c. 1998 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ A six-member delegation of evangelical leaders within the nation’s mainline Protestant churches will attend the upcoming assembly of the World Council of Churches in hopes of changing what it sees as the liberal direction of the 50-year-old global ecumenical body.

Members of the Association of Church Renewal, many of them longtime critics of the WCC, announced their plans at a news conference Monday (Nov. 9). At the same time, the group issued a statement,”A Jubilee Appeal,”and position papers on issues ranging from Christian unity to mission work to sexual morality aimed at the delegates from around the world who will attend the Dec. 3-14 WCC’s Eighth Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Diane Knippers, vice chair of the association, said the appeal aims to challenge the World Council of Churches to reaffirm its Christian identity rather than lose its voice as other groups _ including evangelicals and Orthodox _ seek other routes to foster Christian unity.”The question posed to the WCC is clear,”said Knippers, who also is president of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C.”Will it embrace today’s upsurge of the one true ecumenical movement that finds its identity in Jesus Christ and its purpose in his gospel? Or will it abandon its very reason for being, going off in a pursuit of a `macro-ecumenism’ that disdains Christ as `too narrow?'” Philip Jenks, communications officer for the World Council of Churches, said the ecumenical body has every intention of remaining solely a Christian organization.”There is no plan that I know of coming before the delegates that would expand membership of the World Council of Churches to groups that are not Christian groups or Trinitarian groups that don’t meet the original requirements of member organizations that were established in 1948 and before,”he said.

The idea that the WCC might expand beyond its Christian scope may have surfaced after a speech given during the council’s last assembly in Canberra, Australia, in 1991 by Chung Hyun Kyung, professor of theology at Ewha Women’s University in Korea. In one of seven position papers attached to the”Jubilee Appeal,”Donna F.G. Hailson, a board member of American Baptist Evangelicals, described Chung as having”a decidedly extra-biblical agenda”and”her own brand of syncretism”that urged a rejection of traditional Christian teachings or a blending of them with such other genres as goddess worship, Buddhism and Taoism.

Often, Jenks said, a range of views are expressed at assemblies that are not official statements of the council.”It’s unfortunate to represent them as if they are official viewpoints of the World Council or the delegates,”he said.”Chung’s are not nor were they when she made the speech in Canberra.” The renewal association’s appeal presses for improved relations with churches that have been concerned about the WCC’s direction. Orthodox leaders believe the WCC is too liberal and Protestant, and have voiced concerns about the group’s structure and theology.

Thomas Oden, a United Methodist theologian who chairs the Jubilee Appeal Project for the association, said Orthodox and evangelicals have felt excluded from the WCC’s decision-making process so much so that the group may not be able to continue.”This could be the last assembly of the World Council,”he said.”It’s quite possible.” Jenks is more hopeful about the council’s existence.”I think that there will certainly be a ninth assembly of the World Council of Churches in seven years at a place to be determined,”he said.

In addition to their general appeal for the council to renew its Christian commitment, association members issued position papers seeking affirmation on a variety of theological and social issues.”We want the WCC to be what it was meant to be _ a movement to advance the cause of Christian evangelism and missions,”said the Rev. James Heidinger, chairman of the renewal association and president of the Good News movement within the United Methodist Church.

Jenks said the council continues to be committed to missions and held a conference on the topic in Brazil in 1996.

Association members also would like to see the WCC assembly make a declaration supporting traditional stances on sexuality that would follow the pattern of the recent Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops, which this summer restated its stance that homosexual activity is incompatible with Scripture.

Jenks said a”unilateral statement”from the assembly on the controversial topic is unlikely because of the wide range of viewpoints among WCC members.

But he said the Rev. Konrad Raiser, the WCC’s general secretary, hopes to find a way to continue dialogue on the matter after the assembly meeting.

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