During a press conference in June—the opening day of the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee in Johannesburg, South Africa—a journalist’s question sparked candid answers: “Is the world listening to the WCC?"
The World Council of Churches is an ecumenical partner supported by the Interdenominational Cooperation Fund apportionment, which enables United Methodists to share a presence and a voice in the activities of several national and worldwide ecumenical organizations.
WCC moderator of the central committee Bishop Dr Heinrich Bedford-Strohm said that the answer largely depends on journalists and others who share the WCC’s messages. He also mentioned churches all over the world who are waiting to hear those messages from the body of 352 member churches.
“We always talk in TV and in newspapers about these people in power who are often behind the violence,” he said. “Let’s talk more about the victims.”
Vice moderator of the WCC central committee Rev. Merlyn Hyde-Riley said she believes the world is listening—perhaps not everybody but a significant number. She highlighted the Thursdays in Black campaign for a world free from rape and violence as an example of a message from the WCC that is globally carried and supported.
WCC general secretary Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay agreed that people are listening.
Archbishop Dr Vicken Aykazian, vice moderator of the WCC central committee, said he knows people are listening because, from his own experience, he hears churches asking for guidance from the WCC.
Bishop Sithembele Anton Sipuka, president of the South African Council of Churches said he believed in the church as a credible voice. “People have confidence in the church,” he said. “We will not stop until they listen.”
Bedford-Strohm focused on the importance of unity in a divided world. “This world is a world in which violence is increasing, in which some people despair because some people believe there is no light,” he said. “The Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity is what we engage in during these years in general—but also especially here. The work needs signs of unity.”
Hyde-Riley said she believes the WCC has a pivotal role to play in speaking to the world. “We are very concerned about the structural issues in the world, especially the issues which really impact human beings made in the image of God,” she said. “The world is torn. The world is troubled.”
Aykazian expressed his gratitude to the host churches. “The World Council of Churches is the voice of the voiceless,” he said. “The World Council of Churches is a blessing to humanity.”
Pillay reflected that it’s a privilege and a joy to convene in South Africa.
“The South African context has so much to teach us about how peace can be established, how people can work together,” he said.
Sipuka spoke of how South African churches carry out the same mission of the World Council of Churches—but on a local level. “We note the role that churches have played toward confronting the apartheid systems,” he said.
World Council of Churches website
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