RESOURCES • FAITH, CULTURE & EMPIRE

Seoul International Consultation on Revitalizing Ecumenical Movement

2008 NOVEMBER 13-15 | SEOUL, KOREA

 

PRESENTATION

Revitalization of the Ecumenical Movement

Challenges and New Directions:
Cooperation action among Faiths for Peace and Life

By GABRIEL HABIB

After having heard the enriching presentations of yesterday and today, I feel that my contribution will be very simple and I will approach the Ecumenical crisis in light of my experience of the Middle East, which I am continuing as director of Religious and Cultural Relations of the Middle East Fellowship.

I think that the Ecumenical movements have been negatively affected by the following realities: The International Context-The Inter-Christian Problems and their Effects -The WCC Structures and Relationships- Revitalizing the WCC.

I. THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

 

A. Main Developments

On the International level we are experiencing a conflict between Globalization, as pursued by the western powers and the reactions to it by the Ethno-Religious extremist movements, as well asbetween Cultural Conflicts in some parts of the world. Those various conflicts seem to be the great battles of the 21st century.

1. The Globalization Process. This process is extending the western political, economic and cultural ethos to the whole world. Its objective seems to be the removal of any trade barriers that interfere with the freedom of economic cooperation in order to open access to resources and markets everywhere. As a result, people are called to embrace a materialistpath to happiness and to shift to pragmatism instead of idealism. The churches are then shifting from the ideal of Christian Unity to diplomatic setups.

2. The Emergence of Ethnic and Religious Nationalism. After the end of the called war, Ethno Religious Nationalisms have emerged, in many parts of the world and particularly in the Middle East. Accordingly, there has been a decline of many secular ideologies and the rise of ethnic and religious nationalism that has been stressing the absoluteness of the ethnic and religious particularities of the people identity and has lead to fragment their societies into ethnic and religious groups whose actions had replaced social plurality with their particular identity. This also exposed those groups to make religion become a cause of war instead of being a factor of reconciliation and Peace between people and nations. In the Middle East, that is manifested in the following politico-religious implications.

a. The Zionist Movement.This movement settled the Jews in Palestine on the basis of “a people without land in a land without people”. Unfortunately, that land was full of Palestinian Christians and Muslims. Practically, the Zionist ideology of Judaism challenged the secular humanist and pluralist nature of modern nationalism, on the ground that modern nationalism is leading to a national formula that separates religion from the State and establishes equality between the Jews and the Arabs or the Jews and Gentile thus, denying the Jewish concepts of Choosiness and the Promised Land. For them, their Divine Right should not be denied in favor of the Human Right. Accordingly Israel is unfortunately using the ethical value of the elimination of the other in thename of God’s people instead of dialogue.

b. The Islamic extremist or “fundamentalist” movements. Because of the political behavior of Israel and the USA, these movements are striving to reestablish societies and states based on the Islamic law or “Sharia”and not on the western secular laws. For them, the West has elaborated a concept of democracy, which is based on secularism that is not compatible with the Islamic faith. Consequently, they are trying to reestablish Islamic societies and states in which they consider that the Jews and the Christians are People of the Book and as such, they are supposed to live in peace in the “abode of Islam” or “Dar Al-Islam”. Whatever spiritually good this may be, it does not yet provide the non-Muslims equality of citizenship and freedom. .

3. Cultural Conflict. The return to the ethnic and religious nationalism is causing in many parts of the world a conflict between two main cultures. The first is the western culture which, according to many communities in the world, is rooted in secular humanism and has invested power in the human being to the extent of marginalizing and even eliminating God through materialism, nihilism, atheism and materialist philosophies or ideologies. It is also considered that it is nowadays leading to a western type of globalization and that its values were propagated internationally by western colonialism and by the internationalist claims of the UN. In the Middle East, the secondtrend is the monotheistic culture, according towhich, the Jews and the Muslims, consider that “power” should be re-centered in God and that the State and Religion should be reunited. Unfortunately, instead of reinterpreting the relation between the Divine and the Human, the extremist expressions of this trend go to the extent of asserting God’s power or the power of religion in the world at the expense of the human being who could even be eliminated in the name of God or His people and making religion become a cause of division and war instead of a factor of Unity and Peace.

4. Interventions of the foreign powers. Nowadays, instead of helping solve the ongoing tensions, some foreign powers, mainly the US Policy of war against terrorism or the axe of evil seems to be encouraging their continuation for their own economic and strategic purposes. The M. East people have always considered that in addition to its Globalization process, the present US policy in their region has been a double standard, since it is attacking Iraq and threatening Iran, regarding nuclear power, without criticizing Israel.

