

The Period 1895–1948 It is often assumed that the Third World is a recent arrival on the ecumenical scene. True enough, in the great missionary and ecclesiastically controlled meetings which have been called ecumenical, the number of leaders from the Third World has been few and this is still true, though there has been a definite improvement since the Third Assembly of the World Council in New Delhi in 1961. But it has been the glory of the World Student Christian Federation that from the very start students and their leaders from the Third World were included in its deliberations both as participants and as leaders. Hans Ruedi Weber, in his book mentioned above, tells an interesting story relating to the origins of the WSCF. On 5 July 1889, 500 Japanese students meeting in Kyoto at Doshisha, the oldest Christian College of Japan, sent a cable of greetings to the Student Conference of the YMCA in the USA meeting at the same time in Northfield. The cable contained simply the words of the theme of that Conference: “Make Christ King.” The General Secretary of the American YMCA, Richard Morse, wrote about the cable to his friend Karl Fries, who was secretary of the Stockholm City YMCA. Fries received it while at a Scandinavian Missionary Conference. He read the letter to a few student leaders present and one of them, K. M. Eckhoif from Norway, remarked: “If students can gather round Jesus Christ as their King over there in the Far East, why not also here in the North?” That is how the Scandinavian Student Movements began, and it was at their third meeting at Vadstena Castle in Sweden that the WSCF was founded in August 1895. Karl Fries became its first chairman while John R. Mott, who was at the Northfield The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 169

Conference, became its first general secretary. When the World Council of Churches was inaugurated at Amsterdam in August 1948, the opening preachers were John R. Mott and the Ceylonese, D. T. Niles, who himself was nurtured in the WSCF and the YMCA. I myself had the privilege of presenting a statement on behalf of the youth delegation at the end of the Assembly, and I too had my ecumenical apprenticeship in the WSCF. Before indicating ways in which the Third World participated in the ecumenical movement during those formative years till it came of age, so to speak, at Amsterdam, it is useful to remind ourselves of the historical context of those years. In 1895 the West had achieved undisputed sway over Asia, Africa and the Pacific. For example, between 1875 and 1895, Germany acquired a new colonial empire of one million square miles and 13 million people. The odd man out among the non-white peoples was Japan, which in 1894-5 emerged as a world power when it defeated China and forced it to cede Korea, Formosa and the Liaotung peninsula. In 1904-5, Japan defeated Russia in what was the first colonial war between big powers. This had a profound effect on the minds of Asians. Similarly, the defeat of the Italians by the Ethiopians at Adowa in 1896 also deeply impressed Africans who were at that time being forced under German, British, French, Belgian and Italian rule. But the situation changed dramatically with a series of events, starting with the first world war—the Russian revolution of 1917, the rise of fascism in Italy, Germany and Japan, the economic depression of 1929–1931, the rape of Manchuria by Japan and of Ethiopia by Italy, the Spanish civil war, the Second World War and the decimation of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki by atomic bombs. The Third World was at first helpless and voiceless and even sought to adapt itself to the West. But the two world wars and other well-known events undermined the moral authority of the West in the mind of the Third World. With the independence of India in 1947, the era of Western imperialism had more or less come to an end, and with it the collapse of Western Christendom. Hendrik Kraemer has well described the factors that contributed to that collapse: “the relentless process, in many Western countries of de-Christianization, out and inside the churches, and of ‘de-churchification’; the widespread lack of courage, faith and clear-sightedness in Western (and perhaps also Eastern) Christendom to face up to the challenge inherent in the vague, but very pregnant, term, ‘the modern world’; the abiding, predominantly introverted mentality in the churches; the weakness of genuine response to the ecumenical movement; the distressing lack of a real grasp of the dynamic meaning of the Christian faith among both older and younger Christians, Christian students not excepted” (History’s Lessons for Tomorrow’s Mission, 200). How, then, did the Third World participate in the ecumenical movement in that period? 170 At Home with God and in the World

World Student Christian Federation In the early part of this period students and their leaders from Japan, China and India were in the forefront of the ecumenical movement. Many of them visited universities and colleges of Europe and North America, conducting evangelistic meetings and challenging students to commitment—K. Ibuka, Miss M. Kawai, T. Kagawa of Japan; C. T. Wang, C. Y. Cheng, T. Z. Koo (who was the first Third World secretary of the WSCF) of China ; V. S. Azariah, K. T. Paul, S. K. Datta, P. D. Devanandan, D. T. Niles, Miss Sarah Chakko, C. Devanesan, M. M. Thomas of India and Ceylon. Some of the significant WSCF conferences were also in Asia. In Tokyo 1907, the primacy of evangelism was stressed and had a profound influence on the preparation of the World Missionary Conference of Edinburgh 1910. In Peking 1922, students from both West and East were forced, because of the situation in China and elsewhere in Asia, to face the meaning of the Christian faith for political and social involvement in a manner which was well in advance of the time and was only seriously taken up by the ecumenical movement after 1948. In Tjiteureup (Indonesia) in 1933, the Federation had to come to grips with the crisis of faith around the world. This meeting was also notable for being the first regional student encounter held within a distinctly Muslim and anti-colonial setting. The WSCF also pioneered in bringing the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches through their young leaders into the ecumenical movement—first with the Syrian Orthodox in India, and then the Eastern Orthodox through the meeting in Constantinople in 1911. It was because of these contacts that the Ecumenical Patri- arch proposed the formation of a world league of churches in 1920. The YMCA and the YWCA, too, played a very useful role in this period. Together with the WSCF and the World Council of Churches in process of formation, they organized two World Christian Youth Conferences, in Amsterdam in 1939 and Oslo 1947, where the Third World was amply represented and made a major impact, particularly at the Oslo meeting (my first world ecumenical experience). Indeed, it must be remarked that the lay movements (WSCF, YMCA, YWCA) under such great lay leaders as John R. Mott and J. H. Oldham did more to encourage Third World participation than the more ecclesiastically oriented organizations.

World Missionary Conferences At the Edinburgh Conference there were only seventeen Third World representatives and they came as part of Western delegations. However, their contributions were notable, especially those of C. Y. Cheng from China and of V. S. Azariah of India. Cheng was the youngest delegate at Edinburgh 1910, though he already had a great deal of experience The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 171 behind him of student work and also of translating the Bible into Mandarin as an effective tool for evangelization and for building up a church which was self-supporting and indigenous. It was for those reasons that he was passionately concerned about the unity of the Church. “Speaking plainly,” he said in a terse seven-minute speech, “we hope to see in the near future a united Christian Church without any denominational distinctions. This may seem somewhat peculiar to some of you, but friends, do not forget to view us from our standpoint, and if you fail to do that, the Chinese will remain always a mysterious people to you There is no time more important than the present. These days are days of foundations from both political and religious standpoints. The future China will largely depend on what is done at the present time ... The Church of Christ is universal, not only irrespective of denominations, but also irrespective of nationalities.” Such a challenge had never before been so clearly heard at a world Christian meeting— and it came from the Third World. It caught the imagination of Bishop Charles Brent, who had been a missionary in the Philippines, and who later became the founder of the Faith and Order movement. The other remembered Third World voice at Edinburgh was that of V. S. Azariah. He, like other early Indian ecumenical leaders, was educated at Madras Christian College, itself a venture in inter-church cooperation. In 1895 he was secretary of the YMCA and a student leader. Actually, it was Mott himself who persuaded the reluctant Azariah to speak at Edinburgh on a very delicate matter in the relations between people of the North Atlantic and of the Third World, and in particular between foreign missionaries and national workers. Azariah knew well that what he had to say would cause anger, pain, and confusion to the assembly. But he had behind him considerable experience as a missionary to his own people and also of unhappy relations with all too paternalistic missionaries. What he called for was an end to paternalism in favour of an attitude of friendship. He said: “Through all the ages to come the Indian Church will rise up in gratitude to attest the heroism and self- denying labors of the missionary body. You have given your goods to feed the poor. You have given your bodies to be burned. We also ask for love. Give us friends!” It is precisely this friendship which Azariah had experienced in the WSCF and which was lacking in the relation between churches and particularly between the West and the Third World. One of the essential marks of the ecumenical movement is this sense of sharing a common life in Christ which transcends national and racial attitudes. The ecumenical movement creates a certain attitude of mind which makes possible mutual correction and growth in unity and common witness. It is a spirit that we of the Third World would wish was more widespread among our fellow Christians of the North Atlantic. Azariah was the embodiment of that spirit. It is no wonder that he was one of the architects of the Church of South India which came into being in 1947. 172 At Home with God and in the World

I would like to pay tribute to one who exemplified this ecumenical spirit and who was an inspiration to Christians of the Third World. I refer to the late Dr. Walter Freytag, who was Professor of Mission in this University, and who played an important role in the ecumenical movement up to his untimely death in 1960. Soon after the Edinburgh conference, John R. Mott, who chaired it so ably, helped to form National Christian Councils in Asia and elsewhere which became effective ecumenical instruments, some of them, especially the one in China, being well ahead of almost anything which existed in Europe or North America. When the International Missionary Council was formed in 1921, some of these Councils were foundation members. At the Jerusalem Conference of 1928, therefore, there was much greater Third World participation. It was at that meeting that Third World people began to challenge the rather negative attitudes of Westerners to the great religions of Hindu- ism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Islam. This was also the first world Christian meeting to discuss the race issue, though the WSCF had done so through the Student World in 1921 when Asians had written vehemently on the subject, but were barely heeded by the impervious Westerners. The Africans and black Americans who spoke at Jerusalem did so with an extraordinary eirenic spirit, in spite of the unjust treatment they and their people were receiving from white Christians. Secularism was seen as a world issue and posed the question of the Christian mission being on all continents, which, however, was still rather difficult for many Westerners to accept, imprisoned as they were in their Christendom ideology. At Tambaram 1938, the Third World really came into its own. For the first time there was an equal representation of the West and the Third World, and Africans and Latin Americans were present in good numbers. This was in no small way due to the political realities of the time—the churches and missionary forces of the West, under the pressure of the communist and fascist ideologies, were discovering the supreme importance of the universal Church beyond race and nation. In the debate on Kraemer’s book, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, Asians and Africans were not yet fully engaged, because it was conducted in Western and rather Barthian terms. In fact, it was after this meeting that Asians began to do their own thinking on the subject. But perhaps the most important issue which emerged in Tambaram was that of partnership in mission and the self-hood of the churches of the Third World. But it was only at Whitby in 1947 that the slogan, “Partnership in Obedience,” was accepted as the only valid approach to mission by all churches. In all these meetings and in the on-going work of the IMC, the Third World played a useful role through a handful of dedicated and wise leaders. The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 173

Life and Work and Faith and Order Movements Both the Stockholm 1925 and Oxford 1937 Conferences on Life and Work were mainly preoccupied with the problems of the West, the one in the aftermath of the first world war and the other in response to the challenge of totalitarian states to the freedom of the Church to witness prophetically to the issues of society. The Third World participants therefore were generally onlookers. This was mainly because the Constantinian and Christendom preoccupation with Church and State still determined consideration of ethical and political issues in the West. The Lausanne 1927 and the Edinburgh 1937 Conferences on Faith and Order did not find much room for the Third World, again because the categories of theological thinking were entirely Western. But the Asians in particular emphasized the necessity and urgency of Church union and were somewhat impatient of the comparative ecclesiology which prevailed at those meetings. The union of Anglican, Presbyterian, Congregational and Methodist Churches in South India in 1947, after many battles stemming mainly from theological and ecclesiastical circles in the West, constituted a challenge and a rebuke to the Western churches.

World Council of Churches When the Council came into being in 1948, few Third World churches could comply with the conditions for membership because of the Western requirements of what constituted an autonomous church. But there were many Third World leaders who played a significant part in the deliberations, especially in the sections on “The Univer- sal Church in God’s Design” and “The Church’s Witness in God’s Design.” The point to remember is that the two movements which gave the least scope to the Third World— Faith and Order and Life and Work—were precisely the two which went into the formation of the WCC. The World Council leaders were well aware of this and sought ways in which the Third World could participate in its work. It was on this occasion that Sarah Chakko of India insisted that if the World Council of Churches were to be truly a world body there should soon be an occasion for Western churchmen to meet church leaders in the Third World. This was what eventually happened at Lucknow in 1952, and marked a turning point in the life of the Council.

The Period 1948–1971 This is the period when the Third World has become a major factor in world politics and also in the ecumenical movement. The colonial empires have been wound up, except for pockets here and there, and for Southern Africa which oppressively keeps down the predominant black population in the name of Christian civilization. The Asian and African countries have gone through the elation of independence, with the 174 At Home with God and in the World

Bandung Conference of 1955 being a high point of Third World solidarity, and they have experienced, too, the travail of internal upheavals. The Chinese revolution of 1949 has brought on the world scene a new communist state of some 700 million people, who are destined to play a decisive role in history in spite of being kept out of the councils of the world. The Korean war of 1950–1953 and the partition of the country, as well as the unceasing wars in Vietnam have been a source of humiliation for Asians and Westerners alike. The Cuban revolution of 1959 was the signal for a new and more determined effort on the part of intellectuals and the masses of Latin America to rid themselves of American economic domination and the blatant oppression exercised by landowners and capitalists. With the establishment, at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs, of the state of Israel in 1948, the Middle East has been a constant theatre of war and of threats of war. Moreover, the advent of the third industrial revolution in the computer and auto- mation has brought about new problems and exacerbated the old ones. In effect, the rich nations are becoming richer and the poor nations are becoming poorer. Within the rich nations, the economic, political and cultural structures of society are being undermined and there is great unrest among workers, students and women against the traditional, hierarchical, non-participatory styles. Through the rapid development of the mass media, the possibilities both of mass manipulation and of greater awareness of peoples and events have been vastly increased. Communications are contracting the world into a global village. We have been tumbling from one political, social, economic and cultural crisis into another in rapid succession. The growth of the ecumenical movement must be assessed in terms of this bewildering series of events which have engulfed the whole world, and bound us all willy-nilly into a common history and fate. It can in fact be said that these events have accelerated the growth of and the tensions within the ecumenical movement. Political independence has been matched by church autonomy, and most churches of the Third World have become members of the World Council of Churches, including indigenous groups like the Pentecostalists of Chile and Brazil and the Kimbanguists of Congo. The Eastern Orthodox Churches have been drawn away from their long isolation into active participation in the ecumenical movement. Even the great Roman Catholic Church, which had for so long behaved as a monolithic self-sufficient structure seeking actively or passively to claim for itself the sole right to Christendom, has been forced into the movement of change, thanks to the farsighted initiative of Pope John XXIII and the deliberations and decrees of Vatican Council II. This enlargement of the ecumenical movement has helped to give greater scope of expression to the Third World. It can truly be said that during this period the influence of the Third World has been very The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 175 pervasive, not only in terms of participation but even more in the shifts in the concerns and styles of thinking and acting within the ecumenical movement. Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft has summarized the impact of the churches of the Third World as follows: 1. They have helped the other Churches to realize that the position of Christianity in the world is that of a minority, the future of which depends on its missionary energy. 2. They contribute to the creation of a different sense of proportion in doctrinal and theological matters. For the issues which are crucial for them are not the traditional interconfessional issues, but rather the issues of a right interpretation of basic Christian truth in terms of cultures dominated by other religions. 3. They help the other Churches to face the problem of world poverty, hunger, and underdevelopment as the number one problem for humanity and as an inescapable challenge to all Christians (History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1948–1968, 14). The points raised by Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft are certainly subjects of present debate in the ecumenical movement. I would like to develop them briefly so as to bring out the present agenda of the ecumenical movement:

The Church as a Minority With the collapse of Christendom, all churches are more or less minorities in secular and religiously pluralistic societies. This has been true for some time, but is only being recognized today. Of course, the churches of the Third World have been grappling with this issue for many years. Because of colonial power, they were for some time both protected by the State (at least the missionaries and their work were) and despised by their people for being foreign. Now this situation has been reversed and these churches have to discover their own selfhood and freedom. This process toward selfhood has been greatly hampered by the whole Western apparatus which the churches of the Third World have been forced to adopt through Western missionary influence. The World Studies of Churches in Mission carried out by the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism have amply demonstrated that the growth of churches depends on the degree to which they are both rooted in Christ and related to the soil of their countries which are themselves undergoing change. Three of the fifteen studies were conducted in the North Atlantic—one by the present Prime Minister of Ghana, K. A. Busia, in Birmingham, England; another in rural Michigan; and the third in Hamburg by Dr. Justus Freytag and a Japanese, Kenji Ozahi, entitled “Nominal Christianity.” The studies conducted by Professor Hans Jochen Margull on “The Missionary Structure of the Congregation” evoked widespread response and controversy in Europe and North America. The report entitled “The Church for Others” aptly describes what it can mean for a Church to lose and gain itself 176 At Home with God and in the World in freedom by being totally at the disposal of its Lord and therefore of others. We have still to draw the implications of these two series of studies for the life of the churches in the North Atlantic and the Third World. In this enterprise of discovering what it means to be the Church of Christ as a minority in the world, the ecumenical movement should play a liberating role of drawing all the churches into conversation with each other as they seek to be renewed and render a common witness to the world. Here the renewal movements which have sprung up in many places, stimulated very largely by the Kirchentag and the Evangelical Academies, are of great significance. Furthermore, the Third World gave a lead in developing regional conferences, first of all in Asia. The purpose has been, not to withdraw into a regional or continental shell, but rather so to draw the churches, councils and movements together, in constant contact with the rest of the world, that they may more effectively promote this very selfhood and freedom of the Church, in mutual relationships and joint action in their different environments. Rajah Manikam and later D. T. Niles, as leaders of the East Asia Christian Conference, did a great deal in carrying forward this regional movement, which was followed by Africa, and then by Europe and the Pacific. Now Latin America and the Caribbean are moving in the same direction. It is also to be noted that the Roman Catholic Church is going through a similar process and in several countries, especially in the Third World, there are developing close working relationships in national or local Christian councils. The pressure to organic Church unity for more faithful and effective mission in the world is still being kept up by the Third World. Only last year, the United Church of Pakistan and the Church of North India came into being. Soon the Church in Sri Lanka will be inaugurated. Several other Church union schemes are being discussed in Asia and Africa. The movement toward unity in the North Atlantic is still slow and too much dominated by static and backward looking notions of the Church. One clear example is the Anglican-Methodist conversations in England which were based on how the churches as they have been and are can achieve inter-communion and a mutually accepted ministry, rather than on what shape is needed of the Church of God if it is to carry out its mission in a largely secular and pagan society. The curious thing is that ecumenical insights gained over the years seem to have little influenced these conversations toward union. The ecumenical task in this regard is still very great, and perhaps the pressure from the Third World may be helpful in pushing forward the movement to manifest unity for mission in the North Atlantic world. The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 177

Doctrinal and Theological Issues As I have hinted earlier, the theological climate in the ecumenical movement has been distinctly Western. This has been expressed in different ways. Churches in the Third World have been expected to adopt European and American confessions of faith, styles of worship and ethical systems. All these have been the products of particular categories of thinking, of philosophies and cultures that are Western. The lack of creative participation of Third World churchmen in Western-led ecumenical discussions, especially in matters of Faith and Order, is precisely because they have not felt at home in these systems and styles of thinking. For one thing theological education in the Third World countries was for long well below the standards of higher education offered by missionary agencies. It was not considered that Third World people needed a thorough theological training, and when in recent years this training has been provided, with the generous help of the Theological Education Fund, it has still been modelled on West- ern theological education which is itself in a state of crisis. Another factor has been that churchmen from Asia and Africa have found that many of the theological issues so hotly debated by the Western Schoolmen, who are still trained in the Medieval tradition, have no relevance to the life of their churches and cultures. The tide is, however, turning. At a consultation sponsored in 1965 by the East Asia Christian Conference on “Confessional Families and the Church in Asia” it was asserted: “A living theology must speak to the actual questions men in Asia are asking in the midst of their dilemmas; their hopes, aspirations and achievements, their doubts, despair and suffering. It must also speak in relation to the answers that are being given by Asian religions and philosophies, both in their classical form and in new forms created by the impact on them of Western thought, secularism and science. Christian theology will fulfill its task in Asia only as the Asian Churches, as servants of God’s word and revelation in Jesus Christ, speak to the Asian situation and from involvement in it.” The same plea is being made by Africa. One of the leading African scholars, Professor John Mbiti, has recently written in the International Review of Mission in summary form what he has developed in his books African Religions and Philosophy and Concepts of God in Africa: “Christianity has spoken too long and too much; perhaps it has listened too little. For too long it has passed judgment on other cultures, other religions, other societies, while holding the attitude that it is itself above criticism. The time may have come now for western Christianity to be more humble in its approach to other religions and cultures, if it is to be effective here in Africa. Christianity has to approach this traditional background with an open mind, with a readiness to change it and be changed by it. In particular I would appeal to our brethren in and from Europe 178 At Home with God and in the World and America to allow us to make what in their judgment may be termed mistakes; allow us to make a mess of Christianity in our continent just as, if one may put it mildly, you have made a mess of it in Europe and America. When we speak or write on particular issues about Christianity or other academic matters, we should not be expected to use the vocabulary and approach used in Europe and America: please allow us to say certain things our own way, whether we are wrong or not. We sometimes reach a point of despair when what we say or do is so severely criticized and condemned by people in or from Europe and America—often because we have not said it to their satisfaction or according to their wishes” (IRM, vol. LIX, no. 236, October 1970, 439). This is of particular significance in the theological debate concerning dialogue with men of living faiths and ideologies. This dialogue has been going on in Asia since the Tambaram Conference of 1938. Not having had the doubtful benefit of Christendom, the Asians have had to take seriously the relationship between the Christian faith, the churches, societies, cultures and religions. This relationship is a very complex one. The issue is how the distinctive Christian faith can be articulated in the context of living together with people of other living faiths and ideologies. Such dialogue, in faithfulness to deepest convictions and openness to the existential realities, should not weaken but rather strengthen Christian witness. Western Christianity is only one particular experience of the Christian faith. The ecumenical movement should provide the climate for different styles of thinking and approaches to problems of faith, as well as different experiences of the one Faith, to be shared in mutual correction and enrichment, and for a more relevant contemporary witness. This has hardly begun, but is an urgent task before us. I need hardly remind you in such a gathering that even in Western countries, theology and confessions of faith are going through a serious crisis, precisely because of the radical changes taking place in ways of thinking of and experiencing reality. But as the Chinese word for crisis signifies, this is a dangerous opportunity which must be seized boldly. Just as Asians and Africans are having to come to terms with the cultures, religions, ideologies and the social and political realities in their countries, so must the peoples of the North Atlantic, and especially of Europe—and, I may add, even more so in Germany which has for so long been considered to be the leader and arbiter of theological thought. It is interesting to note, in this regard, that Faith and Order studies have had to enlarge the quest of the Unity of the Church to include the Unity of Mankind, and this will have a profound effect on how ecclesiological issues are approached. There is every hope that the Third World will now be able to participate more fully in theological discussions in the ecumenical movement. The Third World in the Ecumenical Movement 179

Sociopolitical Issues Since the Lucknow 1952 meeting of the World Council’s Central Committee, the significance of the social revolution taking place in Asia, Africa and Latin America has been brought to the fore in ecumenical thinking. A study on Areas of Rapid Social Change was conducted in 1954–1959, followed in 1966 by the World Confer- ence on Church and Society when there was a real confrontation between the Third World and the West on some of the burning social and political issues of our time, and especially on revolution for social change. This confrontation was largely possible because in this first official ecumenical meeting where laymen outnumbered theologians, it was possible to have third-world politicians, economists, and sociologists who could speak on equal terms intellectually with their Western counterparts. The theological questions posed by this debate have upset much of the old Church and State positions of Western churches and their too easy devotion to and justification for law and order, even when law and order are used as instruments for maintaining or furthering unjust systems. Since 1966 a great deal of attention has been given by the ecumenical movement to development, though this has been conceived in terms of the economic development of the Third World. The Pope delivered his Encyclical on the Development of Peoples (“Populorum Progressio”) at Easter 1967 and set up a Pontifical Commis- sion on Justice and Peace which has since formed with the World Council a joint committee and secretariat on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX). Much has been done to cultivate closer relations between Roman Catholic Conferences of Bishops and Christian Councils in the Third World. But not much has happened in this direction in the North Atlantic countries. The Pope had spoken of the development of the whole man and of all men, but up to now this global vision has not found clear expression in the ecumenical movement. Moreover, there is still a linger- ing view among Western Christians that development is something evolutionary and promotes good order. But as Professor Samuel Parmar of India warned the Uppsala Assembly of the World Council: “Rightly understood development is disorder because it changes existing social and economic relationships, breaks up old institutions to create new, brings about radical alterations in the values and structures of society. If we engage in development through international cooperation we must recognize that basic changes become necessary in developing and developed nations as also in the international economy. “Development is the new name for peace.” But development is disorder, it is revolution. Can we attempt to understand this apparently paradoxical situation which would imply that disorder and revolution are the new name for peace?” (Uppsala Report, 42). 180 At Home with God and in the World

Even more explosive has been the challenge to white racism which was made at the Uppsala Assembly and which was taken up by the World Council’s Central Committee at Canterbury in 1969 in adopting a Programme to Combat Racism. The World Coun- cil had on each successive Assembly, and especially the Second Assembly at Evanston, spoken out against racism as a sin, but little action had followed. Now that the World Council has given humanitarian support to movements which are seeking the liberation of their people from racial injustice by violence, if no other way is open to them, very profound questions about violence and nonviolence are raised, though this crisis of conscience was not evident in the Oxford Conference of 1937 when the enemies were European Fascism and Communism. Incidentally, it is on issues of this kind that Latin Americans have come into the ecumenical arena. The Brazilian theologian Rubem A. Alves recently made a notable theological contribution to Christian social thought entitled A Theology of Human Hope. Added to these questions of revolution, violence, and nonviolence is the universal concern for what is truly human and about the future of man in a technological and science based society. Here again there is great nervousness in traditional theological circles about this concern for humanization and a fear that the Gospel will be compromised. This problem cuts right across our different confessions and also the continents. The question is, are our theological faculties and colleges able to cope with these issues on their own? Is there not need for greater elasticity of thinking and more interdisciplinary work between theologians and lay experts, as well as greater participation of the whole people of God in thinking through these issues together? All I want to say at this point is that the Third World is raising these issues with particular sharpness within the ecumenical movement and to the North Atlantic Christian community which has so tragically failed to come to terms with evils which were committed quite often in the name of Christian civilization or an outworn Protestant ethic. The ecumenical movement has until lately been directed and also financed by the churches of the North Atlantic. Their leaders used to draw up the agendas, set the rules of procedure, introduce the themes, make the significant contributions and write the reports! Those from the Third World who were educated in the West managed somehow to keep up with the discussions and to make marginal comments. But they were a very small group. Today we are on the threshold of a new era when the ecumenical movement is becoming more truly worldwide in terms of participation, of the issues being faced, and the methods of thinking and expression. The Third World, or more correctly the two-thirds world, has a significant role to play in this movement, as they have tried to do in the past. The Third World has contributed greatly toward enlarging the understanding of the ecumenical movement from the early view of cooperation toward unity to one of renewal in mission for unity and to unity for more effective mission. More recently, the immensely complex problems of social and racial injustice, of development and peace have forcibly reminded us that “ecumenical” rightly understood is about “the whole inhabited earth,” the world of men, of cultures, religions, social and political structures. These are the concerns of the ecumenical movement and in a new and urgent way, and they are strongly pressed by the Third World. The question posed to the Western churches is whether they will be humble and generous enough to participate fully with the Third World in this movement, in a true mutuality of giving and receiving. Certainly, this ecumenical movement is God’s gift to his people whereby he draws them together in Christ as he draws them together as churches into one family, as a sign of his design to draw all men and all things together.

18 Dear Friends . . .: Fellowship Is Not Cheap

fter Philip Potter had been elected General Secretary of the World Council of Churches Aby the Central Committee, in its session in Utrecht/Netherlands, in August 1972, he gave the following speech. Before that, Philip Potter, a pastor of the Methodist Church, was Director of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the WCC.

