Prospects and Challenges for Ecumenism and the Ecumenical Movement
Address to the Swedish Ecumenical Weekend
Uppsala, Sweden, 4 November 2018

Dr. Agnes Abuom

Moderator, World Council of Churches

He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.—Titus 2:14 (NRSV)

 

Introduction

Accept my sincere thanks and appreciation to you friends and fellow pilgrims, for organizing this weekend programme, which has exposed us to the life and work of the churches, ecumenical organizations and community life in Sweden. We have in the past few days walked together down memory lane, retracing the steps as well new sections of the path as part of the 70 years of the World Council of Churches and the wider ecumenical movement. Please also accept my thanks for your inviting me to reflect with you on the remarkable, ongoing journey of Christian renewal that we call the ecumenical movement.

We meet at a propitious time, a milestone year and in a place—here in Uppsala—that features largely in that history. The Uppsala WCC 4th Assembly theme, “Behold I make all things new,” provides the backdrop for my presentation and reflection on issues and challenges facing the ecumenism and the ecumenical movement.

I: Background: Ecumenism and the Ecumenical Movement

The search for unity through prayer, consultations and studies by churches, is a response to the prayer of our Lord Jesus ”that they may become one” (John 17:23). The psalmist reminds us also that it is pleasant when brethren dwell in unity (Ps. 133). And therefore the divisions our foremothers and forefathers and to a certain extent our generation experience in the human family and particularly in the church of Christ are not only a scandal but a denial of  obedience and fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer. This does not in any way negate the richness of our diversity. Quite to the contrary; it is to note that  human divisions and human abuse of the earth cause havoc, pain and separation that in turn affects our relationships with God and with one another.

As you recall, the WCC was formed in 1948 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, after World War II, which had left the global North and especially Europe divided both in the church and community. The founding members of the WCC were largely North Americans and Europeans—147 churches initially—and there was only one African founding church: the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Today the WCC has 345 member churches in 110 countries comprising 550 million members, a majority of whom are now located in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific, reflecting the shift in the center of Christianity. The membership of the WCC, namely Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed, Baptist, United and Independent churches, makes it the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement.

Establishment of the WCC came after a long process when a merger of Faith and Order movement led by Charles Brent of the Episcopal Church of United States of America and the Life and Work Movement under the leadership of Archbishop Nathan Söderblom of the Church of Sweden. These two streams were later joined by the International Missionary Council in 1961 and the World Council of Christian Education in 1971. It is argued that in history, dreams have a way of being forgotten,  but not in the case of the founding ecumenists who dreamed of ecumenical unity. We are living witnesses of the dream.

The WCC is a fellowship of churches “who confess the Lord Jesus as God and Saviour according to the scriptures…. A communion of churches on their way to visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship.” There are four broad objectives of the WCC member churches; they are called to the goal of visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic fellowship; to promote their common witness in the work for mission and evangelism; to engage in Christian service by serving human need, breaking barriers between people, seeking justice and peace and upholding the integrity of creation; and to foster renewal in unity, worship, mission and service.

This time and place represent an auspicious confluence of several streams in the ecumenical movement.  The year 2018 marks 70 years since the founding of the WCC. Then, just 20 years later, the WCC underwent a major renewal right here in Uppsala in 1968, immediately after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and at the height of the tumultuous ‘60s. So this is the 50th anniversary of the WCC’s 4th Assembly. And this year we also celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women (1988-1998), an initiative that recognized and enjoined the powerful movement of inclusion and liberation of women that still challenges the churches today.

70, 50, 20 years of walking and together in and for unity, peace, and justice: this long pilgrimage of faith is who we are and what we do, namely: praying, walking, working  and remembering together as churches following in Jesus’ steps toward a better world, one that more closely hews to Jesus’ vision of God’s reign on earth.

Still, we might ask, with this glorious and consequential ecumenical legacy, why is the world falling apart? Why does it feel like we are on the brink of disaster? To explore this question, I’d like briefly to evoke Uppsala and the world of 1968, and the emblematic engagements that would ensue from that pivotal meeting here.  Then I’d like to sketch the landscape through which we are presently walking and suggest how, as Christians, as churches, and as a global ecumenical fellowship we might aspire to respond in a creative and effective way today, acknowledging that we are the generation of our time.

