BRITISH and Irish participants have criticised the World Council of Churches
(WCC) Conference on World Mission and Evangelisation, which concluded last week
in Athens.
In a letter to fellow WCC members, the Churches Commission on Mission
(CCOM), a group that includes the Bishop of Maidstone, the Rt Revd Graham Cray,
and Canon Tim Dakin, general secretary of the Church Mission Society, suggests
that evangelism had not featured prominently on the agenda.
The group describes evangelism as "a key component of holistic Christian
mission" and says that few of the synaxeis (assemblies) had directly
tackled "the task of proclaiming God's reconciling work in Christ by word and
deed". Mention of evangelism in plenaries had seemed "primarily cautionary",
and while rightly drawing attention to "abuses of the Word and the problem of
proselytism", no positive picture had been offered of the possibilities of
healing and reconciling evangelistic practice.
Protestant, Anglican, and Orthodox delegations were joined for the first
time by Roman Catholic, Evangelical, and Pentecostal representatives at the
meeting, on the theme of "Come, Holy Spirit, heal and reconcile". Dialogue with
these Churches is acknowledged still to be in an early stage of development,
and Bishop Brian Farrell of the Vatican Council on Christian Unity described
mutual accountability as "complicated".
A statement from the meeting noted: "We continue to carry the pain of our
inability to overcome the barriers that prevent us from celebrating together
the most healing and reconciling of sacraments, the eucharist."