Dear friends, I feel very deeply moved indeed that at this moment you have placed your trust in me to be your servant. As Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft was leading me and as Dr. Blake came to fetch me, I was reminded of a saying we have in the West Indies about ourselves. We say that when the good Lord was giving His gifts to various peoples and He asked each of them what they wanted, they were all fairly clear in their minds. Last of all came the West Indian, and he was asked what he wanted, and he replied: “Sir, I only came with the other gentlemen!” At any rate, the other gentlemen were the Presi- dents led by Dr. Visser‘t Hooft and Dr. Blake: these two men who have led this Council, under whom I have served, from whom I have learned so much, and to whom I shall look for counsel and guidance. So I can go my calypso way of coming with the other gentlemen, but not only with these two, because they are symbols of you all. The ecumenical movement was woven into the very texture of my life. I was born to a Roman Catholic father and a Protestant mother, and I was baptized in a Protestant church with the name of the Roman Catholic bishop. And so I grew up with a passion for Christian unity in that situation, a passion which was made alive by my training in a United Theological College with students and tutors from many different churches and confessions, and through the Student Christian Movement and the World Student Christian Federation to which I owe a great deal. Then in 1947, Mr. Chairman,1 we

1. M. M. Thomas.

183 184 At Home with God and in the World both had our first large world ecumenical experience at Oslo and it was there that my passion for the unity of the Church became blended with a passion for the unity of mankind, because we had amongst us all the richness of Christian faith and experience and also all the variety of our world’s divisions. Mr. Chairman, there are two phrases I remember from that conference, one which was said by you and one which was said by me. You may remember that that conference had come to an impasse with all our divisions, and Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft drew a few of us together asking us to speak of our own life experience to that conference. And you said, coming out of India, struggling for your national independence, that you came to Oslo perplexed and you were leaving Oslo more perplexed, but Jesus Christ is Lord of your perplexity. I dare say that is why, Mr. Chairman, you can chair this meeting in such a relaxed manner, because you leave the perplexities in the hands of God. And I learned that from you. I myself was able to say on that occasion, when the theme was “Jesus Christ is Lord,” that to confess Jesus Christ as Lord means that we live not by the love of power but by the power of love. That has very much guided my own life over the years. And just to add for good measure, Madam Vice-Chairman,2 a couple of months after Oslo I first spoke under your chair- manship when you were a young student, and I repeated those two phrases. So I do feel myself in a very committed fellowship, in a family, and it is indeed significant that this event takes place when we are discussing the theme “Committed to Fellowship.” As a Methodist, the word fellowship has always meant a great deal to me. Perhaps we abuse the word, but behind the abuse is a very profound understanding of our Christian faith, a faith which is biblically based. All my life I have tried to be a student of both the Bible and of history and those two go intimately together. I have always understood the character of our fellowship together as being one in which we seek greater and deeper unity in the midst of our diversities, our varieties, our different styles of living, witnessing and of making decisions. Of course, as the Chairman has already told you, this is quite congenial to me coming from the particular kind of environment of the Caribbean, where for the last nearly five hundred years practically all major cultures of the world have not only coexisted but interacted, and where we live normally with each other. So for me the ecumenical movement has been something natural, but also deepened by grace. But the very fact of our commitment to fellowship and our recognition of variety needs to be translated into action, and I am very happy to be in the heritage of what Dr. Visser ‘t Hooft started and Dr. Blake accelerated in making this community a really worldwide community. The next step is to seek to make that community alive and real. How will we enable each culture, nation, church, in each particular context, to be itself as part of the whole

2. P. Webb. Dear Friends . . .: Fellowship Is Not Cheap 185 of the catholicity which we seek, a wholeness which is not just the sum of the parts but an organic relationship of interaction? This to me is a fundamental task, and I am very happy, Mr Chairman, that we have a staff—a fact which is not often recognized here—who live daily this interaction with all its cost, with all its tension and also with all its joy. What we have got to do is to effect this interaction not only in terms of our personal relations, but in terms of our programmes, in the way we do things, treat people, run meetings, and are seeking this unity in diversity. But, Mr Chairman, fellowship is not cheap. I have learned this as one who comes from a people who experienced slavery, and who have known political and economic oppression. The cost of fellowship is the cross. At the Oslo conference, when the Dutch and Indonesian delegations at the very beginning threatened to leave because of war breaking out in Indonesia, we discovered that, as an Indonesian said, the nearer we come to the cross the closer we come together. It is only as the cross becomes a central part of our life that we will really draw closer together in unity and witness. And that cross means the denial, the giving up of much that we consider precious but is not really central to our faith in Christ, our crucified and risen Lord. As St. Paul put it so well in his letter to the Philippians, we must give up all things in order that we might know Christ in the power of His resurrection and in the fellowship of His sufferings. We can bear together the sufferings of our particularities as we live by this power of Christ’s resurrection, that “standing up” relationship in which we can look at each other eye-to-eye and mouth-to-mouth, and face the world with the love and yet with the judgment of God. But the cross, brethren, means the scandal of particularity of the incarnate Lord who lived, died, and was raised, in a particular time and place. Particularity means each place, each situation, each man, each woman. That is why we are at present engaged in the Programme to Combat Racism, in the issues of international affairs, in development, in urban industrial mission, in inter-church aid, and so on—and, in fact, the very things which so many of us say are tending to divide us and to divert us from the centralities. But the centralities find expression precisely in this incarnate engagement with the world. That is why I find that to speak of vertical and horizontal, to speak of transcendent and immanent, as separate entities is a denial of the gospel of the incarnate, crucified, and risen Lord. That is where I stand, brethren, and I stand with you in the knowledge that we will not only stay together, grow together, go forward together, and act together, as we have said in successive meetings, but also suffer together under the sign of the cross and in the power of the risen Lord.

19 Costly Ecumenism

n his report to the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Berlin, IGermany, in 1974, Philip Potter alluded to the notion of “cheap grace,” coined by Bonhoeffer, and unfolded a comprehensive picture of the work of the WCC during the six years since its Fourth General Assembly in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1968. He refers to the high price of committed ecumenical work that has to be paid if the community of churches commits itself to the problems of the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth.

It is significant that the largest meeting of the World Council of Churches on German soil takes place in Berlin. This city played a leading role in the early ecumenical movement and was then called its German headquarters. This was due largely to the personality and activities of the famous New Testament scholar, Adolf Deissmann. He was prominent in both the Life and Work and Faith and Order movements. He was one of the writers of the Stockholm message and of the Lausanne “Church’s Message to the World: The Gospel.” In 1930 he wrote some theses arguing for bringing together the two movements into one world body. It was Deissmann, too, who inspired a young student and lecturer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to participate in the ecumenical movement. Bonhoeffer became a youth secretary of the World Alliance for International Friendship through the Churches, and was untiring in his efforts at giving theological depth to the movement. It was he who, over forty years ago, expressed the conviction that the ecumenical movement is concerned with two basic questions: the church and the churches, and the church and the nations. For him the search for a true confession of faith in sacramental unity and the struggle for peace and justice were inextricably bound together. He exemplified this in his writings and his untiring witness in the fate- ful 1930s and 1940s and paid the penalty of martyrdom for his ecumenical convictions.

187 188 At Home with God and in the World

Another personality associated with Berlin is Bishop Otto Dibelius, who was an active participant in the Lausanne 1927 Conference, was well known as a courageous leader of the Confessing Church and later as Bishop in Berlin, and was fittingly a Presi- dent of the World Council for the period 1954–1961. I would also like to mention our President, Bishop Lilje, whom we are glad to have among us and who celebrates his seventy-fifth birthday in a week’s time. As General Secretary of the Student Christian Movement in the 1920s and 1930s he did much to promote ecumenical understanding and action in Germany, working from his headquarters here in Berlin. Another past president of the World Council, who is happily among us today, is Dr. Martin Niemöller, who took a stand against fascism and for the Confessing Church, and who in the 1930s and 1940s was the most prayed-for man in Christendom. Through him we learnt the meaning of intercessory ecumenism. His confession of guilt at Stutt- gart in 1945 was an act that engaged not only the German people, but all peoples, and paved the way for the reconciling work which made possible the inauguration of the World Council. Berlin is also a vivid reminder of the context of the ecumenical movement. It is a divided city in a divided world, and a challenge to us as a fellowship of churches which confess Jesus Christ the Reconciler, to continue to work for the reconciliation of the nations. The voice of Bonhoeffer can therefore still be heard among us that the unity of the Church and the reconciliation of the nations constitute one calling.

Our Work Since the Uppsala Assembly, 1968 This is the last meeting of the Central Committee appointed at Uppsala. Our preoccupation here is principally to prepare for the Assembly next year and to give an account of our stewardship. It is therefore appropriate for us to reflect on our work during these six crowded years. What new tasks have we undertaken? What new emphases have we pursued in our traditional tasks? How have we carried out our tasks? What have we achieved in this period? What issues have been raised and what lessons have we learnt concerning the ecumenical movement? These are some of the questions that will be occupying our minds and energies during these days.

Studies and Programs We have, in these six years, undertaken a wide range of studies and programmes. The Commission on Faith and Order emphasized the relation of ‘The Unity of the Church and the Unity of Mankind’ in a manner which gave fresh relevance to the ecumenical goal. In the course of this major study, other studies like “Giving an Account of the Costly Ecumenism 189

Hope That Is in Us” and “Concepts of Unity and Models of Union” have emerged, quite apart from the ongoing work on the sacraments and the ministry. The concerns of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism were concentrated on the study of “Salvation Today,” which became the focus of the Bangkok Conference at the end of 1972. The Conference was led to say that “the salvation which Christ brought, and in which we participate, offers a comprehensive wholeness in this divided life. We understand salvation as newness of life—the unfolding of true humanity in the fullness of God” (Col. 2:9), a process in which “God’s justice manifests itself both in the justification of the sinner and in social and political justice.” It is noteworthy that the International Congress on World Evangelization, held recently in Lausanne, stated in the declaration called “The Lausanne Covenant”: “we affirm that evangelism and sociopolitical involvement are both part of our Christian duty. For both are necessary expressions of our doctrines of God and man, our love for our neighbor and our obedience to Jesus Christ. . . . The salvation we claim should be transforming us in the totality of our personal and social responsibilities.” Church and Society, which had given such a clear lead in ecumenical social thought in the 1966 Conference, went on to break new ground in dealing with “The Future of Man and Society in a World of Science-based Technology.” The study has brought together some of the outstanding experts in various fields of science and theologians to grapple with some of the perplexing ethical and theological issues posed by the unre- lenting march of science and technology. The problems involved in effecting social change also led to a worldwide study of “Violence and Nonviolence and the Struggle for Social Justice.” There has been a long-standing concern for the communication of the Christian faith to people of other religions, which occupied the world missionary movement since the Edinburgh Conference of 1910. Since Uppsala, the WCC has taken up a special and enlarged concern of “Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies” with a very extended programme. In the area of “Justice and Service,” the Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service, in a world of continuous emergencies, catastrophes and wars, has been unflinchingly active in meeting human need and in seeing this need in terms of the struggle for social and racial justice. It has also energetically carried out the Uppsala mandate to “give the needs of development a high priority in its total programme.” Two issues over which the Assembly agonized have become new independent programmes in the Council: the Programme to Combat Racism which was set up in 1969 and which comes up for renewal this year, and the Commission on the Churches’ Participation in Development, created in 1970. In this short period, both of these 190 At Home with God and in the World programmes have rapidly broadened their scope of activities and have occupied a very central and controversial place in our deliberations. The Commission of the Churches on International Affairs, in addition to its highly significant work of mediation and witness concerning the various trouble spots in our world, has been led to carry out a worldwide study on human rights and will be holding a world consultation in October to evaluate the results of regional and national studies. At Uppsala what was then the Division of Ecumenical Action was charged “to stir up and equip all God’s people for ecumenical understanding, active engagement in renewing the life of the churches, and participation in God’s work in a changing world.” The Division was encouraged “to develop its ministries in terms of the needs of God’s people interacting in the world through ensuring love and dignity in the whole community.” As this Division evolved into the Unit on Education and Renewal, several new and imaginative programmes have been developed, in spite of the difficulties that have been experienced in staffing and funding. An action/reflection programme on “Participation in Change,” aimed at finding and listening to groups initiating change in their local situations, has been carried out. Responding to the cries of the dispossessed, the powerless, the silent, the unrepresented, there have been creative consultations and conferences on “Black Theology and the Theology of Liberation in Latin America,” “Sexism in the 1970s” (the role of women in church and society which discriminate against them because of their sex), as also on the family, the charismatic movements, and youth as agents for social change. The Uppsala Assembly received a report from a Joint Study Commission on Educa- tion sponsored by the World Council of Churches and the World Council of Christian Education. An Office on Education was set up to deal with education in a comprehensive way—general education, Christian education and theological education. The World Council of Christian Education, which had existed since 1907, was integrated into the WCC in 1971. During these six years the Office of Education has had a major impact on the ecumenical movement by focusing attention on education as a process of “conscientization” (a new word in our ecumenical vocabulary), that is, the ways in which people’s consciousness is awakened to their true nature as subjects rather than objects, and they are enabled to be active participants in mastering their environment and the structures of society toward a fuller life in justice and community. While this Office has conducted several consultations and seminars all over the world, its creative contribution has been to influence the whole style of thinking and working not only of the Unit on Education and Renewal, but of all the activities and programmes of the World Council. Costly Ecumenism 191

This is particularly reflected in the emphases adopted by the Theological Education Fund, and by the Christian Medical Commission which was created a few months before the Uppsala Assembly. The Office of Education is already having some effect on the educational work of member churches of the World Council and beyond. The Assembly also initiated a study on Humanum as a means of providing “an admirable opportunity for the design and testing of new methods of ecumenical study, especially for experiments using inductive methods, and including the dimensions of biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology and philosophy as well theology.” This extremely ambitious programme was left to one person to carry out. The study has reflected deeply on the way that theology can and should be done, and has also raised profound questions not only on “What is man?,” but also and more directly concerning the humanness of relationships amongst Christians and within the World Council itself. You will be considering the final report of this Study and its consequences for our life together in the ecumenical movement. The ecumenical movement and the World Council have been committed to live and work “according to the Scriptures” and Bible study has nourished our life and work. In 1971 a Portfolio on Biblical Studies was established with the task of developing different approaches to Bible study in various parts of the world, providing documentation on what is happening in this field, enabling and training persons to lead Bible study, and participating in a series of studies on particular themes.

Other Aspects of the Council’s Work I have attempted to bring to your attention some major programmes and emphases which you as a Central Committee have initiated and encouraged during these six years. They do not represent by any means the vast range of ongoing work of the Coun- cil. And I must mention here the many-sided courses and consultations conducted by the Ecumenical Institute, which continue to be an effective instrument for ecumenical education and for courageous confrontation on some of the burning concerns of our faith and of our world today. Reference must also be made to the tremendous efforts which have been made to develop contacts with national and regional councils, for which a special secretariat was created. Relations with the Roman Catholic Church have been extended and inten- sified, and Roman Catholic participation in most programmes of the WCC has deeply affected the style and results of our work. Contacts have also been made with many international and regional organizations working in fields of common concern. All this has been an astonishing achievement, especially when we remember that during this period we have struggled with budgetary difficulties which have become worse with 192 At Home with God and in the World the world monetary crisis and with inflation; the number of staff carrying out these programmes has hardly changed since 1969; and the number of churches and councils to be served has appreciably increased.

Why in This Direction? Before facing the consequences of our activities for the ecumenical movement and for the World Council, we should briefly consider why we have been compelled to go in the direction indicated in these few years. When we met at Uppsala, in 1968, there was an acute consciousness of a world in which the inequalities of rich and poor, the injustices meted out to people because of their race, sex or class, and the confrontation of nations in wars which threatened the whole human race had become intolerable. In the words of the Message of the Assembly: “We heard the cry of those who long for peace; of the hungry and exploited who demand bread and justice; of the victims of discrimination who claim human dignity; and of the increasing millions who seek for the meaning of life. God hears these cries and judges us. He also speaks the liberating Word. We hear Him say: ‘I go before you. Now that Christ carries away your sinful past, the Spirit frees you to live for others. Anticipate my Kingdom in joyful worship and daring acts.’” In these years, we have seen the growth of women’s liberation movements, the increasing impatience and unrest of peoples seeking political and racial liberation, the spread of militaristic governments allied to technocracy hell-bent on increasing the gross national product with little regard for the powerless majority; the violation of human rights and the abuse of power everywhere; the ruthless suppression of efforts at people’s participation in changing social and economic structures in a more humane direction; the outbreak of war between nations and the confrontations within nations. There have also been signs of hope in the resolution of the civil war in Sudan, the lessening of super power involvement in Indochina, the changed situation in Portugal, Greece and Ethiopia. In this period, too, the whole economic system which has dominated the world in the past two hundred years is in the process of breaking down. The growing pollu- tion of the environment, the population explosion, the world monetary crisis, inflation and the world crisis in food and other commodities, the widening gap between rich and poor within and between nations have converged to create a situation which, in the words of the Churches Commission on International Affairs (CCIA) statement produced at its recent meeting, “threatens the very future of international society.” The statement goes on to say, “through indifference, greed, envy, fear, love of power, and shortsighted stupidity, people have created, or allowed to develop, a demonstrably unjust economic order.” Costly Ecumenism 193

It is immensely significant that it was the industrially undeveloped nations which took the initiative in calling for a special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations in April this year to probe into the causes of this crisis. The representatives of both the rich and poor nations solemnly proclaimed their united determination to work urgently for “the establishment of a new international economic order based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their economic and social systems, which shall correct inequalities and redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries, and ensure steadily accel- erating economic and social development in peace and justice for present and future generations.” In the face of these threats to peace and survival, different attitudes have been perceived. Early this year in a European country, a colloquium was held at which persons from several intellectual disciplines and from all areas of national life met to grapple with these threats. They recognized three principal reactions to our world situation. The first is to seek salvation and security in remaining ignorant of or evading the issues by such means as pursuing one’s own personal or group interests, by refusing to be involved, by retreating into a private world of self-indulgence, or drug-taking, or of mystical and religious escape. The second reaction is to endeavor to exorcise the dangers we face by forcing them into the rigidities of a reassuring ideological or religious system which explains everything and explains it away. The third reaction is to face the dangers head on with open eyes, deploying all the resources of vision, imagination, reason and skills to understand and interpret them in their full reality, and to be free to discover and attempt new ways of overcoming these dangers in cooperation rather than confrontation.

Relevance and Awareness It is, I think, important for us to reflect on this very perceptive analysis of the responses to our human situation in terms of what we have been attempting to do in the ecumenical movement and as Christians and churches. Two facts stand out very clearly as we review the work we have been tackling during these six years in the World Council. Firstly, our programmes, activities and emphases have constantly sought to be relevant to the challenges of our time. We have strained every nerve of faith and obedience to meet these challenges. We may not have achieved a great deal, but, in our fumbling way, we are there in the midst of the travail of our fellow human beings seeking to discover what God is saying and doing in his world on the foundation of what he has said and done as disclosed in the Word of Scripture and the Word made flesh in Christ, and as discerned through the centuries by his people. 194 At Home with God and in the World

Secondly, it can be said that we have tried to avoid the first two reactions, and have opted for the third as the way of faith, hope and love. This is not, of course, an option peculiar to us in these years. It has constituted the very raison d’être of the ecumenical movement from the beginning. We are inheritors of the tradition which is expressed in the words of J. H. Oldham: “We must dare in order to know,” and by Dietrich Bonhoef- fer: “We shall only know what we do.” The daring and the doing are the effect of faith, the ever-renewed and tested conviction that the Lord of the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, has indeed conquered the principalities and powers, and entrusts us with his power and wisdom, through the Holy Spirit, to discern his will and do it in and through the threats and challenges of our time. There is no way back for us into an escapism either of disengagement or of setting up ideological or dogmatic walls of defence.

Practical Concerns That Have Arisen What does all this mean for the fellowship of the World Council? The reality is that in this period under review our fellowship has been profoundly tested and all sorts of tensions have been revealed. How should we interpret this experience of testing? What does it say to us about the nature of our fellowship in the World Council? I am not going to repeat the things I said last year, which are relevant in facing this question. But I would like to suggest some concerns that have been crystallizing since Uppsala. 1. As the peoples of the world have become increasingly interdependent and as the issues facing each nation concern all, so there is a close interrelationship between the various programmes of the World Council. But these programmes are carried out by different departments or sub-units, serving different constituencies and guided by different committees. It is true that the Central Committee is the coordinating body of all these programmes. Nevertheless, historic or new concerns have tended to develop according to their own momentum. The Assembly proposed a thorough-going study of the structure of the World Council to achieve greater coordination and simpli- fication. The Central Committee in 1971 approved a new structure which is in the process of being put into effect. Furthermore, a Programme Priorities Committee was also appointed to scrutinize all programmes of the World Council so as to achieve greater coordination and cooperation. Part of the problem is that member churches are often not aware of the comprehensive and varied character of the programmes of the Council. Some are more aware of some programmes than of others because of their involvement or lack of it. Due to inadequate communication and interpretation and the fact that the work of the World Council is often known only from the mass media, there is a widespread impression that the work is onesided, concentrating on certain aspects (for example, especially social and political issues) rather than on others. The Costly Ecumenism 195

Report on Programme Coordination, which will be discussed in this Committee, indicates the ways in which we have tried to achieve the purposes of the new structure and the problems we have encountered. Of course, it is possible to argue that serving nearly 270 churches in over 90 countries, and also different groups within and beyond them, calls for a variety of approaches. But it may well be that the immense challenges of our time and the limited resources at our disposal call for greater concentration of effort in order to facilitate the more widespread participation of the member churches of the Council in facing these challenges. As we reflect on what we have been doing and on how we have initiated and developed programmes, and as we prepare for the post-Fifth Assembly period, it is essential that we find more effective ways of avoiding overlapping in programmes and achieving greater intensification in our work without losing the diversity of approaches which are called for, thus facilitating communication with the churches. 2. The concern for coordination and concentration of effort raises another issue which is related to the funding of the operations of the World Council. As you are aware, there is a General Budget which is supported by the contributions of the central treasuries of the member churches. Then there are several other budgets which reflect the structural and funding patterns within the member churches, for example, CICARWS, CWME, and its sponsored agencies, CCPD, the Office of Education. These latter sections of the World Council often command more adequate resources than those which must rely on the General Budget and are able to embark on programmes which, while worthwhile, may overlap or be in competition with, and may even be of lesser priority than, similar programmes elsewhere. Moreover, such is the tight funding of the General Budget that the programmes of the departments covered by that Budget have to be financed by specially raised Programme Project money. The staff have to spend much time soliciting these funds from wherever they can find them. This highly unsatisfactory state of affairs has hindered the effectiveness of the Council and discouraged the member churches from feeling fully responsible for what is being done by the Council on their behalf. Furthermore, the current monetary crisis has revealed the profound weakness of the financial structure of the World Council—an intolerable condition for a body called to do so much and to serve so many. The Finance Committee has often drawn attention to this problem and exhorted the Council to work toward a coordinated budget. Attempts have been made to meet this demand. However, it must be borne in mind that the structures of funding of the World Council reflect, and have largely been imposed by, similar structures of the member churches and their agencies. Any radical changes in the financing of the Council will be ineffectual unless the churches themselves reexamine their own ways of funding and of involving their members. 196 At Home with God and in the World

3. The vagaries of funding within the Council and in the member churches expose another issue which is extremely embarrassing. The World Council is accused of giving far too much attention and effort to social, political and service activities and too little to theological thinking and the ecumenical education of the churches. A recital of our activities, such as I have attempted here, refutes this facile and unfair judgment. Never- theless, a closer examination of the criticism, which comes largely from those rich countries whose churches finance most of the operations of the World Council, reveals a curious irony in the situation. The very churches whose members level this complaint against the Council are the ones whose agencies contribute far more to those departments of the Council which are concerned with meeting human need and matters of development and social justice than to the other parts devoted to theological study and reflection, and to renewal and evangelism. A major problem for those sections of the Council which come under the General Budget, which is financed from the central treasuries of the churches, is that they lack the means of making their work known and felt among the churches. Further, the Communications Department which is charged with the task of increasing communication with the churches comes under the precarious General Budget. This anomaly is being faced fairly and squarely by the various WCC Committees and Commissions concerned, but I hope that this Central Commit- tee will draw the attention of the churches to the dilemma we face. 4. The issues so far raised deal with matters of structure and finance, though they affect considerably the relationship between the Council and the member churches and also the capacity of the Council to meet the challenges of today with the wholeness of the Gospel. But any consideration of the work of the Council must probe deeper into the relations with and between the churches. The Uppsala Assembly and this Central Committee, with the assistance of various national and regional councils, committees and the staff have sought to discern the burning issues of our day, both as regards the life of the churches and their calling to renewal and unity, and the life of society as a whole. We have endeavored to bring Christian thinking to bear upon them and to be messengers of hope in word and deed. But the question must be asked: Do the member churches themselves seek to do the things which their representatives require of the World Council? If there is ignorance, incomprehension or, in a few places, even hostility concerning the work of the World Council, is it because it has little counterpart in what is going on in our churches? The impression I have is that many of our congregations are engaged in styles of worship, Christian nurture and programme activities which are so geared to maintaining a certain “spiritual-security-at-all-costs” that they come perilously near to the first two reactions to the threats and challenges of our time which I described earlier. Many of our people have been so trained in their faith and life that they find it extremely Costly Ecumenism 197 difficult and even dangerous to face the issues of church and community openly and fearlessly. It must also be said that, by and large, member churches have not found it easy to translate insights hammered out in ecumenical debate and frontier action into the life and thinking of the congregations. This “involvement gap” is widening. We must find ways of closing the gap, lest it cause incalculable harm to the ecumenical movement and especially to the effective witness of the churches themselves in today’s world. This situation heightens the conflict between the rich, industrialized North and the poor, industrially underdeveloped South. There is a sense in which the churches in the South have no alternative but to face the challenges of our time because they are the principal sufferers in our world today. This is not to say that they are more alert and ecumenically active than the churches of the North, because their whole life and structure have been influenced by the churches of the North and they have the same human propensities to seek to escape from facing the harsh realities around them. But this is less possible for them than for the churches in affluent countries. It is therefore easier for leaders of churches in the South to encourage and give their moral and verbal support to the programmes of the World Council than for those who come from the North, who have to deal with groups and individuals who are suspicious of what the Council is doing. Here, again, is an element that needs to be looked into more closely because it raises questions about the commitment of the churches to the World Council and to one another. What, for example, is the ecumenical significance of churches in the rich North being tempted to curtail their financial contributions to the World Coun- cil because of programmes of which many of their members and powerful vested interests within their own countries do not approve? What is at stake here is not simply a policy disagreement between a minority of member churches on the one hand, and the Central Committee on the other, but rather the meaning of ecumenical commitment for a divided church in a divided world. The questions I raised last year are relevant here: ‘How do the vast majority of our church members learn? How do they distinguish between what is new and creative over against what are novelties and ephemeral? How do they become open to receiving and sharing their faith with people from cultures other than their own?’ As we take these questions seriously to heart, we face again the recurring problem that membership in the World Council, for many in our constituency, is not perceived as imposing any deep obligation on the churches. I believe that we shall have to give urgent consideration to this matter at the Assembly and in the coming years. Dietrich Bonhoeffer once warned us against “cheap grace” and spoke of the “costly grace” that is the necessary basis of true discipleship. Were he here with us now, he would use equally strong language to denounce the delusion of “cheap ecumenism.” 198 At Home with God and in the World

Like God’s commitment to the oikoumene, the churches’ commitment cannot be cheap and comfortable, for the commitment to which they are called goes the way of the cross—it is costly ecumenism. 4. The claim made earlier that the programmes and activities of the World Council over these years have been a relevant response to the cries of human anguish and have been carried out in a bold and open confrontation with the issues puts the search- light on those who initiate and carry out those programmes and activities, that is, members of Central Committee, other policy-making committees and especially the staff. The mass media and many church leaders and members sometimes present the World Council as though it consisted of committee members and staff over against the member churches. This places an intolerable burden of responsibility on us, and particularly on the staff who are often on the receiving end of sharp criticism and innuendoes. In addressing myself to this matter, I do not wish to be apologetic for our committee members and staff. We represent the diversities of confessions and cultures in our world. We have felt the call to participate fully in this ecumenical movement with all the risks and challenges involved. We have been enabled to be engaged in situations and to acquire knowledge and insights which are denied to most of our church members. We are easily tempted to suffer from impatience and proud annoyance with our churches for not seeing what we see and not doing what we are endeavoring to do. Moreover, our particular situation within the World Council as staff has perils of its own. We share the contradictions of our world, including the urge to escape from the realities of our own lives into various, perhaps sophisticated forms of security. The strains and stresses of having to bear the burdens of a world in anguish in our travels and in our thought and action, are bound to take their toll on our spiritual resources for facing courageously the threats of our time in faith and hope and love. The Structure Committee was fully aware of this concern when it commended activities to deepen the spiritual life of Christians and of the Council. What I am trying to say is that at bottom the World Council, its committees and its staff face fundamentally the same challenges in faith and faithfulness. There is no room here for the “we-they” attitude which has become prevalent in some circles and which threatens our usefulness as a Council and as Churches. We shall have to learn afresh the meaning of repentance, the turning away of ourselves from ourselves to our common Lord whose we are and whom we serve. This means that we must, in the midst of our ecumenical obedience, relentlessly expose ourselves as a Council and as Churches to the purifying Word of the cross, that we may be again and again renewed in mind and heart to real and costly commitment to one another, and to the cause of the unity of God’s people and of the peoples of the world whom he redeemed in Christ Costly Ecumenism 199 and whom he loves. In the process we may discover a new simplicity and spontaneity of living, a new openness to one another and patience with one another, which are indispensable for the pilgrim people of God working for radical change in our world toward a more human existence in justice and community.

Looking Forward to the 1975 Assembly The issues I have tried to raise point to our preparations for the forthcoming Assem- bly under the theme, “Jesus Christ frees and unites.” A great deal will depend on the manner in which the member churches and we who carry responsibility within the Council itself prepare ourselves for the Assembly. It will be the most representative Assembly we shall have had, bringing to its deliberations all the diversities of faith and culture in our world today. It will be an occasion for coming to terms with the cries of anguish and the harsh realities of our world, calling for a variety of responses, and yet in face of severely limited human and financial resources. It will be an encounter of those who participate in the conflicts, the hatreds, the agonies of our nations, and therefore our fellowship will be very sorely tested. It will, above all, be an opportunity to explore together our common faith in Christ who breaks our many fetters, who draws us together for the sake of others, who sends us forth as servants of his liberating, reconciling love. The ecumenical movement has been nourished by prayer, and especially the prayer of our Lord in John 17 for the unity of his people in truth, holiness and love. I think that our widened fellowship and the more manifest conflicts of our time demand that we add the Pauline motif of charismatic differentiation in the Body of Christ in 1 Corin- thians, Chapters 12 to 14. In this double perspective, when we declare “Jesus Christ frees and unites,” we must envisage an ecumenically illumined liberation to discover, proclaim, achieve, correct and maintain our different vocations, individually and corporately, as the building up of the unity of the Body. We must seek, under God’s grace, to be free to be different, free to receive different gifts, free to undertake the differentiated mission of God and discover the unity implied in our difference, free to be one under the cross and in the power of our risen Lord.

20 One Obedience to the Whole Gospel

t the meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Geneva, AJuly 25–August 6, 1977, Philip Potter sought to indicate the interrelatedness of the three major concerns then engaging the Council. These were confessing Christ today, the document “One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry,” and the program on “The Search for a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society.”

