The Vision of a Responsible Society after Fifty Years

Ecumenical Review, The, Oct, 1998 by Lukas Vischer

I

Fifty years have gone by since the founding of the World Council of Churches. For me, that first assembly in August 1948 remains a vivid memory. At the time I was a student at the University of Basel. Every day we listened with excitement to reports on the radio of what was happening in Amsterdam. All of us saw the vote to constitute the WCC on 23 August 1948 as a sign of hope: delegates from the most diverse churches coming together to risk a new beginning after the murderous destruction of the second world war -- coming together so that, after so much bloodshed, a more peaceful world might come into being. The mood of those days was characterized by a key term to which the assembly gave currency: the churches should work together for the construction of a "responsible society".

Of course, the differences between the confessions were not swept away by the encounter in Amsterdam. On the contrary, their gathering reminded the individual churches of their own particularities and inevitably made them aware of the strangeness of the other traditions. Yet the assembly was one in the conviction that a new day had dawned. In a solemn message to the churches the delegates underscored their pledge never again to separate themselves from one another: "We intend to stay together." In the first place that was because they had become aware of the irrationality of their separation. But it was more than that: the assembly was sustained by the hope that the churches in common could give a more effective witness, that they could be a ferment in a society shattered by crises, a spiritual power to strengthen all those forces dedicated to building up a solid international order.

It was already evident that new conflicts were threatening. The ideological camps which had only recently been together in the struggle against Nazism had split apart. The confrontation between the Western powers and the Soviet Union, which would leave a decisive imprint on all historical developments until the end of the 1980s, had emerged. Political tensions were increasing from year to year. The spectre of a third world war, this time fought with nuclear weapons, hung over all.

This was the political constellation in which the Amsterdam assembly formulated its vision of a "responsible society". Rather than taking a one-sided position in favour of one system or the other, the churches should become a source of responsible action. The concept of the responsible society included a clear rejection of the inhuman, totalitarian and centralizing characteristics of the communist regimes. But there was also a clear critique of the Western camp. A responsible society, said the assembly, is a society "where freedom is the freedom of men who acknowledge responsibility to justice and public 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". The hope was that the churches would prove to be an independent force in the conflicts which were emerging, a source of freedom, participation, justice and solidarity.

II

What has become of the vision of Amsterdam? Where do we stand fifty years later?

There can be no doubt that the churches have come closer during this time. Few it' any of the historic churches would now fail to list ecumenical relations among its priorities. The first barriers to fall were those between the Protestant churches. Here and there church unions took place. But the most significant event of the past fifty years was undoubtedly the Second Vatican Council, in which the Roman Catholic Church, which had decisively rejected contacts with other churches at the time of the Amsterdam assembly, opened itself to the ecumenical movement. Today the majority of churches take the contacts of Christians with each other across confessional boundaries for granted. And yet at the same time the separations of fifty years ago have not been overcome. They will doubtless accompany us deep into the third millennium. Again and again it is evident at critical moments that the churches are not prepared to make a common witness. Beneath the velvet gloves that typify the encounters of churches today the dangerous confessional claws of the past remain hidden. A notable competition is taking place. In Amsterdam, it is said, the representatives of the individual confessions came together one evening for special meetings. When they were asked later about the substance of their conversations, all of them reported the same thing: we have concluded that our confession constitutes the centre of the movement and can offer to build bridges of unity to the other churches. It is precisely this which remains the central problem of the ecumenical movement to this day. A peculiar notion of prestige stands in the way of further progress towards full communion. Each church regards itself as the centre and seeks to impose itself on others as the centre.

And what is the state of affairs as far as the vision of the "responsible society" is concerned? How far has this hope been fulfilled? The WCC has remained faithful to this vision. It has sought to the best of its ability to identity the tasks to which society is called and to appeal for responsible actions. Already in the 1950s it warned against the terrible consequences of economic neo-colonialism. At the same time it took up the struggle against the apartheid system in South Africa. At a point when hardly anyone in the West was talking about it, the wee took stands in favour of admitting China to the United Nations and the right of the Palestinians to self-determination. Already in the early 1970s it discerned the ecological crisis and sought to put this on the agenda of the churches.