• New Dehli: Its Meaning and Its Message by C. H. J. Wright.
• Reflections on New Dehli by E. L. Williams.

      C. H. J. WRIGHT, entered C.O.B. from Rockdale, N.S.W. Graduated 1941. Proceeded to Melbourne University, from which he graduated B.A. Has had Ministries at Blackburn and North Essendon (Vic.), Albion (Qld.), Margaret St. Launceston (Tas.). His present ministry at Unley (S.A.) began in January, 1959. He was a Delegate to the recent Third Assembly of the W.C.C.

      "What did the Assembly do?" That is a question that has often been asked since the New Delhi meeting, to which a number of obvious answers could be given.

      The third Assembly consumed 6½ tons of paper in the stencilled addresses of Assembly speakers and the drafts and re-drafts of the reports of committees and divisions. It brought 600 delegates and about 800 others (observers, advisers, youth participants, guests, press, etc.) from sixty countries of the world to confer for seventeen packed days on the vital issues confronting the church in the world. It united the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches. It received 23 new member churches with 71 million members. It compiled reports for each of the sixteen divisions of the Council's work and for each of the three main themes studied at New Delhi. It made pronouncements on international questions, racial discrimination, nuclear warfare and such matters. All this, and much more besides, the Assembly did.

Man's desire and God's design.

      But a more important question to ask and one not so easy to answer, is "What did God do at the Assembly?" The imperfect works of man often conceal the perfecting work of God. So surely it was at New Delhi, when 197 member churches, representing more than 300,000,000 Christians around the world met for the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches. It is not enough to look solely at what the delegates of the world's churches did at New Delhi. If only we could look deep inside what men did and said there, to see what God was doing. For surely the importance of New Delhi does not lie in its success or failure in terms of man's desire but in its meaning in terms of God's design.

      I am certain that the Third Assembly was the result of the Holy Spirit's work in the hearts of men. How else could such a massive merger be achieved as was accomplished there? Think of the great numbers involved, the width of theological and historical voids traversed, the geographical areas covered when the 197 Anglican, Orthodox, and Protestant churches convened in New Delhi. When we recall the agonising history of our divisions, the intolerance, bigotry and rivalry past years have witnessed, New Delhi's triumph over theological, traditional, creedal, geographic, racial and political diversity evokes the cry, "This is the Lord's doing and it is marvellous in our eyes."

      That New Delhi happened at all was a miracle. The Russian Orthodox church emerged from nine centuries of isolation and was received almost unanimously into the Council's fellowship. Church leaders from Asia and Africa spoke "with a vehemence and conviction never heard before in an ecumenical gathering." That their churches represent the fastest growing element in the World Council of Churches (45 Asian and 26 African among the 197 member churches), is evidence that God is fashioning a new Christendom in our time. For the first time at an Assembly of the World Council of Churches an open communion service was held at the invitation of an Anglican host church, when the bread and wine was received by over 1,500 communicants.

      To look over that vast and varied throng gathered in the Shamiana

at the opening service was to be reminded of the vision in Revelation 7:9, "I beheld . . . a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindred and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb shouting," as the New English Bible puts it, "Victory!"

      To share in such events creates a mood of great expectancy, for we are in the unpredictable element of the Holy Spirit. As one Australian expressed it, he sometimes felt he was riding a breaker on a Sydney beach. He was picked up and thrust forward, carried and pushed along by the movement of the Spirit. In all our evaluating, assessing and judging of what the participants of New Delhi did, let us remember that more important than man's desire was God's design. "Many Christians are now aware," says the Unity report, "that the Council is in some new and unprecedented sense an instrument of the Holy Spirit for the effecting of God's Will for the whole Church, and through the Church for the world."

Enlarge the Place of Thy Tent.

      The first of the two most significant events of New Delhi took place on the first day in the merging of the International Missionary Council and the World Council of Churches. The second was the admission of twenty-three member churches on the next day. This enlarging of the scope of the Council's work and the expansion of its membership, is seen by many to be the main event at New Delhi.

      The practical reasons for the merging of the International Missionary Council and World Council of Churches are obvious. The existence of two paralleling, overlapping ecumenical movements embracing the same churches, drawing their personnel and funds from the same sources and seeking in principle the same ends, was a waste of time and talent. But the merger was not undertaken merely as a matter of efficient organisation. It is the expression of a conviction about the nature of the movement that has long been accepted and expressed, that there is a fundamental connection between the obligation of the Church to manifest its essential unity and its calling to make disciples of all nations. As Archbishop Soderblom once declared, "By our divisions we Christians are an obstacle for our Saviour in His work of salvation. We make it difficult for men to believe in Him. The unity of Christians is an imperative necessity so that the world may see and recognise its Lord." The integration means that the World Council of Churches takes the missionary task into the very heart of its life; it means the acknowledgment that the missionary task is no less central to the life of the Church than the pursuit of renewal and unity; it means acceptance in principle and in practice that all churches--young and old--are called together to bring the Gospel to the millions in East and West, in North and South, who do not know it as the word of life and hope.