Our meeting this year is chiefly concerned with reviewing and promoting the priority programmes we established last year. You will remember that the Review Committee proposed and you commended four major areas of concentration during this post- Assembly period: (a) the expression and communication of our faith in the Triune God; (b) the search for a just, participatory and sustainable society; (c) the unity of the Church and its relation to the unity of mankind; (d) education and renewal in search of true community. Within this broad framework priorities were set for the units and sub-units. During the year under review, there has been intensive activity in all parts of the Council. You will have read the brief reports of the units and sub-units and of the other organs of the Council. It is astonishing how much has been attempted in so short a time, thanks to the enthusiastic involvement of groups and persons all over the world. You will have an opportunity, in the various committees and in plenary session, to give your judgment and counsel on the various programmes. What I would like to do is to draw your attention to the three major concerns which will be widely discussed during these days. There is the main theme, “The Confessing Community,” which takes up the discussion of the Assembly Section on Confessing Christ Today and also the major thrust on the expression and communication of our faith in the Triune God. Secondly, Dr. Lukas Vischer will be reporting on the responses of the churches on the consensus

201 202 At Home with God and in the World document, “One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry.” The third major concern will be the development of a coordinated programme on “The Search for a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society.” My task will be to indicate the interrelatedness of these three concerns and to spell out some implications for the Council and the member churches. During this meeting, we shall be remembering that on August 3, 1927, a momentous event took place in the life of the ecumenical movement—the opening of the first World Conference on Faith and Order at Lausanne. This meeting had its origins in the World Missionary Conference at Edinburgh in 1910. The Anglo-Catholic missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, agreed to participate in that meeting on the understanding that: “questions affecting the differences of doctrine and order between the Christian bodies shall not be brought before the conference for discussion or resolution.” That conference was concerned with “the evangelization of the world in this generation,” but was barred from facing the biggest hindrance to that evangelistic challenge—the centuries-old division of the churches. Neither the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches nor the Roman Catholic Church were represented at that meeting. It was as if the conference was saying to the world: “Doctrine divides, but evangelism unites.” It was, in fact, C. Y. Cheng of China (one of the very few Third World persons present) who jolted the conference by declaring: “Speaking plainly, we hope to see in the near future a united Christian Church without any denominational distinctions. This may seem somewhat peculiar to some of you, but friends, do not forget to view us from our standpoint, and if you fail to do that, the Chinese will remain always a mysterious people to you... There is no time more important than the present. These days are days of foundations from both political and religious standpoints. The future China will largely depend on what is done at the present time... The Church of Christ is universal, not only irrespective of denominations, but also irrespective of nationalities.”1 These words have a sobering ring when we reflect on what has happened in China since the anti-Christian movement in the 1920s, and especially during the past 20 years. One delegate who shared the view of C. Y. Cheng was the Episcopalian Charles Henry Brent who had been a missionary bishop in the Philippines. Immediately after the conference he wrote: “Questions touching the extent and limitations of dogma, the character of authority, the framework of the Church’s government... must be considered by a representative conference yet to be, in the same good-tempered, truth-seeking way that characterized discussion on the topics treated in Edinburgh. . . . The day is coming when the churches must meet for a world conference on these fundamentals.”

1. Faith and Order: Proceedings of the World Conference, Lausanne, August 3–21, 1927 (London: SCM, 1927). One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 203

He persuaded his church to take some initiative on this and by 1920 a meeting was held in Geneva to prepare for the world conference. Around the same time, near Geneva, a group met to lay the foundations of the International Missionary Council which came into being in 1921. One limitation enshrined in its constitution was that: “no decision shall be sought from the Council, and no statement shall be made on any matter involving an ecclesiastical or doctrinal question on which the members of the Council may differ among themselves”; and that “cooperation in work is more likely to be embarrassed by doctrinal differences than cooperation in counsel.” The Lausanne Conference was, therefore, a triumph of the boldness and imaginative enterprise of the ecumenical pioneers. In fact, the Orthodox were well represented at this conference. The issues discussed were: the Church’s Message to the World—the Gospel; the Nature of the Church; the Church’s Common Confession of Faith; the Church’s Ministry; the Sacraments; the Unity of Christendom and the Relation thereto of Existing Churches. Fifty years later, a group of theologians have met near Lausanne to consider the replies of over ninety member churches and of many other groups, including Roman Catholic, to statements commended to them by the Commission on Faith and Order, and by the Nairobi Assembly, on the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist and on the Church’s ministry. Seen in the perspective of the many centuries of division of the churches on these vital doctrines at the heart of the life of the churches, this has been an astonishing achievement. But what is even more significant is that the 1927 Lausanne Conference was not concerned about the unity of the Church for its own sake. Speaker after speaker pleaded for the unity of the Church as a means of more effectively proclaiming the Gospel of reconciliation of the human race with God and with each other. Moreover, the conference stated: “The Gospel is the sure source of power for social regeneration. It proclaims the only way by which humanity can escape from those class and race hatreds which devastate society at present into the enjoyment of national well-being and international friendship and peace. It is also a gracious invitation to the non-Christian world, East and West, to enter into the joy of the living Lord. Sympathizing with the anguish of our generation, with its longing for intellectual sincerity, social justice and spiritual inspiration, the Church in the eternal Gospel meets the needs and fulfils the God-given aspirations of the modern world.”2 This last statement was in the spirit of the World Conference on Life and Work which had been held two years before at Stockholm. That conference also recognized that the Church’s call to proclaim and enact the message of the Kingdom of God and his justice was at the same time a call to mission and unity. It was said in those days that the enabling motive of the Life and Work movement was that: “Doctrine divides, but

2. Ibid., 462–63. 204 At Home with God and in the World service unites.” What stands out about the Lausanne Conference was the need to tackle head on the doctrine which divides in order to unite in mission and service.

Wholeness of Council’s Concerns The point I want to stress here is that, fifty years ago, there was a clear understanding that the faith and order of the churches, and their mandates for evangelism and service were inextricably bound together. This is what has marked the life of the ecumenical movement, and especially of the World Council of Churches since its inception in 1948. Is this as true today as it was in the intention of the churches which covenanted to be members of the Council nearly thirty years ago? This is a vital matter because we are constantly under attack in the Council for not holding the call to unity, mission and service together. In his report to Central Committee in 1965, Dr Visser ‘t Hooft evoked the spirit of the pioneers and said we were under obligation to imitate those things which dominated their life and work. He stated: “True catholicity, dedication to the whole task of the Church, unity for the sake of the Church’s mission in the world, readiness for a renewal of life, these remain part and parcel of the life of the World Council.”3 He went on to say, “the World Council’s work now covers many areas and concerns, but there are as yet too many people in our churches who care only for the specific concern of one particular division or department, and too few who seek to understand and support the whole and who realize that it is only in their togetherness that our various types of work reflect the calling of the Church.” But the matter has gone further in these last years. There are those who perversely and almost parrot-fashion say that the World Council is giving far too much attention to social and political issues and not enough to work for the unity and evangelistic task of the Church, and that our social concerns lack theological grounding. It is therefore interesting to consider the three major issues which will be discussed during this meeting. The statements on “One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry” all relate to the character of the church as the missionary, serving people of God. Here are three clear affirmations: “Baptism is both God’s gift and human commitment, and looks toward a growth into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). By this growth, baptized believers should manifest to the world the new race of a redeemed mankind. Common witness to the churches, to the world, to those who have not yet heard the Gospel and to those who refuse it, is their common responsibility here and now. It is in the fellowship of witness and service that we discover the meaning of God’s gift to all his people... At the Eucharist, the Church is supremely itself and is united with Christ

3. Central Committee of the World Council of Churches: Minutes and Reports of the Eighteenth Meet- ing, Enugu, Nigeria, January 12–21, 1965, 79. One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 205 in his mission. . . . Reconciled in the Eucharist, the members of the body of Christ are called to be servants of reconciliation amongst men and witnesses of the joy of resurrection. Their very presence in the world requires their solidarity with all men, in their sufferings and hopes, to whom they can be signs of the love of Christ who sacrificed himself for all men on the cross and gives himself in the Eucharist. . . All ministry in the Church is to be understood in the light of him who came “not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). It is he who said: “As my Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21). Thus, our calling in Christ constrains us to a costly, dedicated and humble involvement in the needs of mankind. Only so we may understand the whole ministry of the people of God, and . . . the character of the special ministry of those who are called and set apart to serve and equip the Church by their stewardship of the mysteries of Christ . . .”4 At Nairobi, the Section on “Confessing Christ Today” declared that such confession required a confessing community. It said: “The confession of Christ holds in one communion our divided churches and the many communities, new and old, within and around them.”5 “This communion of the Spirit finds its primary aim and ultimate purpose in the eucharistic celebration and the glorification of the triune God. . . . It is our lasting shame and pain that we have not overcome our divisions at the Lord’s Table, where we experience God’s salvation for and on behalf of all humanity.”6 “The confessing community must struggle with the issues of ‘sin and forgiveness, power and powerlessness, exploitation and misery, the universal search for identity, the widespread loss of Christian motivation, and the spiritual longings of those who have not heard Christ’s name.’”7 Again, the programme on “The Search for a Just, Participatory and Sustainable Society” calls for a confessing community with its varied ministries, nourished by the sacraments. The Assembly Section V on “Structures of Injustice and Struggles for Liberation” affirmed: “Christians who suffer together for the cause of justice and liberation find a deep experience of community with each other and with Christ. This community transcends differences of ideology, class, and Christian tradition. It is knit together by the power of forgiveness and love. It reflects the life of the ultimate community of the Triune God, and the expression of its deepest solidarity with the suffering and sinful humanity is the sharing of the Eucharist.”8

4. One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry: Three Agreed Statements (Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1975), 11, 23, 29. 5. David M. Paton, ed., Breaking Barriers (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 48–49. 6. Ibid., 48. 7. Ibid., 48–49. 8. Ibid., 101. 206 At Home with God and in the World

Interaction Lacking in Churches Themselves This small exercise in pointing out the inner connection of the three main themes is an attempt to demonstrate the wholeness of the work of the Council. Why is this wholeness not perceived by the member churches and by others who comment on the activities of the World Council? What does this failure imply for the self-understanding of the churches and also for their understanding of the Council? It is not enough to say that churches or groups interest themselves mainly in one or other programme of the Council. I have known cases where a church may be extremely critical of the Council for not giving enough time and energy to questions of unity or mission, but this church may request the Council’s heavy involvement in meeting human needs or in publicizing its concerns through statements or political representation. That church may accept or give help, but will not acknowledge that it is an expression of that outgo- ing love which is born in the solidarity of faith and prayer and in a fervent desire to promote the renewal and unity of God’s people. The fact is that we have all found it very difficult to keep together these three essential callings of the Church of unity, mission and service to the world as constituting one obedience to the whole Gospel of our Triune God. The ecumenical movement carries its own responsibility for this, because of the limitations which each part of the movement early placed on itself. The missionary movement sought cooperation in counsel for mission and evangelism, but not for doctrine. The Life and Work movement conceived that commitment to service would be a more uniting factor than grappling with doctrine. The Faith and Order movement took the hard way of concentrating on doctrine and on those things which divide the churches, and has worked untiringly at them throughout these years. But for a long time, it did not sufficiently come to terms with the consequences for the unity of the churches of their thinking and acting together in common witness and service. While these movements have been integrated in the World Council, this habit of mind is still widespread. The Nairobi Assembly Programme Guidelines Committee recognized this historic problem and its continued expression in the activities of the Council and the responses of the churches. It emphasized the need for the work of the Council to be seen as a comprehensive whole. “Spiritual, prophetic and enabling dimensions are inseparable parts of the total life and work of the WCC as it acts both with the member churches and for the member churches.”9 However, the issue goes deeper. This lack of interaction between questions of faith and order, mission and evangelism, education and renewal, and service and the quest for justice and peace, exists in the life of the churches themselves. Churches have

9. Ibid., 296. One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 207 tended to emphasize one major aspect or another of our Christian calling according to their historic tradition, and often over against other churches. Their own structures and institutions have also predisposed them to this division of concerns. This has affected the mentality of Christians, with serious consequences. It is especially the case in terms of the churches’ prophetic witness on social and political issues. The training of Christians in the faith has been truncated and so they have not been able to connect their faith with their actions in the world. Nor have they been able to discern the consequences of their actions for their understanding of their faith and their life together. It is my impression that this is at the heart of the spiritual crisis of the churches and of the ecumenical movement. Happily, we are becoming more aware than ever of this crisis and are seeking to be more faithful to the Gospel and to the insights we have received. How, indeed, can we become more faithful to the Gospel and to the insights we have received? What have we been learning during these years of ecumenical fellowship and encounter which will enable the churches and ourselves in the Council to maintain this unity of the faith in all its wholeness? Is there a style of thinking and of being which is a prerequisite for furthering the unity, witness and service of the people of God according to God’s purpose? I believe there is, and we have in fact been learning to practice it. There are three elements in this style of thinking and being.

In the Light of God’s Revealing Word The first is the relentless determination to allow God’s word to reveal, expose the realities around us, to let the text speak in and through the context. It was the philosopher Heidegger who in our time reminded us that truth (aletheia) is nothing abstract, but concrete. Its Greek components, aletheia, mean that which is not hidden, covered up, closed, lost sight of, forgotten. Being human means to uncover things, to bring them to light, to disclose them, to deprive them of their hidden- ness, to bring them into consciousness, to make them open, real, genuine, authentic, present. That is what it means to be true, and live the truth. It is in the discourse in which Jesus declares: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12), that He says: “If you continue in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will liberate you” (John 8:31). My purpose is not to give you a lexical or biblical disquisition, but rather to illustrate the ways in which we are seeking to be true in the ecumenical movement and in our churches. As I understand it, the real significance of the work of the Faith and Order movement during these more than fifty years is that it has dared to tackle those 208 At Home with God and in the World doctrines, dogmas, traditions and ecclesiologies of our churches which have divided us and prevented us from recognizing and practicing one Baptism, one Eucharist, and one ministry. It has relentlessly and patiently brought all these doctrines, dogmas and ecclesiologies out into the open, allowed people to examine them, look at them afresh in the light of God’s disclosing word. Churches and theologians are no longer able to stand behind their dogmatic fortresses and throw darts at each other. Even the language used by different historic church traditions has tended to hide and cover up the reality behind those traditions and dogmas. By restating the issues, new light has been shed, new possibilities disclosed to be liberated for one another and for doing God’s will. The document “One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry,” is a clear example of this process. The age-old issues which have divided the churches have been restated, opened up, and are now placed on the consciences of the churches. It is a process in which new questions are posed, new aspects are brought to light. But there is no going back to the old positions. Rather, the old positions are seen in a new way. I believe this has been the most outstanding contribution of Faith and Order to the ecumenical movement.

Effect on the Churches Similarly, we have been wrestling with each other about the nature of mission and evangelism over these nearly seventy years. We have discovered that the Gospel is no private affair. It is addressed to the whole world. It is not the possession of any church, confession or tradition. In fact, to step out of our church precincts and proclaim the Gospel is to expose ourselves to others, to the realities of the world, to discover how even our expression and communication of the Gospel is conditioned by the world. We realize how, in expounding the text, both what we select from the text and the way we put it over is influenced by the context. To proclaim the Gospel is to expose persons and communities to the realities of their existence, and to point to the reality made public in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. For example, the action/reflection programmes of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (and, earlier, of the International Missionary Council) on churches in mission, on the missionary structure of the congregation, and on urban and industrial mission, have had profound effects on the self-understanding of churches. I will mention only two of them. The first is that it has compelled the churches to realize that the universal Gospel of Christ embraces the whole life of human beings, the public realm, in short all that we mean by politics. We cannot preach the justification of the sinner without declaring the justice of God which demands that all should have right dealings with his creation and with his creatures, their fellow human beings, for One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 209 all persons and all things belong to him. The second effect on the churches is that in their evangelistic encounter with the world they have been disclosed, exposed, brought to consciousness of their own dark, hidden disobedience. They have learned renewal in mission of the confessing community. It is appropriate to remind ourselves that the Book of Apocalypse, the Revelation and disclosure of God’s final purpose for the world, is prefaced by the letters to the seven churches which constitute a call to renewal for participation in the apocalyptic promise of God for the world. This experience together has had tremendous consequences for the ecumenical movement, and in particular for the unity of the Church and for its witness in the world. The most spectacular manifestation of the churches’ involvement in evangelism has been the missionary movement from the West to the countries of the Third World in the past two centuries. But because mission abroad was not matched by a correspondingly vigorous mission at home, it has taken the churches of the Third World and those involved with them to bring to light the realities which I have mentioned. This is also true for those involved in mission in the slums and marginal areas of life in the Western countries.

Exposing Unjust Structures of the World Perhaps the most spectacular contribution of the ecumenical movement in learning and practicing the truth has been in our tradition of service to the world, and of proclaiming God’s Kingdom of justice and peace. Now, the nature of politics is that it is public, not clandestine. Its purpose is to promote the common good and to enable people to share fully in the life of the community. The corruption of politics is when issues and decisions are hidden, when people are confused, kept in ignorance, when they are marginalized, put in a corner, hidden. We live in a world where the economic, social and political structures have done just that. That is why we have become increasingly involved in unmasking, uncovering, exposing all the unjust structures of our world. All that we have been doing in what we now call the search for a just, participatory and sustainable society is simply to carry out this task for the sake of the truth of the Gospel. A few quick illustrations will suffice: In recent years, our Programme to Combat Racism has come under fire not because we denounce racism as sin. We have been doing that for over fifty years. Rather, it is because, through hard and patient study and research, through opening our eyes to the realities, we have exposed the whole anatomy of racial oppression and the ways in which people around the world, especially in the rich countries, have been concretely involved in maintaining racism. Similarly, we have had a long tradition of service to the poor and needy, and more recently have embarked on development aid. But it 210 At Home with God and in the World is when we have brought out the hidden forces which create and maintain poverty through private, corporate or state capitalism, through the transnational corporations, through power elites backed by military might that we have come under heavy fire. Again, nuclear physics and nuclear energy have been the preserve of the laboratory savants and the state technocrats. Experiments have been undertaken, plans have been made and decisions taken which affect profoundly the lives of people but without their knowledge and participation. What has recently been done to lay bare the issues behind nuclear energy and its consequences for human life has quite changed the atmosphere. It has brought it out of the sphere of physics and economics to the proper theological and political sphere of ethics, of options which concern the good of all. These illustrations from the apparently disparate areas of faith and order, mission and evangelism, service and justice all point to the oneness and wholeness of the Gospel and therefore of the work of the churches and of the World Council. But there is a second element in the style of thinking and living necessary for promoting simultaneously the unity, mission and service of the Church, and it is related to the first. I can best express it by evoking the Hebrew meaning of the word truth, emeth, which means trust and trustworthiness, firmness and reliability, affirmation and confirmation, faith and faithfulness. It is not an idea, but a relationship. In the Old Testament truth, faithfulness, is often accompanied by that untranslatable word, hesed, loyalty, steadfast love, solidarity. The Psalmist expresses this graphically as he looks forward to the Lord giving what is good so that the land can yield its increase in righteousness. He uses the poetic form of parallelism: “Steadfast love and faithfulness (truth) will meet; justice and peace will kiss each other; faithfulness (truth) will spring up from the ground, and justice will look down from the sky” (Ps. 85:10-11).

Openness and Trust Truth is related both to steadfast love and justice and peace. It is that trust which makes for open, unconcealed human relationships of sharing and unwavering loyalty. It is confessing community, those bound together in a common loyalty who make public, demonstrate, show forth (that is confess, in the original sense of the Latin word) what holds them and what claims all human beings. It is conciliar fellowship, the trust which comes from confessing our faith in the Triune God and which enables us to be in council together unafraid to face those things which divide us, which still keep us concealed from one another. It is dialogue in community, the trust we have in our fellow human beings of all faiths because we are all made in God’s image and share the same destiny of struggling for justice and peace. It is people’s participation, that trust which breaks through the alienation created by religious dogmatism, racism, sexism, class, caste and One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 211 economic oppression, and enables people to be open to reality and join in solidarity for dealing with it. It is the recognition of identities, otherness, differences as a means to fuller community and sharing. It is the way of accepting, affirming and confirming others as God in his faithfulness—his truth, has accepted, affirmed and confirmed us in Christ and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. The whole burden of the ecumenical movement is to cooperate with God in making the oikumene an oikos, a home, a family of men and women, of young and old, of varied gifts, cultures, possibilities, where openness, trust, love, and justice reign. All our priority programmes in the Council are geared to promote this style of thinking and living. And they are based on the indicative and the imperative of the Gospel, on what God has disclosed in the life and deeds of Christ and on his demands upon us. As the Word became flesh, full of grace, self-giving love, and truth, open loyalty and trust, so we are truly human in word and being when we too are full of this grace and truth. But there is a third element in this style of thinking and living which is inescap- ably related to the others. Openness and trust, the relentless exposure of reality of our broken world in the light of the reality of the Gospel, and the dialogue in community which enables us to be and keep open, demand that we should learn to suffer. There is no openness or trust without suffering. There can be no reconciliation, no peace, no justice in our world unless we are prepared to place ourselves on the line. That means being willing to face fearlessly the painful consequences of the consensus on such matters as “One Baptism, One Eucharist, and a Mutually Recognized Ministry” for moving toward fuller unity. That means that a truly confessing community must learn to be like its Lord who “suffered outside the gate in order to consecrate the people through his own blood” (Heb. 13:12). And the writer to the Hebrews, who has had a lot to say about confessing (Heb. 3:1; 4:14-16; 10:19-25) ends his letter with the exhortation: “Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing abuse for him. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Heb. 13:13-16).

A Struggle of Suffering This also means that the struggle for liberation from all structures of injustice, the violations of human rights, and the human carnage of war is a struggle of suffering. The suffering of which we are speaking is the response to the challenge of Christ: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, 212 At Home with God and in the World but a sword. . . . He who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:34, 38-39). The churches have not always faced the consequences of this challenge. This is especially true about the three major themes of which we are speaking. Over the years, we have obtained far-reaching agreements on matters of faith and order, but the churches have seldom faced the suffering of rigorous self-scrutiny and the willingness to change. Church union schemes have been an exercise in ensuring that the traditions and practices of the negotiating churches are kept intact. Each church expects the other to make sacrifices, but not itself. Our church rules and regulations are often ways of hedging us around, saving our ecclesiastical lives or skins at all costs. Moreover, what have been called non-theological factors—history, culture, economic and political attachments, race and sex—have created situations of concealment and mistrust within and among churches. In many ways, these factors often anaesthetize the churches and make them insensitive to the suffering of change and renewal. The churches are called to be confessing communities, but they do not come to terms with the need to rethink radically the ways in which they conduct their life, budget and spend their money, and employ their energies. It is confessing without pain. In recent years, we have witnessed the agonizing spectacle of churches trying to wriggle themselves out of the disclosure of their corporate involvement in structures of injustice, and their refusal to rid themselves of their complicity with the forces of exploitation and oppression, and to take the costly stand for justice and human rights. We are here reflecting concretely on what it means to bear the cross for the sake of the Gospel and God’s Kingdom of justice and peace. As in Christ the cross was the event which authenticated the integrity of his witness of the truth, the revelation and faithfulness of the Father, so the churches and the World Council are challenged to take on the suffering of the healing and victorious cross as they confront themselves and others who refuse to accept the call to repentance, metanoia, the radical change of thinking and living toward obedience to the Gospel. When the “principalities and powers,” the structures of destructive concealment and mistrust, which refuse to receive Christ as Lord, attack the people of God, suffering for the truth of the Gospel is the way through which doctrine, confession and social involvement become the vehicles of the truth we have to live and proclaim. For us, there is no escape from this calling to suffer. Christ promised us no less. He warned that when we live the way of truth through the Spirit, when we expose the world’s sin and evil, when we manifest loyal trust in our fellow human beings by committing ourselves to their well-being, we attract the hatred of the world. It is in the midst of the world and its hatred that he promises us the Spirit, the Paracletos, he who is called beside us, who One Obedience to the Whole Gospel 213 hears and expresses our speechless groans, who empowers and guides us to continue in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. This spirituality in suffering becomes light and hope in the struggle for a new world in which dwells God’s justice and peace. We are called to this spirituality, that life in the Spirit, which is life-giving and life-sustaining, as our Moderator pleaded this morning.

Return to the Reality of the Cross It is on this note that I want to end this effort at pointing out the wholeness and interrelatedness of the call and task of unity, witness, and service that is laid upon the churches and the World Council of Churches. I have tried to show that we all need to develop a style of living and thinking that enables us to be open with each other and to open up the realities of our existences as persons, churches, and communities; to trust one another and create an atmosphere of trust in our world; and to take upon ourselves the sufferings of Christ, in the power of his resurrection, for the sake of his world. I can only repeat the words of the Assembly Section on “Confessing Christ Today”: “We know that the acceptance of the suffering Christ is the only way to overcome our feelings of powerlessness over against evil. We also know that this acceptance would make us once again credible in the eyes of the world. We therefore pray that our churches will again return to the reality and the promise of the cross, so that together we may find ourselves the steward of the new life in Christ.”10

10. Breaking Barriers, 49.

21 A House of Living Stones

his is Potter’s last official report in his capacity as General Secretary of the World TCouncil of Churches, delivered at its Sixth General Assembly in Vancouver, Canada, in 1983. Throughout this report, he dwells on the image of the church as a house of living stones, quoting from 1 Peter. For Potter, this image contains the great vision of a church meant to be God’s house for the whole inhabited earth.

May I once again greet you warmly at this Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver. This is the second time in the thirty-five years of its existence that the Council’s Assembly has met in North America. The last time was the Second Assembly at Evanston, Illinois, in the USA, in 1954, with the theme, “Jesus Christ the Hope of the World.” We gathered together then, at a time of fear and despair, in the midst of the confrontation between the East and West and the struggles of peoples for political, economic and racial justice around the world. The witch-hunt of McCarthyism was raging in the United States, and its effects were felt in the Assembly. And yet, we were able to say together in the Message: “Here where we stand (under the judgment of God and in the shadow of death), Jesus stood with us. He came to us, truly divine and truly human, to seek and to save. Though we were the enemies of God, Christ died for us. We crucified him, but God raised him from the dead. He is risen. He has overcome the powers of sin and death. A new life has begun. And in his risen and ascended power, he has sent forth into the world a new community, bound together by his spirit, sharing his divine life, and commissioned to make him known throughout the world.”1 These words are still appropriate as we meet nearly thirty years later under the theme: “Jesus Christ—the Life of the World.” We come to Vancouver as those who

1. Evanston Report, 1.

215 216 At Home with God and in the World share the divine life in Christ and desire to offer it in all its fullness to the peoples of the world. In contrast to the Evanston Assembly, we meet now as a much more representative gathering of people from all over the world. We meet, too, under an even darker cloud of fear and despair. The confrontation between East and West and between North and South, and the conflicts within countries between sexes, races, classes and religions, have become much fiercer and more complex. The very survival of the human race is daily threatened. At the Fifth Assembly in Nairobi in 1975, we had a feeling of being in the wilderness, as the children of Israel were after the Exodus, full of doubts and fears. Nevertheless, despite the pain and conflicts we experienced during that meeting, there was no retreat from the positions we had taken and the programmes we had launched after the Fourth Assembly at Uppsala in 1968. Indeed, we committed ourselves to go forward and undertake more specific, even controversial programmes in obedience to our calling. When we examine the official report, “Nairobi to Vancouver,” we can see that in the wilderness of our time we have been able to receive and proclaim God’s word of life. We have had contact with a wider variety of people and more churches have been visited than ever before. We have labored for the unity of the Church and for the renewal of humankind. We have tried to meet human need in every part of the globe, and to be in solidarity with the oppressed and the deprived. We have spoken and acted in situations of conflict. There is a profound sense in which the Church is by its very nature always in the wilderness on its pilgrim way to the City of God or, as the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, to the world (oikoumene) to come (2:5). The Church is the people of God, created and consecrated through the Exodus and the death and resurrection of Christ. It is called to participate in the sufferings of Christ for the salvation of our broken, divided world. At the beginning of the Church’s history it was seen as a community of people scattered all over the Roman Empire, having no legal or social status, and subject to harassment, persecution and death. It was to such diaspora churches that the First Letter of Peter was addressed. We have been drawing from that Letter one of the “Images of Life” in our Bible studies in preparation for this Assembly—the image of “The House made of Living Stones” which is intended to be an image of the Church. I invite you to meditate on what it means to be “the house of living stones” in a hostile world, which nevertheless yearns to be such a house, a living community of sharing in justice and peace. This biblical meditation should help us to reflect on what we have learned during these thirty-five years of the existence of the World Council of Churches about the nature and calling of the churches and about the Council as a fellowship of churches. Peter exhorts the dias- A House of Living Stones 217 pora churches: “Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by people, but in God’s sight chosen and precious: and like living stones be yourselves constantly built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4-5). Christ is God’s delegated and precious living stone. The Psalmist declared, “the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (118:22); so Christ, rejected and crucified, is now the risen, life-giving Lord. That is the foundation of our faith and the basis of the World Council of Churches. Actually, according to the Gospels, it was Jesus himself who drew attention to this Psalm, which is the last of a group of psalms called Hallel (Praise) and sung during and after the great feasts at Jerusalem (Ps. 111-118). Psalm 118 was sung after the Pass- over—the meal which served as the binding force of the people of Israel on the eve of the Exodus. Jesus quoted this verse of Ps. 118 in his controversy with the religious authorities who plotted his death (Mark 12:1-12), on the eve of what Luke called his exodus (Luke 9:31). He spoke to his disciples of being rejected and killed and of rising again after three days (Mark 8:31). In recalling his experience with Jesus and what he learned from it, Peter is saying to the diaspora churches in Asia Minor, as he says to us today, that confessing Christ means entering into his sufferings and sharing his risen life. He invites them and us to keep on coming day after day to Christ the living stone, so that we may ourselves become living stones, share his life and continue his ministry of suffering for humankind in joyful hope. But becoming living stones means that believers and communities of believers do not remain isolated, alone, petrified, dead. They are made alive and are being built into a house, an oikos which is enlivened by the Spirit. Christ is the cornerstone, and the Spirit enables those who come to Christ to be built into this house.

