Geneva (ENI) — Observers of the Latin American Council of Churches say the sudden resignations of its general secretary, the Rev. Israel Batista, and six other staff may reflect disagreements about the direction of the region’s biggest church grouping.
The council’s board of directors announced in February that the staff had tendered their resignations at a board meeting held that month in Panama. It made no mention of any reasons given by the staff.
The resignations came as the board of directors was to carry out an evaluation of the Quito-headquartered organization’s three-year plan.
‘We never thought that to begin to evaluate their functioning, to raise questions, to request responses, and to ask for opportunities to participate could generate such a reaction,’ the Rev. Juan Schvindt, secretary general of the Evangelical Church of the River Plate, and a member of the board of directors, told Ecumenical News International. ‘This board of directors is interested not only in debating, but also in deciding about proposals, and in really getting involved in the witness and work of the Council as a whole,’ said Schvindt. ‘Maybe that explains why the board of directors unanimously accepted their resignations,’ he added. ‘It has been painful, but also a learning experience, despite the surprise that these resignations caused many of us.’
Sources told ENI that at the February board meeting in Panama a group of executive secretaries had expressed dissatisfaction. They said there had been a lack of recognition by the board for their work, and they had denounced what they alleged was a struggle for control by some board members against Batista.
The resigning staff also complained that the board had not set in place proper polices for the appraisal of personnel, and deplored what they considered to be a lack of confidence by the board in their performance.
CLAI elected Batista, a Methodist from Cuba, as its general secretary in 1998 and he took office on 1 January 1999. He had previously worked in Geneva for the World Council of Churches.
Tension was already apparent at the Latin American church grouping’s general assembly held in Barranquilla, Colombia, in 2001.
Batista criticized a too-strong adherence to what is known as traditional ecumenism, which had strongly focused on social justice programs, and the so-called ‘historical’ Protestant churches for their lack of dynamism and growth. He strongly supported the opening up of the council to Evangelical and Pentecostal groups, which had in the past been opposed ecumenical activities in Latin America.
Many delegates in Barranquilla agreed about the need to open up the council, but also said that any dialogue should respect the institutional life of CLAI.
Critics of the new direction stated that CLAI was abandoning what they saw as its prophetic voice in order to appeal to Evangelicals and Pentecostals, seen as more conservative, both theologically and politically. According to some observers, it might have been possible to reconcile the differing perspectives. However, this proved difficult, these observers said, due to the general secretary’s style of leadership and to growing discontent among key church leaders in the region with his priorities.