B. The Effects of the International Context on the Ecumenical Movement

There are many negative effects that one can recognize. However, I will refer only to the following matters:

1. Withdrawal of the churches into their particular identity. Facing the emergence of the Globalization process and the ethno-religious revivalist trends, some churches are increasingly withdrawing into their theological, cultural and ethnic particularities over and against commonalities or the ecumenical movement. Consequently, they are reducing and withdrawing their spiritual and material support to the WCC.

2. Other Religions are trying to replace Christianity and its Ecumenical Movement. Many non-Christians are trying to replace Christianity in the world. They believe that, despite their ecumenical efforts, the Christians are continuing to be divided through Proselytism and therefore, they have not manifested God’s oneness or the One Church in history.

II. THE INTERNAL CHRISTIAN PROBLEMATIC SITUATION AND ITS EFFECTS

Many matters could be mentioned in this regard. However, I will refer here to two issues that I consider to be examples of the existing inter-Christian problems.

1. The Orthodox-Protestant misunderstanding. With regard to the relations between the WCC Orthodox and the Protestant member churches, there has often been misunderstandings about concepts like relativism, denominationalism, liberalism, conservatism, unity in diversity or uniformity, the local and the universal, the past and the future. Etc. The most important is that the Orthodox consider the Protestants too be historically activists and the Protestants consider the Orthodox to be too Transcendentalists. Unfortunately, those churches did not undertake self-criticism, in order correct their misconceptions and accept the reconciliation of the historical with the transcendental, as well as other mutual challenges with love and respect. Consequently, their meetings within the WCC have gradually become unimportant.

2. Actions of the so-called Western “Evangelicals”. The Ecumenical Movement and the WCC have been able to convince the western churches to transform their traditional missionary movements in the so-called mission fields to Partnership with the local churches. However, what is nowadays increasing the problematic sensitivities between the local Christians and the other religious communities of their respective countries is the mission of the American so-called “Evangelicals” or Zionist Christians who are demonstrating that Israel is the fulfillment of the biblical Prophecies and that the local Arab Christians are not born again. For them, the USA is the new Christian Empire. Therefore, those attitudes are leading to the gradual increase of the oppositions of the non-Christian religious communities to the Ecumenical Movement. This is mainly because the WCC has not undertaken serious dialogues with the “Western Evangelical” to correct their wrong behavior to the other Christians and the other religions in the world.

III. THE WCC STRUCTURS AND RELATIONS

In this field, it is also possible to mention many negative effects of the present WCC structures and relationships. At least, the following matters could be considered.

1. The WCC decision-making structures. Because of the influence of the western secular culture, many Orthodox churches think that the WCC has been transformed from an ecclesiological fellowship into a super-church institution. Therefore, the WCC is behaving according to an institutional hierarchy that does not make the member churches more involved in the decision making process.

2. The WCC Relationships with the member churches. Many member Churches of the third world think that the WCC tends to ignore their cultural ethos and relates to them in a bureaucratic way. Therefore, the WCC should relate to them not only in a professional bureaucratic way, but more importantly through personal relationships.

3. The WCC Relations and Cooperation with the REOs. The WCC has not expressed enough supported morally and financially the Regional Ecumenical Organizations that it had helped establish as regional expressions of the Ecumenical Movement. Thus the WCC is not enough acting according to the universality and plurality of the E. Movement.

IV. REVITALIZING THE WCC

Facing those various challenges, the WCC as the organizational expression of the international Ecumenical Movement is expected to be revived and to become an adequate platform for the churches to pursue their search for Christian unity and common credible witness. Therefore, it is hoped that the WCC would, at least do the following: 

1. Promote Inter-Religious Dialogue for Justice and Peace. The WCC has always been promoting inter-religious dialogue. Nowadays, it is necessary for it to facilitate more such dialogues between the various religions with the aim of making them help each other discover the common solution to the crisis caused by Globalization and Ethnic or Religious extremism. Such dialogues are needed to put an end to violence and to fulfill justice and peace between all nations. They are also needed to articulate clearly an inter-religious common vision of the world in which cooperation for Justice and Peace between all nations would replace the ethos of domination, as the way of achieving security. Moreover, those dialogues would help the religious communities involved prove that religion is not a cause of violence and war, but a factor of God’s Justice and Peace.