A Living House The word “house” was rich in meaning for the peoples of the ancient Middle East. It signified community, nation, culture, way of life, structure as well as environment. Abraham was called by God out of his father’s bayith, or oikos—that is, out of his nation and culture to form a new oikos, a house based on faith in and obedience to God (Gen. 12:2; 15:5; 17:12-13). This new house, this new people of God found themselves swallowed up into “the house of bondage” in Egypt. They were delivered from Pharaoh (a word which comes from the Egyptian per-aa, the Great House) through the Exodus and were made “the house of Israel.” That is to say, they were given a way of life based on their deliverance from Egypt and directed by the liberating word of the Covenant (Ex. 19-23). As a means of keeping the house of Israel fully and continuously conscious of the nature of their existence and task there was established the house of God, the 218 At Home with God and in the World place of worship, the temple, where people offered their life and their labor to God and received his renewing grace. The drama of Israel was that again and again they lost their loyalty to the founder of the house and accommodated themselves to the ethical and spiritual attitudes of the surrounding cultures or oikoi. They also failed to live as a household according to the covenant, to share a common life in truth, justice and peace. Hence the prophets again and again challenged them, as for example, Jeremiah, when he told them: “Do not trust in these deceiving words: “This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.” For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers for ever.... Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, says the Lord” (Jer. 7:4-7, 11). For Jeremiah, the people of God—the house of Israel—are founded on certain qualities and obligations: justice and mercy, and utter loyalty to God, the Lord of the house. These are based on the Torah, the Law, the words of the Covenant. A house is truly built on those qualities which enable its inhabitants to live together in community and in common wellbeing, shalom. Where these qualities are lacking the house cannot stand. Institutions and structures acquire a demonic character when people lose that strength of being, that clear integrity and sense of purpose which enable them to discern, correct and change their situation. There comes a time, therefore, when existing structures have to be destroyed in order that new structures, a new oikos, can be built up based on a new covenant and enabling people to be responsible for themselves and for one another before God (Jer. 31:27-34). This is what Jesus meant when he said that the old temple would be destroyed in his crucifixion and that he would rebuild it in three days through his resurrection (John 2:19-21). Peter affirms that in the crucified and risen Christ this new house has been built and that all who come to him are living stones forming an integral part of the house, sharing a common life and offering their whole life and that of all to God in the Spirit and through Jesus Christ. He goes on to adopt in a new way some of the other ancient images for Israel when he calls believers “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pet. 2:9a). Believers, as living stones, overcome the separations of racism and become the true human race made in the image of God. Both women and men become the priests of the king and ruler of their lives, offering themselves and the world to God through their worship and their witness. Nationalism with all its exclusivist attitudes gives place to a community consecrated to God and his A House of Living Stones 219 purpose to unite all nations in their diversity into one house. All are the people of God as a sign of God’s plan to unite all peoples into one human family in justice and peace. It is this house which is called to proclaim the wonderful deeds of God who called it out of darkness into his marvellous light (1 Pet. 2:9). This is Peter’s way of confessing the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.” It is this image and understanding of the living house which has motivated the ecumenical movement. As is well known, the word ecumenical is derived from the Greek word oikoumene, meaning the whole inhabited earth. It is a word which came into common use when Alexander the Great was conquering the world of the Middle East and beyond. The intention was that peoples should give up their cultural isolation and participate in a cosmopolitan life through which they would discover their true humanity. That was the oikoumene. When the Romans conquered the Hellenists, their rulers were hailed as lords and saviors of the oikoumene. Against this background we can understand how this word was appropriated by the Greek translators of the Old Testament and the writers of the New Testament. In Psalm 24:1 we read: “The earth is the Lord’s and its fullness; the world and those who dwell in it.” Not Caesar, but Yahweh, the one who has been and is present in the world, is the Lord and savior of the oikoumene, ruling it in truth, justice and peace, and manifesting God’s purpose through the covenant people, the house of Israel. God’s purpose is that the whole oikoumene will recognize God as the true Lord and savior. It is through God that true humanity becomes a promise and a reality. In the New Testament we are told, for example, of Paul and his companions preaching at Thessalonica and of their forming a house church. They are accused before the city authorities as “people who have turned the world, the oikoumene, upside down... and are acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:6-7). The ecumenical movement is, therefore, the means by which the churches which form the house, the oikos of God, are seeking so to live and witness before all peoples that the whole oikoumene may become the oikos of God through the crucified and risen Christ in the power of the life-giving Spirit. The World Council of Churches was formed in 1948 precisely to be a means of enabling this process to take place in the totality of the life and witness of the churches in response to the totality of God’s claim on the life of the oikoumene. What then have we learned during this ecumenical journey of thirty-five years about the nature and calling of the churches which have committed themselves to the fellowship of the World Council of Churches? The reflections which follow are based on my experience and active involvement in the life of the Council from 1948. They should also be read alongside my introduction to the official report, “Nairobi to Vancouver.” 220 At Home with God and in the World

A Fellowship of Confessing First, we have been learning to be a fellowship of confessing. In fact, according to its basis, the World Council is “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and savior according to the scriptures and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” After centuries of separation the churches have been drawn together in a fellowship of confessing communities which live “according to the scriptures.” It is through the biblical renewal of the past fifty years that the churches themselves have been heeding the words of Peter: “The time has come for judgment to begin with the house of God” (1 Pet. 4:17). That was the revolutionary discovery of Martin Luther, the five-hundredth anniversary of whose birth we celebrate this year. He brought back to the center of the life of the Church the sovereignty of God’s judging and redeeming word, that it may constantly be reformed in order to become a true house of living stones. Through the World Council the churches have been constrained to share with one another the ways in which they confess their faith and have, through mutual correction, from time to time become conscious of their own failure to live up to the claims of the Gospel. The ecumenical movement is first of all a call to the churches to penitence, a change of heart and mind in the direction of the offer and demand of Christ, the living stone, and a greater openness to confess together their faith boldly and joyfully in the storm of the world’s life. I want to give one illustration of the ways we have advanced as a fellowship of confessing. When the Orthodox churches and the churches of the Reformation got together to form the World Council, there was great difference between them. Apart from the fact that they did not accept each other as churches in the full sense, there was also a history of proselytism—churches confessing their faith in a competing way and seeking to win converts from other churches. At the Third Assembly at New Delhi, 1961, when the International Missionary Council was integrated into the World Council, there was an agreed statement on “Christian Witness, Proselytism, and Religious Liberty.” The churches were called upon to disavow all forms of proselytism so as to render their common witness to Christ more faithful and more convincing. In the same spirit the Second Vatican Council produced a “Declaration on Religious Liberty” in 1965. Then in 1970 the Joint Working Group of the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches issued a study document on “Christian Witness and Proselytism” where the emphasis was already more on common witness. By 1980, the same Joint Working Group agreed to publish a statement on “Common Witness,” giving many stories of ways in which Christian communities have been confessing their faith together in word and act. The churches have thus been enabled, through the World Council, to clear away many obstacles to their common witness, whether as churches, base communities, or action groups. This amazing fact has too often been taken for granted. A House of Living Stones 221

Moreover, we have been learning the meaning of the words of Peter’s letter: “In your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with modesty and reverence” (3:15). I do not here refer to the notable theological reflections carried out on “Giving an Account of the Hope that is in Us,” but rather to the way in which the churches have been encouraged to carry out a dialogue with people of living faiths and ideologies and with those without faith. The nature of dialogue is as Peter presents it. Even as we reverence Christ, so must we reverence those with whom we have dialogue as an encounter of life with life. In a profound sense Christ is present besides the other, putting his or her claim upon us. Therefore, we must be ready to listen to the other to receive a word of judgment and promise, with the scriptures as our criterion, and be open to be renewed in faith as we pray that God’s Spirit will do God’s own work with the other. In this spirit, the churches and Christians are being renewed to be confessing communities, and so facilitate the building of “the house of living stones.”

A Fellowship of Learning Secondly, we have gained a fresh understanding of the churches as a fellowship of learning. Of course, this has been a characteristic of the Church from the very beginning. Peter uses a very moving image to describe what happens to those who are baptized— who, as in the early church on the eve of Easter, put off their old clothes and descend into the waters of baptism and are crucified with Christ, and rise from the waters in the risen Christ and put on new clothes. Before he evokes the image of the house of living stones, he writes: “Put off all malice and deceit, and insincerity and jealousy and recrimination of every kind. Like newborn babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted that the Lord is good” (2:1-3). The Christian is like a newborn baby who eagerly sucks at its mother’s warm breast to receive the food which will enable it to grow and be a person in its own right. Learning is that intimate process of tasting the goodness of God, what God has done and wills to be done that the world may become truly a home (oikos). Learning in the Bible is a process by which people relate to God and God’s way of truth, righteousness and peace, that they may in obedience practise that way in relation to each other, and extending to the nations. Moses declares: “The Lord said to me: ‘Gather the people to me, that I may let them hear my words, so that they may learn to reverence me all the days that they live upon the earth and that they may teach their children.’ . . . And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, that you might do them in the land which you are going over to possess” (Deut. 4:10,14). Learning does not mean simply acquiring knowledge or skills, or being intellectually equipped, or just memorizing some catechism of faith. Rather it means so entering with our whole being 222 At Home with God and in the World and with all the people into a relationship with God through God’s self-revelation, that our horizons are widened and our wills are strengthened to be right with God and with one another in word and deed. Learning involves a global consciousness of God’s will and way. This concept is incredibly difficult to communicate through present mass media and educational structures and programmes. It is not surprising therefore that the World Council has put a lot of emphasis on ecumenical learning during these last years. All its programmes and meetings are means by which people allow themselves to be opened to the realities of God’s word in the context of the harsh realities of our world. They do so by being opened to each other and being opened to go beyond their local ways of thinking and acting. This Assembly is a living example of what we mean by ecumenical learning. So, too, are the many team visits between our churches which have helped to prepare us for this event. Such learning is a precondition for any effective action in the cause of truth, peace and justice, and the building of true community. However, it has to be admitted that this perception of learning has not been sufficiently built into the programmes of the World Council and that the churches themselves have not sufficiently appropriated the insights and perspectives received through this process of ecumenical learning. And insofar as we fail to take such learning seriously, we fail to become a house of living stones.

A Fellowship of Participation Thirdly, we have become acutely aware that the churches should be a fellowship of participation. In fact, in New Testament Greek, koinonia was the word for “fellowship” and “participation”; it meant a community which is bound together in mutual support, service and sharing. Peter’s image of the house of living stones also points to this koinonia. He speaks of “a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (2: 5), and later of “a royal priesthood” (2:9). One of the great merits of the Reformation was the discovery, based on this very word of Peter, that everyone—woman and man alike—is a priest before God, offering the life of the world to God and receiving his or her life through the eucharistic sacrifice of Christ for the life of the world. God willed that God’s people should act as priests of the king and ruler of the earth, sustaining and caring for the earth as God cares for them. Instead we have followed the ways of the rulers of the earth and created stratified and petrified structures of power in the churches, thus depriving us of our true priesthood to the world and of being living, dynamic stones fitted into a growing, habitable house for all. This has been a persistent concern of the ecumenical movement. We have reminded each other that the Church is, as Peter affirmed, the people, laos, of A House of Living Stones 223

God, and not principally the ordained ministry which, though indispensable, constitutes less than 1% of the house of living stones. We have endeavored to encourage the churches to recognize that young people are not the church of tomorrow but of today. More insistently in recent years we have painfully tried to come to terms with the fact that the house of living stones is a community of women and men fulfilling a common ministry of witness and service to the world. We recall that the first account we have of the Lord’s Supper, what we call holy communion, is given by Paul when he rebukes the rich, upper-class members of the church in Corinth for excluding the poorer and socially despised members (1 Cor. 11:17-34). We are also learning to recognize the right and privilege of the disabled to participate as living members of the body of Christ. Our communion in the body and blood of Christ, our spiritual sacrifices, the offering of the gift of the spirit we have received, demands that we exorcise the heresies of magisterial authority and power in the church and become a true priesthood of all believers among whom the gifts and functions are not imposed but mutually accepted, whether ordained or lay. At the heart of our divisions as churches is this disparity and concentration of power in the life of the churches, which weakens our credibility in a world which is full of power-grabbing and individualism. The challenge to the churches and to the Coun- cil is, therefore, how far we are willing to be obedient to the convictions of our faith that we really become a priesthood of the whole house of living stones, dedicated to God and God’s kingly rule, sharing God’s gifts as we offer them to the world. That is what is involved in being a fellowship of participation, exercising—in love—our priestly task by being with and among the people.

A Fellowship of Sharing Fourthly, we have experienced the blessing of the churches being a fellowship of sharing. Since the end of the Second World War, while the World Council of Churches was still in process of formation, churches have shown a clear will to share their resources as a demonstration of being a house of living stones, crossing the barriers of division caused by war and political conflicts, and meeting human need wherever it arose and with no other motive than caring love. We are now in a difficult process of developing, within the Council itself, means by which we can show the interrelated character of our sharing of material, technical and above all spiritual resources. Peter develops his image of the house of living stones by urging the diaspora churches: “Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Pet. 4:8-10). God’s grace, his self-giving love, has been 224 At Home with God and in the World manifest in Christ, he who gave his body and blood for us and for the world. We share his grace through his gifts, charismata, which are for the good functioning of the house. That is why we are called stewards, oikonomoi, “economists” whose basic understanding of policy is love. Peter also reminds us that Christ’s bearing of our sins in his body means that we might die to our selfish rebellion from God and become “alive to righteousness, justice” (2:24), a term which for Peter, who was brought up in the Hebrew tongue, meant right relations with God and therefore with one another—the relationship of sharing the life which God has given us. It has become fashionable to accuse the World Council and some churches of being too involved in social and economic concerns. This very accusation raises the question of how the churches themselves relate to one another. There is far too little real sharing within and between the churches, not only of material and technical resources which so much dominates our thinking, but of all the gifts of grace which we have received. We have learned in the ecumenical movement that our disunity as churches is in large measure due to our incapacity to practise this genuine sharing of gifts. We tend too much to hang on to the inherited forms of power and prestige and to the petrifying habit of self-sufficiency or of obsequious begging. There is another element in this fellowship of sharing. Within and around the churches are Christian groups or communities which are seeking to use the gifts of the Spirit in ways which are renewing and enriching for all, often to the point of suffering and even death. But the gifts of these groups are not well shared among themselves and with the churches in each country. The churches are sometimes very aloof from these groups, and the groups are equally aloof from the churches’ institutional authorities. This is a particularly acute issue for the World Council, because many of its programmes are carried out with the active groups which dare to use their gifts for the life of the world in personal, costly ways. This has often exacerbated the relations between the churches and the Council. How do we get out of this impasse? How can we together develop a fellowship of sharing, remembering that fellowship and sharing are in fact one reality, koinonia, the communion in the body of Christ for the life of the world? This is one of the critical issues to which I hope this Assembly will address itself.

A Fellowship of Healing Fifthly, we have been learning that the churches are called to be a fellowship of healing. The Council and the churches have been greatly helped to understand this through a series of consultations around the world on “Health, Healing, and Wholeness.” The operative understanding of health now emerging is that it is “a dynamic state of wellbeing of the individual and of society; of physical, mental, spiritual, economic, political A House of Living Stones 225 and social wellbeing; of being in harmony with each other, with the material environment and with God.” It is this holistic approach to health which has caught our attention, and which is demonstrated in the healing ministry of Jesus. Scientists have discovered that matter, and especially the body, is not a mechanistic phenomenon. Therefore, when any part of the mechanism is not functioning properly it cannot be treated in isolation. The body is indeed an organism in which both body and mind, our social and natural environment, play a decisive role. We have to be enabled to participate in the process of understanding the interconnectedness of the house of our bodies in terms of the house of our environment. We must be permitted to share in the process of healing, through mobilizing the stronger elements to support the weaker. Above all, our total state of being in living fellowship with God is essential for health, even if the body dies. This view of health challenges the separations we have created by our present ways of looking at the world and of operating, whether in church or society. We divide the soul from the body, the mind from matter, rational thought from feeling. These dualisms have played havoc with our world, but even more in the churches which have developed these dualisms in systems of dogmas, ethical norms, and attitudes toward persons and society which are quite alien to our biblical and especially Christian heritage. Pursuing his image of the house of living stones, Peter refers to Isaiah 53, saying that it was by the wounds of Christ’s whole self-offering that we are healed (2:24). In this way he calls us to live for righteousness, justice, being in right relations with God and with one other and, we must add, with our environment. The image of the house of living stones is relevant here, because it calls for an understanding of our life as churches in which the house is made up of the living stones being fitted together and functioning as a whole beyond the separateness which marks our existence. The only separateness our faith entertains is that separateness or holiness which means our total devotion and orientation to the triune God, whose inner being and manifestation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is that of mutual exchange, co-inherence within the divine life. It is this co-inherence in our life together which makes for wholeness and peace, that integrated wellbeing, when even death is swallowed up into victory. There is a great need in this area for the churches and the Council to rethink their theological and ethical systems and their style of life, and to overcome their indifference to the natural environment. The image of the house of living stones includes the whole oikoumene, the whole cosmos in which people and all living things have their being.

A Fellowship of Reconciliation Sixthly, we have become deeply mindful of our calling as churches and as a Council to be a fellowship of reconciliation. We have, indeed, been entrusted with the ministry 226 At Home with God and in the World of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18). This is particularly urgent at a time of fierce confrontation, the hurling of anathemas between nations and peoples, especially the powerful ones, and the helpless drift to the apocalyptic annihilation of the oikoumene. As Peter reminds us, the churches are diaspora communities, barely tolerated minorities, ignored, reviled or persecuted if they take a stand for the way of reconciliation. When, therefore, Peter calls these scattered communities to become a house of living stones, and to assume the sufferings of Christ for the world, he is calling for a courageous confrontation with the forces of evil and destruction in the world. Peter does not shirk the fact that reconciliation is not possible without bringing out, rather than pushing under the table, the things which are contrary to God’s purpose for his creation. In his image of the stone, he also quotes from Isaiah 8:14-15. It is instructive to quote the full passage: The Lord said: “Do not call conspiracy all that this people call conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the Lord of hosts, him you shall regard as holy; let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he will become a sanctu- ary, and a stone of offence, and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon; they shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken” (Isa. 8:11-15). Isaiah warns the house of Israel that they should not be seduced by the power games that were going on in the surrounding nations, nor should they make alliances, or for fear be submissive to one side of the conflicts or another. They should expose the conflicts between the powers as denials of the covenant purpose of God, because the outcome of such conflicts is that all will be broken on the rock of offence to God’s will and purpose. It has been a continuing task of the World Council to analyze and expose the underlying causes of injustice and war and to work for the peaceful resolution of conflicts. It was that great early ecumenical pioneer, John R. Mott, who used to say: “We must turn our stumbling blocks into stepping stones.” The Chinese characters for “crisis” mean “danger”—“opportunity.” At this dangerous time in which we meet as an Assembly, I hope that we who represent the house of living stones, coming from the diaspora, will take a clear and unequivocal stand for God’s will for peace and justice, which are inextricably bound together, and will not be tempted to echo the doomed policies of the nations from which we come. The credibility of the Gospel of reconciliation is at stake here. It is significant, in this regard, to remember that the Sermon on the Mount, which calls us to such a ministry of reconciliation, ends with the image of two houses—one built on sand which is bound to fall, and one built on the rock of God’s way of peace. The world will be watching us to know whether we will meet the test of being truly a house of living stones, built on the rock of faith in God who wills peace for all, and the rights of all to be fully themselves whatever their creed or sex or race or class or nation. A House of Living Stones 227

A Fellowship of Unity Seventhly, we have tried to be attentive to the prayer of our Lord that we should be a fellowship of unity. I have mentioned this central calling and task of the ecumenical movement and of the churches at this point, because many are all too prone to say that the World Council is indifferent to our primary task of becoming what we are in the work of God in Christ, one house of living stones offering the eucharistic sacrifice as one people who are destined to offer the sacrifice of their lives for the unity of the oikoumene. On the contrary, I have mentioned this essential calling of the churches here precisely because all that has been said before is about the confession of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. We can claim notable advances in the way toward unity, especially during these thirty-five years. We started timidly and with much mutual suspicion by covenanting to stay together. We tried to describe as openly and honestly as possible to each other the major doctrinal blocks to unity. We moved from there to consider our given unity in the undivided Christ whose crucified and risen life we share, and pledged to let this Christ do his work among us as we seek to be obedient to him. We have since expressed the goal of unity in each place and in all places and all ages in one eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in Christ, that the world may believe. We have gone further and engaged in bilateral and multi- lateral discussions between the different communions, and the Council has assisted in bringing these together into a forum of assessing where we are and where we are going. We see the way forward in working for conciliar fellowship, expressed in various ways, however feebly, not least in the World Council. And we have now asked the churches to facilitate a process by which the congregations can be involved in receiving convergent statements on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. The reactions so far received on this long march toward unity are mixed. But they certainly are marked by the fact that the churches have not yet sufficiently advanced in being a fellowship of confessing, of learning, of participation, of sharing, of healing, and of reconciliation, to overcome the stumbling blocks that have deeply divided them. Unity consists in the living stones being constantly built into the house of the living God and not in rearrangements within static structures. It is an interrelated process in which the diaspora churches are engaged. I hope therefore that all that we say and decide during this Assembly will be judged by whether it promotes the unity of God’s people as the house of living stones and as a sign and sacrament of God’s design to unite all peoples as the oikoumene under the loving rule of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 228 At Home with God and in the World

A Fellowship of Expectancy Finally, we have learned afresh during these years that the churches are a fellowship of expectancy. Their existence is not an end in itself. They point to and are called to be a sign of the kingdom of God. Their constant prayer is: “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The image of the house of living stones is based on an act of celebration: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:3-5). At this Assembly we shall be overwhelmed with the dangers facing our world. Some may be tempted to adopt an attitude of resignation as though all that is necessary is that we keep the faith and let the world go up in flames, an attitude which often goes along with accommodation with the deathly military policies of the powers. Many will be impatient that we are not doing enough and urgently enough to proclaim the Gospel to the world, or to work for peace and justice for all, or to achieve the unity of the churches. We are called to be steadfast in faith, and we will not shrink from speaking and acting boldly in hope and love. Nevertheless, we can only do this as we celebrate our faith in Christ the living stone and as living stones being fitted together into the house of God. Our worship, our prayers, our sharing of our faith with one another will be central to all we say and do. But, as Peter tells the diaspora churches, our living hope as those born anew through the living and abiding word of God (1:23) and as those who taste that the Lord is good, must make us enter into the sufferings of the world as we share the sufferings of Christ. The way ahead is one of pain and suffering, of persecution and death for many. It is the way of faithful living by the deeds of God, but it is also the way of joy. As Peter says: “Rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed” (1 Pet. 4:13). What does all this say to us about the nature and calling of the churches and of the Council? Soon after the Council was formed, there was a big debate about “the ecclesiological significance of the World Council of Churches” at the Central Commit- tee meeting in Toronto in 1950. It was recognized that the Council “represents a new and unprecedented approach to the problem of interchurch relationships” and that it “exists to break the deadlock between the churches.” Over thirty years after, we are able to say that the calling of the churches to be a fellowship of confessing, of learning, of participation, of sharing, of healing, of reconciliation, of unity and of expectancy, has precisely been the preoccupation and task of the World Council. What consequences A House of Living Stones 229 does this reality pose for the churches and for the Council? Can the churches go on behaving as though the Council belongs to their external rather than their internal relations? Can the Council allow itself, through the decisions of representatives of the churches, to go its own way with programmes and activities reaching to groups and others, but not conceived, planned, communicated at all stages, and carried out with the active involvement of the churches? Can the churches conduct themselves as though they exist in isolation from each other and from their fellowship in the World Council, carrying on their programmes and activities with little relation with other churches around the world? Can we go on acting as though we are just stones ineffec- tually scattered around, or shall we allow ourselves to be living stones being gathered together and built into the house of our triune God? Certainly, Peter’s image of the house of living stones reminds us of the inescapable fact that it is only as the churches relate to each other as living stones that they will discover new realities about their essential calling to be the Church, the house of the triune God. And this common calling demands a fellowship of confessing, learning, participation, sharing, healing, reconciliation, unity and expectancy, to the glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The task of the World Council of Churches, as well as of regional and local councils, is to promote this common calling. At Nairobi in 1975 I reminded the Fifth Assembly that it would “have failed in its purpose if we did not advance to a new covenant relationship between the member churches at all levels of their life and the World Council at all levels of its activities.” This reminder is even more urgent here at Vancouver, especially because during this period the relations between several member churches and the Council have been strained, and the Council has come under heavy attack from the media for the actions it has taken in response to the mandate of the Assembly and of the Central Committee. However, our fellowship has become deeper and more lively as we have faced the conflicts openly and frankly under the victorious cross of Christ. There is no life without sharing. Our theme, “Jesus Christ—the Life of the World” is a clear call to let his life permeate our life together as we go forward in hope and with joyous courage to be living stones built into the house which will point to God’s oikoumene being filled with his life.

22 Growing Together as the Body of Christ

hilip Potter gave this report to the World Council of Churches’ Central Committee in PJuly 1984. The meeting considered the significance of the previous year’s assembly in Vancouver, Canada, and its theme, “Jesus Christ—The Life of the World.” The vision of growth that came out of the assembly is developed by Potter in this report.

May I once again express a hearty welcome to you as you gather for your first working meeting as a Central Committee here in the headquarters of the World Council of Churches. We meet almost a year after the assembly in Vancouver that was an unfor- gettable experience for us all. You have been involved in sharing your experience of the Assembly with the churches in your countries and I am sure you have been reflecting on its significance for our pilgrimage together as we seek to be obedient to “Jesus Christ— The Life of the World.” And now you are called to evaluate the Assembly, to translate its guidelines and recommendations into programme priorities for the next years, and to appoint those who will help to guide the implementation of the programmes. My task is to open the discussion on the mandate given to us by the Assembly in the context of the calling of the Council and the member churches. The Programme Guidelines Committee of the Assembly (PGC) reviewed the work of the Council since the Fifth Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, and tried to articulate a vision and shape for the activities of the Council in the coming years. It said in particular: “The emphasis on unity, on common witness, and on the struggle for true humanity is at the heart of the continuity from Nairobi to Vancouver and into the future. Out of this Assembly a new vision has also emerged. It is a vision of growth. The theme of the Assembly, “Jesus Christ—The Life of the World,” expresses this vision. Life is the gift we receive. But unless we continue to grow, the vision of one faith and one humanity will

231 232 At Home with God and in the World not achieve maturity. With the vision of growing more and more into Jesus Christ, the Life of the World, we propose the following interdependent programme guidelines for the WCC for the next seven years.”1 The PGC went on to spell out what this vision of growth could be in five guidelines which should inspire all activities of the Council. They can be summarized as follows: (1) growing toward unity of faith, eucharistic fellowship and service in conciliar fellowship; (2) growing toward full ecclesial, spiritual, and political commitment to justice and peace for the whole world and respect for the integrity of all creation; (3) growing toward vital and coherent theology, incorporating the rich diversity of theological approaches emerging out of the varied experiences of churches throughout the world; (4) growing toward new dimensions of the self-understanding of the churches in living ecumenical engagement with the questions of the nature and calling of the church; its ministry; the nature and exercise of authority; the diverse forms of Christian community; the challenges posed by the threats to true humanity ; the full expression of the church’s ministry of healing and sharing ; and the ways to live and celebrate the church’s faith; (5) growing toward a community of confessing and learning, expressed through compelling proclamation, ecumenical education and spiritual formation in worship and work for the sake of the world. Why did the Programme Guidelines Committee and the Assembly identify the vision of growth as the guiding emphasis for our life together? Gathered around the theme “Jesus Christ—the Life of the World,” the Assembly quite naturally affirmed the fundamental biblical truth that we grow together as we grow into Christ. Life means growth, and growth is determined by Him who gives us life. This was already evident in the three guidelines formulated by the Nairobi Assembly. The first said that WCC programmes should “enable the member churches to grow toward a truly ecumenical, conciliar fellowship” and should “foster growth toward fuller unity.” The second, on the urgent need for the incarnation of our faith in each place, affirmed that “unity among the churches will grow as they live out more fully their incorporation into Christ and their participation in his mission.” The third, on the imperative to participate in the struggle for true humanity, called for the Council to “enable the churches to become communities generating hope, reconciliation, liberation and justice.”2 Indeed, thirty years ago in 1954, at the Second Assembly of the World Council at Evanston, Indiana, on the theme, “Christ—The Hope of the World,” the section on “Our Oneness in Christ and our Disunity as Churches” ended with these words:

1. Gathered for Life, Report of the Sixth Assembly of the WCC, Vancouver, 24 July–10 August 1983, ed. David Gill, (Geneva: WCC, 1983), 250–51. 2. Breaking Barriers, Nairobi 1975, Report of the Fifth Assembly of the WCC (Geneva: WCC, 1976), 297–99. Growing Together as the Body of Christ 233

“Rejoicing in the grace which has been bestowed upon us in His various gifts even in our sin and separateness, we here set our hope on our one Lord Jesus Christ, who comes to take control over our divided and broken estate and to heal it by His grace and power. At Amsterdam, Netherlands, we said that we intend to stay together. He has kept us together. He has shown himself again as our hope. Emboldened by this hope, we dedicate ourselves to God anew, that he may enable us to grow together.”3 This leitmotiv of growing together has been with us as a Council for thirty years. What does it mean for us in terms of our faith? How have we grown together during these years? How shall we grow together in the coming years? These are the questions to which I wish to address myself in this my last report to the Central Committee after being involved in the life and work of the Council since its inception in 1948.

Growing—A Biblical Image The image of growing is no invention of the ecumenical movement. It is not borrowed from secular ideas of growth in terms of material progress. It is a biblical image and has its source and meaning in the revelation of the triune God. Paul uses this image powerfully in his letters to the young churches in Asia Minor—Colossians and Ephesians. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul warns his readers of the danger of “not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God” (2:19). Earlier in the letter, Paul says about Christ: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:15-20). The Christ who is the head of the body, the church, is the Christ who is the head of the whole universe, the whole of creation, who holds all things together and reconciles all things to himself in peace. Those who have been baptized into Christ and made one in his body, the church, are a visible sign of his reconciling all humanity and all creation in their integrity. Growing together is therefore the process by which this reality and this promise become more evident. The image of growth is pointedly used in the encyclical letter to the churches in Asia Minor, including the one in Ephesus. It is put in the context of God’s design, in

3. The Evanston Report: The Second Assembly of the World Council of Churches, 1954 (New York: Harper, 1955), 91. 234 At Home with God and in the World the fullness of time, to unite, to bring to a head all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth (1:10). The first reference to growing is in relation to the division of humanity, symbolized by the division between Jews and Gentiles. In his death Christ has broken down the walls of division and has created one new humanity. He is our peace and he makes peace. He reconciles the divided into one body through the cross. They become “members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building in process is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph. 2:19-22). The process of growing described in this passage is one in which the divisions of race, nation, culture, class and sex are being overcome as we are empowered by the Spirit to be joined together as living stones and are being fitted together in all our diversity to be the place of the presence of God in Christ. The second reference to growing in the letter to the Ephesians is expressed in the calling of the church as the one body in the triune God. The members of the body receive varied gifts through Christ “for the equipment of the saints for the work of ministry” (4:12). And this calling to ministry, service, of the saints, that is, all who are committed to God and to his purpose, is for building up the body of Christ.” Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and upbuilds itself in love” (Eph. 4:15-16). The process of growing here refers to the calling of the church to be a body in and through which all the members are given the grace to exercise the gifts bestowed by God in Christ so that they may become and enable others to become truly and fully human in the image of God through Christ. And the mark of this fully human life is love as revealed in Christ. It is this biblical understanding of growing together in Christ which has been at the heart of the ecumenical movement and of the life and work of the World Council of Churches. That is why the Sixth Assembly had the conviction that the emerging vision for our life and work as churches and as a World Council is that all that we are and do should be seen in the light of God’s call and offer to us to grow together into the life which Christ gives in all its fullness.