      "Mission and Unity" said Lesslie Newbigin, "are two sides of the same reality." Each presumes the existence of the other. Witness to the God-ordained Lordship of Jesus Christ depends on the unity of Christians, and the unity of Christians requires a common witness to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Christ's work in and through His people is a whole work in which He calls them into oneness, and in that oneness sends them out to the world with the message of His salvation. To separate witness from unity, or unity from witness is to fragment the work of Christ. Such an emphasis will commend itself to members of Churches of Christ. It breathes the spirit of the prayer of Christ we have often quoted to support our witness--"That they all may be one, that the world might believe." The report on Unity states, "In the fulfilment of our missionary obedience

the call to unity is seen to be imperative, the vision of one Church proclaiming one Gospel to the whole world becomes more vivid and the experience and expression of our given unity more real. There is an inescapable relation between the fulfilment of the Church's missionary obligation and the recovery of her visible unity."

      The work of the International Missionary Council is now taken over by the Division of World Mission and Evangelism whose declared aim is "To further the proclamation to the whole world of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the end that all men may believe in Him and be saved."

New Churches.

      The reception of twenty-three new member churches (representing 71,000,000 Christians on five continents in eighteen countries and in the islands of the Pacific) meant a remarkable geographical expansion for the Council. It doubled the number of member churches in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But more important than the geographical expansion, was that the Council became a body in which, apart from the Roman Catholic church, the major Christian confessions are all strongly represented--Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox. The fellowship of the World Council of Churches now embraces a greater variety of expressions of the Christian faith than has ever been brought together in one movement. It provides the only world setting in which the divided churches can seek each other in common witness and service across the lines of their diversity. Outside this fellowship the many diversities and differences of churches may degenerate into futile doctrinal clashes, proselytizing, and wasteful duplication of talents and facilities. Within the fellowship these diversities may be gathered into a pattern which preserves and utilizes all the Spirit's varied gifts to the churches. Every irritation and frustration (and I felt some) suffered by any delegate at New Delhi from contrary views or practices of fellow delegates is argument not against, but for the existence of the World Council of Churches. And every church which now feels constrained by some cherished uniqueness to remain outside the Council has in that constraint a most forceful argument for its entry into the Council--not to lose its uniqueness, but to make its distinctive gift available to the whole church, and perhaps in the process to make up its own deficiency. Surely, if we have a distinctive witness to make, should we not make it to our brethren in Christ?

      Everyone at New Delhi had the right and the opportunity to speak if he wished, both in the full Assembly or in the small discussion groups. We were all scaled down to size. If a delegate's name was important back in his own country, that did not necessarily make him important at New Delhi. It did not matter whether you were an archbishop or a professor or a local minister or a layman--it was the worth or value of what you had to say that mattered. "Churches are esteemed in the World Council" said Franklin Clark Fry, "not only for their numbers or financial power or depth of history, but equally for the height of their potential and often even in proportion to the problems that confront and sometimes threaten to overwhelm them. It is the kind of spiritual mathematics that only Christians would employ . . . what is instinct in it is the feeling of the family of God."

      When the Assembly considered the admission of new churches, each member church had one vote. The American Methodists with 10,000,000 members had one vote. The Australian Churches of Christ with only 35,000 members also had one vote. This is another indication of the Council's readiness to consider the viewpoint of the smaller churches.

A Reciprocal Relationship.

      The member churches from the West still command in the Council a numerical and financial superiority over those from the East. But that superiority has lessened because of the growing number of member churches from Asia and Africa (forty-five Asian and twenty-six African) and the admission of four Orthodox Churches at New Delhi (Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian and Polish comprising 69,000,000 members). The increasing strength of Orthodoxy in the World Council of Churches will not make the ecumenical task easier. It will probably bring conservative, restraining, traditional pressures to bear. Some may consider the presence of Orthodoxy a bad thing for Protestants and Evangelicals like ourselves. But to evaluate New Delhi by asking what advantage its action gave one church aver another is surely to miss the whole purpose and spirit of the ecumenical movement. The purpose is that each church will contribute to the whole whatever it has to contribute, and at the same time permit its own errors to be corrected, its poverty to be enriched and its weakness to be strengthened in working and witnessing together. The influence of church upon church is reciprocal. The Council does not seek the advantage of one church over another but the edifying of THE church.

