A Hail Mary Plea for Reconciliation and Unity Revd. Dr. John T. Mathew, Ontario, Canada The theme of the 11th Assembly of the World Council of Churches is all about how “Jesus’ love moves the world to reconciliation and unity”. Predictably themes designed for such global events are ornate, even overblown words – here the source of the theme is Jesus’ love. Jesus’ love has power to generate energy, hope, compassion and generosity in this world where we must deal with frightful devastations of the pandemic, violence, war and its survival. The premise must elucidate and identify such issues so that we may flesh out a framework of functional unity. We are passionately social individuals who are called to live together with integrated rapport and resolve. The groundwork of the Karlsruhe gathering of the 350 member-denominations of the World Council of Churches ideally extends not only to the member denominations of the Reformed and Orthodox Churches but also to the whole world. Remember this world is shared by adherents of the Roman Catholic and several other tenaciously faithful denominations with different theological emphases besides hundreds of thousands of followers of Jesus who choose not to feel fenced in an ecclesial paddock. A world that is the household of millions of our fellow travellers who belong to a variety of ancient and modern faith traditions. Therefore, we must acknowledge that the World Council of Churches, largely prearranged by medieval Reformed theology, managed by Orthodox agenda and reassured by Anglican and Lutheran nurturing in the arena with the rest from smaller denominations perched on the bleachers, does not speak and stand for the global church. However, the vocation of all followers of Jesus is to credibly proclaim, clarify and live out Jesus’ love that ignites the world to reconciliation and unity. For better or for worse, my peregrination of theological training has been experimenting with the holy and the devil at seven world class divinity schools ranging from the dogmatic evangelical to the freethinking progressives including Roman Catholic theological variants on both sides of the Atlantic. In 1969, within one hundred days of my long haul, I was scared stiff when Andrew Walls confirmed the collapse of European Christendom at a Graduate Fellowship gathering held in Birmingham. He referred to the 1910 World Missionary Conference, or better known as the Edinburgh Missionary Conference which really was not a "world" gathering - it was de facto a refresher gathering of European and American missionaries on furlough with absolutely no one from Africa, South America and one or two from Asia. World Christianity that emerged on the Day of Pentecost which is far more than Euro-centric Roman Catholic and
Reformed denominations - always excludes most of the ancient Christian traditions. It was for some the beginning of the ecumenical movement now known as the World Council of Churches. Walls also predicted that “the young, the poor and the women” will lead the church in the next five decades. In 1910 well over 80 per cent of those who professed Christianity lived in Europe and North America and now 80 per cent of those who practice Christianity live in the southern continents of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Pacific. The center of gravity of the global church has shifted from the north and west to the south and the east. Unmindful of this new reality, Wilfred Cantwell Smith once made a shocking comment, “When I left Christendom (meaning Canada!) in 1943 to teach in India….”. I questioned him, “You left Christendom? You don’t leave Christendom. You perhaps left the Constantinian Christendom and arrived in an older Christendom, or better, reign of the Messiah founded by Apostle Thomas!”. First, a solid majority of the followers of Jesus of Nazareth who live, move and have their being breathe not for all intents and purposes within the mainline ReformedOrthodox paddock manoeuvred the World Council of Churches and the titanic Roman Catholic denomination as well as the colossal masses of umpteen denominations from Pentecostal to evangelical and charismatic groups all across the globe. On the Asian ecumenical landscape of 20 th century ecumenism in its early days we had trailblazers such as M.M. Thomas, D.T. Niles, Juhanon Mar Thoma, Paulos Mar Gregorios and Ninan Koshy. Since its initiation soon after depression of the Dirty Thirties, violence and war in the following decade, this broken splinter of the global church reflected on human proclivity towards turmoil, hope, light, renewal, freedom, life, creation, joy, transformation, justice and peace. Never ever the virtue of love! This time theme is ‘Jesus’ love’ or Christ’s love with an add-on Hellenistic shimmer. The church is like Noah’s Ark: ‘if it weren’t for the storm outside no one could stand the stink inside’! So much hatred, nativism, suspicion, xenophobia, insensitivity, racism, for the bigoted right everything is ‘woke’ or be mindful of injustice in the society; that’s why the 11th Assembly dared to invite the world to investigate and evaluate the love of Jesus that might jubilantly propel us to re-examine and seek forgiveness for our inhumanity and achieve that oneness or unity between Jesus and the One who sent him to heal our divisions. Well, this movement formally never ever attempted to enlarge on ‘love’ and finally it took more than the proverbial ‘three
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