Visser ’t Hooft, 1900-1985

Ecumenical Movement ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

Student Christian Movement ◽

General Secretary ◽

The Church ◽

Formal Establishment

God’s diplomat, the pope of the ecumenical movement, but also an acerbic theologian and a difficult person: this is how journalists characterised Willem Adolf Visser ’t Hooft (1900-1985). He was one of the best-known Dutch theologians outside the Netherlands and he left his mark on the world church. Even at an early age, he made profound efforts in support of international ecumenical youth and student organisations (Dutch Student Christian Movement, YMCA and World Student Christian Federation). He led the World Council of Churches during its formative stages (from 1938), and after its formal establishment in 1948 became its first general secretary, serving until 1966. To Visser ’t Hooft, the unity of the church was both an article of faith and a pragmatic organisation of church influence in a disunited world.

General Secretary of the World Council of Churches 1948-1966

Visser ’t Hooft, 1900-1985 ◽

10.5117/9789463726832_ch06 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Jurjen A. Zeilstra

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Cold War ◽

International Crises ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

The Cold War ◽

General Secretary ◽

This chapter explores the central role Visser ’t Hooft played in the World Council from 1948 to 1966, showing how his vision and style influenced the direction the World Council took in dealing with issues like syncretism. We see the strong practical bent of the World Council in topics like the Cold War and international crises such as South Africa, Cuba and Cyprus. The chapter traces how Visser ’t Hooft involved the missionary nature of the church at every turn. We also learn how the revival he hoped for did not materialise. Instead, after 1960, secularisation grew, and Visser ’t Hooft’s ability to appeal to younger generations began to wane.

Porto Alegre 2006: Called to be the One Church: Ecumenism beyond its Crisis?

Exchange ◽

10.1163/157254307x159434 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 36 (1) ◽

pp. 87-102 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Anton Houtepen

Keyword(s):

Porto Alegre ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

Religious Plurality ◽

Church Unity ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

The One ◽

Economic Injustice ◽

AbstractFrom 9-23 February 2006 the World Council of Churches held its 9th Assembly in Porto Alegre, Brasil with the theme God, in your grace, transform the world. It gathered in an atmosphere of crisis in the ecumenical movement, caused by global political and religious developments, post-modern thinking on the value of plurality and difference and by the slow reception of ecumenical agreements. The Assembly, though, became a sign of hope beyond the ecumenical crisis. Its reflections and proposals on Globalisation and economic injustice, on Christian identity and religious plurality and on Church Unity and the Mission of the Church demonstrate a matured ecumenical and ecclesiological awareness, strengthened by a new method of decision-making by consensus. The document Called to be the one Church might be seen as the constitutional basis for a reconfiguration of the ecumenical movement and as a refinement of the Toronto Declaration of 1950. It formulates a matrix of catholicity and of a legitimate diversity of church forms within an essential convergence about its structures of continuity and mission.

Faith and Order

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.013.24 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Geoffrey Wainwright

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Moral Issues ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

Consensus Document ◽

Early Twentieth Century ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

The Church ◽

Common Vision

Generically, ‘faith and order’ designates the contents of doctrinal belief and the patterns of social and governmental structure that mark the historically varied communities that claim the name and status of ‘church’. Concern with these closely connected areas has been central to the worldwide ecumenical movement since the early twentieth century. The chapter focuses on the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, which has the overall aim of calling the churches to the goal of visible unity in order that the world may believe. It considers the activities and organization of the Commission, and various fruits of its work across a range of issues, including the apostolic faith, anthropological and moral issues, tradition, and ecclesiology. It particularly highlights the consensus document on ‘Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry’ (1982), and the process culminating in the report: ‘The Church: Towards a Common Vision’ (2013).

Is Christ Divided?

Christianity in the Twentieth Century ◽

10.23943/princeton/9780691196848.003.0007 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 127-149

Author(s):

Brian Stanley

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Church Of England ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

The World ◽

Common Strategy ◽

World Council ◽

Protestant Christians ◽

The Church ◽

India And China

This chapter examines the ecumenical movement. The twentieth century has sometimes been denominated by historians of Christianity as “the ecumenical century.” Narratives of the ecumenical movement typically begin with the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh in June of 1910, which assembled some 1,215 Protestant delegates from various parts of the globe to devise a more effective common strategy for the evangelization of the world. Viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the Edinburgh conference has been widely identified as the birthplace of the formal ecumenical movement. Without it, there would be no World Council of Churches. Yet serious attempts to bridge divisions between Protestant Christians were already under way in India and China before 1910. Furthermore, the World Missionary Conference was precisely that—a gathering of mission executives and missionaries convened to consider questions of missionary policy. Delegates represented missionary agencies rather than churches, and discussion of questions of doctrine and church order was forbidden, in deference to the Church of England, whose endorsement would not have been given if the conference had been expected to discuss matters of faith and order with Nonconformists. The chapter then looks at the failure and success of the ecumenical movement.

