The grants made to African liberation movements and others received resounding support when the World Council of Churches Central Committee met last month in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Swept on by impassioned African speeches of rare evangelical fervor (“don’t put up your hands unless you really mean it”), delegates voted without dissentient voice that the grants were in line with the decision made at the 1969 meeting at Canterbury to further a program to combat racism. No South African was present among the 103 members who gathered for the twelve-day meeting in the 7,500-foot high capital city, seat of the Organization of African Unity.
During discussion it was pointed out that while the grants were made without control over the manner in which they would be used, the nineteen recipient groups had given assurances that they would spend the money not for military projects but for “activities in harmony with the purposes” of the WCC. None of the recipient bodies is operating against a Marxist regime.
Echoing the views of other Britons, longtime delegate Bishop Oliver Tomkins of Bristol said that he had not grasped at Canterbury the full implications of the decision made there, that Central Committee members had had no warning of the Executive Committee’s awarding of the $200,000 in grants, and that they had been caused embarrassment by reading about it first in the public press. The bishop wanted further discussion of the Christian attitude toward violent revolution in relation to the just war and in a violent world (a study of this subject is being undertaken under WCC auspices).
Youth observer Milton D. Whittaker was indignant about American churches that passed resolutions favoring the WCC action but benefited from South African investments; the chaplains who bless military occasions; and the lack of balance that makes pronouncement against violence only in selected areas. On the whole, however, the WCC executive and staff had anticipated a much rougher ride, and privately expressed surprise that West German opposition, previously expressed in a forceful way, had not materialized.
In its statement the committee stressed that “violence is in many cases inherent in the maintenance of the status quo.” Nevertheless, “the WCC does not and cannot identify itself completely with any political movement, nor does it pass judgment on those victims of racism who are driven to violence as the only way left to them to redress grievances and so open the way for a new and more just social order.”
Member churches were asked to support the 1971 United Nations International Year for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination, and a new appeal was made to them to reach the $500,000 goal projected at Canterbury. In addition to the WCC’s own allocation of $200,000 from special funds, more than $140,000 has so far been received.
There were confusing elements about the discussion. While at Canterbury white racism had been regarded as “the most dangerous form” of racism, the Addis plenary debate and decisions gave the impression that it was almost the only form. General Secretary Eugene Carson Blake came under fire on a related theme during the first press conference. What about persecution in the Southern Sudan? asked a pressman. What about anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union? What about the WCC’s relationship generally with the Communist world? Was there not a certain selectivity and imbalance in the WCC’s statements?
“I reject your assumptions,” Blake retorted heatedly, “all of them.” He denied that the WCC was biased. In support of his assertion of impartiality he mentioned WCC intervention in the recent Spanish and Russian criminal cases. There was more than a hint here also that criticism was ill informed, and that quiet negotiations were always going on behind the scenes in certain areas that might be prejudiced by publicity. Blake asked for more confidence in the integrity of the WCC—an appeal that perhaps fell strangely on journalistic ears.
Quizzed about his own future, Blake said he had told the WCC that when he reached 65 in November this year he would be “eligible to retire on full pension,” but that he would make himself available thereafter in order to make the transition easier for his successor. It was later announced that an appointments committee will make a recommendation at the next Central Committee meeting, to be held in Holland in the summer of 1972.
Another subject that could have lent itself to much controversy—and didn’t—was the dialogue with men of other faiths. In a major paper, WCC staffer Stanley J. Samartha gave three reasons for dialogue: God himself entered into relationship with men of all faiths and in all ages in the person of Jesus Christ; Christ’s freedom and love constrain us to be in fellowship with strangers “so that all may become fellow citizens in the household of God”; Christ has promised that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth, and dialogue is one way to further that quest.
The Indian theologian said that dialogue must take place in freedom—the freedom to be committed to one’s own faith, to be open to that of others, and not to come to these others making the ground rules by which discussion was to be conducted. The same point was expanded by the metropolitan of Mount Lebanon. But Swiss Protestant leader Jacques Rossel was dubious. “The Christian comes from the Cross and the Resurrection,” he declared, “and is going toward the fulfillment of all things in Christ.” John Coventry Smith, a WCC president, found some very different faiths get along well because they don’t believe much of anything.
During this debate it became clear that the Orthodox contingent did not like what it saw to be the Western tendency to separate Christ from the rest of creation, while the Westerners had misgivings about the way the Orthodox talked about the Holy Spirit altogether apart from Christ.
Finally the committee approved, as part of an interim policy statement, regular consultations with those of other faiths, with priority given to bilateral dialogues of a specific nature, such as the major human problems of justice, development, and peace.
Greek and other Orthodox leaders also did not like the way Blake and other council members handled a dispute over council recognition of the newly formed Orthodox Church in America (see February 27 issue, page 37). Accusing the council of “taking sides in a canonical dispute among Orthodox,” the Greeks boycotted the council’s final business session and closing worship service.
At the opening session of the Central Committee, Emperor Haile Selassie I, Lion of Judah (claimed to be the 225th in the Solomonic line), said that developing countries always welcomed any technical and material assistance offered them in the spirit of Christian love. But, added the 78-year-old monarch who last year celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his accession: “All aid proffered by any Christian organization should be free from any political motivation and from all contamination by ideological microbes, and should be directed exclusively to the welfare of mankind and to the development of the standard of living of human beings.”
Replying, Dr. W. A. Visser’t Hooft said the forces of division made the task of the WCC harder as time goes on. “Precisely at the time when we need more than ever the reintegration of humanity,” said the former WCC general secretary, “the disintegrating processes are stronger than ever.” The force of reintegration that could overcome the confusion is the Holy Spirit, he added.
The Central Committee also:
• Commended British church efforts to persuade the Heath government not to resume the sale of arms to South Africa.
• Heard that the WCC expected a $70,000 deficit in its 1971 general budget.
• Agreed to appeal for funds to assist the Canadian Council of Churches in serving draft-age immigrants from the United States on the basis that this was a service to individuals, who like others have become refugees, without judgment on the reason for their predicament.
• Elected as a WCC president, in place of the late D. T. Niles, Professor (Mrs.) Kiyoka Takeda Cho, 53, Japanese cultural anthropologist.
• Called upon the nations of the world to abolish capital punishment because it violates “the sanctity of life.”
• Accepted six new applications for WCC membership,* bringing the total number of WCC member and associate churches to 252.
The Central Committee sessions were held just after the Ethiopian Christmas season and were adjourned for one day so that participants could join in the Timkhat (Epiphany) celebrations, including a dinner given for them and for Ethiopian church and state dignitaries.
