Evangelicals and the World Council

Two of the most significant recent developments in the life of the World Council of Churches center in relations with Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism. A third relationship of major importance is that with the “conservative evangelicals.”

Few religious groupings are more difficult to define. In the United States it includes bodies as divergent as the Assemblies of God and the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Free Methodists and the Christian Reformed Church, the Southern Baptists and the Missouri Lutherans. Its members generally hold in common a conservative theology; a concern for “purity” in the Church; a vivid missionary interest; and a profound distrust of the ecumenical movement. Perhaps the most precise definition, for the purpose of this article, is organizational: those Protestant Christians who refuse membership in councils of churches—city, state, national, or world.

The importance of this group in the United States is great. It includes the fastest-growing religious bodies in the nation. Membership of Protestant churches belonging to the National Council of Churches of Christ is about forty million; of churches who do not belong about twenty-four million.

The number of foreign missionaries of all agencies related to the Division of Foreign Missions of the National Council increased from 1952 to 1960 by 4.5 per cent; those of the conservative evangelicals by 149.5 per cent; the income for “foreign missions” of the former by 50.5 per cent; of the latter by 167.3 per cent. “Foreign mission” giving within member churches of the National Council in 1960 was $91,979,000; of those outside $71,700,000. Foreign missionaries of the former numbered in 1960, 10,324; of the latter 16,066.

Highly symptomatic of the situation in the United States today is the development of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. It was founded in 1955 as a voice for the conservative evangelicals. Its paid subscriptions now outnumber those of The Christian Century. Its influence is great.

A factor as deeply disturbing to many responsible conservative evangelicals, as to us, is the increasing radio influence of Carl McIntire. He is now heard weekly over 373 radio stations in forty-six states. While many leaders among the conservative evangelicals deeply reject his methods, he continues effectively to influence persons in their churches. This article deals not with him or his movement, but with leaders among the conservative evangelicals who are thoroughly responsible and deeply committed Christians of irenic spirit. To us in the conciliar movement they are a particularly important group. They share with us an intense concern for unity in the body of Christ, but approach that concern from a different perspective. Upon us is laid an inescapable obligation to understand their theological orientation, and the situations in which they make their witness. In approaching these brethren in Christ we must be guided by certain facts.

The Relationship Exists

Many of our congregations and ecclesiastical leaders seem to act as though there were no relations between them and the conservative evangelicals. The fact is, however, that the relationship exists. Many of the members of these rapidly growing groups are drawn from the “established” churches. Factors drawing our members to these groups often are a warmer fellowship; a more vivid sense of certainty in belief; stronger emphasis upon scriptural guidance and the discipline of prayer; greater assurance of the power of the Holy Spirit; emphasis upon the factors of faith healing and the second coming of Christ. We are related to these groups, moreover, by the very fact that so often they are able to reach many people whom we do not—in the inner city, in rural slums, in the labor class, in student groups. On not a few university and college campuses the Inter-Varsity Fellowship is both a larger and more disciplined group than the Student Christian Movement, though the latter often has stronger institutional and financial support. If we tend to forget the conservative evangelicals, they do not forget us. Relationships with the “established churches” and the conciliar movement are often a matter of passionate concern with them—though it be one of rejection. Moreover, the gulf between these two groups has been and is being exported around the world. It has become a major problem for the churches of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the islands of the sea. Where Christians are a small minority of the population, the depth of the distrust which these groups feel toward councils of churches and the Christians who compose them becomes enormously expensive to the witness of the Church. For us to ignore the relationship worsens it, for thus we seem to give additional evidence of indifference to the very matters of spiritual vitality which they feel to be the reason for their separate existence.

Approaches Must Be Personal

The primary responsibility for seeking to bridge this gulf rests with us in the conciliar movement. Our churches are the older. Weaknesses in our churches are frequently the reason in the first instance for the development of these groups. If truly effective approaches are to be made they will have to come from us. Moreover, they will have to be made on a personal and entirely unofficial basis.

Some concerns of the World Council, and local councils, can usefully be handled by organizing a committee and delegating action to staff. Not here! In this relationship and at this stage, organizational action is doomed to failure. Distrust of the conciliar movement is so keen among many of the conservative evangelicals that organizational approaches only intensify the problem. Responsibility for seeking fellowship and understanding with these brethren in Christ rests upon us as individuals.

Approaches Must Be In Humility

It is not unusual in conciliar circles to hear persons concerned with this relationship saying that we must seek out these brethren because “they need us,” “they are endangered by their isolation,” “their neglect of the wider fellowship leads them into theological imbalance.” Such a condescending attitude, however disguised, is an effective disqualification for this task.

It is altogether appropriate that the approach we make to those conservative evangelicals who are willing to meet us even part way be made in real humility. Such should be the stance of a Christian in any case. In this case, however, there are special reasons. First is the fact that the very existence of these groups is a sign of spiritual failure in the older, established churches we represent. Second is the patent fact that they do have something to teach us—about missionary zeal; about the invasive power of the Holy Spirit; about some areas of Christian stewardship; about the practice of expectant evangelism; about communal prayer; as well as other elements in Christian discipleship.