Morals

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.013.21 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Michael Root

Keyword(s):

Moral Reflection ◽

Moral Issues ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

The Past ◽

Ethical Teaching ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

Liberation Movements ◽

Ethics has rarely in the past been a cause of church-dividing dispute, but recently it has developed into a source of contention. The early ecumenical movement sought to give an agreed moral witness. Conferences at Stockholm (1925), Oxford (1937), and Geneva (1967) developed a tradition of ecumenical moral reflection within the World Council of Churches. Profound changes came to this tradition as emphasis shifted after 1967 towards a ‘contextual liberation ecumenism’, focusing on solidarity with liberation movements of the oppressed. More recently, ethics has been taken up in ecumenical dialogues. Dialogues have discussed specific moral issues (e.g. divorce, war, homosexuality) as well as more general questions of the relation of ethics to the unity of the church. While some dialogues have reported a fundamental agreement of ethical outlook, some recent dialogues have found significant differences, extending from questions related to sexuality to broader issues of the sources of ethical teaching.

An Instrument of the Ecumenical Movement: The Joint Working Group between the Roman Catholic Church and the World Council of Churches

The Ecumenical Review ◽

10.1111/erev.12380 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 70 (3) ◽

pp. 526-552

Author(s):

Annemarie C. Mayer

Keyword(s):

Catholic Church ◽

Working Group ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

Joint Working Group ◽

The World ◽

World Council

The Renewal of the Church. By W. A. Visser't Hooft. (The Dale Lectures, 1955). Pp. 128. London: S.C.M. Press, 1956. 12s. 6d. - The Social Thought of the World Council of Churches. By Edward Duff, S.J. Pp. xii + 339. London: Longmans, Green, 1956. 25s.

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History ◽

10.1017/s002204690006913x ◽

1957 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 123-125

Author(s):

H. E. W. Turner

Keyword(s):

Social Thought ◽

The Social ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

United and Uniting Churches

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.013.30 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

James Haire

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Significant Contribution ◽

New Delhi ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

The Third ◽

The World ◽

Different Types ◽

World Council ◽

History Of

United and uniting churches have made a very significant contribution to the ecumenical movement. In seeking to assess that contribution, the chapter first defines what these churches are, considers the different types of union that have been created, examines the characteristics of these churches, and looks at the theological rationale for them. It goes on to trace the history of their formation from the beginning of the nineteenth century, and particularly during the years leading up to and following the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches at New Delhi in 1961, under the influence of Lesslie Newbigin. Giving a theological assessment, it emphasizes that the existence of these churches, despite difficulties, provides places where the final unity of Christ’s one body is most clearly foreshadowed. They will always present proleptic visions of that goal.

Liturgy

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199600847.013.19 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Karen B. Westerfield Tucker

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Liturgical Music ◽

Christian Life ◽

Liturgical Movement ◽

Ecumenical Movement ◽

The World ◽

Liturgical Texts ◽

World Council

From their emergence early in the twentieth century, the liturgical movement and the ecumenical movement, the latter particularly represented by the deliberations of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches, both called for and shaped ecumenical discourse on the nature of worship, the content and shape (ordo) of liturgy, sacraments and sacramentality, the practices of worship, and liturgical leadership and participation. This chapter highlights the history and contributions of both of these movements and notes the confluence of the two streams in the recognition of the centrality of worship for Christian life and mission. Attention also focuses on the ecumenical sharing of liturgical music, common liturgical texts, and lectionaries, and the ongoing question of ecumenical worship.

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

Journal of Cold War Studies ◽

10.1162/jcws_a_00856 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 66-96

Author(s):

Kate Burlingham

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

World War ◽

African Countries ◽

Foreign Missions ◽

The World ◽

World Council ◽

Violent Action ◽

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.