calvinistic reformation and the ecumenical movement

Calvinistic Reformation and the Ecumenical Movement

Emilio Castro

With its long history of affirming freedom, welcoming refugees, and displaying tolerance, Geneva became the logical place for the adventure represented by the contemporary ecumenical movement. Remember the difficult years of the war and of the formation of the World Council. At that time Geneva had the same welcoming attitude to the work of Dr Visser 't Hooft and his team as it has today, when the work of the Council enjoys all the guarantees necessary for it to flourish.

1 would like also to underline the good working relationships which exist between the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and the Independent Faculty of Protestant Theol- ogy, the collaboration with the Association of Christian Churches and Communities at Geneva and all the contacts established with the concrete local church in Geneva parochially or through the WCC programmes.

Thus, despite its limitations, Geneva with its tradition and as it now is represents the primary contribution of the Calvinistic Reformation to the ecumenical movement. Despite its limitations, I say, for clearly understanding and sympathy do not always prevail in the relations of the WCC with the Genevan public - nor do they with members of the churches in general. The roots we have put down in the Genevan churches remind us always of the genuineness of interpersonal relations and in turn demand from us a genuine display of realism in our work. It is easy to work out a theology of priority for the poor. But it is much less easy to live out that theology in Grand-Saconnex !

Geneva also reminds us that the ecumenical movement does not belong to one culture alone and is not limited to English as the sole means of expression. A French-speaking city, it is a kind of reminder to us, makes demands on us and enables us to put our roots down locally, while keeping us mindful of the universal dimension of ecumenical work.

0 This is the abridged text of an address given by the Rev. Dr Emilio Castro, WCC general sccretary, at the Independent Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Geneva, on 16 May 1986, in connection with the 450th anniversary celebration of the Genevan Reformation. The text has been translated from the French by the WCC Language Service.

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CALVINISTIC REFORMATION AND THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT

Our relationship is not without polemics. ‘To some degree the reception given by the city to our programme to combat racism, to that of dialogue with other faiths, and to our approach to the world in the field of human rights reflects reactions engendered by this attitude throughout the Western world. This gives us an opportunity to test our ability to listen to the criticism which comes from the various sectors of Genevese society. Naturally, this criticism is also accompanied by support, intercessory prayers, and a will to share in the hazards, on the part either of the whole church or of certain parishes. This is why Geneva is the first visible, concrete, palpable gift of what is rightly called the Reformed contribution to the ecumenical movement.

Of course, the Reformed churches as a whole and not just the church of Geneva have made other substantial contributions to the progress of the World Council and of the entire ecumenical movement.

The presbyterian style of working Their first concrete contribution is to be seen in the World Council’s democratic

organization which is an almost exact reproduction of that of the Reformed churches: it is a synodal system with emphasis on efficiency and, together with that, a concern for control of the executive authority. The distinction established in the presbyterian system between the general secretary and the moderator of the Central Committee is entirely unique. The idea of a general secretary is totally foreign to the Anglican tradition.

More than once we have found ourselves suggesting within the World Council that the general secretary should always be a bishop so as to ensure some kind of recognition for the episcopal tradition in the majority of Christian churches. We have also been asked to make special provisions, when doctrinal subjects are being discussed, to prevent the possibility that an assembly which is too open might by the rule of the majority settle fundamental questions of a doctrinal nature. Naturally, the churches have not surrendered to the WCC their responsibilities for doctrine, but I think this concern to protect the rights of the churches is a reaction to the World Council’s open, democratic character, which comes out of the Calvinist reformation.

The presbyterian system has also made it possible to recognize the fact of the existence of local churches and to ensure representation not just confessionally but also geographically, which is one of the fundamental features of the WCC’s style of working.