Holding Fast to Christ In what ways, then, have we grown together and can we continue to grow together in the fellowship of the World Council of Churches? First and foremost, we have sought to hold fast to and to grow into the Head, who is Christ. The basis of the Council Growing Together as the Body of Christ 235 has been the rallying point of our being and growing together. We are “a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and savior according to the scriptures.” When we reflect on the long centuries of division, isolation and rivalries between the churches, it is a miracle of grace that during these thirty-six years they have been increasingly drawn together into this fellowship. That miracle of grace is Christ, the Head of the body. When the churches have come into living contact with each other, with all their different traditions and self-understandings, it has been through the word of God in Christ, the Head, that they have begun to understand each other. It is through this process that new insights have been received, a new word has been heard in order to be proclaimed, and we have reached breakthroughs in our relations. The current example of this is the converging statement on “Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry.” We are baptized into Christ crucified and risen. The Eucharist is the participation in the body and blood of Christ, and it is he who offers it, not we who decide to give it. The ministry is that ministry (diakonia) of Christ who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. All our work on unity, mission, renewal and prophetic service is based on going to the source, the Head, Christ, through the scriptures. What we have learned as churches is that the mystery of Christ, the Head, is what keeps our life together and that we must learn of him and of his ways of dealing with us, his body, if we are to function as a living, growing organism. The Vancouver Assembly has indicated that we should grow toward a community of confessing and learning, expressed through compelling proclamation, ecumenical education and spiritual formation in worship and work, and also to grow toward vital and coherent theology. Learning and confessing the Gospel and doing theology mean letting the Head, Jesus Christ, open our eyes to the realities of our life in different contexts, and especially to the principalities and powers which hold sway today. It means being constantly transformed by the renewing of our minds, as Paul says in Romans 12:2, that we may prove through action what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. It means above all that we keep growing into the Head, Christ, who, through his suffering and death, took on and defeated the forces of darkness which seek to trample underfoot the image of God in humanity. It means, like Christ, the Head, putting ourselves on the line and being willing to give our lives for the truth of the gospel. Vital theology is a theology for life, the life of Christ in us offered to the world. Coherent theology is theology which enables us to cohere, hold together in all the diversities of our struggle with the powers of darkness in and around us. That is what the brave confessing Christians in Germany affirmed in 1934 in the Barmen Theo- logical Declaration when they were faced with Nazi tyranny. They said unequivocally: 236 At Home with God and in the World

“Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in holy scripture, is the one word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.” That is what groups of Christians are doing today in many places where human rights and human dignity are violated. They do so not only in word, but with their lives, as they rediscover God’s word in Christ, the Head, and as they seek to be faithful to him. It was Martin Luther who taught us: “Living, even more, dying and being damned make a theologian; not understanding, reading or speculation.” If we are a fellowship growing together in doing theology in this way, we shall not be popular. We will be attacked, misrepre- sented and vilified, as we have experienced over these last years. But we will be true to the Head, Christ.

Growing as the Body of Christ Growing together into the Head, Christ, is growing together as the body of Christ. We have often reflected on Paul’s teaching about the body as having many members, each having its own identity. But these members do not exist in isolation from one another, but for one another, and cannot function without the other. Certainly, our growing together in the World Council of Churches as a fellowship of churches has been marked by a painful, though refreshing process of learning how to accept each other and share with each other what we have received from the Head, Christ. Natural and social scientists have been helping us to understand much about the body and its growth. Let us consider our own conception, birth and growth as human beings. Our conception is an act of two persons. For nine months we are within the womb of our mothers and depend entirely on them for our formation until the time that we are born at the risk of their lives. Then we depend on them for our nourishing and early nurture. There is an inter-relation, an inter-connectedness, which is essential in this period. Moreover, the baby or child can only grow in an atmosphere of basic trust. Then it begins to manifest its autonomy, its identity, as it learns to move and act on its own. That, too, depends on trust, now mutual trust between parents and child, and others. The further growth is being able to take initiatives, to test its possibilities in coming into more direct creative contact with the environment of human beings and of nature. All this is one interacting process which continues in different forms throughout a person’s life. Everything depends on this process being conditioned throughout by mutual trust and support. This process of bodily growth is very much in line with Paul’s thought about the body and all its parts growing together both from the Head and into the Head, Christ, in love. In these years we have gone a long way in developing mutual trust as churches. This has been the work of the Spirit among us through our fervent prayers with and for one Growing Together as the Body of Christ 237 another, our tentative steps to each other and to the world in faith and faithfulness, and our willingness to share our material and spiritual resources with each other. The visit of Pope John Paul II was a visible sign of this growing mutual trust. It expressed our real, though imperfect communion in the body of Christ. Through the Joint Statement at the end of the visit, we pledged to take initiatives in exploring more and more our unity given in Christ, the Head of the church, through common reflection, witness and action. Similarly, the Assembly asked the member churches in the fellowship of the Council to develop more dynamic interaction with each other. We need to show more visible signs of this in each place and in all places, in the years to come. But the image of bodily growth also reminds us of the mutual trust and respect essential for living. That means respecting people’s identities and their capacities to take initiatives in a fellowship of trust. This has been far from being the case in our world of racial, ethnic, class and sex oppression. The Council has given prominent attention to the fact that in both church and society racist and sexist discrimination predominate. This is a particularly painful reality in our churches. The Council has been once again asked urgently to give major priority in its programs to striving for a community of women and men, and of white and black, where the identities of people are allowed to have full scope for the enrichment of all. This will be a real test of our commitment to grow together into Christ in whom there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are one in our diversity in him, and through whom we are being enabled to become fully human beings in love.

Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation Growing together into the Head, Christ, means sharing in the life of him who is the Head of the whole human race and of the whole creation. During these years of the life of the Council, we have reflected on and done much to promote a responsible society in justice and peace. In the period after the Nairobi Assembly, we were urged to strive for a just, participatory and sustainable society. We had several programmes on various aspects of this. But it was at the Vancouver Assembly that we pledged to grow together toward justice, peace and the integrity of creation. The sense of urgency has been forced upon us by the desperate situation in which we find ourselves and in which we have placed ourselves in the course of the last two or three centuries and especially in this century. The earth has been steadily despoiled and the atmosphere polluted by the greed of people and faceless corporations, which have operated on the principle of limit- less economic growth through scientific and technological knowledge and skills. Vast millions of people are deprived of the bare necessities of life and tens of thousands die 238 At Home with God and in the World daily. We are busy preparing for nuclear warfare, from land, sea and now outer space, and thus for the annihilation of the human race. This is the grim reality with which we have to live today. It has come from an attitude to creation and to human beings based on a lack of respect and on the survival of the fittest. Conceptually, it is the result of treating phenomena, including the human body, as machines and not as living organ- isms which are essentially interrelated and interdependent. Modern thinkers are trying to recover the understanding of the interrelated character of all that makes up our planet earth. I say recover, because the ancients had a sense of the interconnectedness of things and people. When the Greeks used the word “physics,” they did not mean just the study of what has been called inorganic matter. They used a word which came from the verb phuein, which meant to produce, bring forth, to bring to birth, grow, be formed according to one’s nature, to become. That word phuein is said to come from the more ancient Indo-European word bheu, to grow, as well as to become, to be. Indeed “physics,” used among the ancients, involved not only studying reality but also the practice of healing, and helping to make people and things fit to be what they should be. The Stoics even spoke of the whole universe being a body, with its interrelated parts, whose existence and wellbeing (peace) depended on all the parts functioning through an inner spiritual fire. Similarly, when we use the word “culture” we are not talking of certain expressions of song, literature, manners, and so on. We are speaking about the interrelatedness of people and things. “Culture” comes from a Latin word cultura, the verb of which is colo, colere, which had a wide range of meanings: (a) cultivate, till the land, take care of, cherish, preserve; (b) abide, dwell, stay in a place, hence the word colonus, colony (although that gained a bad meaning later); (c) protect, devote to, revere, honor with worship, from which we get cultus, cult; (d) dress, clothe, adorn, attend to, and there is also the Latin adverb culte which means elegantly, with taste; (e) to live, experience, pass the time. Culture therefore has within it all that relates people to their environment and to what transcends them (cultus) and gives meaning to their existence. This conception of people and things was poignantly brought out in a letter which the American Indian Chief Seattle wrote in 1855 to the President of the United States when he was forced—at the point of a gun—to sell land to white settlers cheaply and was pushed with his people to reserves. For him selling land was unthinkable because human beings did not possess it. They had to care for and live with it, and the creatures on it, in some relationship of understanding. He went on to say: “The smelling flowers are our sisters. The horse and the big eagle are our brothers. The rocky hills and the rich meadows, the warmth of the pony and of the human beings all belong to the same Growing Together as the Body of Christ 239 family. Whatever happens to the earth happens to the children of the earth. Everything is connected with everything like the blood ties of family. Whatever you do to one part, you do to yourself.” These are some of the human groans for a truly human existence in the integrity of creation. Those groans were long heard by God when he made a covenant with Noah to restore human beings and creation after they had been despoiled by human sin and greed. There is a very apt Negro spiritual which says: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time.” But God also sent his Son Jesus Christ who gave his life to redeem the whole human race and the whole creation. It is he who is Head of the body, the church, and who calls us to grow together into him as we covenant for continuing his work of liberating the whole creation to be itself in its integrity, and for reconciling all peoples, tribes, nations, cultures and classes in a life of justice and peace. The unity of the body of Christ must be a powerful sign of God’s design to renew and unite all things in Christ. The Psalmist sang of this promise of God for justice, peace and the integrity of creation, as he prayed for a new spirituality, a new cultus, of placing ourselves and all we do, our culture, into the liberating hands of God: Psalm 85 ends its call to liberating spirituality with the words: “Steadfast love and trust will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Trust and faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky. Yea, the Lord will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase. Righteousness will go before him, and make his footsteps a way” (verses 10-13). I have tried to reflect with you, in my fumbling way, on what is involved when we put before us the vision of growing together in Christ, the life of the world. Indeed, this has in some way been the theme of all my addresses to this Central Committee, and especially to the Vancouver Assembly, when I used the image of the living stones becoming the oikoumene, the home of humanity and creation, among whom God in Christ through the Spirit is present in the fullness of life. I am very well aware that we are only at the beginning of our pilgrimage. I also know that this growing together into Christ demands of us that we go through suffering and death. As Jesus himself told his disciples and as he tells us: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). The condition for growing together is that we die with Christ and be raised with him so that we may continue his ministry of drawing all people and all things to him. That is the way to growth in unity, renewal, mission and service. At the beginning of my address I quoted a statement from the 1954 Evanston Assembly, which ended with the words “we dedicate ourselves to God anew, that he may enable us to grow together.” I remember well the debate that went on around that 240 At Home with God and in the World phrase. Many churchmen did not want that phrase in—they feared that this was an expression of an easy way to unity, in the secular spirit of growth as inevitable progress. This was certainly not the intention, nor is it the intention of the 1983 Vancouver Assembly, for us to rely on our human efforts. The ecumenical movement is God’s, not ours. Rather, our stand is on the words of Paul who wrote to the divided Corin- thian church about their party allegiances to Peter, Paul or Apollos. Paul says: “Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). So let us go forward and grow together as coworkers with God through Jesus Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit. 23 Unity, Common Witness, and Engagement for Human Dignity, Justice, and Peace The Visit of Pope John Paul II

n the occasion of the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, O1984, Philip Potter gave the following welcome address.

Your Holiness, dear Brother in Christ, I have already expressed a word of welcome to you at the beginning of this act of common praise and prayer. May I repeat it again, remembering that you would have been with us three years ago, but for an attempt on your life. We are therefore deeply grateful that you are here today in this Ecumenical Centre, and that you have been preserved by God’s grace to carry out your ministry in the Roman Catholic Church and to the world. I would like also to recognize the presence of your colleagues, and particularly of Cardinal Willebrands, the President of the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, who for over twenty-five years has had close working links with the World Council of Churches and with our member churches and has done so much to promote the unity of the church and its renewal for witness and service to all peoples. We meet appropriately at this time of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came upon the waiting, penitent people, who, we are told, “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). This life in the Spirit gave them boldness to act on the promise of the risen Christ that they would be witnesses where they were and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). Our Chris- tian and ecclesial identity springs from the living continuity of this event when the church was born. The Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala in 1968 affirmed, in the section on “The Holy Spirit and the Catholicity of the Church”: “The church gladly confesses the Holy Spirit as ‘The Lord, and giver of life.’ This is the eternal life which God the Father shares with all those who are in fellowship with his

241 242 At Home with God and in the World

Son (1 John 1:1-4). It is an inheritance of the kingdom of that Son, a kingdom which, though fully real, is yet to be fully realized in his coming. In giving this life the Holy Spirit brings sinful men and women through repentance and baptism into the universal fellowship of the forgiven; bears witness through the church to the truth of the Gospel, and makes it credible to people; builds up the church in each place through the proclamation of the word and the celebration of the eucharist; stirs the conscience of the church by the voice of prophets to keep her in the mercy and judgment of God; maintains the church in communion and continuity with the people of God in all ages and places; equips the church to accept and make use of the great variety of God’s gifts bestowed upon its members for the enrichment of human life; empowers the church in her unity to be a ferment in society, for the renewal and unity of humankind; sends men and women into the world equipped to prepare the way for God’s rule on earth by proclaiming freedom to the captives and sight to the blind; awakens Christians to watch for the Lord’s coming, when he will judge the living and the dead, and open the gates of his city to all his people.”1 This is an apt description of the working of the Spirit through the ecumenical movement, and especially through the World Council of Churches, which is a fellowship of over three hundred churches in more than one hundred countries, “which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and savior according to the scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” When your predecessor, Pope Paul VI, visited the Council in 1969, he saw it as “a clear sign of the Christian fellowship which already exists between all the baptized, and thus between the World Council and the Catholic Church.” Pope Paul VI came here four years after the Joint Working Group between the Roman Catho- lic Church and the World Council of Churches was formed and had gone into active operation. This was the period when the Roman Catholic Church was going through radical renewal of life and witness after the Second Vatican Council. This was also the period when the World Council of Churches was seeking to hear and act boldly on the call of the oikoumene, the whole inhabited earth, in response to the message of the Uppsala Assembly: “We heard the cry of those who long for peace; of the hungry and exploited who demand bread and justice; of the victims of discrimination who claim human dignity; and of the increasing millions who seek for the meaning of life. God hears these cries and judges us. He also speaks the liberating word. We hear him say—I go before you. Now that Christ carries away your sinful past, the Spirit frees you to live for others. Anticipate my kingdom in joyful worship and daring acts.”2

1. Uppsala Report 1968: Report of the Forth Assembly of the WCC, July 1986 (Geneva: WCC, 1968), 13–14. 2. Ibid., 5. Unity, Common Witness, and Engagement 243

How then have the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches and its member churches been faithful to our mandate in the Joint Working Group? Firstly, we have given priority “to call the churches to the goal of visible unity in one faith and in one eucharistic fellowship expressed in worship and in common life in Christ, and to advance toward that unity in order that the world may believe.”3 Roman Catholics have joined with Orthodox, Anglicans and Protestants in major studies on the goal of unity and the steps to unity, on catholicity and apostolicity, on the confession of our common faith, and especially on those doctrines which have deeply divided the churches. Indeed, all the churches have now received for their comment and reception a converging theological statement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry. Moreover, we have been describing the unity we seek as a conciliar fellowship of local churches which have their being in God as revealed in Christ and the Holy Spirit, but which manifest a rich diversity and develop their own personality within the integrity of the one apostolic faith. This is being increasingly expressed in the many ways in which churches and Christians are in fact seeking to take counsel and act together as a community of women and men in local, national and regional bodies and in various groups of witness and service. We can only rejoice at this development and encourage it. Secondly, we have together sought to be a community of the Spirit in witnessing to our faith in each place and in all places. To that end, we have produced two studies on “Common Witness and Proselytism” (1970) and on “Common Witness” (1980). In the first study we acknowledged: “Unity in witness and witness in unity. This is the will of Christ for his people. . . . The churches have the privilege and the obligation of giving witness to the truth and new life which is theirs in Christ.” In the second study, we gave examples of how churches and Christians in different countries and in different cultural and political situations are endeavoring to witness together as the whole church with the whole Gospel to the whole of life in the whole world in all its brokenness and its need. Through such common witness we are being drawn together to express a deeper unity in the Spirit and to take more courageous steps toward ecclesial unity. Thirdly, we have been deeply engaged in a common programme on Society, Devel- opment and Peace (SODEPAX) from 1967 to 1980. Since then, we have shared in a Joint Consultative Group on Social Thought and Action. This engagement was laid upon us by the demands of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have been impelled by his own example when he began his ministry as fulfilling the words of the prophet: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable

3. WCC Constitution. 244 At Home with God and in the World year of the Lord” (Luke 4:18-19). We recall that that very announcement of the Gospel message provoked the resolve to destroy Jesus himself. During these years millions have heard and lived out the Gospel message in situations of the violation of human rights; in race, class and sex oppression ; in the struggles for justice, peace, the integrity of creation and the meaning of life. Many have paid for their witness and faithfulness by imprisonment, torture and death. Your Holiness has had ample opportunities to meet Christians around the world who are seeking to be obedient to the Gospel as a sign and sacrament of God’s design to unite all peoples and all things in the Christ who came to give himself in service, that all may share in the divine life in freedom, justice and peace. Certainly, the World Council of Churches has demonstrated concrete solidarity with the poor and the oppressed, and with all those, including Roman Catholics, who are suffering or are in danger because of their faithfulness to the Gospel. However, it has been precisely at this point that we have encountered the tragedy of our divisions between the churches and within them. And it is also at this time that we are facing the breakdown of any viable world economic and political order, and the universalizing of a ruthless military culture that threatens humanity and God’s will for the preservation of his creation. This is an urgent issue before us. It is imperative that we intensify our efforts together not only to work for justice and peace, but also to seek to overcome the tensions and divisions which arise when Christians are in conflict on the means toward peace with justice. Fourthly, in all these endeavors for unity, common witness and engagement for human dignity, justice and peace, we have been striving to mobilize the whole people of God in penitence and renewed spirituality; in recognizing and using the gifts of the Spirit in all their diversity; and in being authentic communities in each place as varied expressions of the universality of the church in continuing Christ’s redemptive ministry. This was the subject of your first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, Your Holiness, and you have since often spoken about it. This we have called ecumenical formation, that is the means by which men and women, young and old, the able and the disabled, have been learning to be renewed in common prayer and in wrestling with the word of God, and to respond with humanity and daring to the demands of the Gospel. Wher- ever this has happened it has given credibility to the churches before the world. But it has also increased tensions with the principalities and powers of this world and has brought out our own weakness within the churches as sharing in the divisions of our world. It is in this context that we meet here today in this year of our Lord, 1984. It is the Spirit who enables us to affirm our destiny to be sons and daughters of God who is love and to be brothers and sisters in the crucified and risen Christ. It is the Spirit Unity, Common Witness, and Engagement 245 who at the same time makes us hear the groans of humanity and of creation, which are waiting to be liberated from the bondage of destruction and death. It is this Spirit, too, who moves in our hearts and helps us in our weakness to be conformed to the image of God’s Son. It is he who reminds us that the church is sign and sacrament of the kingdom of God, who is carrying out his purpose of good for humanity and creation and for life in all its fullness in Christ. We had a foretaste of this at the Vancouver Assembly of the World Council of Churches last year when we were able to celebrate our faith joyfully in “Jesus Christ— The Life of the World” as representatives of the universal body of Christ coming from all places, and when we grappled in openness, honesty and agony with all that divides us as churches and as peoples. We renewed our commitment to the visible unity in diversity of the church, the people of God, to mission and evangelism, to peace with justice, and to growing together into Christ the life of the world. Your Holiness, your presence among us at this feast of Pentecost is a clear indication of our united determination to proclaim and live the Gospel in word and deed, and also to seek to follow the prayer of our Lord that we may be one that the world may believe that he whose name we bear was sent for its salvation. But this determination must be expressed in our active involvement together, beyond formal collaboration, in renewed life in the Spirit, in discerning the signs of the times, in concrete acts of obedience to the Gospel in each place, in being willing to find new ways of enabling the people of God to manifest the gifts of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Your Holiness has frequently and eloquently affirmed this. Our communion in Christ through the Spirit, however incomplete, calls for our common witness to Christ who redeemed the world and who also will come again to unveil the kingly rule of God over all peoples and the whole creation. That is why we sing Veni Creator Spiritus. That is why, in welcoming one another as Christ welcomed us, we can say together to ourselves and to all peoples in the words of the Apostle Paul: “May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope” (Rom. 15:13).

24 South Africa The Task Ahead

he following text is a contribution by Philip Potter to a book documenting the engage- Tment of the World Council of Churches in South Africa. Potter reflects on the role the ecumenical movement played in overcoming apartheid in South Africa and emphasizes the challenges South Africa is facing in the aftermath of the first democratic election in 1994.1

“Let us join hands and march together into the future. . . . We have reached the end of an era.” So spoke Nelson Mandela, who on 10 May 1994, became the first democrati- cally elected president of South Africa. Thirty years earlier, when he was on trial for treason, he had declared: “I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an idea I hope to live for and to achieve. But if need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.” Now, after a long struggle in which many have died and in which Mandela and others like him have had “no easy walk to freedom,” he reiterated that commitment before the vast international assembly gathered to greet his inauguration. Mandela’s personal integrity, magnanimity toward his former opponents and prophetic vision of justice and peace for all the peoples of South Africa shine like a rainbow of hope over a storm-clouded world. But he knows that the struggle to turn that vision into practical reality continues to be a long one. He inherits a land fraught with social and economic problems and still suffering from the aftermath of a violent history. It remains a major task of the churches and of the ecumenical movement across the world to continue to help South Africa to create the conditions that will advance the well-being of its peoples and establish a society of justice for all and a lasting peace.

1. First published as Philip A. Potter, “The Task Ahead,” in A Long Struggle: The Involvement of the World Council of Churches in South Africa, ed. Pauline Webb (Geneva: WCC, 1994), 116–26.

247 248 At Home with God and in the World

A Culture of Violence It must be remembered that South Africa was the first place in Africa south of the Sahara in which Europeans really settled. That was in 1652 just four years after the end of the Thirty Years War in Europe, during which over 40% of the population perished and untold destruction was wrought. A group of some fifty settlers accompanied Jan van Riebeeck, the agent of the powerful Dutch East India Company, and arrived in the Cape. By 1680 more than six hundred Dutch were living in Cape Town. Soon after the revo- cation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, three hundred Huguenots arrived who had been expelled from France. Other Europeans, mainly Germans, followed. Their contact with the indigenous people was violent from the start, and this violence marked the history of the relationship. Land was taken by force, communities were destroyed and people were subjected to becoming segregated servants. Slaves were brought in from East Africa, Indonesia and Malaysia, and later indentured laborers from China and India. The coming of the British—first in 1795, more permanently in 1806—brought new elements of violence—between the European peoples and against the blacks, as the whites moved eastward and northward. The blacks were never docile. They resisted forcefully, but the superior arms of the whites were their undoing. In the nineteenth century, commerce, agriculture and farming brought South Africa into the world capitalist economy. The discovery and mining of diamonds and of gold led to the pass laws and the segregation of blacks under armed control. The struggle between the Boers and the British was fierce and bloody, especially during the war of 1899-1902. However, the blacks paid the heaviest price in life and status. The Zulu rebellion of 1906-1908 was ruthlessly put down. After the British established the Union of South Africa in 1910, the way was set for enacting the Native Land Act. This later ensured that 87.3% of the land would be in the hands of whites, leaving the blacks the much less arable 12.7%. The process of making the blacks a dispossessed servant class, without rights, and forcibly confined to a small space in urban and rural areas, went on steadily and relentlessly, until from 1948 the Afrikaner National Party created a fully racist, apartheid police state with a panoply of restrictive legislation. This system was unique in the world, as was the capitalism founded on racial exclusion and oppression. South African society was grounded on and has been maintained by violence for over three hundred years. It is therefore understandable that in the process of changing from a police state to what F. W. de Klerk called in his historic speech on 2 February 1990, “a totally new and just constitutional dispensation,” violence exploded in the black townships and areas. South Africa 249

The conditions of life in the townships are lamentable2—poor housing, inadequate social, health, and educational facilities, conflicts between long-time residents and those released from prison or back from exile, broken homes, drunkenness, drugs and crime. Matters have been further complicated by old ethnic rivalries and conflicting interests. Underlying all this is the rage about the long years of oppression and segregation. It has been said that people become like those whom they oppose. This was all the more evident in South Africa because of the brutalizing and dehumanizing activities of the police, security forces and vigilantes in the townships and rural areas.

A Shared Humanity It was in this situation of violence that Christians and other activists sought to work and witness for a more peaceful environment. One of the remarkable realities is that the majority of blacks (including Coloreds and Asians) have never given in to oppression. They have found all sorts of ways of surviving and maintaining some community life. They have a traditional word for this—ubuntu, shared humanity. This is particularly true of the leadership given by women. There are community-based groups, funded by various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), operating in the cramped and dilapidated townships and other such residential areas. There is an active Education for Democracy campaign, which helped to prepare people for voting in the elections and for participating in local decision-making and action. One significant ecumenical activity, sponsored by the South African Council of Churches (SACC), the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) and the World Council of Churches (WCC), is the Ecumenical Monitoring Programme in South Africa (EMPSA), which has been operating since September 1992, monitoring violence in several townships and also helping the electoral process in close collaboration with local churches, other faith communities and civic bodies. It will continue to work for some time to come to promote a more peaceful atmosphere. The WCC Central Committee, at its meeting in Johannesburg in January 1994, agreed to “establish a programme to overcome violence.” It declared: The purpose of this programme is to challenge and transform the global culture of violence into

2. The 1993 Human Development Report of the UN Development Programme specifically points out that in South Africa the blacks have been a marginalized majority, and quotes the following facts: In a country where the richest 5% of the population, mostly white, own 88% of all the private property, half the population, mainly black, live below the poverty line. The lives of over half of poor black children are being stunted by malnutrition. A third of the black population over fifteen years of age are illiterate. Three-quarters of black teachers are either unqualified or underqualified for their job. The education system thus perpetuates a vicious circle of deprivation and discrimination. For South African blacks the achievement of full political rights is a vital step toward greater participation. But unravelling apartheid completely will be a complex and difficult task in the years ahead. 250 At Home with God and in the World a culture of just peace. . . . There is need to confront and overcome the spirit, logic and practice of war and to develop new theological approaches consonant with the teachings of Christ, which start not with war and move to peace, but with the need for justice. It is in this spirit of justice for the poor and the oppressed that the WCC and its member churches must urgently appeal to the international community and the new government of South Africa to make a significant gesture now in favor of the black community by providing substantial funds to meet the crisis situation in the townships and elsewhere. This should help to facilitate job creation and training, better housing, healthcare and education for the neediest as quickly as possible. It would be a clear sign of the promise of change to a more just and caring society, and help to lessen the prevailing violence. Such action would require intensive, ongoing and constructive co-operation between the state, international bodies, trade unions, management and the wider NGO community. Similarly, some clear gesture must be made in favor of the rural people who have long been deprived of arable or grazing land and thus have little or no possibility to earn a living. Considerable thinking on the crucial land problem has already been done in South Africa itself by church and community groups. What is being proposed is a crash program in favor of the neediest as the prelude to a fully worked out and financed plan of land reform throughout the country. As a matter of urgency, churches have an obligation to conduct a public survey of their own disused arable land and consider making this available to those communities in greatest need.

