Gospel and Culture: The WCC Project

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-207
Author(s):  
Paul G. Hiebert
Keyword(s):  
Study Groups ◽  
Cultural Pluralism ◽  
First Century ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
Different Cultures ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The World Council of Churches (WCC) has launched a major study project on the gospel and cultures resulting in the formation of study groups around the world and the publication of 15 study pamphlets that discuss how the gospel relates to different cultures. This article reviews the contents of these pamphlets around the themes of the gospel and cultural pluralism and the church and social pluralism. In evaluating these materials, it is noted that the tension between gospel and culture, revelation and hearing, divine and human is central to the Christian Faith. The WCC debate on the relationship of the gospel to cultures and the church to the world is an attempt to move ahead and chart a mission course for the twenty-first century.

Church

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam DeVille
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Geographical Scope ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Trinity

The chapter traces developments in ecclesiology through the twentieth century, as the ecumenical movement unfolded, and raises questions about the relationship between the church and the communion of the Persons of the Trinity, and about the nature of the Church as eucharistic and sacramental. Further more practical questions about authority, primacy, and synodality (or conciliarity) are also examined in light of the work of multilateral ecumenical dialogues (especially within the World Council of Churches), and bilateral dialogues, particularly the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) and the international Roman Catholic–Orthodox theological dialogue. Considerable progress has been made on all these questions, but new issues have recently arisen, and these are briefly treated, including questions of imperfect communion, of the ordination of women and of those in same-sex relationships, and questions of geographical scope relative to jurisdiction and canonical territory.

The Church: Towards a Common Vision

Exchange ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-249
Author(s):  
Radu Bordeianu
Keyword(s):  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Role Of Women ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Common Vision ◽  
The Way

The 2013 convergence document, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (ctcv) incorporates several aspects of the response of the Napa Inter-Orthodox Consultation to The Nature and Mission of the Church (nmc) which, as its subtitle suggests, was A Stage on the Way to a Common Statement, namely The Church. Eastern and Oriental Orthodox responders (jointly!) point to the imprecise use of the term, ‘church’, the World Council of Churches (wcc)’s understanding of ‘the limits of the Church’, and to the ‘branch theory’ implicit in nmc, an ecclesiology toned down in ctcv. Bordeianu proposes a subjective recognition of the fullness of the church in one’s community as a possible way forward. Simultaneously, Orthodox representatives have grown into a common, ecumenical understanding of the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the church’s work for justice; attentiveness to the role of women in the church; and accepting new forms of teaching authority in an ecumenical context. The positions of various churches are no longer parallel monologues, but reflect earnest change and convergence.

Theologies of Sacraments in the Eighteenth to Twenty-First Centuries

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Gordon
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Jonathan Edwards ◽  
Friedrich Schleiermacher ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Vatican Council ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
World Council ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This overview chapter for the third part of the book covers theologies of sacraments in the context of the development of modernity in the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. It explores the relationship of sacraments to the ideas of conversion and regeneration, particularly in the ministries of eighteenth-century pastors Jonathan Edwards and John and Charles Wesley. Sacramental theology in the nineteenth century is addressed in relation to the First Vatican Council (1868), the Oxford Movement, and the writing of Friedrich Schleiermacher. Twentieth-century theologies of the sacraments are described in terms of what transpired at the Second Vatican Council (1962) and the 1982 document Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry from the World Council of Churches, as well as the work of theologians Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Alexander Schmemann. All these perspectives contribute to what is often emphasized in theologies of the sacraments in the twenty-first century, that “the things the church does in the liturgy, including the sacraments, already implicitly contain the things we believe about God and therefore should be a foundational starting point for thinking about who God is.”

The Moral Heart of Vatican II

2020 ◽  
pp. 46-76
Author(s):  
Michael Barnes, SJ
Keyword(s):  
Vatican Ii ◽  
Traditional Church ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The background of Vatican II’s pastoral and missionary concerns cannot be separated from what is arguably the Council’s most unexpected and far-reaching document, Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions. While very often interpreted as changing, not to say reversing, traditional Church-centred soteriology, this chapter argues that Nostra Aetate needs to be understood primarily as an event, a moment of self-understanding on the part of the Church which provokes a radical conversio morum. By calling the Declaration the ‘moral heart of the Council’, the chapter focusses specifically on its original purpose. That the Declaration has opened up a broader interreligious perspective to which all the major religions of the world can relate is testament less to the power of particular theological ideas than to its central conviction that the Church finds its own origins not apart from but through the faith which it shares with the people of the Sinai Covenant.

Praying for Justice: The World Council of Churches and the Program to Combat Racism

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 66-96
Author(s):  
Kate Burlingham
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Foreign Missions ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
Violent Action ◽  
The Church

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, individuals around the world, particularly those in newly decolonized African countries, called on churches, both Protestant and Catholic, to rethink their mission and the role of Christianity in the world. This article explores these years and how they played out in Angola. A main forum for global discussion was the World Council of Churches (WCC), an ecumenical society founded alongside the United Nations after World War II. In 1968 the WCC devised a Program to Combat Racism (PCR), with a particular focus on southern Africa. The PCR's approach to combating racism proved controversial. The WCC began supporting anti-colonial organizations against white minority regimes, even though many of these organizations relied on violence. Far from disavowing violent groups, the PCR's architects explicitly argued that, at times, violent action was justified. Much of the PCR funding went to Angolan revolutionary groups and to individuals who had been educated in U.S. and Canadian foreign missions. The article situates global conversations within local debates between missionaries and Angolans about the role of the missions in the colonial project and the future of the church in Africa.

“Although We Cannot Fully Meet” the Roman Catholic Response to Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry

1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-267
Author(s):  
Peter R. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
The Church

The publication of Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry by the World Council of Churches in 1982 was the culmination of more than fifty years of ecumenical discussion. The document was designed to elicit official comment from the churches involved in its production and also to involve a wide membership of the churches in the process of reception of the text by taking its insights into their spiritual, pastoral and theological life. This present article analyses the response of the Roman Catholic Church. The response is largely positive, but the methodology of the document reveals unresolved tensions concerning theological reformulation while the wider issue touching reception in the life of the Church is avoided.

Covenants

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gillian Kingston
Keyword(s):  
World Council Of Churches ◽  
Methodist Church ◽  
The Road ◽  
Church Of Ireland ◽  
The World ◽  
World Council ◽  
History Of ◽  
On The Road ◽  
The Church ◽  
Different Parts

This chapter explores the notion of covenant as an instrument which may facilitate closer and more binding relationships between or among churches wanting to commit to each other in a further step on the road to complete unity. The history of the term is outlined, noting its origin with the World Council of Churches. Several recent covenant relationships in different parts of the world are examined, with comments on their development and documentation. It is observed that a leading motivation in the establishment of covenants has been that of mission, while a significant challenge has been varying theologies of ministry. Particular note is taken of the covenant between the Methodist Church in Ireland and the Church of Ireland (Anglican), in which these churches are formulating legislation to facilitate interchangeability of ministries.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document