      When the World Council of Churches opened its doors at New Delhi to the Orthodox Churches with their heavy sacramental and ritualistic emphasis, it also opened its doors to churches at the other end of the ecclesiastical spectrum--two Pentecostal churches from Chile. Their total membership is 20,000, and may seem insignificant compared with Orthodox millions, but it dramatically portrays the bigness of the Council's embrace, and its readiness to receive any church which accepts the Basis^* no matter how much that church may differ in other respects from member churches in the Council. These two churches may be the first of many other evangelical churches to swell the membership of the Council, which eagerly awaits their coming.

What the Assembly said.

      New Delhi was in one sense a business meeting. The Assembly received reports from the

      sixteen divisions of the Council's work (Laity, Youth, Studies, Interchurch Aid and Service to Refugees, etc.), made plans and worked out programmes for each division for the next seven years. But it also spent many hours in the preparation of reports on the three main themes of the Assembly, Witness, Service and Unity.

      When these reports are read, some may be disappointed, thinking there is little that is new and fresh in their statements. But remember the infinite variety of church representatives who were involved in the making of these reports. They ranged from Eastern Orthodox to Pentecostal, churches from the West to East, churches from behind the Iron Curtain, churches from countries in the first flush of nationhood. There were all races, traditions, cultures and backgrounds. Every possible difference was present, and yet we are able to say "This is what the Assembly said!" These reports having been received and approved by the full Assembly of delegates, are now commended to the churches for further study and action.

Witness.

      Underlying all our discussion in this section (I was in the Witness section) was a deep sense of urgency.

      This may have been due in part, to the fact that we were meeting in India, a country which presents a tremendous evangelistic challenge. Within 365 days India's population increase will equal, or exceed, the total number of Christians who are now the result of three hundred years of missionary endeavour in India (about 9,000,000). The church in India faces an overwhelmingly difficult mission to 400,000,000 Indians who do not confess Jesus as Lord.

      Perhaps the Australian proposal for a World Christian Mission also strengthened this sense of urgency. The rapidly growing world population and the advance of non-Christian world forces present a tremendous challenge to the church. The world Christian cause has failed even to keep pace with world population growth it has been unable even to match the advance of Islam. In 1900 Christians totalled 32.2% of the World population and Islam 12%. In 1960 Christians had fallen to 30.3%, and Islam had risen to 15:1%. We face the unpleasant fact that Christianity has declined rather than increased in relative strength during the years of this century.

      Also underlying our discussion was the conviction that denominational divisions are a tremendous hindrance to our witness. In one of our discussion groups a missionary told of an experience he had when he first began his work. He found himself beside a Hindu priest on a bus. He felt he must witness for Christ, and in witnessing spoke against the caste system. The Hindu listened patiently, then said, "Listen young man, I have seen Christianity split up into groups that seem like castes to me. I could name at least ten of them. How can you claim Christ makes all men one?" Again and again delegates from Asia and Africa urged the desperate need for unity in our witness. The report says in its introduction: "The question of the Church's unity is of vital importance, since the Bible teaches us that the Gospel cannot be authoritatively proclaimed to the world by a disunited Church."

Jesus Christ, The Saviour of the World.

      One third of the ten page report on witness comes under the heading "Jesus Christ: The Saviour of the World." Some had hoped that there would be a thorough examination at New Delhi of the conflict between the concepts of uniqueness and syncretism. We might have asked does the uniqueness of Christ mean that the claims of other religions and ideologies are absolutely excluded or does it provide for the inclusion of them, or of elements in them? India, a land of many religions would have been an appropriate setting for such a study. This examination was not undertaken by the Assembly, but the Assembly did affirm its common faith in Jesus as universal Lord and Saviour,

      "Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, is the universal Lord and Saviour. This is our Common faith, and it has been confirmed in us by our worship and study together in the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches. As we have reflected on His Lordship we have realised afresh that the whole world is the continuing concern of the Father's love. It was for the sake of all men that the Son of God became man. The mighty acts of His ministry, death and resurrection and ascension were the outworking of a single purpose, the redemption of the world. We are called to bear witness to Him as the Saviour and Lord of all." (Paragraph 5 Report).

      A Temple in India features the hand of Buddha. There is the hand of power, a clenched fist, showing Buddha as a Prince. There is the condescending hand, where he is teaching his disciples. There is the upraised hand, where he is blessing his' people. But there is no nail pierced hand! New Delhi bore witness to "The Lamb of God,

Who takes away the sin of the world," Who was "wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities."

Communicating the Gospel.

