Reflections on the World Council of Churches

HAROLD 0. J. BROWN

It is symbolic that the deeply and bitterly anti-Christian author of Another Country was a featured speaker at the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala, Sweden. Christians who take their creeds and confessions of faith seriously have frequently challenged the right of the World Council to pose as representing the Church of Christ, and Uppsala will have done little to change that. Instead, it should force careful observers to ask themselves whether the World Council can even pose as representing the world. Despite a vigorous, almost frantic attempt to be this-worldly (or just worldly), even to the extent of inviting James Baldwin to speak and showing Allen Ginsberg movies to the delegates, the WCC seems to be living in another world. The world to which they were trying to speak, for whose benefit the statements were made and for whose guidance the resolutions were passed, is definitely not the world of 1968 reality.

HB

About the Author

Harold O. J. Brown

Featured Tags

HAROLD 0. J. BROWN

It is symbolic that the deeply and bitterly anti-Christian author of Another Country was a featured speaker at the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala, Sweden. Christians who take their creeds and confessions of faith seriously have frequently challenged the right of the World Council to pose as representing the Church of Christ, and Uppsala will have done little to change that. Instead, it should force careful observers to ask themselves whether the World Council can even pose as representing the world. Despite a vigorous, almost frantic attempt to be this-worldly (or just worldly), even to the extent of inviting James Baldwin to speak and showing Allen Ginsberg movies to the delegates, the WCC seems to be living in another world. The world to which they were trying to speak, for whose benefit the statements were made and for whose guidance the resolutions were passed, is definitely not the world of 1968 reality.