The lordship of Christ There can be no doubt that the second contribution of the Reformed churches is the

proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ above all else. This affirmation, which is very clear in Calvinist theology, is becoming one of the leitmotifs of the World Council. It would be impossible to confine the ecumenical movement within a dimension of personal religious inwardness without recognizing how the Christian message relates to the whole of reality. The affirmation that Jesus Christ is Lord underlies every programme of the WCC. Most of the criticisms of the WCC are clearly related to its socio-political commitment. It is accused of “horizontalism” as if this concern it shows for racial equality, social justice, and the priority to be given to the poor was largely or even unduly the product of secularization. Now, the Reformed tradition seeks to give God alone the glory and affirms God’s sovereignty over all creation and the need to acknowledge it in all human history; here, then, we find the

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THE ECUMENICAL REVIEW

vertical dimension - the dimension which makes it possible for us to affirm the socio- political commitment of the churches. In ecumenical dialogue, other currents of thought and other traditions have of course also played their part in formulating Christian social thought; but we must acknowledge that the emphasis placed on social responsibility is a Reformation heritage. Perhaps today the Reformed churches themselves ought to be asked if they have remained faithful to this affirmation of the lordship of Christ and if they are capable of truly living out what this implies.

The Bible The third visible contribution of the Reformed tradition is the central place which

the holy scriptures occupy in the World Council of Churches - not simply in the reference to the authority of the scriptures in the WCC Basis but also in the study of the word of God which we constantly pursue in all WCC consultations, conferences and assemblies. The Bible has become the meeting-place for all the Christian traditions. This ecumenical experience of studying the Bible together has been the starting point for its entry into every Christian confession, and we rejoice in the biblical renewal - unprecedented in the history of the church - which we are witnessing today. The WCC Basis has transcended the old argument between Bible and Tradition by affirming a Christocentric and Trinitarian faith and appealing to the authority of scripture as the measure of all theological thinking undertaken within the WCC.

Ecumenical leadership Fourthly, we cannot talk about the Reformed contribution without calling to mind

especially the leaders of the Reformed churches who have served the cause of ecumenism unstintingly and with enthusiasm. Two great names immediately come to mind: those of Willem A. Visser ’t Hooft and Eugene Carson Blake, to whom we owe so much.

But we must not forget those other great servants of yesterday and of today: Adolph Keller, Alphons Koechlin, Marc Boegner, Madeleine Barot, John Baillie, Pierre Maury, Wilfrid Monod, Lesslie Newbigin, Elie-Joel Gounelle, Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Baeta, Jean de Saussure and so many others.

Pastor Willem A. Visser ’t Hooft, the first general secretary of the WCC, was truly the architect of the modem ecumenical movement. He was convinced that the confession of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour was central to the ecumenical movement. Openness, dialogue and a humble disposition are the spiritual and moral requirements which must prevail when we meet with those who profess other faiths or none at all; but these requirements mean nothing if they do not have their centre in the contemplation and worship of him in whom God entered into human history. Once when speaking to the students of the Institut de Bossey, Visser ’t Hooft said: “The WCC wishes to promote respect of the various religions for each other and to encourage their cooperation on the practical level; and this is why it enters into dialogue with them. In that dialogue, it openly states its conviction that Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to save all humanity. That same conviction has been expressed in the themes of several WCC assemblies: ‘Christ, the Hope of the World’, ‘Christ, the Light of the World’, ‘Christ, the Life of the World’.”

Visser ’t Hooft feared lest the reign of a personal God might yield its primacy in our thinking to ethical principles, that we we might be tempted to opt for a kingdom of

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God without Jesus as king. He wanted to be assured that the scandal of the cross of which Paul speaks so strongly should for ever remain at the centre of the Christian gospel. The initial Basis of the WCC was specifically a statement of that confession of the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. With the gradual growth of the movement and more and more churches joining the Council, it became necessary to make this more explicit, hence the inclusion of a clear reference to the Trinity. It was Visser ’t Hooft himself who drew up the present WCC Basis.