      This is the second main division of the report which goes on to say: "To communicate the Gospel involves the willingness and the ability of the evangelist to identify himself with those whom he addresses. To get alongside our hearer, to sit where he sits, is the essential condition upon which alone we may claim the right to s be heard. By such sympathetic identification, in which the love of Christ is reflected, the Christian witness shows that he is not proclaiming his own message or superior gifts, but the truth of Christ." At the heart of all effective witness and evangelism, there is personal cost, not just the cost of time or service or preaching, but the far deeper cost of getting inside another's man's life. It means feeling the frustration of the coloured man, understanding the hunger of the Indian peasant, sharing in the social and economic servitude of people everywhere, feeling the pain of the lonely and dispossessed. "The world has a right' to expect from our churches" said Visser't Hooft "that they follow the pattern of the incarnation, enter deeply into the life of humanity, live in true solidarity with the whole human family and especially with those who suffer in spirit and body." All this has been said before of course, but that it needs to be said again indicates we have not yet taken it seriously. We have thought that sending out circulars could be a substitute for personal contact and witness; that an evangelistic address could do duty in place of getting to know people and learning to understand them; that smart advertising could let us off the living advertisements of lives arresting and attractive with the love and joy of Christ. True witness means costly involvement with all sorts and conditions of men. "It is as though one beggar is telling another where the bread of life may be obtained." It speaks of the Christian's solidarity with all mankind, and without which he can make no effective witness.

      "We must search for a common language in which we and our hearers may understand each other. The truth of the Bible can be conveyed in twentieth century words and idioms." Perhaps the Archbishop of York had this in mind recently when he re-phrased Christ's word about the cup of cold water given in charity to "whoever gives a cup of tea in my name." One of the worst things that has happened in the church is the fossilisation of religious language, to the point where words become sacred in themselves, producing as a conditioned reflex a sense of reverence among worshippers and setting off a cosy feeling of religious awareness, and a sense of an atmosphere of holiness. Such language is useless to communicate the Gospel to the world.

      There is a story of a preacher who travelled to a preaching appointment by air. But there was a thick fog over the city when the plane arrived overhead. There was the congregation down in the church waiting for the message, but the preacher was up in the fog over their heads circling around, unable to get down. That fog is often there between the preacher and his hearers. "The truth of the Bible can be conveyed in twentieth century words and idioms--we must mould our speech into the vernacular of the everyday language."

      Furthermore we must first of all be listeners. Witness involves dialogue rather than monologue. We must get alongside people, to understand their problem and their need before we can show them how the Gospel speaks to their condition. The pulpit is wasting time if it goes on answering questions people are not asking.

      Is the local congregation really doing its job as a witnessing community? Are its structure and methods properly suited to its task? Do the ministers settle down to be chaplains to the faithful and the faithful just settle down? Have local congregations lost their sense of mission to the world and are content to regard their primary function as that of keeping themselves alive as a prosperous going concern? Such questions haunt the minds of those who are concerned because the Gospel is not reaching the vast masses of the people. Analysis of decisions of a recent Billy Graham Follow-up Crusade show that only 18, of the decisions were "outsiders" or "unchurched", 43% were Anglican, and 78% were under eighteen years of age.

      New Delhi urged the churches to examine afresh the structure of their Church life with a view to meeting the challenge and opportunity of a new day. In a spirit of penitence and willingness to be led by the spirit of God into new ways of witness, the whole Church must recognise that her divine mission calls for the most dynamic and costly flexibility.

      In our Australian urbanised and industrialised areas, where many people do not understand traditional presentations of the Gospel, or feel uncomfortable in traditional church settings, new ways of reaching people with the Gospel must be found. One suggestion made at New Delhi was that the local church should seek to penetrate into the unevangelised population by establishing small "cells" or local Christian community groups: a handful of typists and salesgirls in a big store, a dozen or so workers in the various floors of a factory, a few Christian teachers on the staff of a big school, a little congregation gathered from two or three streets, meeting as a house-church in the home of one of their number. They will try to be the Church, the people of God, in their own particular context.

Mutual Ministry.

      Great importance is placed today on the part played by the "laymen" in the witness and ministry of the Church. New Delhi declared that the pastor and the layman must learn to work as a team, each recognising that the other has an essential ministry and gift of grace for his own special task in the one Body of Christ. "There is an urgent need for all church members to recover the true meaning of certain words: to learn that the laity is really the LAOS, that is, the whole people of God in the world--including of course, those who have been ordained; to learn that ministry means any kind of service by which a Christian, exercising his particular skill or gift, however humble, helps his fellow-Christians or his fellow-men in the name of Christ."

      While the report does not go as far as Churches of Christ would like it to go in finding a place for the laity in the teaching, preaching and pastoral ministry of the whole church, it brings a compelling challenge to the conception of a "mutual ministry." Mutual ministry means far more than sharing in the conduct of worship at church services--Christ does not share his ministry only with the man who stands in the pulpit but with the whole people of God. "Each stands in his own special place; the missionary in a country that is not his own; the pioneer in new fields of service; the Christian worker in his office or factory, or home--each will be conscious that his witness is a part of the one ministry within the whole mission of the Church and that he is the representative of the whole Church."

