Report on the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches
A reflection by Kees Nieuwerth – Netherlands YM on the WCC Assembly, Karlsruhe, Germany- 31st August to 9th September 2022.
And yet again we wrestle with questions of war and peace.
A nearly impossible task: to write a report on an assembly of the World Council of Churches which is convened only once in seven/eight years and lasts eight long and intensive days! Worship services, meetings for business, base- and working groups, full days from morning till evening.
A meeting of – all in all- more than 4000 participants, delegates of the
(more than 350) member churches, more than 250 representatives of ecumenical partner organizations (e.g. national and regional councils of churches in Europe, North- and South America, the Pacific, Asia, but also ACT- Alliance), some 180 journalists and guests and – not to forget – the 150 stewards, youngsters who took care of indispensable support at this gathering.
Peace Churches
Quakers amongst them can be counted on one hand: there are only three Yearly meetings worldwide which are full-fledged members of the WCC – Canada Yearly Meeting, Friends United and Friends General Conference in the USA. FWCC is entitled to send a delegated observer as it is an ecumenical partner organization (our Friend Davorka Lovrekovic – German YM). I myself participated on behalf of the Council of Churches in the Netherlands as its vice president – and also that of Church and Peace).
Each time at one of these large meetings of the World Council I called on the
representatives of the traditional Peace Churches (Mennonites, Quakers and Brethren) to hold meetings before, as well as during the assembly to coordinate amongst ourselves. The number of delegates eligible to take part in decision-making is very limited. But next to the official delegates there are representatives of partner organizations, observers and guests – Mennonites, Quakers and Brethren from all corners of the world. Often the Moravians also attend these meetings. Moreover the delegated observer of the European ecumenical peace movement Church and Peace is invited.
This time there were more than forty of us!
Thanks to these meetings we have been able to contribute to some of the essential statements to be decided upon by this eleventh assembly. Next to discussing what we might contribute during this assembly we also concluded that we need to stay in contact – as a network – between assemblies.
Moreover we felt that when one of our three traditional peace churches is holding a world conference, representatives of the other two should be invited to attend. So Friends: will we invite the world bodies of the Mennonites, Brethren and the Moravians to each send a representative to our upcoming World Plenary Assembly in South Africa in 2024?
Heavy topics
This proved to become a rather difficult meeting of the WCC on account of three heavy and timely topics: first of all the war in Ukraine, secondly the increasing pressure to characterize the politics in Israel itself and especially the occupied territories as apartheid and thirdly the call for stronger engagement in the face of climate change.
Nevertheless, important statements have been adopted unanimously on e.g.
‘War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region’, ‘The Things That Make for Peace: Moving the World to Reconciliation and Unity’, ‘Seeking Justice and Peace for All in the Middle East’ and ‘The Living Planet: Seeking a Just and Sustainable Global Community’.
In a more detailed report I am quoting from some of these statements so as to illustrate just how we wrestled with questions of war and peace at this assembly.
Moving moments
One was the contribution/greeting of the Secretary-General of Religions for Peace, Professor Azza Karam. About the theme of the assembly she said that in her conviction the love of Christ for the whole world was also meant for her as a Moslima. As far as she was concerned, Jesus had also died and was resurrected for her… Moreover she said that ‘Religions for Peace and the WCC shared the moral responsibility that we will not allow that religion is abused by politics to wage war. Politicians present war as an option, but war is NO OPTION!’
The second was when a brother from Taizé (Fr. Alois) told us how in this ecumenical community – just like here at the assembly – people from many different corners of the world come together to pray and worship.
He said: ‘We are all guests of Christ’ and reminded us that ‘unity can never be achieved by concepts and words alone’… whereupon he invited us – finally – to have at least one minute of silence. Having observed silence, he invited us to sing together “Laudate omnes gentes”.
That was one of those moments of ‘felt unity’ instead of ‘formulated unity’ for me! Archbishop Justin Welby in a session on Christian unity referred to this moment later by saying: Our brother from Taizé said it all!
A statement from our partners at Church and Peace
The WCC’s declaration ‘War in Ukraine, Peace and Justice in the European Region’ calls for ‘much greater investment by the governments of Europe and the entire international community in searching for and promoting peace, and in strengthening non-violent conflict resolution, civil conflict transformation and reconciliation processes, rather than in escalating confrontation and division’ is topical in light of past, present and future wars._
The encounters and statements of the WCC Assembly encouraged the network of Church and Peace to continue various peace activities such as nonviolent conflict transformation, civil defense projects, reconciliation processes, climate justice protests and action and furthering peace
theology around Europe.
Learn more about Church and Peace‘s WCC Assembly review at their website