2. Encourage Inter-Religious work for Service to the Poor. The WCC should help its member churches not only act alone regarding injustice to the poor, but also collaborate with other religions in advocating for dignity, freedom, rights and obligations as well as in sharing their efforts and resources towards helping the poor. Poverty is experienced mainly because of the unjust distribution of income and the lack of reasonable planning for economic cooperation in the world. In addition, a high percentage of the income in the South is used to purchase arms from the West that are required by the ongoing wars.

3. Revision of Western Missionary Assumptions. Some western churches should be asked to review their mission to the non-Christians in the so-called mission field. Witness to the non-Christians should become based on partnership with them and into inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogues for Peace, as signs of hope in human solidarity.

4. Overcome Orthodox-Protestant misunderstanding. The WCC should help the Orthodox and Protestant member churches avoid mutual misunderstanding perhaps through special informal sessions that it could organize for them. Such sessions might help them have the courage to undertake self-criticism, correct the misconceptions about each other and accept mutual challenges with love and respect.

5. Revivetheministry of the Christian younger generation. The WCC should revive the ministry of the younger generation or reestablish its Youth Department. In the past, that Department played a very important role in promoting the Ecumenical Movement. In the Middle East, the Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant youth, who were considered the future, convinced their respective church leaders who were supposed to represent the past to work together towards the oneness of the Church in history. Accordingly, they became factors of spiritual renewal in their respective churches with the aim of helping them recover Christian Unity. Later, this led to the formation of the M.E Council of Churches.

6. Regionalization of the Ecumenical Institute. That Institute should facilitate nowadays, jointly with the REOs, the establishment of regional Ecumenical Training Institutes or Programs for theologian and non-theologian young people from the various churches. The program should include matters related to the promotion of Christian Unity and others related to Inter-Religious dialogue and cooperation for Peace. This is because the young people may more dynamically revive the churches important role in Christian renewal, unity and credible witness.

7. Reduction of the decision-making structures. There is a perception that because of the influence of the western secular culture, the WCC has been transformed from an ecclesiological fellowship into a super-church institution. Therefore, the WCC should consider the possibility of reducing its institutional hierarchy in order to make the churches become closer to the or more involved in the decision making process.

8. Recognizing the importance of bilateral ecumenical dialogue. Many WCC member Churches are involved in many bilateral dialogues. The WCC should express its open recognition of the importance of these dialogues. This may require circulating reports of the findings of those dialogues to the Executive and /or Central committee.

9. Meeting of the ecclesial families of churches. Find opportunities to convene the Churches according to their ecclesiological background. This would make them come to WCC as three families of churches composed of the same number of representatives from the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Protestant Churches. The family of the Catholic Churches could then be asked to join. Their findings could shed some light on the discussions of the Central or Executive Committee

10. Relationships with the member churches. The WCC should show more that it recognizes the ecclesiological and cultural diversity of its member churches, by relating to them not only in professional and bureaucratic ways, but more importantly through personal relationships.

11. Cooperation with the Regional Ecumenical Councils. Motivated by its awareness of the religious and cultural plurality of the world, the WCC should revive its support to the REOs as regional expressions of its international Ecumenical Movement. Moreover, the reports of the yearly meetings of the REOs G. Secretaries should be presented to the WCC Central Committee in order to emphasize the universality of the E. Movement.

12. Help the churches renew their confidence and hope in the Ecumenical Movement. Despite the external and internal challenges, the churches should continue to be helped by the WCC to witness to the Oneness of the triune God for credible witness to love and peace in history. The WCC should make it clear to those churches that the return of some of them to the particularities of their spiritual heritage is legitimate. However, this should not lead them to any isolation from the Ecumenical Movement but to an increasing involvement in it and in the WCC collaboration with other religions for peace.

Conclusion

I hope that the Ecumenical Movement will be revived and the WCC will help the churches pursue inter-Christian and inter-religious dialogue for peace on the basis of their common conviction that the human being is revered by the all religions. Therefore, the various religious communities should express their faith, through patience, kindness, humility, love and sacrifice. This we will aim at making them live together not in conflict but as partners in a common endeavor towards promoting a culture of justice and peace, as a sign of the times and of hope in the whole world. On their part, the Middle East Christians consider that God entered history in their region, in order to unable His followers to transform the ongoing hatred, divisions and war, into love, Reconciliation and peace. Ultimately, the WCC should facilitate that process.

Related pages:

• Seoul Statement: International Consultation on Revitalizing Ecumenical Movement
• News: WCC urged not to play into the hands of market forces and donor agencies