The Rev. Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the United Presbyterian Church of the USA, was a “churchman” in the best sense of the term. For him, the unity of the church implied “a visible, historical continuity with the churches of every age, before and after the Reformation”; it meant confession of the Trinitarian faith passed on by the apostles and articulated in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, and the celebration of the sacraments instituted by Christ: the Lord’s Supper and baptism.

If we wish to preserve this historical continuity, some of the principles in the Reformed tradition are indispensable. As Blake put it, “the church which has recovered its unity must accept the principle of continuing reformation” under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. If this process of continuing reformation is to be experienced, the church must have the benefit of a truly democratic style of leadership and “recognize that the whole people of God is the Church of Christ”. As chairman of the National Council of Churches and general secretary of his own church, Blake was wholly convinced that the church has a central role to play in God’s plan for the salvation of humanity. But this “establishment man”, if we may so call him, was totally committed to social justice and human rights. His quest for the unity of the church was closely bound up with his understanding of the church’s mission, which for him meant total commitment in society’s struggle to conquer evil. As he saw it, the church as an institution was not an obstacle to the freedom of the Spirit or to the expression of Christian commitment. In his own person Blake was a symbol of the tension that exists between the institution and movement.

This contribution of Reformed church people to the ecumenical movement as a whole and to the WCC in particular has continued to be substantial both in its range and in its quality. A large number of the staff responsible for programmes in the WCC come from the Reformed churches. Today they come from every part of the world - Africa, Asia, Latin America and also of course Europe and North America.

Towards a common ecumenical future But what about the future? What might be, and what ought to be, the ecumenical

contribution of the Reformed churches to the future of the ecumenical movement? What would happen within these Reformed churches if they threw themselves wholly open to current ecumenical dialogue? The fundamental genius of the Reformed tradition lies precisely in its affirmation of the spirit of reformation as a continuing factor in the life of the churches. Having in mind a past such as we are currently celebrating, it is logical enough to stress the distinctiveness of our identity in relation or contrast to that of others. Just here, however, lies the problem for ecumenism. If we stop with distinctions and differences, we shall come no farther forward on the road to unity. Our need is for all the churches and confessions to put forward hypotheses and suggest paths we may take to lead us towards unity. In practical terms, three different


hypotheses or models are current within the WCC: the affirmation of conciliar community; the quest for a hierarchy of truths; and a slow but essential journey by way of the study of the convergence document on “Baptism, Eucharist, Ministry”. These models, however, are not enough to awaken the churches to the urgency of unity. Other models and hypotheses are needed.

Hendrikus Berkhof, the Dutch Reformed theologian, has expressed our concern very clearly:

... one cannot be Reformed by reclining on “results” as on a cushion, but only by participating in their (the Reformed Fathers’) wrestling and carrying it further. If the Reformed Church is willing to make its decisions here and now this way as representative of the ecclesia catholica, this will not separate it from its sister churches but will lead it to them, in a twofold way. Firstly, the Reformed Church will then begin to listen attentively to the other churches and to enter seriously into conversation with them, in order to see if there are compelling convictions there which it, acting in the name of the ecclesia catholicu, cannot ignore. As soon as it does this, it breaks through what is often today called the “dialogue between the churches” but what is more often than not merely a collection of self- justifying monologues. Secondly, the Reformed Church will be led towards the other churches to the extent that it no longer regards its own decisions as “special” doctrines but as held in trust for the whole ecclesia catholica. It must therefore, in view of this claim, ask the sister churches to examine these decisions and then either correct or accept them. ’

