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Globalization has been cited by the World Council of Churches (WCC) as a prime cause of economic inequality, poverty and political injustice, and the moderator of the WCC Central Committee said Monday (26 August) that the churches must work together to redirect its impact.
"Globalization is imposing new ways of 'being church', affecting even the church's self-understanding", said H.H. Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia (Armenian Orthodox Church), in his report to the Central Committee's opening session in Geneva.
The first thing the churches must do, the moderator said, is "move from a static to a dynamic concept of church." Churches still bound to their histories and traditions must open up to their "environment and to the world at large...(and) be relevant to the concrete conditions of life and the expectations and concerns of people."
He called upon the church to "reaffirm and express its inherent catholicity" (or unity in diversity), which transcends its many traditions and denominations. "Catholicity upholds diversity and promotes coherence within an integrated whole", Aram said. It compels local churches to recognize that "they belong to each other and need each other, and that, in spite of cultural, ethnic and geographical divisions, they are an inseparable and integral part of the one Body of Christ."
Globalization is drawing humankind into "a dangerous place" dominated by values of consumerism, and where scientific and technological advances have no "moral orientation", Aram said. As powerful nations and corporations take advantage of their opportunities at the expense of the poor and powerless, only a church "transformed by the ecumenical vision" can intervene as the "herald of God's globalization".
As Central Committee members responded to the moderator's report, Bishop Aldo M. Etchegoyen (Evangelical Methodist Church of Argentina) observed that the world has experienced "a new stage of globalization" since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States. As the US uses its power to fight terrorism, Etchegoyen said, "one of the problems of globalization is that it has too much power and too little wisdom".
The US is engaged in a war against an unknown and elusive enemy, Etchegoyen said. "If we don't know where the enemy is, then the enemy is everywhere; and, as we found out in Latin America, that is very dangerous." As the church faces these new elements of globalization, "the churches in the US need to take their prophetic responsibility very seriously".
Joining his comments to those of the moderator, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr. Konrad Raiser, called for a "new ecumenical configuration" in the 21st century.
In his report to the WCC Central Committee Monday afternoon (26 August), Raiser said the ecumenical movement no longer attracts enthusiastic youthful supporters, and conservative elements within member churches have always shunned the movement. "For many even the term 'ecumenism' provokes suspicion and rejection."
Social and justice ministries of the ecumenical movement have lost their appeal for the young "and it remains to be seen whether the Decade to Overcome Violence can rekindle some of this enthusiasm," Raiser said. At the same time, a myriad of regional and national ecumenical organizations has risen along with non-profit organizations with religious agendas to compete for smaller portions of the 'ecumenical pie'.
Raiser went on to comment on the serious budget deficits being faced by the WCC and many national and regional ecumenical organizations. "Ecumenism," he said, "confronts a complex situation full of uncertainties." "There is currently a clear decrease in the availability of such funds and the number of actors in civil society competing for such resources has increased," Raiser said.
He called upon the churches to develop "a new ecumenical configuration" that would bring competing elements together. "For the global expression of the fellowship of churches the WCC remains the principal instrument," he said. "Ways should therefore be found of associating the other global ecumenical actors organically with the WCC." This included Christian World Communions and Regional Ecumenical Organizations, he said.
In a press conference following the meeting, Raiser noted that the initiative must come from the churches if it was to work.