II: “Behold I Make All Things New”: 1968 and Uppsala

50 years ago, during that momentous, generation-defining year of 1968, the churches that constitute the WCC met here in Uppsala.  The theme of the WCC 4th Assembly aptly captured the mood of the context at the time. 1968 was a year of global protest—from Berkeley to Cape Town, from Paris to Prague—with deep divisions over the Vietnam War, civil rights, solidarity movements and power configurations in government and the economy. It was deeply scarred by the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and then Robert F. Kennedy, and by riots and demonstrations everywhere. It witnessed both the Prague Spring and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. And over it all hung the grey cloud of the Cold War and the nuclear standoff between East and West. Yet it was also the year of the emergent counterculture, of the Civil Rights Act in the USA, of the first successful heart transplant in South Africa, and of the first lunar orbiting.

The decolonization process of former colonies in Asia, Africa, etc., had gained momentum and the autonomy of “daughter churches” from mission agencies was gaining currency, as the membership of the fellowship of the ecumenical movement had expanded since 1961 New Delhi assembly.  At the global governance level, this was a time for the first UN Development Decades declared in 1960.

That pivotal year in politics, popular culture, and geopolitics also ushered in a new era for the worldwide ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches. Its 4th Assembly, held in June in Uppsala, Sweden, decisively shifted the WCC into social engagements on the world’s stage.

After the April assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. only weeks before he was due to preach at the opening worship of the WCC assembly, it was novelist James Baldwin who delivered a stinging indictment of Christianity’s complicity in racial prejudice to the assembled delegates and fired up the vision of ecumenical engagement against racism around the world.  That resolve would later lead to establishment of the Programme to Combat Racism (PCR), with its controversial yet ultimately effective efforts to dethrone apartheid in Southern Africa.

“Behold, I make all things new” was the unforgettable message of the assembly. As Michael Nausner has written in the latest issue of The Ecumenical Review:

The assembly was keenly in tune with the worldwide upheavals of the year. It indeed sought to discern the signs of the time and produced a number of creative suggestions, for example by emphasizing the aspect of inclusiveness in catholicity, by stressing the multilateral dimension of mission, and not least by highlighting the churches' inherent responsibility to be agents of justice and peace in a fractured world.

This most activist and politically oriented assembly called for churches to show “a new openness to the world in its aspirations, its achievements, its restlessness and its despair.” Out of this creative ferment came important programmatic initiatives, including the Dialogue with People of Living Faiths, the Christian Medical Commission, greater stress on investment in development work, and deeper engagement with the Catholic Church, even hopes for a universal council. And through its alliance with liberation movements in the “Third World,” including with the anti-apartheid movements in Southern Africa and the Civil Rights Movement in the US, the assembly took up political and liberation theologies into the ecumenical movement. This was most emphatically the case in the controversial yet ultimately successful Programme to Combat Racism and the Commission on Churches Participation in Development (CCPD) with special focus on the church of the poor.

III: What I Have Learned during the Weekend

IV. The 2018 Landscape

Fifty years on, once again we are living in a crucial moment, a decisive time for humanity and the future of the planet because of the unprecedented character and scale of our challenges.

In my view, challenges are not necessarily bad. In fact challenges are designed as part of human and organizational destiny, as a few biblical examples testify. The jealousy and selling of Joseph led eventually to his assuming power in Egypt; David needed Goliath in order to be the king; Esther required the threat of elimination of her people for her to confront the king and redeem them.