      The report asks whether we do not too easily fall into the habit of thinking of the Church as the Sunday congregation rather than as the laity scattered abroad in every department of daily life. If the Christian witness is to penetrate into all these areas where the

work of the world is carried on, it must be carried there by laymen. They are the ones to bring Christian judgment to bear upon all the issues of life. The conviction is growing that there must be more training and help given them to carry out their ministry. The constitution of the Council expresses the desire that approximately one-third of the Assembly shall consist of lay persons. But the percentage of lay delegates at New Delhi was nearer one-tenth than one-third, and some of these were full-time church workers and wives of clergymen. Since the right to appoint delegates to the assembly is vested in the churches, this can only be remedied by the member churches.

Witness and Service.

      Inevitably there was a great deal of overlapping in the three main sections of the Assembly. It is impossible to consider the witness of the church without thinking of its service. There was general acceptance at New Delhi that we cannot draw a clear line between witness and service. The Church must both preach and serve. A preaching Church without a life of works of love and mercy has no winning power--"poor talkative Christianity." On the other hand a Church which deteriorates to being a social agency fails the people. Mere practical Christianity is not enough. Witness without service is empty, service without witness is dumb. "We are called," said the General Secretary, "to glorify God together by helping the needy inside and outside the Christian fellowship, by struggling for a responsible society, by seeking to orient the processes of rapid social change to constructive ends by replacing racial discrimination by inter-racial corporation, by seeking to create conditions of international justice and by resisting the vicious and infernal circle of nuclear rearmament and nuclear testing." So the report on Service commended to member churches and Christians all around the world the aspirations and needs, the sufferings and hopes of all mankind. The report draws particular attention to some of the areas of the life of men and society which call for courageous, obedient thought and action today. They include accelerated technological and social changes, racial and ethnic tensions, international relations, armaments and world peace as well as new opportunities for Christian service in our modern world. The complex and varied problems considered by the section, and the judgments that came through cannot be discussed in this pamphlet because it would grow too long. The report embraced the whole angry heartbroken world, in its deep yearning, its fearful dynamism, its immensely dangerous present and its longing for a nobler future. It is no small thing to think of Christ at the very centre of the maelstrom of our age, to reach out to men in their anguish with His faith, His hope and His love.

Unity.

      There was no doubt that New Delhi was deeply concerned for the unity of the Church. Three addresses on this theme given one evening during the first week, challenged the Assembly. The Archbishop of Canterbury declared that the call to the churches for unity was clamantly urgent, but warned against any precipitous action on the part of churches which would claim unity at the expense of the other essentials of the church. He stressed the inseparability of unity, holiness and truth. Dr. Nikos Nissiotis, speaking for Eastern Orthodoxy, was much more progressive than many anticipated: "Orthodoxy must give up its defensive, confessional apologetic attitude, and in the glory of the Holy Ghost, become a mighty river of life, filling the gaps, complementing opposites, overcoming enmities, and

driving forward towards reunion. The road to reunion may involve a kind of death in order that we may receive the new life of the Holy Spirit which flows deep within the differing forms of church life."

      Philip Potter, the West Indian Methodist, accused the member churches of the Council of not making specific demonstrations of Christian unity rapidly enough to satisfy their youth and members of the younger churches in Asia and Africa. There was a clear-eyed, agonising realisation that the churches are not willing to manifest the unity which is now to be had. He asserted that the real pressure and urgency for advance came from youth and students, the missionary movement, and the churches set in a predominantly non-Christian environment.

      It was certainly true that none at New Delhi had a more compelling sense of the urgency of unity than the churchmen from Asia and Africa. They see it as a matter of life and death. In one of our small groups a West African pleaded with Western churchmen to "close up your ranks. When I come to Europe I am confused by your divisions. You think differently there from what your churches are doing abroad . . . we still need missionaries, but not in the same sense to learn the A. B. C. We need them in other specialised fields. But when you send missionaries, please do not send fragmentary bodies! . . . "

A Definition of Unity.

      The Assembly was not to be satisfied with what is often called "spiritual unity", which would leave churches undisturbed in their denominational grooves, save that they entertain amiable feelings towards their fellow Christians. Nor would we regard the present achievement of co-operation and a measure of unity as an adequate substitute for real union--"reunion without repentance." The Assembly declared that the unity of the church must be manifest, actual, visible. In a single sentence of about 120 words, the Assembly received and commended to all churches a virtual definition of the shape of a church united:--

      "We believe that the unity which is both God's will and His gift to His Church is being made visible as all in each place who are baptised into Jesus Christ and confess Him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one Gospel, breaking the; one bread joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls His people. It is for such unity that we believe we must pray and work."

