Rediscovery, reorientation, celebration: the assembly theme as a call to National Councils of Churches - "Turn to God - Rejoice in Hope": Unfolding the Eighth Assembly Theme

Ecumenical Review, The, April, 1998 by Noel Anthony Davies

"National Councils of Churches must fully claim the place that is properly theirs. The future of communion depends to a large measure on them". These were the concluding words of Jean-Marie Tillard's address to the Third International Consultation for National Councils of Churches (NCCs), Hong Kong, 1993.(1) This is a reminder of the growth and development of NCCs during the years since 1948 and the key challenge they present to the one ecumenical movement during this jubilee year and into the new millennium.

At the time of the Edinburgh conference (1910) there were two NCCs worldwide. By 1948 there were 30, together with 22 cooperative agencies associated with the International Missionary Council (which was integrated within the WCC in 1961). In 1998 there are 53 NCCs that are associated councils of the WCC and about another 40 in "working relationship" with the WCC, as well as about 50 bodies affiliated or having a consultative relationship with the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism. This growth in the number of national ecumenical bodies and the extensive network of worldwide ecumenical relationships which has developed during this "ecumenical century" raise with particular sharpness the need for reflection on the vision, understanding and role of NCCs within the one ecumenical movement. The theme for the WCC's jubilee assembly could provide a stimulus and focus for such reflection, with its focus on penitence and renewal, celebration and hope.

Worldwide and local

NCCs remind us, firstly, that the theme must be celebrated and explored within a context which is local, national and worldwide. Indeed, the richness of the theme lies in the interweaving of these "communities of belonging". In Wales, the first assembly of the WCC in Amsterdam was itself a powerful impetus for setting up the Council of Churches for Wales in 1956. But the worldwide vision of churches intending "to stay tog ether" was also rooted, through the seminal influence of a number of ecumenical pioneers in Wales, within the soil and traditions and culture and language of Wales. Ecumenism has to be both worldwide and local if it is to bear fruit within the life and witness of the churches. This finds a much more recent echo in David Gill's reflections on the Hong Kong consultation (1993): "NCCs know that ecumenism cannot stop and start at the national boundary. The WCC knows that global programmes mean nothing if they have no national roots."(2) This interweaving of local and worldwide must continue to be a challenge and an enrichment. It represents the heart of the vision of NCCs within the one ecumenical movement.

This vision must, of course, be given some practical reality. In 1995 the WCC central committee approved "Guidelines for the relationship between NCCs and the WCC" which sought to set out guidelines for a fuller partnership between the local/ national and the worldwide. There is at present very little evidence that these guidelines have so far shaped relationships. The challenge remains, therefore, to discover ways in which there can be a true partnership and mutuality between the WCC (as one of the structured manifestations of the worldwide ecumenical movement) and regional and national ecumenism.

In his recent book On Being the Church Konrad Raiser recognizes that the national and regional levels have not been sufficiently linked with the processes of the WCC, and suggests that the WCC has a key role in fostering "the coherence of ecumenical work at all levels".(3) One of the key aspects of such an exploration must be an elaboration of the understanding of the category of "associated council" within the WCC. This must not involve merely attendance at WCC events, communication and support. It must involve a partnership which includes collaboration in fostering koinonia between churches at both national and worldwide levels, mutual accountability, resource sharing, full partnership in determining and pursuing programmatic thrusts and, perhaps, at a time of increasing financial pressures, imaginative ways of sharing staff resources. It must move from mere symbolism to real partnership. In this relationship, as in others, it is a time for "turning".

NCCs as instruments of unity

Many NCCs had the search for unity as one of their foundational aims. The invitation of the theme to "turn to God" recalls us to Christ, "the church's one foundation", and to a renewed commitment to unity in communion with the one God, the source, redeemer and renewer of lives and churches. A number of international consultations for NCCs have helped to shape their developing self-understanding. Tom Best identifies two ideas which became fundamental for NCCs following their 1971 international consultation, namely, that theological work towards unity was basic to NCCs and that NCCs are "instruments" which enable crucial ecclesiological developments among their member churches.(4) Certainly these thrusts were central to the Council of Churches for Wales in the first two decades of its life. The third assembly of the WCC in New Delhi and the Montreal Faith and Order conference bore fruit in the British Faith and Order conference in Nottingham in 1964, which urged churches to seek to covenant together for union "in units such as nations". The negotiations towards a covenant for visible unity in Wales, which were initiated and coordinated by the Council of Churches for Wales, were the first response to this call. During the subsequent decade, this "theological work towards unity" and its "instrumental" role in fostering ecclesiological developments became a high priority for the Council. Indeed, one of the continuing contributions of the Council was to hold before the Welsh churches a vision of one church renewed in mission. Since 1990 and the setting up of new ecumenical instruments in the nations of Britain and Ireland there has been a recovery of this priority, not least with the encouragement of the Roman Catholic Church. The "Called to be One" programme within Churches Together in England -- which invited the churches to reflect on their understanding of unity and to explore ways in which they could move forward towards unity together -- was a notable example of this. But there is a continuing debate within the ecumenical movement about the nature of this "instrumental" role of NCCs in promoting visible unity between their own member churches.