A third reason for humility is the embarrassing fact that there will be no full reconciliation with these groups until, for one thing, many of our “settled” congregations become divinely unsettled by the movement of the Holy Spirit and begin to find their true life in Christ by losing it in glad witness to him. If we begin such approaches by fixing our gaze upon the mote in our brother’s eye we will be blinded indeed by the beam in our own.

A fourth reason for deep humility in our approach is the fact that most of us seek such fellowship in a situation of security, while they often meet us at real risk. It is probably almost impossible for most of us to realize the intensity of pressures under which the irenic persons in these groups live. The risks they run in consenting to meet with persons from the conciliar movement include in some instances loss of missionary money and candidates; in others severe and scathing criticism; in others dangerous division within their own groups. We will be freed from temptation to pride for taking initiative in such relationships if we realize the dangers which our initiative may involve for those whose fellowship we seek.

Their Concerns Have Validity

The following attempt to articulate the concerns of the conservative evangelicals, in relationship to the conciliar movement, may seem highly presumptuous. How does one, especially one not of that persuasion, generalize about the attitudes of persons who differ so widely themselves about so many things? One makes the attempt only because the need for understanding is so great. The background for these generalizations is a series of personal experiences of enormously rewarding fellowship in discussion and prayer with individuals and with groups including individuals from a number of the conservative evangelical bodies. Admittedly, the very persons whom one is able to meet in such fellowship from these groups are the most irenic of their leaders. To this degree of course, they are not typical. One prayerfully hopes that this attempt to compress many statements from widely differing persons in their fellowship is fair to them, and revealing to us.

To each of the concerns listed below there are certain almost predictable responses from the conciliar group. The obvious fact about such responses is that if we feel driven to make them we have missed the point. At this stage our basic concern ought to be neither to defend ourselves nor criticize our brethren. Of such response there is already much too much. Our need now is to understand. Therefore, what follows is an attempt to state the case from their point of view as persuasively as one is able. To affirm as in the heading above, that these concerns have validity, does not mean the writer believes they are entirely valid, or that they represent the full range of concerns with which the Christian must deal in this relationship. It does mean they have an important element of truth which deserves our serious and sustained attention.

‘Pure’ Versus ‘Inclusivist’ Church

The conservative evangelicals are deeply conditioned by the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. The feeling that a “modernist” is truly an enemy of the Church is widely felt. We are to love our enemies, but the enemy of the Church has no place within the Church. “The wisdom from above is pure …” (James 3:17). “Anyone who goes ahead and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God.… If any one comes to you and does not bring this doctrine, do not receive him into the house or give him any greeting …” (2 John 1:10). These verses are quoted with deep feeling. The conservative evangelicals are, in the great majority, committed to the doctrine of the “pure” Church. By that they mean one having in its fellowship only those who have had a genuine conversion experience. None of those the writer has met would claim their groups are “pure.” They do believe they have a greater concern than the major denominations have for purity of doctrine and of practice, and that such concern is both valid and necessary. They believe this understanding of the Church is much closer to the New Testament than the parochial orientation of the state churches of Europe, or of the sacramentarian orientation of the Catholic tradition.

An opinion survey of Protestant clergy recently conducted in the United States reported that 74 per cent would be classified as “fundamentalist” or “conservative,” 14 per cent as “modernist,” and 12 per cent as “neo-orthodox.” The willingness of churches to ordain “modernist” clergy—with the implied doubt as to the deity of Christ and the authority of Scripture—is a major source of distrust for the conservative evangelicals. They believe the New Testament enunciates a pattern of discipline for the maintenance of doctrinal purity, and that the abandonment of such discipline is a sign of indifference toward truth. They feel that such indifference is manifest in the practices of many “inclusivist” churches comprising the World Council of Churches, and in the WCC itself by its willingness to receive into membership churches of such a wide spectrum of theological persuasion. It is this “inclusivist” nature of the World Council and some of its member churches which makes many conservative evangelicals skeptical about the real meaning of the sound theological statements issued by the WCC.

Distrust Of Mechanical Unity

A significant number of the leaders of conservative evangelical groups were raised in churches committed to the conciliar movement. Some of them came into transforming experience of Jesus Christ in other religious circles than their own churches. Some found their new enthusiasm greeted with distrust in the churches of their birth. They believe that many in the established churches are either indifferent to or doubtful of the necessity of a new birth in Christ. They feel the true unity of Christians is based only upon the common experience of that new birth. Union to them has meaning only in “the bonds of the Spirit,” interpreting that phrase always in terms of their interpretation of “being born again.” Apart from the sharing of that experience, they feel there can be no spiritual unity. They see many in our churches who have no knowledge of such a rebirth. Church union among such groups therefore seems to them a mechanical matter, devoid of spiritual unity.

This seeming lack of real spiritual unity is to them a problem not only in plans for organic union but in the existence of the WCC itself. There is an uncritical tendency to assume that the World Council is responsible for the various plans of church union, and to blame the council for defects they see in such plans. Even were this misunderstanding to be cleared away, however, a serious reservation would remain about the basis of fellowship in the council. Definition of this reservation is not easy, but illustration is possible in regard to the questions of leadership, pronouncements on social issues, and “independency.”

