How Did the World Council of Churches Come into Being?
Nathan Söderblom, a leader in ecumenism.
THE WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES began on this day, 22 August 1948, with a noble idea: to glorify Christ by restoring Christian unity. The Nicene Creed declares there is “one holy catholic (i.e. universal) and apostolic church.” The visible church hardly matches that description, with an abundance of denominations, sects, and schisms.
Two of the most common reasons for splits in the church have been irreconcilable differences in doctrine and unacceptable levels of corruption. Montanists, Donatists, Nestorians, Waldensians, Hussites and others withdrew from fellowship or were ousted over such issues. In addition, splits have occurred because of personal rivalries and political boundaries.
While the first 1500 years of Christianity saw various groups leave the mainstream, and brought the great split between East and West in the eleventh century, following the Reformation, divisions multiplied greatly. So did calls for reunification. Martin Bucer, Hugo Grotius, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz were among notable Christians who proposed formulas to reconcile these factions.
The movement toward cooperation and reunification picked up speed early in the twentieth century. Methodist leader John R. Mott organized the 1910 International Missionary Conference of Edinburgh, which inspired the International Missionary Council of 1921. Episcopalian bishop Charles Brent pushed for the World Conference of Faith and Order which emerged in 1927 at Lausanne and Nathan Söderblom of Uppsala, archbishop in the Church of Sweden, spearheaded a drive to bring Christians to Stockholm to rebuild after World War I.
In 1938 the Brent and Söderblom movements merged at Utrecht and called for a World Council of Churches. Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox both considered that to join would be to diminish their respective claims to primacy. Some Greek Orthodox sent observers. The unifiers hoped to meet soon, but World War II intervened.
Three years after the end of the war, on this day, 22 August 1948, the World Council of Churches was born in Amsterdam. In the years that followed, the Catholic Church did begin to participate by sending observers. Many churches from the global South became members. Unfortunately, some of the council’s official pronouncements and financial contributions (such as one to the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe, a Communist organization), led conservative Christians to complain that it had developed a left-leaning political agenda (and some, such as New Jersey fundamentalist Carl MacIntire, even founded competing organizations). Others wondered if ecumenism was better sought through bottom-up grassroots cooperation. The WCC today remains both active and controversial.
—The Staff of Christian History Institute
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