WCC eyes future amid financial worries - World Council of Churches

Christian Century, Nov 8, 1995

Meeting in Geneva in late September, the World Council of Churches' Central Committee struggled with severe financial challenges and questions about the role the WCC should play in the future of ecumenism. The Central Committee supervises the work of the council and its staff between assemblies, which are held every seven years.

The committee also issued a number of social statements, both by word and deed. It marched en masse to the nearby United Nations office building to protest nuclear arms testing by China and particularly by France, which has conducted much-criticized tests in the Morurua Atoll in the Pacific. The committee prayed and sang hymns outside the UN office, including Polynesian songs emphasizing the environment, said David Perry, the Episcopal Church's ecumenical officer.

The Central Committee also adopted a statement condemning exclusivist claims on Jerusalem. Describing that city as a place of "deep religious, historical and emotional attachments" for Christians, jews and Muslims, the committee called for freedom of access to holy places for all three faiths, among other rights, and repeated its opposition to Israel's unilateral annexation of East Jerusalem.

In a three-page message the committee appealed to religious, political and military leaders in the former Yugoslavia to end the war there and begin "to heal the deep wounds of history . . . and to transform the climate of hatred and violence." While expressing hope about recent diplomatic steps toward resolution, the statement condemned the "reprehensible escalation of the cycle of violence" fed by a continued flow of arms to the region.

The committee is divided over whether the next WCC assembly, scheduled for September 10-22, 1998, in Harare, Zimbabwe, should include a eucharistic service. Because some member churches would not participate, holding a Eucharist would highlight the divisions that remain, Orthodox representatives argued. But many Protestant speakers said failure to include the Eucharist would send the wrong signal to the world and would be an occasion for further division. The committee is expected to decide about the service at its next meeting in September 1996.

In his opening address to the committee, WCC General Secretary Konrad Raiser raised the question of how, in an era of increasing fragmentation of the ecumenical movement, the council could help create "an inclusive framework" for dialogue among all ecumenical partners, including the Roman Catholic Church (which is not now a full member), other nonmember churches, and even ecumenical organizations that are not actual churches.

The search for new models is prompted in part, Raiser admitted, by the need to deal with dwindling resources. A financial shortfall--brought on by a combination of unwise investments, lack of support from some member churches and a weak dollar--continues to plague the council, though the committee was assured by finance committee moderator Birgitta Rantakari that the WCC is not in "a financial crisis, so long as urgent proactive steps are taken."

Since the WCC operates in Swiss francs but gets many of its contributions in dollars, the weakness of the dollar has cut expected income. More than half of the member churches, many of whom are struggling with their own financial difficulties, faded to contribute at all in 1994, which led WCC leaders to approve a recommended minimum membership donation.