World Reformed Fellowship is born
The Layman Online, October 31, 2000
ORLANDO – Church leaders from every continent swept into Orlando Oct 24-27 to celebrate the birth of the World Reformed Fellowship. The event proved a breath of fresh air for Christians who have yearned for an ecumenical voice that is faithful to the gospel.
Gathered on the campus of Reformed Theological Seminary, General Assembly moderators, stated clerks, seminary professors, and pastors representing hundreds of congregations in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the United States heard God’s Word proclaimed in many tongues. Simultaneous translations in Korean and Spanish, punctuated by commentary in several African languages infused this gathering with a Pentecostal flavor.
Parker T. Williamson, executive editor of The Presbyterian Layman, who preached at the opening worship service, said Christian relationship is established by the redemptive work of God, that “…the only answer to a fractured, individualistic, fragmented existence: God the creator has come to us as God the redeemer.”
“The Church is a witness to a broken world of God’s intention for creation, of creation rightly ordered, the restored community,” Williamson said. “Where the Church bears that witness, new possibilities for community can flourish in this fractured world.”
Delegates voted to create their World Reformed Fellowship as a visible expression of Reformed faith. Although they adopted bylaws and took other actions necessary for organizing their association, they emphasized the fact that their passion is for establishing a fellowship of like-minded Christians, not the founding of a highly structured institution. More than 300 denominations, national churches and independent organizations of Christians committed to Reformed faith have expressed an interest in being part of this fellowship.
The vitality of this gathering stood in stark contrast to the malaise experienced by dying oldline ecumenical institutions like the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
Struggling for ways to stem its decline, leaders of the World Council of Churches have gone so far as to suggest that membership be opened to non-Christian groups.
The National Council of Churches, recently bailed out of its 1999 deficit by Presbyterian and United Methodist denominations, has announced that it anticipates a $1.8 million deficit for the first six months of 2001. Having exhausted its unrestricted reserves, and having been warned that another bailout from Presbyterians and Methodists is unlikely, the NCC finds itself on the edge of bankruptcy.
The smaller World Alliance of Reformed Churches is facing similar problems. Exacerbating its financial difficulties, the WARC suffered a leadership credibility crisis when its General Secretary, Rev. Alan Boesak was jailed for embezzlement and fraud.
Reformed Church leaders see in these crises symptoms of a deeper problem in the oldline ecumenical organizations, the abandonment of Scripture and, in some cases, the Christian faith itself.