      This is the key paragraph to the whole report. It is followed by a commentary on the terms used in the definition, and then a discussion of its implications for local church life, the life of our confessions, and for the Ecumenical movement. This is not a blueprint, or a plan for a united church, but a document for study and action. It is sent out, as the report expresses, in the hope that churches inside and outside the World Council of Churches will study it with care, and, should it be found inadequate will formulate alternative statements which more fully comprehend "both God's will and His gift."

      There are many questions left unanswered by this brief description of unity for we are not yet of a common mind on the interpretation and the means of achieving the goal we have described. The Assembly did not mean that we should have a lot of parallel churches, but it did mean one church. The report explains "that

unity does not mean simple uniformity of organisation, rite or expression." The one Church will not be uniform in its worship or monolithic in its structure, but it must be the Church as the New Testament knows it when Paul cries, "Is Christ divided?"

With One Voice Glorifying God.

      Visser t'Hooft claimed the aim of the World Council is expressed in Romans 15:5, 6:--

      "May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with each other, in accord with Jesus Christ that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Paul's expression "to be of the same mind" speaks of a much deeper unity than we can claim to have at present in the fellowship of the Council. "Now the goal of the World Council is not to become itself the one body with the one clear voice, but rather to pave the way for the fuller manifestation of that body both at the local and world level. And let no one say that this is a wild dream or that it will lead automatically to the formation of a wholly uniform centralised superchurch. For it is nothing more nor less than what the New Testament means by the unity of the Church and the New Testament itself makes it clear that unity in Christ does not mean uniformity and centralisation. Paul teaches that this true unity must be in accord with Jesus Christ. We are not looking for a vague undefined unity. We are concerned with the unity of which Christ Himself is the author, the unity which exists in Him and which He gives to His people. The World Council of Churches is either a Christocentric movement or it is nothing at all."

Membership Does Not Commit to Union.

      The fear is sometimes expressed that the World Council may commit its member churches to union with other churches. Certainly the Council should keep before its members the vision of the fuller realisation of our Lord's desire "that they all may be one." It would be false to Him not to do so. Union between churches however is their own affair. If the Churches of Christ enter into union with some other communion it will be the result of their own decision and negotiation. The purpose of the World Council of Churches is not to negotiate unions between churches, but to bring the churches into living contact with each other and to promote the study and discussion of the issues of Church unity.

      The New Delhi Work Book states that if the Council should in any way violate its own constitutional principle that it cannot legislate or act for its member churches, it would cease to maintain the support of its membership. The authority of the Council consists only in the weight which it carries with the churches by its own wisdom. "It is agreed that the World Council of Churches must not attempt to violate the autonomy of any member church. Neither may the Council make official pronouncements on unity which contravene the recognised doctrines of member churches, nor attempt to impose any one conception of unity." (par. 55b) The deepest responsibility of the ecumenical movement is seen as faithful prayer for the unity of Christ's church as and when He wills it.

Doctrinal Agreement.

      It is one thing to have a definition of the nature of the unity we seek, it is quite another matter to agree on the details. The report contains some "glossing over" of very deep differences. For example paragraph 8 reads, "The mutual recognition of baptism, in one sense or another, has been a foundation stone in the ecumenical discussions of the present century." This "one sense or another" included the view of the Salvation Army who believe that the baptism

of the Spirit is the only baptism that matters. It would also cover up a wide difference between those who practise infant baptism and those who contend for believer's baptism.

      One of the clearest points of disagreement in unity discussions was on the question of intercommunion. Some see a sharing together of the Lord's Supper as an important step to union: "it is intolerable and incomprehensible that a common love of God should not be expressed and deepened by common participation in the Holy Communion which He offers." Others see it as something to be shared only after union is accomplished: "it is intolerable and incomprehensible that those who do not share the organic life could expect to share in its eucharistic expression."

      That those who gathered at New Delhi are deeply serious in the search for unity is seen in their recognition that the achievement of unity will involve nothing less than a death and rebirth of many forms of church life as we have known them, and that nothing less costly can finally suffice. "But it is our firm hope that through the Holy Spirit God's will as it is witnessed in Holy Scripture will be more and more disclosed to us and in us." We welcome this appeal to the scriptures. Under the heading "Doctrinal Agreement" the report states: "In our consideration of next steps towards an agreed doctrinal basis for the unity we seek, two useful distinctions may be made--that intellectual formations of faith are not to be identified with faith itself, and that koinonia in Christ is more nearly the precondition of 'sound doctrine' than vice versa. The primary basis of this koinonia is the apostolic testimony in the Holy Scriptures and "the hearing of faith." Yet this primary biblical revelation was given to and through the apostolic church, and has continued to be witnessed to by our common historic creeds . . . a next step towards unity, at the denominational level, would be a fresh consideration of our various doctrinal basis, in the light of the primacy of Scripture and its safeguarding in the Church by the Holy Spirit."

Biblical Study.