Our time is characterized most broadly by globalization of economic structures which enable new relationships but are deeply problematic and foster unprecedented global inequalities between and within nation states. We also benefit from global digital communication, which facilitates cultural encounter and information sharing yet leaves us vulnerable to exploitation by demagogues who use media to distort the truth for their own gain. We live in a time of generational change, too, when youth constitute the majority in many countries yet suffer most from poverty, preventable diseases, and violence. A bird’s eye view of children around the world indicates growing violence and child poverty. Our era also is marked by unprecedented encounter of the world’s religions, though this too can be used as camouflage for oppression and exploitation. And of course, our time is marked or marred by climate change accelerating due to human activity, looming over us like a dire warning or even a death sentence for the planet and its creatures. It is estimated that there will be about 100 million to 500 million climate refugees if we do not change our relationship to the earth communities, and this number is besides the present refugees and migrants.

V. Challenges for Ecumenism and the Ecumenical Movement

Within the present global landscape, we journey on as churches, as church-related actors, and as individuals participating in this larger dynamism we call the ecumenical movement. Here, too, we must acknowledge that, though we are presently experiencing a genuine community in a surprising consensus about our direction—pilgrimaging for visible unity, peace, and justice for the sake of humanity—ecumenism too has its challenges.  I want to list five such areas.

Broader unity. If the most effective form of unity in relation to our global challenges is genuine solidarity among the churches, how do we broaden that quest for unity to encompass all Christians in global action and advocacy for justice and peace? An evolving unity in a broader community that includes evangelicals and Pentecostals, and deeper communion with the Roman Catholic Church, can manifest genuine resolve among Christians everywhere to address our situation.

Moral discernment: How do our communion/koinonia and our sharing in God’s mission on earth affect our stances on such important ethical questions as beginning and end of life issues, sex and sexuality, political engagement, and such intra-church issues as the roles of women in ministry? Can we hope for consensus on such issues, or should the ecumenical movement see itself as a safe space for conversation and deliberation about them?

Reshaping diakonia: An important exigence now is reframing diakonia or church service to bridge the gap between religious communities and international organizations and agencies by understanding where they meet in shared commitment to human dignity. To be effective, we need a common language that reflects our shared values, even if we come at the problems from different spheres of responsibility. This whole realm of church service is being renewed too, as the work of large agencies is augmented by local churches being brought back into the picture: let’s be professional, but let’s not leave it all to the professionals!

The generational challenge: We need to kindle the vision, creativity and energy of the next generation in order to benefit from their gifts and ensure that the impetus for renewal in Christian churches remains strong. This is a perennial challenge, to be sure, especially for the WCC, which is a fellowship not of individuals but of church bodies. And it entails giving genuine voice and say to younger people everywhere.

Human worth has no boundaries, nor age: I am personally looking forward to fostering also our cooperation with children and young adults and to making our churches into safe spaces for youth to explore their identities and test their values without fear of judgment or reprisal. This has become vital as HIV and AIDS threaten a new generation of youth.

The gender challenge: At the recent anniversary celebration of the Decade of the Churches in Solidarity with Women, I noted that women’s associations have been indispensable to the work of Christian unity and mission. But, although women are the key pillar of the church insofar as membership and the financial flows, most of them are not fully involved in decision making processes of the church.  Women are not at the center of decision making, and in some contexts and ways they remain a majority on the margins. This, of course, involves multiple layers if challenges: of addressing gender violence and discrimination, of representation and power, of ministerial structures, but also, as Pope Francis recently said in relation to clerical abuse, of addressing the centuries-old, deeply embedded culture of clericalism or patriarchy.

These five challenges really come back to one: though we acknowledge and even prize our diverse gifts and traditions, we must ask: what does our pledge and covenant for unity really demand of us today?  In what ways does it entail renewal within each of our own communities, reframing how we work together, and the shape of our stance in the world?  That is, what does our covenant for visible unity entail for our accountability to ourselves, to the other churches in the fellowship, and to the world?

VI.  Signposts of Hope

Of course, especially in relation to the global picture, it is tempting to despair. We may, for example, experience both gloom and doom when we realize how steep is the challenge of addressing climate change and the devastation it appears already to be causing. We may be shocked and frightened by the re-emergence of racist groups and xenophobic politics that threaten individuals, groups, and the very fabric of our democracies. We may be discouraged by, for example, the intractability of conflicts we witness in South Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo or the Middle East, or the violence meted out to the Rohingas of Myanmar. We may be perplexed about how to address the gender-based violence that seems to continue unabated and that is even on the upsurge in our world.