A Caring Economy Beyond these emergency measures, the pressing task for the WCC and its member churches is to give particular attention to the economic situation of South Africa. The country’s economic structures and wealth have been inextricably bound up with the racist and apartheid system. In no other country in the world has almost 80% of the population been so excluded from participating freely and normally in economic life except in subordinate and restricted positions. Though the media and angry church people attacked the WCC for showing solidarity with the liberation movements through humanitarian grants, the main thrust of the Programme to Combat Racism was to expose the racist economy of South Africa and the connivance of multi-nationals, banks, foreign industries and others in maintaining the racist system and profiting handsomely from it at the expense of the blacks. The most important action of the WCC was to call for the withdrawal of investments, loans and industrial enterprises from South Africa and for comprehensive sanctions. In the end, it was the determined resistance of black people and the economic and financial repercussions South Africa 251 of international sanctions which brought about the decision of the government under F. W. de Klerk to initiate a change of the system. But unless definite decisions are made to meet the unique situation in South Africa, the rich and the protected white people will continue to enjoy the wealth at the expense of the oppressed poor. This would result, in the new situation, in utter chaos. That is why articulating a biblically based position concerning a viable economy for a just and responsible society is critically important for the WCC and the SACC and their member churches. At its inauguration in 1948 (the very year when the apartheid state was formally established in South Africa), the WCC set forth the criteria for judging political and economic systems as follows: Man is created and called to be a free being, responsible to God and his neighbor. Any tendencies in state and society depriving man of the possibility of acting responsibly are a denial of God’s intention for man and his work of salvation. A responsible society is one where freedom is the freedom of men who acknowledge responsibility for justice and order, and where those who hold political authority or economic power are responsible for its exercise to God and the people whose welfare is affected by it. Man must never be made a mere means for political or economic ends. Man is not made for the state but the state for man. Man is not made for production, but production for man. For a society to be responsible under modern conditions it is required that the people have freedom to control, to criticize and to change their governments, that power be made responsible by law and tradition and be distributed as widely as possible through the whole community. It is required that economic justice and equality of opportunity be established for all members of society. The statement made by the SACC in September 1993 on “The Church and Ethical Investment in South Africa” outlines the Code of Conduct suggested for businesses operating in South Africa. It quotes the statement from an ecumenical conference held in February 1992 which tries to give a Christian perspective on economics and the questions which should be answered in relation to it: We understand that economics is neither an end in itself nor does it represent an autonomous sphere with natural laws of its own. We hold that economic activity has to be judged on the basis of the extent to which it provides for all people, particularly for the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed. In that context we ask: Does economic activity enhance life? Does it promote social justice? Does it encourage democracy and participation? Does it preserve the integrity of creation? The economy is a worldwide concern, evoking a clear test of our biblical faith, and addressing it is probably the most pressing ecumenical task in the years ahead. This is why an SACC/WCC consultation in 1991 called for “a caring economy.” 252 At Home with God and in the World

A Crucial Church South Africa is economically the most powerful state in Africa, and particularly in relation to its neighbors. In recent years it has played a dominant and destabilizing role in the countries surrounding it. The WCC and the All-Africa Conference of Churches are aware of these wider relationships and the need to mobilize the churches to joint action. A WCC consultation on “Peace, Democracy, and Violence,” held at Windhoek, Namibia, in December 1993, agreed to an overall goal to “enhance and increase the capacity of the churches and the peoples of Africa in playing a useful role toward a just, peaceful, participatory and sustainable society” and in particular “to promote national, regional and pan-African cooperation in the search for peace and sustainable development.” In South Africa the churches and Christian organizations have a crucial role to play. Here the church has a tremendous task in affirming respect for all human life and the whole of God’s creation. This should lead people to accept one another, to have respect even for the enemy and the life of a criminal and to be prepared to forgive. The important theological issue here is that while a new national constitution can provide for basic human rights and for the pursuit of justice for all people, it is the churches which can help young people and all citizens to discern that these rights are derived from our biblical faith. While the well-known Kairos document of 1986 has rightly been recognized as a prophetic tract of our times, little has been made of the Rustenburg declaration, which emerged from the fully representative national conference of South African church leaders in November 1990 on the theme “Toward a United Christian Witness in a Changing South Africa.” The WCC and some of its member churches were represented at this meeting. The conferences clear statement was: “On this we are all agreed: the unequivocal rejection of apartheid as sin.” In an act of confession, as representatives of the churches in South Africa and throughout the world, they said: “We confess our own sin and acknowledge our heretical part in the policy of apartheid which has led to such extreme suffering for so many of our land. We denounce apartheid in its intention, its implementation and its consequences as an evil policy. The practice and defence of apartheid as though it were biblically and theologically legitimated was an act of disobedience to God, a denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a sin against our unity in the Holy Spirit. It is important to reflect on the three major kinds of guilt expressed: Some of us actively misused the Bible to justify apartheid, leading many to believe that it had the sanction of God. Later we insisted that its motives were good even though its effects were evil. Our slowness to denounce apartheid as sin encouraged the government to retain it. Some of us ignored apartheid’s evil, spiritualizing the Gospel by preaching the sufficiency of individual salvation without social transformation. We South Africa 253 adopted an allegedly neutral stance which in fact resulted in complicity with apartheid. We were often silent when our sisters and brothers were suffering persecution. Some of us were bold in condemning apartheid but timid in resisting it. Some churches failed to give effective support to courageous individuals at the forefront of the protest against evil. We spoke out for justice but our own church structures continued to oppress. We blamed other churches and were blind to our own inconsistencies. In our desire to preserve the church we have sometimes ceased to be the church. . . . We have continued to move in separate worlds while claiming to be one Body... Most of all, we have been unwilling to suffer, loving our comfort more than God’s justice and clinging to our privilege rather than binding ourselves to the poor and oppressed of our land.” Confession was followed by affirmative statements calling for “acts of restitution in the fields of health care, psychological healing, education, housing, employment, economic infrastructure and especially land ownership. For many years greed has led to the taking of land from the poor and weak. Both church and state must address the issue of restoring land to dispossessed people.” Unfortunately, there has been little effective follow-up of all the brave statements made at Rustenburg, nor has there been a serious effort to consider their implications for a wider ecumenical fellowship than at present exists in the SACC. But it remains as a clear expression of the tasks facing the churches of South Africa and all the member churches of the WCC.

A Continuing Vigilance In 1994 the SACC organized an inter-church conference called Vision ‘94. Its theme was “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Ps. 24:1). A “Proclamation to the Christians of Southern Africa” said: “We must assist in devising ethically driven, people-centered economic structures primarily concerned with the eradication of poverty, disease and ignorance; we must monitor and promote the ethical code of investment and economic policies, believing that the needs of people, including work, are basic human rights.” The conference pledged “that all the people of God should take initiatives to form ecumenical clusters in ministering to our extended local communities.” They made a commitment “to continued vigilance, reasserting the prophetic role to ensure justice in society by working for a strong and active church in civil society.” Here was a determined effort to get Christians from the grassroots to make their own what had been said in meetings of Christian leaders. It was a call to renewal of the whole people of God for witness and service in association with people of other faiths and all people of good will. South Africans are determined to move from a theology of resistance to a theology and action of reconstruction. This is a task which the member 254 At Home with God and in the World churches of the WCC are called to take up in fellowship with their brothers and sisters in South Africa. Experience has shown that the WCC and its member churches do not find it easy to move quickly from a prophetic stance to acts of witness and service. We have not been sufficiently vigilant in recognizing the continuing task after the main struggle against racism. The case of South Africa has been the most difficult and persistent because so many interests have been involved. The process of change to a non-racial, non-sexist, democratic society working for the common good will be stubbornly long and arduous. During the past twenty-five years of struggle, many member churches of the WCC have had difficulties about taking a clear stand on South Africa. Their countries and in some cases they themselves had much invested in the racist state. It was in the awareness of this failure of the world Christian fellowship that the WCC assembly at Canberra in 1991 aligned itself with the confession made by the South African churches in the following words: “We join in the spirit of the National Conference of Church Leaders in South Africa which gathered in Rustenburg, in confessing before God and one another the ways in which we have permitted, supported and refused to resist the dehumanizing, oppressive system of apartheid. To the extent we have allowed our sisters and brothers to suffer humiliation, dispossession and death for so long under this oppressive system, we have denied the Gospel of Jesus Christ and violated our unity in the Holy Spirit.” How will this confession be turned into acts of bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance? The ecumenical community maintained the call for sanctions against the apartheid regime until it was satisfied that real changes toward democratic structures were taking place. Several churches have been involved in the Ecumeni- cal Monitoring Programme in South Africa and also in giving many kinds of material and other aid. However, a democratic constitution in South Africa will not necessarily bring about actions toward justice for the oppressed poor. Much will depend on real, costly decisions by the industrialized nations and international financial institutions. This means that the churches and action groups will have to keep themselves well informed, highly organized and aggressively active. They need to continue pressing these governments and institutions to change their economic and financial relations with South Africa in a way which will enable the new government to give priority to the clamant needs of those who have for so long been excluded from enjoying a reasonably human existence. The WCC Central Committee meeting in Johannesburg in January 1994 called on the churches of South Africa “to seize the opportunity to construct a new, inclusive and vital ecumenical movement to confront the challenge to reconstruct and recon- South Africa 255 cile South Africa.” This is also a call to the WCC itself and its member churches to seize this opportunity to become prophetic witnesses in word and deed in confronting the challenge of South Africa, which is a microcosm of the challenge posed all over the world. We are not sufficient in doing these things. But Christ is sufficient—he who has sustained the millions who have suffered and died and yet witnessed in faith, hope and love. May the WCC and all the churches therefore dedicate themselves anew to the tasks ahead “in the power of Christ’s resurrection and in the fellowship of his sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). It seems appropriate to end this record of a long struggle and the task ahead with an old Zulu saying: “When a thorn gets into the toe, the whole body stoops to pick it out.”

Appendices

Biographical Timeline

Early Life August 19, 1921 born in Roseau, Dominica, to Violet Peters and Clement Potter. October 2, 1921 baptized at the Roseau Methodist Church. January 3, 1932 confirmed by the Rev. Donald MacDonald. October 3, 1932 held first political slogan “No Taxation without representation.” Jan 1934–Dec 1938 attended the Roseau Grammar School. Jan 1938–Apr 1943 worked in lawyer’s chambers and in the office of the Attorney General. September 1939 superintendent of Sunday School. March 1940 “society steward” and local preacher on Full Plan. March 1943 received a clear indication of his calling to be a minister of the Word. Apr 1943–May 1944 pastoral apprenticeship in St. Kitts and Nevis. January 1944 accepted as a candidate for the ministry by the Leeward Islands Synod of the Methodist Church.

Theological Education Apr 1944–June 1947 student at Caenwood Theological College, Jamaica. July 1947–July 1948 student at Richmond College, University of London. graduated with BD degree (honors). July 1954 examinations for MTh. degree, London University.

Ecumenical Beginnings April 1945 secretary of Jamaica Youth Movement. July 22–31, 1947 delegate at second World Conference of Christian Youth, Oslo. Aug 22–Sept 4, 1948 youth delegate at first Assembly of WCC, Amsterdam.

259 260 Appendices

SCM, London Aug 1948–Sept 1950 Overseas Secretary for Mission with the SCM, England and Ireland.

Pastor in Haiti Oct 1950–July 1954 minister in Haiti. Stationed at the Cap-Haitien Circuit of the Methodist Church. February 10, 1952 ordained in Port-au-Prince. December 26, 1952 elected chairman of the Youth Committee of WCC.

Youth Department, Geneva Nov 1954–Oct 1960 secretary of the Youth Department, WCC, Geneva. Also editor of News Sheet and Youth. April 8 1956 married to Doreen Cousins, Richmond College Chapel, . University of London.

WSCF, Geneva Nov 1960–Oct 1968 chairman of the WSCF.

MMS, London Apr 1961–Dec 1966 Area Secretary for the MMS, with responsibility for West Africa and the West Indies. November 16, 1965 became a member of the Old Testament Society.

CWME/WCC, Geneva Jan 1967–Dec 1972 Director of the CWME/WCC, Geneva. Associate General Secretary and editor of “International Review of Mission.”

General Secretary/WCC, Geneva August 1, 1972 elected General Secretary of the WCC. Jan 1973–Dec 1984 General Secretary of the WCC. Editor of the “Ecumenical Review.” June 23, 1980 Doreen Potter died. December 9, 1984 made an Ehren-Stiftsherr of the ancient monastery of Loccum. December 21, 1984 married Bärbel von Wartenberg. Biographical Timeline 261

Back in the Caribbean July 1985–Aug 1990 chaplain at the University of the West Indies and lecturer at the United Theological College of the West Indies, Jamaica. Retirement in Germany September 1990 retired in Germany, where he presently resides.

Honorary Degrees and Awards June 1971 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, University of Hamburg. December 1974 conferred Doctor of Law degree, University of the West Indies. December 1976 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, University of Geneva. January 1977 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, University of Bucharest, Theological Institute, Rumania. March 1982 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, Humboldt University, Berlin. March 1984 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, University of Uppsala. July 1985 conferred Doctor of Theology degree, University of Birmingham. April 1986 received the Niwano Peace Prize, Japan. November 1988 received the Dominica Highest Award of Honor.

Tributes

hen in November 2009 the Philip Potter Fund for the promotion of future ecumeni- Wcal leadership, investing in ecumenical leadership formation, was established, the following words of greetings were delivered.

The Years in England: Pauline Webb1 I have in my hands here a small diary dated 1947. I have no intention of giving it to anyone to read. In fact, I can hardly read it myself, although I wrote it. In those immediate post-war years I was still writing between the lines in order to save paper. This has caused my handwriting to be illegibly small ever since. However, an entry for 25 Octo- ber, 1947, makes a good start to recalling my earliest memories of Philip. I recorded that on that day I had been asked, as a young student myself, to chair a gathering welcoming people from overseas studying in Britain. The speaker on that occasion was a certain Philip Potter from the Caribbean who was at the time studying for his MTh at Richmond College, London. He spoke about the recent Conference of the World Student Christian Federation that had been held in Oslo, Norway, and where he had been one of the main speakers. Now I have a confession to make: I was at that time the Secretary of LIFCU, the London Inter-Faculty Christian Union which was regarded as a rival organization to the SCM, the Student Christian Movement. I remember that at King’s College, London, we eschewed the SCM because we thought it had too many theologians in it. I reflected this prejudice when, after his speech, I told Philip I thought his address had been inspiring, but I was doubtful about the soundness of what I called his “ecumenical theology.” Typically, instead of reacting impatiently to this young upstart who knew no theology 1. Pauline Webb was from 1968 to 1975 Vice-Moderator of the Central Committee of the WCC.

263 264 Appendices at all, Philip took my comment seriously. So began a debate between us that lasted for many years to come, until I myself became caught up in ecumenical enthusiasm. We found that we shared, as Methodists, what I would-call a “Weslo-Catholic” heritage. A year later, at a Methodist Youth Conference I attended in 1948, I heard one of the speakers reporting on the First Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in Amsterdam a few weeks before. I was not surprised to learn that the leader of the youth delegation there, and one of the most impressive speakers, had been that same Philip Potter. Whilst at Richmond College, Philip became the Overseas Secretary of the British SCM, having been previously Study Secretary of the Jamaica SCM. In 1950 he returned to the Caribbean where he was appointed as a ministerial missionary to the island of Haiti. There he learned what it means to preach and live the Gospel among the really poor. Following a bout of ill-health, he came back on to the international scene when he was appointed to work in Geneva as Secretary and Director of the Youth Depart- ment of the World Council of Churches. Our paths crossed again when I took up a post in the Education Department of the Methodist Missionary Society, and met there a Jamaican friend, Doreen Cous- ins, who was working at the Mission House whilst studying music in London. I soon learned that she was engaged to Philip Potter whom she had met when he was studying at Caenwood College in Kingston. So I became caught up in the preparations for their wedding in the chapel of Richmond College in 1956, when I actually acted as the photographer. After five years living in Geneva, Philip and Doreen returned to London. Philip was appointed as an Officer of the Methodist Missionary Society (MMS). He was the first person to be appointed to such a post from what we then called “the younger churches,” though in actual fact the Methodist Church of the Caribbean can date its history back further than any other Methodist movement in the world outside Britain. Philip himself had been born in the island of Dominica, where he had inherited in his genes from his mother, a firm Wesleyan tradition, and had also a paternal Roman Catholic background. In London, Philip was given responsibility not only for the whole area of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas, but also for the Methodist Churches in West Africa, who were beginning to move toward autonomy. Philip and Doreen lived in a manse in Hatch End, a quiet suburb of London, which at that time was not at all multi-cultural, as the whole of London has since become. They became popular with their neighbors and were very hospitable to us their colleagues. I had by that time become Editor of the MMS, with an office on the top floor of the building, far away from the offices of the greatly revered Area Officers who would Tributes 265 occasionally summon me down to their desks to discuss some particular article or even book they wanted me to publish. But Philip would always come himself, climbing up the spiral staircase to ask for my advice, with a humility which has always characterized him. Looking back through some of the articles he wrote in those days (though he was never an enthusiastic writer) I recognize a kind of prophetic insight that always perme- ated his preaching. For example, here in our magazine (quaintly called in those days, “The Kingdom Overseas”) is an article by Philip, dated October 1961, called “Glimpse into the Future,” in which he wrote, “The decade before us will bring about quite astonishing political and economic changes not only in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, but also in Britain—a change in the relationship between churches which is hard to define. The relationship will be no longer between MMS and ‘our’ mission fields. Such possessive terms will have to go. A new concept of mission must become evident. Every church, by its very nature, is missionary. . . . This will demand a whole new approach to church life and worship in this country, a new sensitivity to the Church Universal and to the needs of the world.” During this period of working with the Methodist Missionary Society, Philip was charged with the responsibility of seeing several Methodist Churches in West Africa through the process of achieving autonomy—Ghana in 1961, followed swiftly by Nige- ria in 1962 and later the Ivory Coast and Dahomey (Benin). Between many visits to these churches, he also kept up the tradition of what we used to call “deputation work” when those of us working at the Mission House together with missionaries on furlough would spend almost all our weekends taking services and conferences throughout Britain. Philip was always in great demand as a preacher and speaker. I remember personally objecting to the fact that he was often asked to speak about racism in Brit- ain. I always argued that it was we British, associated as we are with the perpetrators of racism, who should be asked to speak about it, not those who are its victims. Philip and l had many long debates on the matter, as we travelled up and down the country, usually continuing to discuss theology. Then one day Philip came up with what was to me a surprising and life-changing suggestion. He recommended me as a participant in a special Programme run by the Union Theological Seminary in New York. It was called PARS—Programme of Advanced Religious Studies, intended, I discovered, to encourage potential future leaders in the ecumenical movement. No sooner had we discussed this over lunch one day with Harry Morton (at that time Scholarships Secretary at the WCC) when I learned that Philip had already called in at the Seminary in New York to arrange for me to be accepted for the year’s study course there in a group of fourteen people from as many different churches and countries. 266 Appendices

Meanwhile, I had very surprisingly been designated as the Vice-President of the Methodist Conference (the lay leader of the Church) to take office in 1965. This was really, I suspect, a way of trying to shut me up in my campaign for the ordination of women, a campaign in which Philip was one of the few men who gave us any support. In my role as Vice-President I was then appointed as a delegate of the Methodist Church to the Fourth WCC Assembly, held in 1968. Philip by this time had returned to live in Geneva, having been appointed in 1967 as the Director of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. So he roped me into giving the report of the Section on Mission at the Assembly itself, which, as you can imagine, was a daunting experience for one unused to large ecumenical gatherings. But thanks to the very small group of women delegates at that Assembly, 9% of the total, there was great pressure for a woman to be given office in the World Council’s Central Committee. That’s how I, to my astonishment and with Philip’s encouragement, found myself elected as the first woman Officer of the Central Committee. I tell all this not because I want you to know my story, but because, like countless numbers of other people, I owe so much to Philip’s ability not only to inspire us, but to encourage whatever potential he has seen in us as he has shared with us his enthusiasm both for the ecumenical movement and the whole mission of the church. I think for me the abiding memory of Philip will always be his leadership of the CWME conference at Bangkok in 1973 on “Salvation Today,” where, with his brilliant gift for etymology combined with his skill in communication, he unpacked for us the meaning of the word “salvation,” in a way which was illustrated by people working in many different situations in our troubled world. I shall always count it as one of my greatest privileges that, owing myself so much to Philip’s friendship and leadership, I was able to announce to the Central Commit- tee of 1972 the election of Philip as General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. As it happens, in that same year I succeeded him in the office he had once held at the MMS as Area Secretary for the Caribbean, where one of my first projects became a Mission from the Caribbean to Britain, fulfilling some of the prophecy he had made years before. I can think of no better way of commemorating all that Philip has given to the ecumenical movement, and to the whole mission of the Gospel, than the launching of this Philip Potter Fund. I trust it will give many other people the kind of opportunities Philip opened up to me. Thank you for inviting me to this launching of the Appeal, and of course, to Philip for all that he has done for me and for so many other people in sharing the ecumenical vision. Tributes 267

With Philip on the Way: Thomas Wieser2 I first met Philip in Geneva during a visit from Paris in the summer of 1953, and neither of us suspected then that three years later we would both end up in New York. Philip, who at that time headed up the WCC Youth Department, was asked to move his office to New York for one year, while I had accepted in 1955 an assignment as study secretary for the U.S. National Student Christian Federation. He and Doreen were married in the summer of 1956, and in the fall of that year, they arrived in New York without a place to stay. So we invited them to stay with us until they could find an apartment, thus starting a tradition of hospitality that has been continuing until today. The reason for Philip’s temporary move to New York was to enlist the participation of the youth movements of U.S churches in the WCC programme. During that time, youth and student work was flourishing in the United States, something that is hard to imagine today. Both the WCC and the WSCF had extensive programmes during the period 1956–1960: The WCC Youth Department was preparing a European conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1960; the WSCF conducted a four-year programme on “The Life and Mission of the Church,” leading up to a world conference in Stras- bourg in 1960. Already at that time Philip initiated something that later in Germany was called a Stammtisch, evenings with ecumenical friends to discuss current issues. One issue that concerned us especially at that time was the lack of interest of young people in social and political affairs. We called them the “silent” generation. Little did we suspect that within a few years they would be followed by another generation that became radically involved in protest movements in the early 1960s. By then Philip was no longer in the Youth Department, but as Chairman of the WSCF executive committee from 1960–1968 he had his full share of exposure to the student turbulences of those years. Meanwhile, he spent six years in Britain, from where he returned to Geneva and to the WCC to head up its Division on World Mission and Evangelism. Mission had also become my focus as I worked on the WCC study on “The Missionary Structure of the Congregation,” in the early 1960s. I might have gotten to Geneva almost at the same time as Philip, if I had accepted the post of Secretary of Evangelism of the WCC. But the things going on then both in church and society in the United States were too exciting for me, and especially for my wife Marguerite, for us to think of leaving the States. And even three years later when Philip asked me to join the staff of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME), it took all of his considerable power of persuasion to get her to agree to accompany me for a three-year (!) assignment. 2. Thomas Wieser was from 1970 to 1973 Conference Secretary for the Mission Conference in Bangkok; 1973 to 1979 Secretary of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism; 1980 to 1984 editor-in- chief of The Ecumenical Review. 268 Appendices

What were the issues in mission then? They were both institutional and conceptual. On the institutional side, integration of the International Missionary Council (IMC) into the WCC challenged the WCC to make mission a central part of its agenda. Under Philip’s leadership this became a reality at the Uppsala Assembly, although not without considerable controversy. The report from the section on “mission” was twice sent back before being accepted by the Assembly. The other challenge of the integration of church and mission was conceptual: How do we think of the church in missionary terms and of mission in ecclesiological terms? Some participants in the debate spoke of “turning the church inside out,” a formula which evoked excitement in some quarters and fear and consternation in others. Philip asked me to help in the study on “Salvation Today,” in preparation for the World Conference under the same title that was held in Bangkok in 1972. The conference took place over the New Year into 1973, so that by the time the meeting ended Philip had exchanged the CWME hat with that of the General Secretary. Because of this accumulation of responsibilities Philip’s speech for the conference did not get completed until the day we left for Bangkok, with the result that some of us spent the night on the plane preparing the German or French translation. It is instructive to read that speech today again. As was his custom, Philip placed mission into the contemporary context, and that description bears an almost frightening similarity to that of today, when he speaks of “people of the whole inhabited world coming together willy nilly” which produces the conflicts of an apocalyptic nature. In hindsight, I also still marvel at the audacity of the title “Salvation Today.” But it did allow for new approaches, and the study and the conference experimented with a number of them, such as exploring the theme through other than verbal expressions (music, dance, collage), and devoting one of the main three sections to the relation of mission to culture. We are skipping over the years of Philip’s time as General Secretary and are picking up our relation at the time when Bärbel and Philip returned from Jamaica in 1990. The centennial of the WSCF was approaching. A preparatory consultation formulated a request to Philip to write a centennial history, with me offering to help. For Philip this was in a way an opportunity to return to his “first love,” the WSCF, but it also offered him the chance to indulge in one of his other predilections: the study of history. Right at the outset he drew up an outline, not just of the hundred years of WSCF history, but also of world history and of church and ecumenical history. lt was again his concern to see everything in context. World history, as well as church and ecumenical history, had to be seen in interaction with WSCF history, and it was in this interaction that their respective meanings emerged. We did not use the expression of the twentieth century Tributes 269 as the ecumenical century at that time, but we actually operated on that assumption, and I am not surprised that it has today become a preoccupation for Philip. As we were looking back at that beginning, we sometimes marveled at the vastness of the vision of the founders of the WSCF. They were no more than half a dozen who gathered in Vadstena, Sweden, in 1895. And even half a century later, at the time of the launching of the WCC, thinking and acting in a truly worldwide perspective still required a certain amount of vision. Today globalization has become the order of the day. The vision has become reality, although not necessarily the reality that the founders of the WSCF or of the WCC had envisioned. The world has, as Martin Luther King observed already some forty years ago, “become a neighborhood,” and his dream was that we could “make of it a sister- and brotherhood.” And so the ecumenical journey will need to continue. Philip had the gift to draw people from all walks of life into this journey. I am grateful to have been, for all these more than fifty years, one of his fellow travellers, his compagnons de route.

Together on the Journey with Philip Potter: Baldwin Sjollema3 Dear Philip, Our ecumenical journey together has been a long and rough one. Together we went through so many storms! I am not talking now of the time in the late fifties, when you were in the WCC Youth Department in those noisy wooden barracks at Malagnou, Geneva, when everyone could hear your contagious laughter throughout the campus! Rather, I want to recall a tiny little bit of the time around the 1968 Uppsala Assembly and the period that followed that great happening, when you were unanimously elected General Secretary at that memorable 1972 WCC Central Committee meeting in Utrecht! We were of course all disciples of “the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.” The news at that time was about post-colonialism, about the total ineffective- ness of our economic and political structures, and the need for revolutionary change. The theme of Uppsala, “Behold! I make all things new,” helped the ecumenical fellowship to squarely confront some of the most urgent issues in our churches and in society. It was a special time, a kairos, particularly, but not only, in regard to racism. We dreamt of a new world and needed to work together for righteousness. And as usual, Philip, you would remind us of the Semitic root of that word, which means to be straight, firm, steel-like. To be just is to be right, acting according to one’s inner being, you said. Secu- rity, you added, is about being able to trust one another, about mutual trust. Maybe we should remember that today, as we talk so much about national security!

3. Baldwin Sjollema was former Director of the Programme to Combat Racism. 270 Appendices

And justice, you said, is related to fruitful soil and the right use of creation! God’s gift of justice, we said together, is also our work, because we are made in his image. And so racial justice, solidarity with the poor, human rights, renewal groups, ecumenical learning and the focus on a truly new community of women and men stem from that time and were greatly and continuously inspired by your vision, Philip. When we left Uppsala, where Martin Luther King was to have preached the opening sermon and where Kenneth Kaunda and James Baldwin told us about some of the world’s most cruel realities, we knew we had a mission, and we believed we were on the journey to the promised land! But seven years later, after the closing of the 1975 Nairobi Assembly, you assembled the staff for a post-mortem and you had to remind us that we were back again in the wilderness, in the desert. The political and the ecumenical climates were worsening. And the very churches that had given us the mandate to act and to take a leadership role, were not really willing to engage in the costly sacrifices they were asked to make. I remember vividly the many times I went to see you, Philip, in your office after most colleagues had already gone home. I would come to see you about the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), when I was in despair and frustration because some of our member churches refused to understand the issues and to move with us in an effort to expose the underlying causes of racism and injustice. I badly needed your help and advice because I wasn’t clear about how to proceed. You would patiently listen to me and then say, “well, chap, let’s first have a little drink,” and you would open your cupboard and take out a bottle of something and before tackling the problems you would put me at ease and we would enjoy being compagnons de route! You wisely taught me then to take myself a little less seriously! Your style was one of real collegial- ity and humility, struggling to discover the answers together. Your authority stemmed from that. Never have I sensed a diktat or pressure from above. Philip, I won’t forget those most precious moments. They comforted me and gave me new hope. Above all, they helped me to understand what living out our faith is about. But entering your office, I often also sensed how heavy and impossible your burden as General Secretary was, and how lonely one can be in that spot. It was a daunting task. And in hindsight, I am seriously asking myself: What would have happened to the PCR if Philip Potter had not been General Secretary? There is another anecdote that perfectly describes Philip’s style in crucial moments: on the eve of the 1976 Geneva talks, initiated by the United Kingdom government, between the parties in the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe conflict, Philip decided that it was time to gather for an evening dinner at the WCC the leaders of the four liberation movements taking part in the negotiations. Imagine these four leaders (Joshua Nkomo, Tributes 271

Robert Mugabe, Abel Muzorewa and Ndabaningi Sithole), some of whom had just been released from prison and who had not seen each other for years. In fact, they had become strangers if not enemies to each other. Philip knew that unless the four leaders had at least some common purpose and understanding of the main issues and pitfalls at the outset of the meeting, they would be an easy target for a divide and rule game by Ian Smith and his white cronies. So, imagine the scene: there we sat uncomfortably at table: several WCC colleagues in between the four leaders, who looked at each other with stony faces. Sensing the mood, Philip, in his inimitable Caribbean style, made a few jokes and told a few stories and slowly the ice began to melt. Then he asked whether the WCC could be of any help, logistically or otherwise, to them during the negotiations. After a silence, Comrade Sithole raised his hand and hesitatingly asked for a typewriter and some carbon paper in order to be able to type his speech for the opening of the conference! There was general laughter, and the dinner became less formal. But a real discussion did not yet take place. Not until we as staff were supposed to bring the four safely back to their respective hotels in town. As we walked to the car park near the library, suddenly the four gentlemen disappeared in the dark. The Swiss security officials, who were there to protect them, became extremely nervous and asked whether we had seen them. We didn’t know either. Until, about twenty minutes later, when they reappeared out of the blue with a smile on their faces! As we drove them back to their hotels they told us: “we have exchanged and agreed to what we are going to say at the opening of the conference tomorrow.” This little story is perhaps symbolic of the small contribution to reconciliation we could make, here and there. Without wanting to overstate what we did at the time, I think it is fair to say that in many ways we had to invent and tread new ground. We tried to relate the agenda of the churches to the agenda of the world. We were ready to risk. We believed that “what is God’s gift is humanity’s task” (Life in All Its Fullness, 89). In your words at the 1983 Vancouver Assembly, Philip, we tried to give heed to your call to become “truly a house of living stones, built on the rock of faith” (Official Report of the 1983 Vancouver Assembly, Report of the General Secretary, 206).