They feel that a council of churches has no right to speak on any issue in the name of any more persons than just the individuals in attendance. The tendency to speak in the name of the churches seems to them a deliberate overriding of the convictions of the conservative minority. That tendency seems to them a vivid illustration of what they believe a basic problem in the conciliar movement, as well as in several of the churches constituting it. They feel that these churches and councils of churches are controlled by leadership which superimposes its will upon the council and upon the churches, and is not responsive to “the grass roots.”

There is a deep feeling that decisions in the conciliar movement are imposed from the top down, while those in the conservative evangelical bodies arise from “the grass roots.” They acknowledge fully that tyranny can exist in small groups, but believe that their groups are more protected from dictatorship by their greater emphasis upon shared Bible study, mutual intercession, group prayer, and intimate personal fellowship.

To them, of course, the principle of “independency” is essential. They feel the necessity of that principle is illustrated by the frequent action of the Holy Spirit in calling special Christian bodies into being, and refer to the Protestant movement from Rome: the Methodist movement from Anglicanism; the Holiness movement out of Methodism; the Pentecostal movement; the faith missions; and many others. The fact that the National and World Council admit to membership only recognized churches seems to them a clear denial of this principle of “independency.” The “monolithic character” of the National and World Council—to use a phrase often on their lips—is evidenced to them by the fact that neither has a place in its full membership for individuals, independent congregations, or faith mission boards.

Universalism

Related closely to the distrust of the World Council as being “inclusivist” is a fear of universalism in conciliar theology. Because some of the churches in this conciliar movement, and the World Council itself, admit persons of such widely differing viewpoints, they believe there is almost inescapably a latent universalism in “world council theology.” Their suspicions in this regard are powerfully reinforced by the fact that many of their ablest theologians: Jewett, Berkouwer, Van Til, Carnell, Kantzer, and others, believe that such influential men as both Brunner and Barth are at points “universalist” in theology. This criticism is presented with knowledgeable quotations from the original writings. This dangerous heresy seems to them even more discernible in the statements of many who are prominent in World Council discussions.

Ecclesiological Significance

In discussions with conservative evangelicals one is struck with the frequency with which the World Council is considered as though it were a church itself, and is criticized as such. They recognize that many in the council, as notably the Orthodox, insist that the council has no ecclesiological significance. Nevertheless, they believe it has. Their pre-existent distrust of the council is augmented by what they feel is the failure of the council to admit as yet the degree of ecclesiological significance which it undeniably has.

At this point one is impelled to comment on the alarming degree to which some of these friends let the World Council become for themselves a focus for a great deal of what might be called “floating anxiety.” One feels at times that they are not talking about the World Council at all, but about a shadow called the World Council of Churches in which they find dark confirmation of all the disappointments they have felt for years about the member churches of the council, from which so many of them have separated themselves. They seem to find it much easier to accept at face value any negative rumour about the conciliar movement than to give credence to any report of positive achievement. Thus many attribute to the council an ecclesiological significance which the council itself would deny. This practice obviously will not be terminated by the present study in the council on the subject.

Our Guiding Concern

Our guiding concern in this relationship and at this stage must be with the truth. Perhaps the point is more sharply made to say that our first concern must be truth rather than unity.

One reason is that these Christian brethren feel deeply that their own overriding concern is, and has to be, the truth. They insist that unity can only come on the basis of truth. They fear, deeply, that we subordinate truth to unity—and thus find neither. If we are to meet them on their own ground, we can do so only in consideration of the nature of Christian truth.

A second reason is that at this stage to let unity be our major concern may be for us a spiritual danger. We must keep our motives entirely free from even a hidden desire that in the name of unity we should seek to bring them into our organizational structure. To that desire and its slightest manifestation they are hyper-sensitive. They feel, deeply, that they are not approached by “ecumenicals” as brothers in Christ, but as people to be used for our organizational purposes.

A third reason is the obligation upon us to preach the full Gospel of Jesus Christ. The fullness of that Gospel we affirm in words. However, some points are more congenial than others; some points are easier for us to understand than others; some points are more pleasant to proclaim in our culture than others. Every one of us entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel needs to be in continuing and deep fellowship with Christians who apprehend in depth some of the truths which have seemed to us remote. The more one has real communication with the irenic leaders of the conservative evangelicals the more one realizes that at certain significant points they have much to teach most of us who are called “ecumenicals” about some elements of the Gospel.

In closing, consider a haunting question stated recently by several conservative evangelicals. They said, “We know there are many true evangelicals in the World Council of Churches. There are more in the World Council circles than outside. We have to ask, therefore, why they have accomplished so little.” When one sees the futility of our churches in face of so many problems of our time, one finds no easy answer to their question. Perhaps the first requisite for fellowship with Christians who criticize us so deeply is not self-defense, but repentance that our witness is so limited. It may be that in such shared repentance we will find that given unity in which the truth of Christ is fully manifest, and whereby the world may be led to saving faith.

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