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Holy Week resources and reflections

WCC members seek revitalization at Seoul meeting

GENEVA (ENI) — Sixty years ago, 147 churches met in Amsterdam to bring into being the World Council of Churches, which is now the world's largest Christian grouping. Today, the organization exists in a world where the landscape for Christianity and other faiths is changing.

At a service at the beginning of 2008 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the WCC, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I, who is often considered the spiritual leader of Christians from the Orthodox tradition, said churches should be prepared to confront their differences honestly, and to examine them in the light of the Scriptures.

“The bonds of friendship between divided churches and the bridges to overcome our divisions are indispensable, more now than ever. Love is essential so that dialogue between our churches can take place in all freedom and trust,” said Bartholomeos, preaching at the February 17 service in Geneva’s St Pierre Cathedral.

A little-publicized meeting called the “Seoul International Consultation on Revitalizing the Ecumenical Movement” discussed such challenges in the South

Korean capital November 13-15, and conferred about what the participants described as a crisis in the world as a whole, and also within the WCC.

Those present issued a statement after their meeting urging ecumenical organizations, such as the World Council of Churches, not to be influenced by market forces and donor agencies.

“At this time, we note with dismay the crisis in the World Council of Churches. We also feel the need for a fresh vision and a new sense of direction for the WCC,” the participants said in a document released after the meeting. At the same time, they said it was not their purpose to enter into a debate on the state of the WCC “but to seek a refreshed vision together for the revitalizing of the ecumenical movement, and to set

meaningful goals,”

The document said, “We are a group of ecumenical leaders who have come

together in Seoul, Korea, for a three-day consultation to consider the revitalization of the ecumenical movement, and of the World Council of Churches in particular at this time of crisis.”

They said they were meeting in a time of global financial crisis “which bears directly upon our attempts to read the signs of the time”. They questioned whether the “flawed nature of the neo-liberal ideology of globalization is not now obvious to everybody,” and said that the only remedy to what is known in lay terms as the credit crunch is “sought in further borrowing by governments to shore up faltering financial

Institutions.”

“At this critical time, we ask whether our churches and our ecumenical

institutions have imbibed too deeply from the culture of the free market in financial and administrative matters, and made uncritical accommodations with the ideology of unlimited and exponential economic growth,” the Seoul participants said in their declaration.

They cited as “ominous” the development of the acceptance by the United

States and its allies of the “practice of world domination by military means, with explicit disregard for international law and with preparations for the use of nuclear weapons.”

The participants said, “In this situation, we ask whether our churches and our ecumenical bodies are ready to respond saying that war in all its forms as a means of settling disputes is totally unacceptable, taking into account the fact that it is civilians, especially women and children, who are most at risk. We also ask how we can all respond with appropriate urgency to the looming catastrophe brought on by global warming and the ecological crisis.”

The document referred to the role of communications for a body such as the

WCC.

“Intrinsic to this fellowship is clear communication between the WCC and its

member churches. This requires transparency and reciprocity. We have often been confused by the interpretative accounts of the WCC that have appeared in Ecumenical News International and other third-party publications, and fail to hear what the WCC itself is saying and how it is receiving communications from churches about their concerns,” the document states.

The participants noted that, “Positive ecumenical communication both creates

and relies upon our sense of connection in the one body of Christ and our common humanity, ” but also said that such communication is “constrained by translation needs and by appropriate media.”
They stated, “For communication with the wider world, we need interfaces which assist credibility. ENI may play a role in this respect for church-based and even secular media.” Link to Seoul document: www.globalministries.org/news/eap/seoul-statement.html.

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