Abbreviations

AACC All Africa Council of Churches Bang Th F Bangalore Theological Forum BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BEM Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry BD Bachelor of Divinity CC Central Committee (WCC) CCC Caribbean Conference of Churches CCIA Commission of the Churches on International Affairs CCPD Commission on the Churches Participation in Development CICARWS Commission on Inter-Church Aid, Refugee and World Service Chr Cent The Christian Century Chr Cris Christianity and Crisis CJRS Caribbean Journal of Religious Studies CMC Christian Medical Commission Com Via Communio Viatorum CWME Commission on World Mission and Evangelism DFI Dialogue with Other Faiths and Ideologies Dok EPD Dokumentation Evangelischer Pressedienst DWME Division of World Mission and Evangelism EATWOT Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians Ec R The Ecumenical Review EDCS Ecumenical Development Cooperative Society EEC European Economic Community EPS Ecumenical Press Service Ev Kom Evangelische Kommentare ESP Ecumenical Sharing of Personnel GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

273 274 Appendices

GDR German Democratic Republic GS General Secretary IMC International Missionary Council IRM International Review of Mission JAM Joint Action for Mission Jap Chr Q Japan Christian Quarterly J Ec St Journal of Ecumenical Studies JMA Juvenile Missionary Association JPSS Just, Participatory, and Sustainable Society JYM Jamaica Youth Movement MCCA The Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas MMS Methodist Missionary Society MTh Master of Theology NCC National Council of Churches NIEO New International Economic Order Ökum Ru Ökumenische Rundschau PCR Programme to Combat Racism PGC Programme Guidelines Committee SCM Student Christian Movement Scot J Th Scottish Journal of Theology SDI Strategic Defence Initiative SODEPAX Secretariat on Society, Development, and Peace SVMU Student Volunteer Missionary Union TEF Theological Education Fund Th Lit Theologische Literaturzeitung Th Today Theology Today UIM Urban and Industrial Mission UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Delevopment USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UTCWI United Theological College of the West Indies UWI University of the West Indies WCC World Council of Churches WCCESSA World Council on Christian Education and Sunday School Association WCRP World Conference of Religions for Peace WSCF World Student Christian Federation YMCA Young Men’s Christian Association YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association Select Bibliography

Addresses and Lectures1 “Children and Youth: Adapting to change and innovation—The Effects on Them of Science, Technology, and Population Pressures, and World Events.” Address, March 1960 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. “Portrait of Amos: The Story of a Prophet in an Affluent Society.” With William Neil and Leslie Weatherhead for the British Broadcasting Corporation, December 8, 1963 (Box 1, MMS Archives, London), 1–16. “Reflections of a Vagabond Field Secretary,” MMS, 1964 (Box 2, MMS Archives, London), 1–6. “The Situation and Challenge of the Christian World Mission: In a World of Secu- larism.” Address given at the missionary convocation of the Presbyterian Church USA, Memphis, Tennessee, July 1967 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. “Come over the Bridge.” Text for television speech, Amsterdam, March 17, 1968. In Dutch, “Kom over de Brug” (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. “Missio Dei.” Paper for Round-Table discussion with Roman Catholic Church, Rome, April 28, 1968 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. Comment for the November 1968 issue of the Church Growth Bulletin, October 1968 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “The Christian Mission in the Development of Peoples.” Address in Montreal, Novem- ber 11, 1968 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–11. 1. For a more comprehensive bibliography, including unpublished material, see Michael Jagessar, Full Life for All: The Work and Theology of Philip A. Potter (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 1997).

275 276 Appendices

“Policy and Strategy of Direct Work of the Churches: The Role of Mission and Evange- lism.” Address given at the meeting of the Committee on Society, Development, and Peace, Bossey, July 2–6, 1969 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “Conversion: The Reality and Limits of Radical Personal Change.” Address given at Yale University, August 1969 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–12. “Mission, Evangelism and the World Council of Churches.” Address given at the U.S. Conference of Churches, September 1970 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–12. “Christian Unity.” Address delivered at the Eighth Assembly of the World Convention of Churches of Christ (Disciples) in Adelaide, Australia, October 20, 1970 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Wort zum Sonntag,” Message given on Labor Day, May 1, 1971 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–2. “Renewal for Mission,” Address given at the second assembly of the Pacific Conference of Churches, Fiji, May 1971 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–2. Three biblical meditations on the Book of Revelation, US Conference of the WCC, Madison, Wisconsin, April 30 to May 1, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–2. “The World Council of Churches: Twenty-Five Years of growth.” Address, June 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “God’s Salvation: Power of the Powerless.” Address delivered at the Conference of the Ecumenical Council, West Berlin, June 9, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. Welcome address in honor of Abuna Theophilus, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Centre, Geneva, June 13, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “Future tasks of the World Council of Churches.” Typescript from a tape recording, Geneva, July 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), p.1. “Is the Western Christ Really the One and True Christ?” Address, July 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–9. “Nicht vom Brot allein.” Schlussveranstaltung des Deutschen Kirchentags, Düsseldorf, July 1, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Global Realities for Mission Today.” Address to the assembly of United Methodist Women at the Convention Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 5, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. Edited text in Response 6, no. 1 (January 1974): 14–15, 38–40. Select Bibliography 277

“Konsens und Kommunikation.” Address, Arnoldshain, October 9, 1973 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–19. Address given at the consultation on “Development Policy of Europe,” Bad Boll, Janu- ary 25–27, 1974 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. “The Reformation for Liberation and Community.” German translation, “Die Refor- mation zur Befreiung und Gemeinschaft.” Address, Munich, November 3, 1974 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–14. Address at the United Nations World Food Conference, Geneva, November 11, 1974 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–7. Message on the Occasion of the Inauguration of the Ralla Ram Memorial Buildings of the Student Christian Movement of India, Bangalore, June 28, 1975 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. “Church Renewal in Ecumenical Perspective.” An introduction to the thought of Ernst Lange, July 1975 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–14. “The Ecumenical Movement, the World Council of Churches, and the Future.” Address given at the meeting of Nordic Ecumenical Secretaries, Sigtuna, Sweden, Septem- ber 13, 1975 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. “A Global Challenge,” [1–4] and “What Responsibility Has the Christian Church for the Survival of Mankind?” [1–7] Addresses given on the Occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Life and Work Conference, Geneva, September 5, 1975 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva). Address given at the Ecumenical Development Education Consultation jointly sponsored by CIDSE, the LWF and CCPD, Geroldswill, October 19, 1975 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–8. Address to the World YWCA Executive Committee, Crète Berard, March 18, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Salvation Now.” Address given in Colston Hall at South West Ecumenical Congress, Bristol, March 28, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–7. “Christian Witness in Global Perspective,” “Faithful Witness and Dialogue,” “Cultural Iden- tities within a World Culture,” and “Toward one Human Family.” The Wilber Christian Harr Lectures, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, April 20–21, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10, 1–13, 1–6 and 1–4. “Doing theology in an ecumenical perspective.” Address given at the Lutheran School of Theology, Chicago, April 26, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “The Word of God: Our Hope.” Address given at Falun, Sweden, June 12, 1976, General Secretary Files (WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–11. 278 Appendices

Address to CICARWS Consultation on the Ecumenical Sharing of Personnel, Geneva, June 8, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. Address on the Occasion of the Visit of Cardinal Willebrands to the Ecumenical Centre, September 10, 1976, transcript from a tape recording (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. Address to the World Council of Churches Education for Development Consultation, near Zurich, October 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva). Address to the Fifth Meeting of the Synod of EKD, Brunswick, German Federal Repub- lic, November 8, 1976 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva). “L’Eglise demain: ses projets . . . ses espoirs.” Address on the occasion of the Seven- Hundredth Anniversary of the Collégiale de Neuchâtel, Temple-du-Bas, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Text in English (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–11. “The Contribution of Orthodoxy to the On-Going Ecumenical Movement.” Address on the occasion of the award of an honorary doctorate degree by the University of Bucharest, Theological Institute, Romania, January 15, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Experiencing God in the Dialogue between Cultures.” Address in Tübingen, Stifts- kirche, on the occasion of the Five-Hundredth Anniversary of the University of Tübingen, April 19, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–16. “Jesus Christ in Asian Suffering and Hope.” Niles Memorial Lecture IV, Christian Conference of Asia Sixth Assembly, Penang, West Malaysia, Document no.57 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. Address delivered at the seminar of CCT District Officers, Bangkok Christian College, June 13, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. Address on the occasion of the celebrations of the Uniting Church in Australia, Sydney, June 24, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. “The Ecumenical Vision,” “A Just Society,” “The Universal Dialogue of Cultures.” The Birks Lectures, McGill University, Canada, October 1977 (Documents cannot be located). “Ecumenical Education.” Address given at Week of Staff Meetings, Geneva, October 31, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–8. “Looking Back Into the History of Ecumenical Sharing.” Address at the Ecumenical Sharing of Resources Consultation, Glion, November 6, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–9. “Working Together with Christ for Human Rights.” Address on the occasion of the Assembly of the Caribbean Conference of Churches, Georgetown, Guyana, Novem- ber 16, 1977 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. Address at a Public Meeting during the WCC Executive Committee Meeting, Zurich, February 15, 1978 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. Select Bibliography 279

“The Reformation and the Ecumenical Movement.” Address on the 450th Anniversary of the Reformation, Berne, May 9, 1978 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. Statement to the Ad Hoc Committee of the X. Special Session of the UN General Assem- bly, Geneva, June 12, 1978 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. Address to the Twenty-Fourth Biennial Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, Detroit, July 6, 1978 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–11. “Toward a New Relationship between the WCC and the World Confessional Families.” Address given at the WCC-WCF Consultation, Geneva, October 23, 1978 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. Welcome Address to His Holiness Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, Geneva, February 8, 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. Message to Eberhard Bethge on His Seventieth Birthday, Geneva, March 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1. “Vitality in the Ecumenical Movement.” Address, April 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva). Address to the National Meeting of the United Presbyterian Church, Purdue University, West Lafayette, July 19, 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. “Faith, Hope, Love.” Address given at the Kirchentag, Brunswick, October 9, 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Poor-Rich and the Church.” Address, Geneva, December 17, 1979 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. “The Future of the Ecumenical Movement.” Address given at the Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts, on the occasion of a symposium in honor of His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos’ Twentieth Anniversary as the Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church of North and South America, January 10, 1980 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–8. [Published in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review (1980), 273–79.] Statement on the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimi- nation, Geneva, March 21, 1980 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “Churches Responding to Racism in the 1980’s.” Address given at Consultation (June 16–21, 1980), Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands, June 16, 1980 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–8. “The Prophetic Ministry of the Church.” Address given at Consultation on the Prophetic Ministry of the Church, Bad Boll Academy, Germany, May 6, 1981 (General Secre- tary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–16. 280 Appendices

“Jesus Christ—The Life of the World.” Three Reflections for the British Broadcasting Corporation, England, October 10, 1981 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. Address on the Occasion of the Visit of His Beatitude Justin, Patriarch of the Roma- nian Orthodox Church, Geneva, October 21, 1981 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. Address to the Vancouver Kiwanis Club, Vancouver, October 29, 1981 (General Secre- tary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–7. “Jesus Christ—The Life of the World.” Address given at the Humboldt University, Berlin, March 18, 1982 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–20. Address given at Conference on World Public Opinion and the Special Session on Disarmament, Geneva, March 31, 1982 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. Statement to the Special Session of the UN devoted to Disarmament, New York, June 24, 1982 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–8. Address given at the Silver Jubilee Convention of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, Bangalore, March 24, 1983 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. “Beyond Vancouver: Issues and Challenges.” Address given to Dutch Inter-Church Aid, Utrecht, October 1, 1983 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–11. “The Ecumenical Significance of Martin Luther in Geneva.” A Series of Lectures organized by the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Geneva, on the Occasion of the Five-Hundredth Anniversary of Luther’s Birth (1483–1983), Ecumenical Centre, October 19, 1983 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–13. Address on the Commemoration of Martin Luther’s Five-Hundredth Birthday, Worms, October 29, 1983 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. Address during the Festive Meeting on the Occasion of the Five-Hundredth Birth- day of Martin Luther, at the Market Square, Eisleben, November 10, 1983 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–4. “Wrestling with the Issues of Power.” Opening Address to an Ecumenical Workshop on “Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Power,” Bossey, June 28, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. Address on “Development of a Social Creed,” World Methodist Council, London, July 23, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. “Unity and Mission of the Church.” Address given on the occasion of the One- Hundredth Anniversary of Protestantism in Korea, South Korea, October 12, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. Select Bibliography 281

“Equality and Participation.” Outline of an address given in South Korea, October 13, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–6. “Peace on this Land.” Address given at the Sixtieth Anniversary of the National Coun- cil of Churches of Korea, South Korea, October 14, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–10. Address given at Tozanso Center, Japan, October 29, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–15. Address given on the occasion of being made an Ehrenstiftsherr of the ancient monastery of Loccum, December 9, 1984 (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–5. “Affirming God’s Yes—Theological Resources for Mission.” Address given at the Theo- logical Education Convocation, Nairobi, Kenya, July 21, 1986 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–18. Address given at the Opening Session of the Forty-Ninth Annual Conference of the People’s National Party, Kingston, September 17, 1987 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–12. “Into All The World.” Address given at the Global Conference on Mission and Evan- gelism (January 17–21, 1988), Saint Simon’s Island, Georgia, January 17, 1988 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–14. Address given to the Congressional Study Mission on Caribbean Development Agenda for the 1990’s, Jamaica, November 3, 1989 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–12. “God’s Economy in Creation,” “The Integrity of Creation in Justice and Peace,” and “Covenanting for Participating in God’s Economy.” Addresses given at the Kirchen- tag, Frankfurt (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–20, 1–18, and 1–12. “Abundant Life in Jesus Christ.” Opening Address at the Sixth AACC Assembly, Harare, October 25, 1992 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–14. “The Situation of Christianity in the Oikoumene Today,” “Culture in the Oikoumene,” “The Christian Message in the Oikoumene Today,” and “Image of the Church in the Oikoumene.” Lectures given in Brazil, December 1993 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–13, 1–13, 1–12, and 1–8. “Methodism in England and the Caribbean—A Comparison.” Undated typescript (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. “Methodism and the Ecumenical Movement.” Undated typescript (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–14. “The Structure of Partnership in Mission. Studies in Paul’s Letters to the Philippians.” Undated typescript (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–3. 282 Appendices

“Media and Mission.” Notes on Bible Studies, Undated typescript (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–2. “Western Missions Facing New Tasks Today.” Address, undated typescript (General Secretary Files, WCC Archives, Geneva), 1–9. “Some Random Biographical Notes,” Undated typescript (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), 1–6. “Lecture Notes on Contemporary Trends in Theology.” Course for the Master of Arts in Theology degree, UTCWI, Jamaica, 1988–1990 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), unnumbered pages. “Lecture Notes on Ecumenical Developments in the Caribbean.” Course for the Master of Arts in Theology degree, UTCWI, Jamaica, 1988–1990 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), unnumbered pages. “Lecture Notes on Theology in the Caribbean.” Course for the Master of Arts in Theol- ogy degree, UTCWI, Jamaica, 1988–1990 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany), unnumbered pages. “Lecture Notes on Modern Church History.” Course for the Bachelor of Arts in Theol- ogy degree, UTCWI, Jamaica, 1985–1986 (Potter’s Personal Papers, Stuttgart, Germany.)

Books and Edited Works Life in All Its Fullness: Reflections on the Central Issues of Today’s Ecumenical Agenda (Geneva: WCC, 1983). Keywords of the Gospel: Bible Studies Delivered at the Mexico Meeting of the World Council of Churches Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, 1963. With Hendrikus Berkhof. Preface by Lesslie Newbigin (London: SCM, 1964). Freedom Is for Freeing: A Study Book on Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Mission Educa- tion and Cultivation Program, Department for the Women’s Division, General Board of Global Ministries. With Bärbel von Wartenberg-Potter (United Method- ist Church, 1990). Seeking and Serving the Truth: The First Hundred Years of the World Student Christian Federation. With Thomas Wieser (Geneva: WCC, 1997).

Prefaces, Introductions, and Forewords “Behold I Make All Things New.” Introduction to Behold I Make All Things New (Geneva: WCC, 1964), 3–5. “Für ein politisches Gewissen der Kirche.” Geleitwort to Aus Reden und Schriften 1932 bis 1972 von Kurt Scharf. Edited by Wolfgang Erk (Stuttgart: Steinkopf, 1972), 10–13. Select Bibliography 283

Foreword to Salvation Today, by Arne Sovik (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973), 5–7. Vorwort to Das Heil der Welt Heute. Dokumente der Weltmissions-Konferenz Bang- kok 1973 (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1973), 7–10. “Le Salut Aujourd’hui.” Préface to Documents de la Conference Missionaire Mondiale de Bangkok. Choisis et Présentés par Jacques Rossel (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1973), 7–10. Préface to Le Dévelopement Fou. Le Cri d’alarme des Savants et l’appel des Eglises. Par André Bieler (Genève: Labor et Fides, 1973), 9–11. Foreword to With Eyes Wide Open. Edited by David I. Mitchell. Published by CADEC to commemorate the Inaugural Assembly of the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CADEC: Jamaica, November 1973), 7–8. Preface to A Small Beginning: An Assessment of the First Five Years of the Programme to Combat Racism. By Elizabeth Adler (Geneva: WCC, 1974), v–vi. Foreword to Cantate Domino (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1974), vii–viii. Preface to Liberacion Humana y Union De Las Iglesias: El Consejo Ecumenico Entre Uppsala, Nairobi (1968–1975). By Antonio Matabosch (Madrid: Cristiandad, 1975), 11–12. Preface to Breaking Barriers, Nairobi 1975: The Official Report of the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Nairobi, 23 November–10 December 1975. Edited by David M. Paton (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), ix–x. Introduction to The Orthodox Church in the Ecumenical Movement: Documents and Statements 1902–1975. Edited by Constantin G. Patelos (Geneva: WCC, 1978), 9–11. Introduction to Voices of Unity: Essays in Honor of Willem Visser’t Hooft on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday. Edited by Ans Van der Bent (Geneva: WCC, 1981), v–x. Introduction to Before It Is Too Late: The Challenge of Nuclear Disarmament. Papers from a Consultation held at the Free University, Amsterdam, 23–27 November 1981, edited by Paul Abrecht and Ninan Koshy (Geneva: WCC, 1983). Foreword to Signs of Hope and Justice. Edited by Dr. Jether Pereira Ramalho (Geneva: WCC, 1980). Foreword to Perspectives in Political Ethics: An Ecumenical Enquiry. Edited by Koson Srisang (Geneva: WCC, 1983), vii–viii.

Articles, Addresses, Pamphlets, and Editorials “Statement Presented to the Assembly on Behalf of the Youth Delegation,” Man’s Disor- der and God’s Design: The First Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Vol. 5 (Geneva: WCC 1949), 183–88. “The Field Is the World.” Student World 45, no. 1 (1952): 65–73. “Thinking about the Church Youth Work in Africa.” News Sheet 4 (September–October 1953): 2–4. 284 Appendices

“Bible Study (Matt. 25).” News Sheet 5 (November–December 1953): 2. “Bible Study (Matt. 25).” News Sheet 1 (January 1954): 2. “Youth and the Evanston Assembly.” Ec R 7, no. 2 (January 1955): 105–10. “Asian Travel Diary.” News Sheet 2 (Spring, no. Summer 1956): 16–18. “Caribbean Jaunt.” News Sheet 2 (Spring 1957): 26. “Editorial.” News Sheet 2 (Spring 1957): 2–3. “Christian Youth Responsibility in Contemporary Affairs.” News Sheet 2 (Spring 1957): 11–14. “Editorial.” News Sheet 4 (Winter 1957): 2–3. “Asian Impressions.” Ec R 11, no. 1 (October 1958): 43–51. “Editorial.” News Sheet 1 (Spring 1959): 3–4. “Down to Earth.” News Sheet 2 (Summer 1959): 5–8. “West Indian Churchmanship.” London Quarterly and Holborn Review 185 (1960): 18–22. “Youth and Social Change.” Youth 1 (1960): 1–2. Closing Address to the Ecumenical Youth Assembly, Lausanne 1960, Youth 2 (1960): 71–75. “The People of God,” “A Witnessing People,” “A Holy Nation,” “A Spiritual House,” “A Chosen Race,” and “A Royal Priesthood.” A Series of Bible Studies, One Lord, One World. The Official Report of the third Ecumenical Youth Conference, sponsored by the Youth Committee of the National Council of Churches in New Zealand, and held at Lower Hutt, December 27 1960–January 4 1961, edited by Harold F. Gross (YCNCC: Christchurch, 1961): 49–51. “Going Forward Together into Manifest Unity.” Ec R 14, no. 3 (July 1961): 343–350. Address given to a youth rally held in Filadelphia Hall. Proceedings of the Tenth World Methodist Conference, Oslo, Norway, August 17–25. Edited by E. Benson Perkins and Elmer T. Clark (New York: Abingdon, 1961), 266–69. “Ein fahrender Ritter Christi.” Bis an das Ende der Erde: Ökumenische Beiträge. Zum 70. Geburtstag von D. Martin Niemöller. Edited by Hanfried Krüger (München: Kaiser, 1962), 83–88. “Youth and the Ecumenical Movement,” The Sufficiency of God: Essays on the Ecumeni- cal Hope in Honor of W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft. Edited by Robert Mackie and Charles C. West (London: SCM, 1963), 207–19. “Deliberately Selective.” Review of The Missionaries by Geoffrey Moorhouse, Frontier 16, no. 4 (Winter 1973): 243–44. “Editorial (Christian Presence).” Student World 58, no. 3 (1965): 209–14. “The Missionary Activity of the Church.” World Mission Newsletter 14, no. 1 (February 1967): 1, 4. Select Bibliography 285

“Editorial (Misssion and Vatican II).” IRM 56, no. 223 (July 1967): 263–67. “Editorial (Preparation for Mission).” IRM 56, no. 224 (October 1967): 395–400. “Editorial (Student Revolt).” Student World 61, no. 3 (1968): 197–200. “World in Search of a Saviour—Is There a Word from the Lord?” Address no.1, Summer 1967. Theme Addresses Presbyterian Congress, (Ontario, Queens University, 1968), 72–83. “Questions the World Is Asking.” Address no.2, Summer 1967. Theme Addresses, Pres- byterian Congress, (Ontario, Queens University, 1968), 84–95. “Das ökumenische Gespräch.” Der Methodismus. Edited by C. Ernst Sommer (Stutt- gart: Evangelisches, 1968), 103–19. “Evangelism.” Ec R 20, no. 2 (April 1968): 113–15. “Evangelism and the World Council of Churches. Ec R 20, no. 2 (April 1968): 171–82. A Paper presented at the Central Committee, Heraklion, Crete, August 1967. Central Committee of the WCC: Minutes and Reports of the Twentieth Meeting, Heraklion, Crete, August 15–26 (Geneva: WCC, 1967), 104–15. “Editorial (Salvation).” IRM 57, no. 228 (October 1968): 393–98. “Foundations of Patriotism.” The Now Prophets. Programme Resource Book (January 1969–August 1969). Women Societies of Christian Service, no. Wesleyan Service Guilds, Women’s Division, Board of Missions, (United Methodist Church, 1969), 122–31. “Der europäische Missionsbeitrag.” Explosives Lateinamerika: Der Protestantismus Inmit- ten der Sozialen Revolution. Edited by Theo Tschuy (Berlin: Lettner, 1969), 74–81. “Toward Renewal in Mission.” The Church Crossing Frontiers: Essays in Honor of Bengt Sundkler (Lund: Gleerup, 1969): 244–53. “Editorial (Development).” IRM 58, no. 232 (October 1969): 393–98. “Editorial (Edinburgh 1910 and Now).” IRM 58, no. 233 (January 1970): 3–7. “Re-Thinking the Goal of Mission.” New World Outlook 30 (April 1970): 6–12. “Editorial (Christians in Dialogue with Men of Other Faiths).” IRM 59, no. 236 (Octo- ber 1970): 382–91. “Mission und Rassismus.” Materialdienst 18 (December 1970): 1–6. “Evangelism.” Proceedings of the Twelfth World Methodist Conference, Denver, Colorado, August 18–26, 1971. Edited by Lee F. Tuttle (New York: Abingdon, 1971): 208–18. “Isaiah—The Hope of the World.” Word for the World Book I. A New Series of Daily Bible Readings, January to March (London: Bible Reading Fellowship, 1970), 129–91. “Saint Mark—Mission and Ecumenicity.” Word for the World Book III. A New Series of Daily Bible Readings, July to September. (London: Bible Reading Fellowship, 1971), 8–69. 286 Appendices

“Review of the Memoirs of Père Labat 1693–1705.” IRM 60, no. 238 (April 1971): 291–92. “Where and How Evangelism Takes Place.” Address given at the United Presbyterian Breakfast, May 1971. New World Outlook 31 (December 1971): 8–12. “Editorial (Education and Communication).” IRM 60, no. 240 (October 1971): 431–36. “The Third World and the Ecumenical Movement.” Address given at the University of Hamburg, June 25 1971. Ec R 24, no. 1 (January 1972): 55–71. “Dear Friends.” Address delivered to the Central Committee Meeting of the WCC, Utrecht, Netherlands, August 1972, on the Occasion of Potter’s election as the General Secretary of the Council. Ec R 24, no. 4 (October 1972): 471–73. “Christmas Message 1972.” EPS 34 (December 14 1972): 1–2. “Christ’s Mission and Ours in Today’s World.” Director’s Report, Bangkok Assembly 1973. Minutes and Reports of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism of the WCC, December 31 to January 12 1973 (Geneva: WCC, 1973): 51–63. See also, IRM 62, no. 246 (April 1973): 145–57. “Editorial (Europe-the Church for Others).” IRM 62, no. 245 (January 1973): 3–7. “The United States in the Past and the Future of the Ecumenical Movement.” Presbyte- rian Survey (March 1973): 1–4. “Philip Potter om Mission Idag.” Frälsning Idag: Budskap från Bangkok 1973 (Stock- holm: Gummessons, 1973), 28–30. “Inventer L’Eglise de Demain.” Preuves: Les idées qui changent le monde, 4e Trimestre, no.16 (1973): 22–29. “What We Can Do to Overcome Unnecessary Polarizations in the Church?” Concilium 8, no. 9 (1973): 126–30. “But Still It Moves: A Review of the Memoirs of W. A. Visser’t Hooft.” Ec R 25, no. 3 (July 1973): 377–81. Report of the General Secretary, Presented to the Central Committee of the WCC, Geneva, August 1973. Ec R 25, no. 4 (October 1973): 414–29. See also WCC Central Committee Minutes and Reports of the 26th Meeting, Geneva, Switzerland, August 22–29, 1973 (Geneva: WCC, 1973), 137–50. “Christmas Message 1973.” EPS 32 (November 22, 1973): 6–7. “Predigt über Johannes 8:31–36.” An das Christliche Abendland: Neun Predigten zum Thema Weltmission. Edited by the Evangelische Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Weltmis- sion (1973): 25–34. “Address Given on the Visit of Patriarch Pimen to the Ecumenical Centre.” Ec R 26, no. 1 (January 1974): 119–21. “Christ Frees Us to Speak and Act.” Address given at a celebration of the Basel Mission, Evangelische Neubildung: Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Evangelische Erwachsenenbildung in der Schweiz, no. 14, (June 1974): 27–33. Select Bibliography 287

“The Love of Power or the Power of Love.” The Alex Wood Memorial Lecture, February 26, 1974 (New Malden: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 1974), 3–20. “Costly Ecumenism.” Report of the General Secretary presented to the Central Committee Meeting of the WCC, Berlin, August 1974. Ec R 26, no. 4 (October 1974): 563–77. “Christmas Message 1974.” EPS 33 (November 28, 1974): 1–2. “WCC Looks Ahead.” South African Outlook 104, no. 1 (December 1974): 200–203. “A Word to the American Churches.” Mid-Stream 14, no. 1 (January 1975): 1–6. “Evangelisation in the Modern World.” Address given to the Roman Catholic Synod of Bishops, Rome, October 10, 1974. A Monthly Letter About Evangelism 1 (January 1975): 1–9. See also IDOC Bulletin 24 (October 1974): 11–16. Worldmission 26, no. 2 (Summer 1975), 4–13. Address given at the consultation on “Sexism in the 1970’s.” Discrimination against Women: A Report of a WCC Consultation, West-Berlin 1974 (Geneva: WCC, 1975), 27–33. “Christian Life and Work Fifty Years after Stockholm.” The Gospel for All Realms of Life: Reflections on the Universal Christian Conference on Life and Work, Stockholm (Geneva: WCC, 1975), 21–25. Contributions on the Theme of the Fifth Assembly of the WCC. “Jesus Frees and Unites.” Ec R 27, no. 3 (July 1975): 189–92. “Introduction,” Uppsala to Nairobi 1968-1975: Report of the Central Committee to the Fifth Assembly of the WCC. General editor David Enderton Johnson (SPCK, 1975), 13–22. “The Report of the General Secretary.” Breaking Barriers Nairobi 1975: The Official Report of the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Nairobi, November 23 to December 10 1975. Edited by David M. Paton (London: SPCK, 1976), 245–58. “Editorial (Nairobi 1975).” Ec R 28, no. 1 (January 1976): 1–4. “No Man Is an Island.” Mandate 7, no. 4 (April 1976): 3–5. “Together Seeking God’s Face.” Written version of the address given at the close of the WCC’s Fifth Assembly, Nairobi 1975. Ec R 28, no. 2 (April 1976): 204–9. “Called to Be a Covenant Fellowship.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Committee Meeting, Geneva, August 10 1976. Ec R 28, no. 4 (October 1976): 395–406. “The Churches and Religious Liberty in the Helsinki Signatory States.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC on his Consultations regarding the role of the Churches in the Signatory States in the Application of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on European Security and Cooperation, presented to the Central Committee of the WCC, Geneva, August 12, 1976. Ec R 28, no. 4 (October 1976): 442–50. 288 Appendices

