The moderator of the World Council of Churches says the world's largest Christian grouping needs to persevere in the pursuit of unity, amid questioning that the ecumenical movement has become irrelevant or is even dying."In spite of clearly discernible advancements in the ecumenical journey, we also have failed again and again … in not being able to discern with greater clarity the way the Holy Spirit is leading us," the Rev. Walter Altmann, a Brazilian Lutheran, said in his address on 13 February to the main governing body of the WCC, its central committee.
Altmann was speaking on the first of eight days of meetings during which the WCC will celebrate the 60th anniversary of its founding in 1948.
"Do we not pile up declaration after declaration, at the same time being timid or resistant to give concrete shape to what we have declared again and again?" he asked. "Has our prophetic voice not become rather weak? Have we not 'professionalised' the ecumenical commitment at the risk of losing its original passion?"
Altmann said there had been the spread of secularisation in countries once considered Christian. Sometimes there was greater missionary zeal among "non-ecumenical churches and movements" than among traditional WCC-related churches that suggested to many people the ecumenical movement has failed.
"We should listen attentively and take those questions up as a challenge to us," he said. "But our response cannot be one of giving up. That would be a betrayal of our vocation."
In advance of the meeting, Bishop Martin Hein, a member of the WCC governing body from the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), said the council was failing to make its presence felt sufficiently in the world.
He suggested that the Geneva-based grouping had been unable to develop "visions and perspectives that are able to be communicated", and he said that WCC general secretary the Rev. Samuel Kobia was travelling too much outside Geneva.
Altmann was asked at a media conference before his address whether Hein's charges might affect Kobia's tenure as general secretary, given that this meeting of the governing body is considering whether to re-elect Kobia to a second term. Altmann said such speculation was "premature". He added that "the evaluation of any general secretary is broad and based on overall job performance."
The WCC moderator said criticism by Hein and others "will be taken seriously" and the central committee will be "addressing strongly the implementation of WCC programmes and staffing issues related to it".
In his address, Altmann surveyed the 60-year history of the WCC, founded in Amsterdam in the years following the Second World War. He said the world had changed, but the primary call to the ecumenical movement to visible Christian unity remained unchanged. "That has been our calling throughout these years," Altmann said, "and will continue to be our calling in the years ahead."
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