Here the main argument is based on the awareness of catholicity. The risk of going to meet the others is taken in the confident certainty that they too belong to the universal church and that we have to rediscover together the bonds which already unite us today, even if we are not as yet able to formulate them. The catholicity argument is something which invites us to open ourselves to the witness of others and also to make our witness, in order to contribute to the quest of those others for catholicity. Some reactions to the BEM document from the Reformed churches (and also from other confessions) implicitly or explicitly suggest a preconceived conviction that if everyone became Reformed or Methodist or Roman Catholic there would no longer be any problem of unity. But it is impossible to take this hypothesis seriously; and this is why we have to hazard ourselves one way or another and progress not just in bearing witness to our personal convictions but also in our understanding of other confessions and convictions and in trying to make out whether the truths to which they seek to testify do not also have some kind of authenticity in our own confessional family too. (Here I must pay homage to the Independent Faculty of Protestant Theology of Geneva and express our gratitude for its commentary on BEM, in which it tries to accept the challenge this document represents to the theology of the Protestant church, and above all to its pastoral activity, and then raises the questions which remain open and about which the church expresses serious anxieties.)

The concern on the Reformed side is naturally to check in the light of the biblical word all the doctrinal affirmations put forward in an ecumenical context. This checking should not be a Reformed contribution only; it should also be the spiritual and intellectual duty of every church. That the comments from the Presbyterian churches in South Korea can be relatively different from those of the Reformed Church of France does however show us that despite our identical concern for faithfulness to

’ “The Reformed Confession and the Oekumene”, The Reformed und Pre.shvteriun World. December 1963.

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the biblical texts, we are influenced in our theological and even doctrinal positions by our own historical and social contexts. When the Reformed Church of France avers that it does not have an ordained ministry, it does so in relation to the conservative Roman Catholic position which holds that ordination is a priestly act in the most traditional sense of the term. When the Presbyterian Church of South Korea reflects seriously on the question of the role of ministers, it is referring to people who are concerned to take care not only of the spiritual life in the traditional parishes but above all of the missionary outreach of the church. Their need is not to protect themselves against historical perversions but rather to affirm the special responsibility of those called by the church to serve the people of God.

These relatively small differences arising out of a diversity of contexts could well assist us to understand that even our interpretation of the Bible is linked to a particular tradition, which concretely is that of the Reformed churches of Europe and which can be called the “critical, scientific” approach. Third-world theologies criticize this tradition for its ideological implications, and it is pressed to open itself to different possible interpretations which are current coin in other traditions, particularly Orthodoxy. Those of the Reformed persuasion find themselves obliged to transcend European - or, if you prefer it, Western - cultural particularism on the one hand and on the other to go beyond the bounds set by biblical interpretations which are too much tied to a quite specific situation or context or culture.

In the second place, we follow with enthusiasm the ecumenical dialogue which is being pursued within the Reformed confession itself. We admire the work of the World Reformed Alliance, which is trying to provide common guidance for all the churches which recognize each other in the Calvinist tradition but have varied and even opposing positions in relation to the world and to other churches. It would be useful to analyze Presbyterianism to discover the sectarian trends that have been and still are displayed in each church, especially in the formation of separate fellowships. The McIntire phenomenon is almost marginal in the United States of America, but not at all so in a situation like that of South Korea or Brazil. What is it in our church structures that promotes the spirit of satisfaction with one’s own situation and separation from the others? In the Reformation Review for January 1960, J.C. Maris wrote:

Not only is a false alliance forbidden, but a neutral stand is also condemned ... The churches of the Reformation should be loyal to the Calvinistic inheritance.. . only uncondi- tional obedience to the Word of God will make the Reformed churches a blessing to the world. If they cannot join the present-day ecumenical organization, it is not their fault. It is for the sake of the Word of God that they abstain. There should be no fear of losing certain contacts or influence by keeping aloof. The Church of God never depends on man.

Professor Rubem Alves has produced a study on the Presbyterian Church in Brazil which shows how the increasing ideological rigidity of that church has been encour- aged by the presbyterian system and spirit. The doctrine of election, which in the Bible is understood as a call to serve others, can become, in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, a doctrine of apartheid, separating Christians from their neighbours, not merely confessionally, but racially as well. In once again reaffirming the principle of ecclesia reformata semper reformanda, one might breathe into the Reformed world as a whole the will to contribute to the building up of the whole body of Christ, of the

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whole church, and not just the desire to preserve certain specific features which, when they become ends in themselves, lose both their original and their present justification for existing.