      That the scriptures are a unifying power was our experience at New Delhi. We were as varied a group as is possible to get, and yet we all accepted a Biblical theology. Everyday we spent an hour in Bible study, which proved to be one of the richest experiences of the Assembly. As each one made his contribution, we found that God was saying the same things to us. We shared on a deep level and there was never a jarring or discordant note. The old conflict of fundamentalism and liberalism was no longer relevant.

Local Church Life.

      The challenge that confronts us now is to work out in the local scene the insights of New Delhi. For what is the use of deep conviction and imaginative plans about unity at the level of world meetings, if our church members are indifferent, lukewarm, or even hostile. It is the local congregation that must be fired with the vision, for what happens in the local congregation happens to the whole Body of Christ; what does not happen in the local congregation does not happen anywhere.

      "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another." When we begin to obey Christ's command to love one another, we find we can ignore each other no longer and we shall actually seek the means of giving expression to that love.

      A full appreciation of the third assembly of the World Council of Churches can be gained only by reading the full official Report of course.

      The Victorian-Tasmanian Conference Committee for the Promotion of Christian Union, which serves also as the Federal Committee, convened a public meeting to hear a report by E. L. Williams, one of our Australian representatives at New Delhi. Mr. Williams could not possibly cover the whole field in one address. Without giving the full address the main points are covered in the following statement. We submit it to members of our churches who were unable to be present to hear the address.

I. The Theme of the Assembly

      In a land in which Christianity is but a small, minority movement Christians entered under the banner of Christ's claim to uniqueness: "I am the light of the world." There was no toning down of the confession that Christ is unique. He is not a light among others.

      The theme was not in itself a subject of discussion. One address only was given on this subject by Bishop Noth of Germany, but it was reflected in the three subjects of discussion: Witness, Service, Unity. A reading of the addresses and reports will show how the Assembly declared the radical Biblical doctrine of a unique Light, Saviour and Lord.

II. The Membership of the Assembly

      The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of Churches which accept the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour. It is not a Church and its Constitution precludes it from being any kind of super-church with authority over its members.

      The Basis of Membership was amended at New Delhi and now reads: "The W.C.C. is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfil together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

      There was considerable discussion of this amendment, abut it was carried by a vote of 383 to 36. The historical position of Churches of Christ concerning creeds was presented not only by a representative of Churches of Christ, but by others. While not opposing the Basis a reserve was expressed about the possible multiplication of creedal tests of fellowship.

      The reception of twenty-three new member churches lifted the membership to 197 churches. These new churches ranged all the way from two Pentecostal Churches in Chile to the Russian Orthodox Church.

      It is heartening to note that so many of these new churches came from what we regard as the missionary areas of the world. Eleven of the twenty-three came from Africa. When one noted the number of coloured people participating in the Assembly, some of them contributing and leading so ably, one was moved to thank God for the missionary enterprise. Here is the fruit of the faithful labours of missionaries.

      Before the inauguration of the World Council of Churches at Amsterdam, in 1948, the way was open to the Russian Orthodox Church to become a member, but the Russian judgment was that the W.C.C. was an instrument of Western Capitalism and Imperialism. When the Amsterdam Assembly condemned Communism on five counts it gave fuel to the propagandists who declared that the W.C.C. is an instrument of Capitalism. However, the same Assembly condemned "laissez-faire Capitalism" on four counts. This gave propaganda on the other side the cue to declare the W.C.C'. is Communistic. It is all too easy for people on both sides to be dupes and instruments of propaganda.

      Our Lord said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." It cannot be identified with any kingdom or system, but judges all. In loyalty to this truth the Church does not align itself or the Kingdom of God with any kingdom or system. It judges both Communism and Capitalism. The New Delhi Assembly declared that Christians can never give the State their ultimate loyalty and that the Church cannot identify itself with any particular economic, social or political system. "Jesus Christ is the Lord."

      The reception of the Russian Orthodox Church into the W.C.C. does not commit other members to accept the Communism which prevails in the country from which the Russian Orthodox Church comes. Neither does it commit other members to accept the particular theology, ecclesiology and policy of the Russian Orthodox Church, any more than they are committed to the particular positions of the Anglican Church or the Pentecostal Churches or any others.

      The Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the W.C.C. but it sent six observers to New Delhi. The reception of these observers does not mean that members of the W.C.C. are committed to acceptance of the manifest errors of Romanism or to a union with Rome. Any union with Rome as we know it is quite impossible. All we are committed to is ecumenical encounter with any Church which accepts the basis of membership.

III. The Experience of the Assembly

      Fellowship and encounter characterised our experience. In spite of differences in race and nation, language and politics, denomination and theology, convictions and opinions, traditions and practices, there was a fellowship in worship, Bible study, discussion and conversation in all of which we realise unity in Christ.

