Layman editor will report from WCC assembly
The Presbyterian Layman, November 27, 1998
Parker T. Williamson, Executive Editor of The Presbyterian Layman, will provide daily, on-site coverage of the 50th Jubilee assembly of the World Council of Churches through The Layman Online. Williamson’s wrap-up of the assembly will be published in the January-February 1999 issue of The Layman.
Williamson also is a member of the Association for Church Renewal (ACR), whose members will urge Third World Christians to voice their evangelical convictions during the WCC assembly.
PCUSA sending 25 people
The Presbyterian Church (USA), the WCC’s largest financial supporter among Christian denominations in the United States, will send 25 representatives to the meeting at a cost estimated to exceed $50,000. General Assembly Moderator Douglas Oldenburg will lead the PCUSA group.
The assembly will meet in Harare, Zimbabwe, Dec. 3-14. The meeting is potentially one of the most controversial in the history of the international ecumenical organization since it was founded in Amsterdam in 1944 as a “fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
During an ACR press conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Nov. 9, Parker T. Williamson challenged the drift by WCC staff leadership toward “macro-ecumenism.”
Test of ‘macro-ecumenism’
The essence of that organizational mandate will be tested when the WCC considers a new statement of its vision and purpose, one that could reflect its leaders’ penchant for “macro-ecumenism,” a term for opening the organization’s membership to non-Christian religions and secular groups.
During an ACR press conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Nov. 9, Williamson challenged this drift by WCC staff leadership toward “macro-ecumenism,” declaring that the WCC “was never to be simply a society of religious ideas. It was never to be a gathering of people who would create their own deities, or a ‘choose whomever you please’ deity. What it was never to be was a pluralism of thoughts and ideologies.”
Homosexual controversy
Another controversy is expected over workshop presentations by homosexual activists representing two North American denominations – the United Church of Christ in the U.S. and the United Church of Canada.
These workshops, and related demonstrations on behalf of homosexuals, pose a dilemma for the WCC, particularly in light of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s strong opposition to any showcasing of the issue in his country.
Homosexual acts are punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has been under pressure from Christian churches in his own country and throughout Africa to cancel the WCC’s assembly because of anticipated pro-homosexuality demonstrations. African Christians are typically evangelical. Many of them are offended even by the fact that the subject will be discussed by the WCC. Zimbabwean Christians have questioned why representatives of church groups in North America would attempt to impose their same-sex mores on their culture.
A fragile agreement
So far the WCC has been able to sign what some consider a fragile memorandum of agreement with the Zimbabwe government. The agreement is intended to ensure that none of the WCC assembly’s 4,000 participants, including hundreds from Canada and the U.S., will be detained or harassed in Zimbabwe for possible homosexual activity or for advocating it.
The WCC, which meets every seven years, is in a predicament similar to that of the once-a-decade Lambeth Conference of 800 Anglican bishops worldwide. At the Lambeth meeting in Canterbury, England earlier this year, an overwhelming majority of Anglican bishops, led by African and Third World church leaders, declared homosexual behavior a sin and stated that persons who engage in it should not be ordained.
WCC leaders have not placed the subject of homosexuality on the official agenda of the assembly – in part because of opposition by Mugabe, but also because most African and Asian church leaders as well as representatives from Orthodox churches in the WCC are deeply opposed to homosexuality, referring to the fact that it is condemned in the Bible. Should a resolution calling for approval of same-sex activity come to a vote, it would be overwhelmingly crushed by Third World Christians who comprise the majority of delegates at the assembly.
Two workshops scheduled
Instead of being discussed at WCC plenary meetings, homosexuality will be the focus of workshops, called padares. Two years ago the United Church of Canada – the largest Protestant denomination in Canada, with 800,000 members – asked the United Church of Christ, one of the United States’ most liberal mainline Protestant denominations, for help in running the two workshops. One will be on human rights and homosexuals, the other on educating church members about homosexuals.
The North American denominations have also convinced the Congregationalist Church of South Africa and the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa to participate in the workshops. In addition to these official church activities promoting acceptance of homosexual behavior, gay/lesbian/bisexual organizations throughout the world have been encouraging one another to send demonstrators to Harare, and a local group has established an Internet web site to provide worldwide visibility for its assembly events.
Konrad Raiser speaking at a Presbyterian gathering held at Montreat Conference Center.
WCC ‘cannot close its eyes’
The WCC’s general secretary, the Rev. Konrad Raiser, said on Sept. 19 that the organization cannot “close its eyes” to the issue of homosexuality.
In answer to questions at a symposium – “Faith in the City: Fifty Years of the World Council of Churches in a Secularized Western Context” – held in Amsterdam to mark the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the WCC in the Dutch city, Raiser described the issue as a challenge to the ecumenical movement.
His remarks were seen as indicating a growing willingness by the WCC’s leadership to face up to an issue which the organization has generally regarded as too divisive for its member churches to tackle in open debate.
A Presbyterian connection
Prominent among WCC leaders in Harare will be Mary Ann Lundy, who lost her job at Presbyterian Church (USA) headquarters in 1994, following her leadership in the 1993 ReImagining God conference. Lundy, who is now deputy director of the World Council of Churches, says she was “fired up” when she left her Louisville office for her current post in Geneva.
Mary Ann Lundy speaking at the 1997 PC(USA) General Assembly “Voices of Sophia” breakfast. A featured speaker at the 1997 Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly “Voices of Sophia” breakfast, Lundy continues to be an outspoken advocate for homosexual activism in the Presbyterian Church (USA). In her WCC leadership role, Lundy has been pushing the organization toward “macro-ecumenism.” She declared her views on the subject at the St. Paul, MN “Re-Imagining Revival” in April, when she called for “a new definition of the word, ecumenical,” to include non-Christian religions and secular movements.
Lundy will be joined by several of her strongest Presbyterian Church (USA) supporters when the denomination’s official 25-member delegation arrives in Harare.