“Christmas Message 1976.” Ec R 29, no. 1 (January 1977): 77–78. Also in EPS 32 (November 25 1976): 1–2. “The Ecumenical Task in the World Today.” Address given at the inaugural Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, June 1977, Inaugural Addresses (Melbourne: The Joint Board of Christian Education of Australia and New Zealand, 1977), 5–13. Address on Confessing Christ in Different Cultures. Report of a Colloquium held at the Ecumenical Institute, Bossey, July 2–8, 1977. Edited by John S. Mbiti (Geneva: WCC 1977), 27–35. “The Unity of the Church: What Is to Be Done?” Address given at the Rally held in Lausanne on Pentecost Sunday 1977 in connection with the Fiftieth-Anniversary Celebrations of the World Conference on Faith and Order. Ec R 29, no. 3 (July 1977): 302–8. “Evangelism Has a Price Tag.” One World 29 (September 1977), 2. “One Obedience to the Whole Gospel.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Commitee meeting, Geneva, July 25, 1977. Ec R 29, no. 4 (October 1977): 354–65. “Religious Liberty in Ecumenical Perspective.” Address given at the First World Congress on Religious Freedom, Amsterdam, March 1977. Ec R 30, no. 1 (January 1978): 42–49. “Religious Liberty—A Global View.” J Ec St 14, no. 4 (Fall 1977): 125–43. “Christmas Message 1977 (No Room in the Inn).” Ec R 30, no. 1 (January 1978): 66–68. Also in EPS 34 (November 24 1977): 2–3. “How Human Rights Movements around the World Have Been Affected by the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King.” Religious News Service (February 10, 1978): 4–6. “Toward the Universal Dialogue of Cultures.” A Vision for Man: Essays on Faith, Theol- ogy, and Society in Honor of Joshua Russel Chandran. Presented on the Occasion of His Shastiabdaoorthi Celebrations. Edited by Samuel Amirtham (Madras: Chris- tian Literature Society, 1978), 315–25. “Ökumenisches Schlüsselwort: Partizipation.” Der Überblick 14, no.1 (March 1978): 45–47. “Replenishing the Earth.” Message to the Fourth International Congress on the Arts, Architecture, and Environment. San Antonio, Texas, May 26–30, 1978. Journal of Current Social Issues 15, no. 3 (Fall 1978): 10. “The Ecumenical Task in the World Today.” Mid-Stream 17, no. 3 (July 1978): 209–21. “Christmas Message 1978.” EPS 32 (November 30, 1978): 3–4. “The Churches and the World Council after Thirty Years.” Report of the General Secre- tary of the WCC to the Central Committee, Kingston, Jamaica, January 1, 1979, Ec R 31, no. 2 (April 1979): 133–45. Select Bibliography 289

“Die Herausforderung der Weltsituation—Gerechtigkeit, Friede als kirchliche Aufgabe.” Diakonie in den Spannungsfeldern der Gegenwart. Theodor Schober zum 60. Geburts- tag gewidmet. Edited by Gunther Metzger (Stuttgart: Quell, 1978), 173–94. “Peace: The Fruit of Justice.” An address given to the Peace Fellowship of the United Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Church USA at Kansas City, May 1979, Th Today 36, no. 4 (January 1980): 498–503. “From Edinburgh to Melbourne.” Your Kingdom Come: Mission Perspectives—Report of the World Conference of CWME, Melbourne 1980. Edited by Emilio Castro and Jacques Matthey (Geneva: WCC, 1980), 6–21. “Science and Technology: Why the Churches Are Concerned.” Faith and Science in an Unjust World. Report of the WCC Conference on Faith, Science, and the Future. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. July 12–24, 1979. Volume I: Plenary Presentations. Edited by Roger L. Shinn (Geneva: WCC, 1980), 21–29. See also, Ec R 31, no. 4 (October 1979): 343–51. “A Growing Community of Faith.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Committee Meeting, Geneva, August 14, 1980. Ec R 32, no. 4 (October 1980): 377–87. “Healing and Salvation,” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Com- mittee Meeting, Dresden, GDR, August 1981, Ec R 33, no. 4 (October 1981): 330–40. “Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness, for They Shall Be Satisfied.”And Yet Happy: The Beatitudes Revisited. Edited by Emidio Campi (Swit- zerland: WSCF, 1981), 37–44. “Charismatic Renewal and the World Council of Churches.” The Church Is Charis- matic: The World Council and the Charismatic Renewal. Edited by Arnold Bittlinger (Geneva: WCC, 1981), 73–87. “Christmas Message 1981.” Ec R 34, no. 1 (January 1982): 76–77. “Unity between Hope and History: The Role of the Faith and Order in the WCC.” Paper presented to the Commission on Faith and Order Meeting. Lima, Peru, Janu- ary 1982. Ec R 34, no. 2 (April 1982): 332–34. “A Call to Costly Ecumenism.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Committee Meeting, Geneva, July 1982. Ec R 34, no. 3 (July 1982): 107–15. “Toward a Eucharistic Way of Life: Faith and Order and the World Council of Churches.” Toward Visible Unity: Commission on Faith and Order, Lund (1982), Vol. I, Minutes and Addresses. Edited by Michael Kinnamon. Faith and Order Paper No. 1112 (Geneva: WCC, 1982), 34–41. “Der Prophetische Auftrag der Ökumenischen Rates der Kirchen in Biblischer Perspek- tive” (Stuttgart: Calwer, n.d.), 21. Reprinted from Zukunft aus dem Wort: Helmut Claß zum 65. Geburtstag, 173–94. 290 Appendices

“Introduction.” Nairobi to Vancouver 1975–1983. Report of the Central Committee to the Sixth Assembly of the WCC (Geneva: WCC, 1983), vii–xxv. “Turning to Freedom and Fullness.” IRM 72, no. 288 (October 1983): 313–23. “Faith, Church, and Society: Luther’s Ecumenical Heritage.” One World 9 (October– November 1983): 29–31. “He, the Transfigured One, Is Our Peace and Justice.” IRM 72, no. 288 (October 1983): 523–37. “A Chance to Change.” The Community of Women and Men in the Church: The Sheffield Report. Edited by Constance F. Parvey (Geneva: WCC, 1983), 23–28. “Report of the General Secretary.” Gathered for Life: Official Report. Sixth Assembly, World Council of Churches, Vancouver, Canada, July 24 to August 10, 1983. Edited by David Gill (Geneva: WCC, 1983), 193–209. “Purpose of the Hearing.” Before It Is Too Late: The Challenge of Nuclear Disarmament— The Complete Records of the Public Hearing in Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament. Organized by the World Council of Churches, Free University, Amsterdam, November 23–27, 1981. Edited by Paul Abrecht and Ninan Koshy (Geneva: WCC, 1983), 37–40. “Christmas Message 1983.” Ec R 36, no. 2 (April 1984): 106–7. “Growing Together.” Report of the General Secretary of the WCC to the Central Committee Meeting, July 1984. Ec R 36, no. 4 (October 1984): 381–90. “Barmen—An Ecumenical Response.” Ec R 36, no. 4 (October 1984): 421–23. Address on the Occasion of the Visit of Pope John Paul II to the WCC, Geneva, June 12 1984. Ec R 36, no. 4 (October 1984): 421–23. “Doing Theology in a Divided World.” Ec R 36, no. 3 (July 1984): 289–96. Also in Doing Theology in a Divided World: Papers from the Sixth International Conference of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians, January 5–13 1983. Edited by Virginia Fabella and Sergio Torres (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1985), 9–19. “Peace and Justice: A Theological Reflection.” Peace and Justice in North East Asia: Prospects for Peaceful Resolution of Conflicts—Findings, Recommendations, and Papers of a CCIA Consultation, Tozanso International Center, Tokyo, Japan, October 29 to November 2 1984 (Geneva: WCC, 1985), 16–24. “Working Together as Peacemakers.” Address by Rev. Dr. Philip A. Potter on being awarded the Niwano Peace Prize (Japan: Niwano Foundation, April 1986), 48. “Ecumenism in Biblical Perspective.” Caribbean Contact 14, no. 4 (September 1986): 11–12. “Biblical and Theological Basis for Global Survival,” Viewpoint 3 (October 1986): 1–6. “From Missions to Mission.” IRM 76, no. 302 (April 1987): 155–72. Select Bibliography 291

“Comments.” Social Change: Christian and Social Science Perspectives. Paper Presented to a Symposium, Department of Economics, University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, May 2 1987 (Jamaica: UWI, 1987), 107–11. “Doing Theology with the Poor.” Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation. WCC’s Commission on the Churches’ Participation in Development Programme Unit on Justice and Service: Solidarity with the Poor (Geneva: WCC, 1987), 27–31. “The Religious Thought of Marcus Garvey.” Garvey: His Work and Impact. Edited by Rupert Lewis and Patrick Bryan. (Jamaica: ISER, 1988), 145–63. “The Message and the Messages.” Ec R 40, no. 3-4 (July and October 1988): 335–48. “Testimony of Dr. Philip Potter.” Ecumenical Hearing on the International Monetary System and the Churches’ Responsibility, August 21–24 1988, West Berlin, CCPD Debt Resource Material No.2. Edited by Lynne Jones (Geneva: WCC, 1989), 39–44. “WCC and the World of Religions and Cultures.” Ec R 41, no. 1 (January 1989): 4–12. “God’s Economy and the World’s Economy.” Colloquium 23 (1990): 1–11. “Mission.” Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Edited by Nicholas Lossky et al. (Geneva: WCC, 1991), 690–96. “Covenant.” Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement. Edited by Nicholas Lossky et al. (Geneva: WCC, 1991), 238–44. “Gott oder Mammon? Die christliche Mission in einer Zeit des Geldes und der Hochtechnologie.” Ev Th 51, no. 6 (1991): 519–31. “Mission as Reconciliation in the Power of the Spirit: Impulses from Canberra.” IRM 80, no. 319–20 (July–October 1991): 305–14. “The Global Economic System in Biblical Perspective.” The Ecumenical Movement Tomorrow: Suggestions for Approaches and Alternatives. Edited by Marc Reuver, Friedhelm Solms, and Gerrit Huizer (Geneva: WCC, 1993), 13–36. “The Task Ahead.” In A Long Struggle: The Involvement of the World Council of Churches in South Africa. Edited by Pauline Webb (Geneva: WCC, 1994), 116.

Editors

Brian Brown served as a minister in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa from 1962 to 1978. Seconded by his church to work as Administrative Director of the Chris- tian Institute (founded by Beyers Naudé), he was banned when the CI was closed down by the apartheid regime in 1977. He sought exile in Britain and was appointed a Secre- tary for International Affairs within the British Council of Churches in 1980. In this role he gave direction to the British churches throughout the 1980s in their opposition to apartheid. Subsequently, he served as pastor and lecturer in the Selly Oak, Birming- ham, missiological colleges and as Secretary for Africa in the Methodist Missionary Society—a position held previously by Philip Potter.

Andrea Fröchtling serves as pastor in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Hannover. In recent years she has focused on developments in southern Africa where, among other tasks, she worked with the South African Council of Churches and the Evangelical- Lutheran Church in Southern Africa, Central Diocese, in Soweto on an HIV/AIDS project. She is involved in various projects with the WCC on overcoming violence and on migration and racism. She is lecturer for Intercultural and Practical Theology at the University of Applied Sciences for Intercultural Theology in Hermannsburg, Germany.

Rudolf Hinz served as pastor in the Northelbian Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Germany. From 1983 to 1989 he was seconded by his church to work as Secretary for Africa in the Foreign Office of the Evangelical Church in Germany. From 1990 to 1995 he served as Secretary for Mission, Ecumenism and Development Service in the Church Office of the Northelbian Evangelical-Lutheran Church. From 1995 to 2002, he was Director of the Department for World Service of the Lutheran World Federation in

293 294 Appendices

Geneva, and served from 2002 to 2003 as Special Representative of the General Secre- tary in Jerusalem. Since 2004 he teaches Intercultural Theology and Ecumenism at the Theological Faculty of the Christian-Albrechts-University in Kiel, Germany.

Michael N. Jagessar is a minister of the United Reformed Church (United Kingdom). He is the Secretary for Intercultural Ministry, a member of the Faith and Order Refer- ence Group of the United Reformed Church, and moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church. He taught ecumenical theology, interfaith studies, and contextual theology and practice at the Queens Ecumenical Theological Founda- tion, Birmingham. In the Caribbean he has been involved in a variety of ministries, including community development work in Guyana and Grenada and ecumenical theological education in Guyana, Grenada, and Curacao. His doctoral work (Univer- sity of Utrecht) is the only extensive academic piece of research on the life, work, and theology of Philip Potter.

Dietrich Werner is an ordained pastor of the Northelbian Lutheran Church. He is a lecturer in missiology and ecumenism in the Ecumenical Research Institute at Bochum University and at the Mission Academy at the University of Hamburg. He is executive staff for mission studies and ecumenical formation at the Northelbian Center for World Mission, Hamburg, and at the Christian Jensen Kolleg in Breklum. He is a former member of the EKD Kammer für Entwicklungsdienst and a member of the advisory board for VELKD Gemeindekolleg. For many years he was EKD representative to the Board for the Ecumenical Institute Bossey and international programme coordinator for the Programme on Ecumenical Theological Education at the World Council of Churches. Partners

Our gratitude goes to: Brot für die Welt Deutsches Institut für Ärztliche Mission Evangelische Brüder-Unität—Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland Evangelische Kirche in Berlin-Brandenburg-schlesische Oberlausitz Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland Evangelische Kirche in Hessen und Nassau Evangelische Kirche in Mitteldeutschland Evangelischen Kirche von Kurhessen-Waldeck Evangelische Landeskirche Anhalts Evangelische Landeskirche in Württemberg Evangelische Landeskirche von Westfalen Evangelisches Missionswerk in Deutschland Evangelische-Lutherische Landeskirche Hannovers Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Mecklenburgs Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Sachsens Evangelisch-Lutherische Landeskirche Schaumburg-Lippe Evangelisch-Methodistische Kirche in Deutschland Nordelbische Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Nordelbisches Zentrum für Weltmission und kirchlichen Weltdienst Pommersche Evangelische Kirche Pro Ökumene—Initiative in Württemberg Vereinte Evangelische Mission

295

Index of Biblical References

Old Testament / Hebrew Bible New Testament Genesis 6, 28, 217 Matthew 63, 92, 96, 107, 211–12 Exodus 137–38 Mark 205 Leviticus 96 Luke xx, 59, 122, 139, 244–45 Deuteronomy 221 John xx, 205, 207, 239 Psalms 57, 210, 217, 219, 239 Acts 21, 219, 241 Isaiah 10, 58, 103, 104, 105–106, Romans vii, 21–22, 35, 63, 245 107, 135–36, 226 1 Corinthians 95, 97, 100, 115, 130, 240 Jeremiah 28–29, 57–58, 64, 129, 218 2 Corinthians 102, 133 Hosea 64 Galatians 30, 123 Joel 121, 153–54 Ephesians 17, 27, 93, 143, 147, 148, 204, 234 Phillipians 165, 255 Colossians 21, 123, 233 Hebrews 4, 5, 6, 211 1 Peter 13, 144, 217, 218, 220, 223, 228 1 John 96, 241–42 Revelation 7, 102

297

Index of Subjects

Abundance, xx Bonhoeffer, D, 97, 141–2, 187–8, Apartheid, xxiv, 62, 90, 107, 247–55. See 194, 197 also Racism; South African Brent, C H, 171, 202 Council of Churches/SACC Brough, J S B, 71–72 Apostolic/ity, 45, 51, 120, 131–32 Buber, M, 11–12, 98, 119 Arendt, H, 9, 94 Aristotle, 147, 148 Calvin, J, 116, 117 Azariah, V S, 170, 171 Caribbean, xiii–xx, xxiv, xxv, 184 Catholic. See Roman Catholic Church Baptism, 204, 221 Catholicity, 131, 204 Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry Chakko, S, 170, 173 statement/s, 203, 204–205, 208. Chandran, J R, xxv, 3, 4 See also Eucharist; Ministry Cheng, C Y, 170, 202 Barot, M, 110–11 Church/es. See also Ecclesia/l; Barth, K, 117, 121 Ecclesiology Bell, G, 56 diaspora churches, 131, 216, Berkhof, H, 25, 27 217, 223, 226–27, 228 Bible, xxxii, 10, 55, 155, 191, 216, church as a minority, 175–76 233–34, 252 Orthodox churches. 170, 220 and newspaper, xxii, 126 WCC member churches, xxiv, biblical realism, 16–23, 75 xxv, xxix, xxx, 53, 87, 151, Black/s. See Theology/black in South 194–97, 198, 199, 206, 237, Africa, 248–250 250, 254 Body, 32, 59, 61, 139, 225 younger churches, 76–77, 155, 160, of Christ, 32–3, 34, 110, 139, 163–65 148, 162, 223–24, 231–240, 253 City (Polis), 6–7, 13, 92, 102, 148

299 300 Index

Communion, 162–63, 223 Deissmann, A, 187 Communism, xxx, 107, 174, 180 Denomination/al, 171, 202 Community/ies (oikeioi / oikos / koino- Devanandan, P D, 21, 170 nia), 4, 12, 27–30, 74, 90, 105, Development,179. See also WCC/ 121, 143, 209, 205, 217–18, 222, Commission on the Churches’ 224. See also Women/Commu- Participation in Development nity of Women and Men in the Dialogue, 11–12, 23, 46–47, 123, 125, Church study 210, 211, 221 base communities, 65, 113, 130, 220 with people of living faiths and confessing communities, 205, 212. ideologies, 18, 178. See also See also Confession; Fellowship Culture/s; Faith; Ideology of confessing Disability/abled, 62 healing communities. See Healing Disarmament, xxix, 60, 105. See also War North Atlantic community, 167–68, nuclear disarmament, 210 175–76, 180 Conciliar. See Fellowship, conciliar; Ecclesia/l. See Church/es Justice/Concilar process for Ecclesiology, 130, 132, 228 Justice, Peace and the Integrity Economy/ic (oikonomia), xxxi–ii, 62, 87, of Creation 88, 135–44, 192–93 Confessing/ion/al, 10, 22–23, 120, caring economy, 250–51 140–41, 165, 188, 205, 211, 212, economic globalization, 145–49 242, 243, 252–53, 254. See also Ecumenical Fellowship of confessing Association of Third World Theolo- Barmen confession, 117–18, 140–41 gians/EATWOT, 18, 125–6. See confessing church, 188 also Theology, ecumenical world confessional bodies, 163–5 Ecumenical Institute, 191 Covenant/ing, 28–29, 87, 135–44, ecumenical learning, 222 See also 218. See also Justice/Concilar Fellowship of learning process Ecumenical Monitoring Programme Crane, W H, 67–8 in South Africa/EMPSA, 249 Creation/or, 8–9, 21, 104–105, 135–36, ecumenical vocation, 153–255 139–40. See also Justice/Conci- Education. See WCC/Office of educa- lar process tion; WCC/Programme Culture/s/al, 15–24, 33, 177, 238. See on Theological Education; also Gospel and culture WCC/Unit on Education and culture of violence. See Violence Renewal dialogue of cultures, 1–13. See also theological education, 177, 191 Dialogue Index 301

Eucharist/ic, 87, 205, 235. See also of expectancy, 228–29 Baptism, Eucharist and Minis- of healing, 224–25 try statement/s of learning, 221–22 Evangelical/s, 52, 53 of participation, 222–23 Evangelism/Evangelization, 16, 25, of reconciliation, 225–26. See also 37–53, 69, 76, 189, 202. See Reconciliation, International also Mission/s; Missionary/ies; Fellowship of/IFOR WCC/Commission on World of sharing, 223–24 Mission and Evangelism/ of unity, 227. See also Unity CWME; WCC/Division of WCC fellowship, 122–23, 194, World Mission and Evange- 234–35, 242 lism/DWME Forgiveness, 101–102

Faith, 59, 69, 80, 95, 120, 130, 140–41, Gandhi, M, 94 170, 178, 194, 207, 228, 243 Garaudy, R, 4, 7 faith and ethics, 138, 139, 140 Germany, 55, 117–19, 169, 235 other faiths, 23, 46–47, 178. See also Globalization. See Economic globaliza- Dialogue with people of living tion faiths and ideologies Gospel, 201–214. See also Evangelism/ Faith and Order, 160–65, 173, 204, evangelization 206, 207–208. See also WCC/ gospel and culture/s, 19–24 Commission on Faith and Order gospel of reconciliation, 203, 226 Faith and Order conferences Grace, 34–35, 130, 148, 187, 197, Lausanne 1927, 88, 109–10, 173, 223–24, 235 202–204 Guevara, C, 99 Edinburgh 1937, 163, 173 Lund 1952, 160, 165 Haiti, xxvi, 78–79, 126 Sheffield 1981, 88, 109–14. See also Healing/health, 26, 82–83, 232. See also women/Community of Women Fellowship of Healing; WCC/ and Men in the Christian Medical Commis- Church study; WCC/studies/ sion; Salvation Community of Women and healing and salvation, 55–65 Men in the Church History, xxxii, 44–45, 110, 112, 118–19, Faithful/ness, 210, 244 127–28, 248, 268 Fellowship/s, 15, 74, 183–86, 220–30 Hoekendijk, J C, 38, 76 conciliar, 112, 152, 232, 243 Holy Spirit, 241–45 of confessing, 220–21. See also Hope, 13, 44, 215, 217, 221, 228–29, Confessing communities 232–33, 249–50 302 Index

House of living stones, 215–229. See also Ministry, 112, 205, 223. See also Community/ies Baptism, Eucharist and Minis- Humanity (oikoumene), 4–6, 9–10, 92, try statement/s; Eucharist; 102, 219, 249–50 See also WCC Prophetic ministry studies/Humanum Mission/s, 25–35, 66–85, 175. See also Evangelism; WCC/Commis- Ideology/ical, 107, 115, 146–47, 193. See sion on World Mission and also Dialogue with people of Evangelism/CWME living faiths and ideologies International Review of Mission/IRM 67– 85 John Paul I, Pope, xxvii International Missionary Council/ John Paul II, Pope, 237, 241, 244 IMC, 38, 82, 203 Jones, R M, 72–73 Mission, world conferences, 170–72 Justice, 103–107, 145–49, 241–45, Edinburgh 1910, 67, 68–9, 170–71 247–55. See also Peace Jerusalem 1928, 72–73, 84, 172 Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Tambaram 1938, 42, 76, 172 Creation, 136, 142–44, 237–39 Whitby 1947, 77, 172 Willingen 1952, 42 King, M L, xxiii, 269, 270 Ghana 1957/58, 42 Klerk, F W de, 248, 251 Bangkok 1972, 10, 79, 189 Kraemer, H, 15–17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, Melbourne 1980, xxvi 74, 75, 79, 169, 172 Missionaries, xxvii, 25, 31–35, 79 Mott, J R, 68–69, 74, 156, 168, 170, 171, Lagrange, M–J, 113–14 172, 226 Laity (Laos), 44, 112, 163, 170, 222–23 Mumford, L, 7 Liberation/ing, 5, 32, 58, 60, 205, 211, 239 Neill, S, 39, 41 Liberation movement/s, 93, 99, 250 Neoliberal/ism, 146–47. See also Life and Work, 173, 203, 206 Economy Life and Work Conferences, 173 Newbigin, L, 80 Stockholm 1925, 203–204 Niemöller, M, 188 Oxford 1937, 173 Niles, D T, 40, 169, 170, 176 Luther, M, 117, 130, 140, 220, 236 Oldham, J H, xxiii, 68, 69–71, 73, 74, 83, Mandela, N, xxxii, 247 85, 170, 194 Margull, H–J, 40, 175 Marx, K, 140, 143 Paton, W, 73, 76, 78, 79 Paul VI, Pope, xxvii, xxx, 18, 242 Index 303

Peace Roman Catholic Church, xxx, 174, 220, peace and justice, 103–107. See also 241–45 Justice Joint Consultative Group on Social pacifism, 99 Thought and Action, 244 Pentecost/al, 153–54, 157 Joint Working Group, 220, 243 Poverty (Poor), xxvi, 60. See also Programme on Society, Develop- Economy ment and Peace/SODEPAX, Power/ful/less, 94, 148–49, 157 xxx–xxxi, 179, 243 healing power, 56, 57, 63–65, 81 Secretariat for Promoting Christian power of love, xvi, 89–102 Unity, 241 Priesthood, 117, 218, 222–23. See also Vatican II, xxx, 174, 242 Servant Prophecy, 130, 153–57 Sacrament/s. See Baptism, Eucharist and Jeremiah, 28, 30, 129, 218 Ministry statement/s prophet /s, 116, 121, 122 Salvation, 5, 55–65, 98, 141, 189. See also prophetic ministry, 115–24 Healing prophetic theology, 89–149 Sanctions, 62, 250 Proselytism. See Witness, Common Secular/ism, 73, 172 Security, 104, 107 Racism, xxiii, 60, 62, 97, 180, 209, national security,106–107 247–255. See also Apartheid; Servant/vice, xvi, 12, 32, 45, 117, 189, South African Council of 204, 206 Churches/SACC Sittler, J, 21 Programme to Combat Racism/PCR, Slavery, 123–24, 127–28 180, 209, 250 Society Raven, C, 93, 99 just, participatory and sustainable Reconciliation, 63, 101–102, 122, society, 146, 205, 237 225–26, 233–34 responsible society. See Responsible International Fellowship of Recon- society ciliation/IFOR, 89, 93 South(ern) Africa, 97, 107, 247–255 Reformation, 140, 222 South African Council of Churches/ Religion/s, 15–24 SACC, 251, 253. See also Apart- Responsibility, 29–30, 51, 105 heid; Racism responsible society, 51, 56–57, 251 Rustenburg Declaration, 252–53, Ricoeur, P, 147 254 Righteousness (sedeq / sedaqah / tsedeq), Student organizations. See also Youth 103–104, 145 Student Christian Movement/SCM, xxviii, 56, 113 304 Index

Student Volunteer Missionary Cold War, xxix Union/SVMU, 75, 78 Second World War, xxii, xxix, 56 World Student Christian Federation/ Wartenberg–Potter, B (von), x, xi, xxix WSCF, xxii, 156, 161, 168, 170 Webb, P, xv, xvi, xix Studies. See WCC Studies Weber, H R, 167, 168 Suffering, 211–13, 228 Willebrands, J, 241 Witness, common, 120–21, 220, 243 Theologians.See Ecumenical Association Wood, A, 93, 99 of Third World Theologians/ Women, xxviii–xxix, 18, 56, 88, 105, 266 EATWOT; Theology Community of Women and Men Theology, 125–133, 177, 178, 180, in the Church study, 60–61, 235–36 109–14, 270 feminist theology, 84 WCC assemblies prophetic theology. See Prophecy/ First assembly – Amsterdam Prophetic theology 1948, xxix, 38, 42, 43, 45, 48, Third World theologians,126, 127, 77, 111, 127, 138, 142, 153–57 129–31, 132–33. See also Second assembly – Evanston 1954, Ecumenical Association of 39, 42, 43, 44, 47, 51, 165, 180, Third World Theologians/ 215, 232–23, 239–40 EATWOT Third assembly – New Delhi 1961, Third World, 127–29, 151, 167–181 xxiii, 20–21, 22, 43, 81, 131, 220 Thomas, M M, xxi, 170 Fourth assembly – Uppsala 1968, Ting, K H, 16, 76 179–80, 188, 192, 196, 241–42 Trust/Mistrust, 12, 210–11, 236–37 Fifth assembly – Nairobi 1975, xxix, Truth, 207, 210 10, 19, 22, 199, 205, 206, 216, 231, 232 United Nations, xxix, 105, 106, 136, 193 Sixth assembly – Vancouver 1983, Unity/Disunity, 3, 48–49, 83, 131, 155, xxix, 19, 215–29, 231–32, 235, 159–65, 227, 241–45. See also 237, 240, 245 Fellowship of unity Seventh assembly – Canberra 1991, 254 Violence, 98, 248–50 WCC Central Committee meetings culture of violence, 248–9 Toronto 1950, 228 Visser’t Hooft, W A, xv, xii, xxiii, 39, 40, Rolle 1951, 37–38, 48, 83 156, 159, 168, 176, 184, 204 Lucknow 1952, 179 War, 70–71, 128, 250. See also Galyatetö 1956, 56–57 Disarmament Heraklion 1967, 37 Index 305

Canterbury 1969, 180 WCC divisions Utrecht 1972, xxiii, 183 Division of Ecumenical Action, 41, Berlin 1974, 187–88 51, 190 Kingston 1979, xxiv Division of World Mission and Dresden 1981, xxvii, 55–56 Evangelism/DWME, 40, 41, 45, Johannesburg 1994, 231, 249, 254 51–52, 165 WCC commissions WCC finances 195–97 Christian Medical Commission/ WCC Office of Education, CMC, 59, 62, 82, 191 190–91 Commission of the Churches on WCC programmes, 188–191, International Affairs/CCIA, 193–95, 201, 211, 229 190, 192 Programme to Combat Racism/ Commission on Faith and Order/ PCR. See Racism/Programme F&O, 50, 161, 188, 203. See also to Combat Racism Programme Faith and Order on Society, Development and Commission on Inter–Church Aid, Peace/SODEPAX See Roman Refugee and World Service/ Catholic Church/SODEPAX CICARWS, 60, 84, 189 Programme on Theological Educa- Commission on the Churches tion/PTE, 82 Participation in Development/ WCC secretariats CCPD, 60, 84, 189 Secretariat for Evangelism, 37–38, Commission on World Mission and 48 Evangelism/CWME, 60, 67, 175, Secretariat on Dialogue with People 189, 208–209. See also Evange- of Living Faiths and Ideolo- lism; Mission; Mission/Mission gies,18 Conferences WCC staff, 198 WCC departments WCC studies Communications Department, Christian/Common Witness and 196 Proselytism, 243 Department on Church and Society, Common Christian Responsibility 50, 179, 189 toward Areas of Rapid Social Department on Studies in Mission Change, 17, 51 and Evangelism, 52–53 Community of Women and Men in Laity Department, 39 the Church See Women Youth Department, 157, 267. See Concepts of Unity and Models of als o Youth Union, 188 306 Index

Conversion to God and Service to Unit on Education and Renewal, Man, 51 190 Giving an Account of the Hope World Council of Churches. See WCC that is within us, 188 subentries Evangelization of Man in Modern Worship, 33, 242 Mass Society, 38 Humanum, 18,191 Youth, xxii, 151, 153–57, 159–63, 267. Lordship of Christ over the Church See also Student organizations and the World, 17 Youth world Christian conferences, 170 Missionary Structure of the Congre- Amsterdam 1939, 170 gation, 82 Oslo 1947, 90–91, 102, 170, 184–85 Missionary Task of the Church, 40 Oxford 1937, 173, 180 Toward a Confession of the Young Men’s Christian Association/ Common Faith, 120, 140 YMCA, 156, 157, 170 Word of God and the Living Faiths Young Women’s Christian Association/ of Men, 17 YWCA, 156, 157, 170