      In this fellowship there was frank encounter across racial, national, political and denominational lines. We are all conditioned by our particular environment and tradition. Isolation and exclusiveness produce denominationalism and partiality as well as all other kinds of parochialism. Encounter is necessary to jolt us out of our partial insights and understanding and to lift us into a world of larger vision.

      We are expected to come with our convictions and with these we must come if we are to make any contribution. In this fellowship and encounter our convictions are tested and we have opportunity to prove our stewardship of truth entrusted to us.

IV. The Agreements of the Assembly

1. The Church is only the Church as it is in mission.

2. The Church is committed to service.

      Witness and service are tied together. The witnessing word is often an acted word though the spoken word must be added to the deed. In witness and service the Church must be identified with the life of the world. This identification serves to underline the emphasis on the ministry of the "laity." "Only laymen can carry the Christian witness to the places where the work of the world is carried on."

3. God wills fullness of unity.

      Co-operation expresses the unity we have, but it is not enough. While necessary, co-operation is but a means to an end; it should not be accepted as a substitute or allowed to be an opiate for a divine discontent.

      The W.C.C. is but a fellowship of Churches in which we express the unity we have. It is not a Church and, therefore, is not a super-church or a united Church. Membership in the W.C.C. does not bring any member church into fullness of unity or union with any other member church. The W.C.C. does not negotiate or determine any union of churches. Any union between churches is something of their own will and negotiation.

4. Unity and mission are inseparable.

      Fullness of unity is essential to full witness and service. As we cannot separate witness and service so we cannot separate unity and mission. This conviction found expression in the integration of the W.C.C. and the International Missionary Council. The latter becomes the Division of World Mission and Evangelism. While patterns of missionary enterprise need to change the imperative of missionary enterprise remains unchanged.

5. The ultimate goal is a fully visible unity.

      "We believe that the unity which is both God's will and his gift to His Church is being made visible as all in each place who are baptised into Jesus Christ and confess him as Lord and Saviour are brought by the Holy Spirit into one fully committed fellowship, holding the one apostolic faith, preaching the one gospel, breaking the one bread, joining in common prayer, and having a corporate life reaching out in witness and service to all and who at the same time are united with the whole Christian fellowship in all places and all ages in such wise that ministry and members are accepted by all, and that all can act and speak together as occasion requires for the tasks to which God calls his people. It is for such unity that we believe we must pray and work."

      This agreement on the nature of the unity we seek is an agreement about a goal, but, as the Report points out, there are many questions yet unanswered and differences unresolved.

V. The Achievements of the Assembly

      Too much is commonly expected of an Assembly. There is a false expectation that problems will be solved, ail questions answered, divisions overcome and fullness of unity achieved. There is a sense in which it can be said the Assembly achieved nothing. It was not unlike an annual business meeting of a church or an annual conference of churches in which reports are received and discussed, committees and officers are elected and a mandate is given for the continuation of good work. The real achievements are made in the on-going life of the congregations, departments, auxiliaries, committees and members. So the real achievement of the New Delhi Assembly lies in the on-going work of the ecumenical movement.

      Reports revealed the achievements of the on-going movement. Christian witness and service have been given in the wonderful programme of Inter-Church Aid and Service to Refugees and also most significantly in the work of the Churches' Commission on International Affairs. Youth programmes and the work of the Division of Studies present an encouraging on-going achievement.

      The coming together of representatives of 197 churches from almost every country in the world, crossing denominational, racial, rational, cultural and political boundaries, entering into fellowship in worship and study, discussing questions in an atmosphere of friendliness, frankness and freedom is a real achievement.

      The significance of the Assembly is realised only when we recognise that it is but an expression of this kind of thing that is going on all the while in various ways. Such assemblies and the movement of which they are expressions are bridge-building processes. Understanding requires a knowledge of both agreements and differences. This can come only through ecumenical encounter. Isolation and exclusiveness foster partiality, parochialism and denominationalism.

      In the Assembly, as in the movement, there is an expression of the unity we have, but there are real differences. One is made very aware of these as well as of the unities. Fullness of unity is not something that one can envisage at this stage. We have been divided for a long while. Patience and long range strategy are essential. None need fear any favouring of a hasty entrance into any kind of union by the sacrifice of essential truths which have come to us through the revelation of Christ and the witness of the New Testament.

      It is the very nature of the ecumenical movement to provide opportunity to witness at the right time, in the right way and in the right atmosphere. All are expected to make witness to their understanding of truth. The particular witness of Churches of Christ has been made all along the line and was made at New Delhi. Of course there are many areas of discussion and action in which Churches of Christ have no distinctive witness. We share the common witness and service in these areas. The responsibility and privilege of sharing in this common Christian front is something we cannot shirk any more than we should shirk the responsibility and privilege of making our distinctive witness. New Delhi served afresh to confirm the writer's convictions concerning the great principles of our historic witness.