But I want to tell you that ours is also a kairos moment and that there are hope-filled, grace-filled elements at work that hold enormous potential for affecting the course we take. Nothing is inevitable and, with God’s help, everything is possible. After all, God is at work in each of us, and, through ongoing conversion, constantly remaking our readiness and willingness and capacity to serve the needs of others. Joining together in solidarity, we can make a difference! For me, this is the future of the ecumenical movement, forging a people eager to do what is right (Titus 2:14; 1 Peter 3:13).

I am not naïve about the extent of today’s challenges. I myself work in some of the most stubborn conflict zones in the world, most recently in Kenya, Burundi, the Congo, and South Sudan. But I believe that ecumenically engaged Christians and churches are crucially positioned to contribute decisively to saving our people and our planet from the doomsayers. Let me offer a few reasons and examples for this faith-filled hope, identifying small, grace-filled signs with larger potential:

--Religion is the key explanatory variable, indispensable to understanding and addressing our situation, and this is what we know best. In fact, each day there is hardly a front-page issue that does not have an important religious dimension, often key to unlocking the real reasons why people and groups act as they do. But understanding religion is also key to discerning what is authentic and what is bogus in religious claims, including our own! Our knowledge must be self-critical. Christians have a special duty to deflate Islamophobia, for example, and to expose misuse of the Bible in public discourse. Our ongoing work in interreligious dialogue and cooperation, fostering personal interreligious encounter and forming interreligiously fluent youth leadership are among the most important things we do, not least to build the political will to overcome fear and risk peace in multireligious settings. This work is also inspired by the growing grass root inter-faith work in which churches are key members and actors.

--Christian churches offer rich community and strength for the journey. As they have for 2000 years, through liturgy and song, personal and communal prayer, biblical reflection and Christian formation, churches everywhere build community in ways that fuel social engagement and commitment to justice. We all know this firsthand. And no one who has participated in religious demonstrations for justice or joined in a Taizé service can doubt the power of shared song to break down religious barriers and forge resolve and courage for action. I myself recently witnessed this in the march and demonstration on the Capitol Mall in the US that launched the National Council of Churches’ A.C.T. Now to End Racism.

--Ecumenically active churches form a worldwide network for advocacy. Most recently we saw this living network employed effectively in the lead-up to international approval of the Paris Accord, as churches around the world embarked on pilgrimage and joined hands—often literally—to encourage governments to commit to the agreement. A few years earlier we saw how effective persuasion by churches of a dozen key countries finally tipped the balance in the United Nations toward approval of a long-sought Arms Trade Treaty.  Through collaboration among churches and with ecumenical partners like ACT Alliance, as well as alliances with international organizations (like UNICEF) or NGOs (like World Vision or the Global Fund), this network can be scaled up for global issues or focused more tactically on regional or national issues.

--Churches also have the grassroots networks and contextual knowledge. Recognition of this reality is part of the reason that international organizations—like UNAIDS, WHO, and UNICEF—have recently sought out partnerships with the WCC and regional churches to benefit from on-the-ground knowledge and contacts. This was crucial in addressing the Ebola crisis in western Africa, for instance, and the work of Christian health associations and healthcare networks are the frontlines of global health. Today we can assert that ecumenism at the grassroots level is alive and not just confined to the institutional levels, at least certain parts of the world.

The same is true in the area of development work.  Carefully identifying the most urgent needs in a locale and responsibly steering scarce resources to them is something churches do to increase the effectiveness of development aid, and this model informs the work of ACT Alliance, also assembling here this month.

--Churches are inclusive communities. Churches are a leaven to society when they are a counter-sign to racism and xenophobia and are able to bring human warmth and personal contact to the hard work of welcoming and integrating the stranger. You know just how threatening large-scale migration can be to nations and communities. Yet welcoming the stranger is an axiom of the whole biblical legacy, and Christians can encourage openness, friendship, and hospitality in welcoming and resettling refugees and migrants. Here in Europe, for example, from Sweden to Hungary to Greece, churches have stood in solidarity with each other and with migrants to counter prejudice and demagoguery and to facilitate new lives on new shores. This is a hopeful sign of restoring the spirit and values of solidarity.