Some years ago, in the minds of those with a concern for ecumenism, there reigned real confusion on the role which the confessional bodies might play. It is true that, especially in the third-world countries, and where united churches are coming into existence, links with world confessional bodies might maintain divisions and inhibit the unity and solidarity that must of necessity be expressed on the local level. Looking at the ecumenical situation as it actually is, I can bear witness to the fundamentally ecumenical approach taken by the World Reformed Alliance. In no way does it seek to be a rival to the WCC, but it makes use of all the programmes and services offered by the latter in order to contribute from its own standpoint and in its own field to ecumenical discussion as a whole. At the same time it is carrying on an internal dialogue which goes beyond the range merely of those churches that are members of the WCC and extends to other sectors of the Reformed family.

The Reformation movement vigorously affirmed, as it still does, the sovereignty of God over all creation and especially over the church. It is grace and grace alone which saves us and makes us members of the church, which is the body of Christ. The doctrine of election, and even that of predestination, has its origin ultimately in this basic idea of divine grace.

There really is a deep distrust in the Reformed consciousness regarding anything that might become a substitute for the grace of God or even a claim to control or “domesticate” it. Karl Barth, when he develops the doctrine of the Bible as the word of God, puts the emphasis on God’s faithfulness to God’s word. It is always an existential event, a personal encounter, through the word of the Bible, between God who speaks, and the community or the individual who listens. But the word of God which is revealed through the Bible does not abdicate, even in favour of the biblical text. Fundamentalism makes a serious mistake when it supplants the ultimate power, the mystery of God, or grace, by the letter, which we should always have the right to handle with flexibility. It is this same Reformed attitude that one can trace in depth in discussions on church order and on ordination. We have already mentioned the attitude of the Reformed Church of France, which says: “We do not confer ordination.” This means that we cannot acknowledge that some individuals, even chosen individuals, can become the depositories and stewards of the grace of God, which always remains in freedom and mystery. But if it is a danger of the sacramental approach to domesticate grace, subjecting it to the control of human institutions, the other danger, the one lying in wait for those of the Reformed tradition, is that of a lack of faith in the existence of God’s grace, constancy and promise. The guarantee of my continuing in faith does not lie within myself, who am weak and a sinner, but rests on the idea of God’s faithfulness, which thus becomes the real ground for unity.

What I am trying to say is that even if we reject the abuses of sacramental practice in the Christian churches, the reality of our actual prayer, preaching and intercession, our asking for the presence of the Holy Spirit in relation to the elements in the Lord’s Supper, and our certainty that God responds may well place us in the same spiritual situation of assurance and expectation of God’s presence as our friends whose tradition and interpretation of that presence are more sacramental. In the reference to the objective act of God in Jesus Christ and to the consequences for all humanity which

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flow from this, and also in the reference to the reliability of the promise of the presence of God, we do align ourselves after a fashion with the other traditions which we call “sacramental”. Our liturgical and prayer life is in fact more sacramental than our theological affirmations are capable of indicating.

The logical outcome of these affirmations will be the participation of Reformed theology in the ecumenical dialogue in the hope of encountering the same spirit of affirmation of the divine grace and sovereignty and of the freedom of the Lord in the other traditions, which at first sight give us the impression of laying too great a claim to the possession of divine grace. In ecumenical dialogue, of course, there will be opportunities for mutual correction, and also difficult moments when we shall be obliged to state in great clarity our disagreement with practices which do not respect the divine mystery and the divine freedom. But if we are to bear such powerful witness we must first try to discern within the other traditions the same experience of the presence of God as we cherish in our own churches. The faithfulness of God, as the central idea of the Reformed contribution to ecumenical discussion, will perhaps be the bridge which makes it possible to cross the tragic divide still existing between those churches which define themselves as a “mystery and sacrament” and those others which insist that they listen to the word.

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calvinistic reformation and the ecumenical movement

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