World Council Of Churches Opens This Sunday—148 Denominations

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 83, 18 August 1948, Page 5

World Council Of Churches Opens This Sunday— l4B Denominations

Contributed by Principal A. L. Haddon,

Future historians may record that the most creative event in the history of Christianity, between the founding of the Church and our own time, took place in August of this year. At Amsterdam, on Sunday, August 22, the World Council of Churches will be opened.

The astounding fact is that 148 Christian denominations, some with separate traditions that stretch hack over eight centuries, are coming together to form a permanent co-operative Council. Delegates will be present from 40 countries in all five continents.

In addition to the Churches well--known in this country, there will be representatives of the 175 millions ■of Eastern Orthodox Christians and of the 64 million Lutherans. There will be the Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Old Catholic, Battak, and Mar Thoma Syrian Churches. .Amongst the united Churches will be the Japanese, Chinese, South Indian and Canadian. There will be at least fifteen New Zealanders of six different denominations. 40 Years’ Preparation

The movement of-which this is the culmination may be said Jo have had definite beginning in 1910 at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh. Within the missionary movement Christians of various denominations had co-operated on ever-widening bases until worldwide co-operation was attained. The same thing happened in the movement to apply Christian principles to social and international life, resulting in the World Conference on Life and Work in Oxford in 1937. Consideration of one another’s beliefs and practices led to another World Conference in Edinburgh the same year. It was then decided to. try to unite these different streams of ecumenical Christian enterprise. The war interrupted. But now the proposal to unite all these worldwide interests in a World Council of Churches has become possible of achievement. It will give to 300,000,000 Christians the opportunity to

speak and act together in the realm of their common interests, responsibilities and services. Notable Personalities On Sunday afternoon next the opening service, in New Church, the national cathedral of Holland, will be addressed by Dr. John R. Mott, who will make his 110th Atlantic crossing to take part in the sessions. The other four. Presidents are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of Upsala, Sweden, Dr. Marc Boegner, France, and the Archbishop of Thyateira. The programme with the names of Barth, Brunner, Niemoller, Bishops Bell and Brilioth, Reinhold Niebuhr, Visser’t Hooft, and scores of others, reads like a “Who’s Who” of universal Christianity. For two years some of the best minds in all lands have been producing volumes on “Man’s Disorder and God’s Design” to provide the basis of discussions that are expected to give a lead to the Christian world. All have recognised that the available resources .of Christendom have to be pooled in order to grapple with the spiritual devastation wrought by war and the evils which have followed. The practical advantages of such a Council are very great. But the need for it goes far deeper. If, in the clamour of conflicting interests now so characteristic of the world scene the Christian Church does not make itself heard and listened to, the outlook for humanity is dark indeed. If it can not only describe but exemplify international harmony and a truly ecumenical community serving humanity in the spirit of Christ it . will have pioneered the way to the new lease of life for which the world is gasping. • -K-