--Christian commitment to human dignity is firmly grounded in biblical affirmations of human beings as fashioned in the very image of God. This seems so obvious, but it is violated in every act of violence, in every instance of gender discrimination or gender violence, and everywhere that ethnic or religious or sexual minorities suffer disrespect or disregard. And often the roots of discrimination lie in age-old yet inauthentic strands of religious tradition.

Uppsala stated that our shared humanity is formulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stands threatened today as fake practices of democracy are used to legitimize killing by law.

While in 1948 the ecumenical movement lent crucial support to formulating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), today such support might entail rethinking the roots of violence in outmoded notions of masculinity or white privilege or religious exclusivism.

--Christian theology and Christian social teachings can be a progressive force in rethinking foundational elements in our situation. I am thinking of such topics as creation and the God-world relationship; what it means to be human (sexuality, gender, issues at the beginning and end of lives, even Artificial Intelligence); criteria and mechanisms for a just and sustainable economy; and our own complicity in the checkered legacies of race, class, and gender.

For example, when we take seriously the very traditional Christian affirmation that God inhabits creation, it leads directly to seeing the sacredness of all creation, spaces and the preciousness of every human life. It forges strong links to Indigenous spiritualities and non-Christian traditions. It deepens and enlivens our work for climate justice. And it enables us to think anew our practices about our bodies, food, farming, health, and sustainable living.

This work of critical, creative theological re-appropriation of Christian traditions and constant critique of ecumenical institutions in order to serve the fellowship towards realizing the ecumenical vision, is the bread and butter of the ecumenical movement. It means that the Christian churches and academic settings become not just teachers but also learners, genuinely open to wrestling with and re-conceptualizing the central mysteries that govern our deepest commitments and values.

So I believe that this can be our time. A critical, creative contribution from the world’s churches can be a decisive element in rescuing the world from its worst behaviours; and building on such grace-filled elements, they can nurture the values and political will to affect real change. Once again, our faith, commitment, and practice are tested.

VII: Realistic hope and deep renewal

A recent statement by Fillipo Grand, the UNHCR Commissioner for Refugees noted that, even in the midst of tragedy, heroism and service to others have emerged. This statement is corroborated by the work and experience of Nobel laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege as he sought to restore the God-given dignity and right to broken bodies, the wounded, and rejected women and children in Congo.

As we turn to the future, therefore, I see an ecumenical movement as vital, as creative, and as important as—perhaps more than—ever before. For, as our situation evolves, so too do we. For the journey changes the pilgrim, as the needs of fellow pilgrims and others we encounter along the way call forth the best from us; and so too does our notion of unity for justice and peace evolve. Unity not only illuminates differences and addresses divisions; it also creates community across frontiers, fosters inclusion and builds solidarity. Yet it is ever a work of renewal, anchored in the deep personal renewal that Jesus called for in his preaching, his healing, and his commission to his disciples. As Pope Francis said in his recent pilgrimage to the WCC:

Walking, in a word, demands constant conversion. That is why so many people refuse to do it. They prefer to remain in the quiet of their home, where it is easy to manage their affairs without facing the risks of travel. But that is to cling to a momentary security, incapable of bestowing the peace and joy for which our hearts yearn. That joy and peace can only be found by going out from ourselves.

This challenge of deep renewal therefore begins with us and must also include critical self-examination by the churches themselves. So here on this ecumenical weekend, I invite you to join me in recommitting to the ecumenical journey—sharing one faith, invoking one Lord, alive in one Spirit, working, walking and praying together for the sake of one humanity.  Come join the movement of just peace by those who want to live in a world marked by just peace as they plant seeds of peace, becoming peace builders and peace makers—a journey where, for the sake of present and future generations, we never stop dreaming, creating and imparting hope.

Thank you.