After the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), various conferences followed among Protestants, namely; the Uppsala in 1968, and the diakonia conference of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1986. The council and the conferences lead to a more transformative approach of working towards social change in terms of both social relationships and structures.
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is the broadest and most inclusive among the many expression of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity. Representatives of 147 Churches officially formed it in 1948. Currently, it has 349 member churches, more than 110 countries and territories throughout the world, represents more than one-quarter based in Africa (27%), nearly one-quarter based in Europe (23%) and one-fifth in Asia (21%). The total membership represents more than 580 million Christians (Beach 2008:i).
Europe as a region among the continents and Eastern Orthodox as a church family have the largest membership of the churches within the World Council of Churches.
Other members include Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Reformed churches, as
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well as many United and Independent churches (Beach 2008:i-2). Beach (2008:2) affirms that:
The Roman Catholic Church has a formal working relationship with the World Council of Churches, but is not a member. Also there are emerging relationships with Evangelical and Pentecostal churches not already in membership.
In 1948, the World Council of Churches gathered in its First Assembly in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Since then there have been several councils, which followed until the Ninth Assembly in February 2006, in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Beach (2008:2) says that:
The churches in the fellowship of the WCC pursue a vision of ecumenism which seeks visible unity in one faith and one Eucharist fellowship; promote a common witness in work for mission and evangelism; and engage in Christian service by meeting human need through WCC partner agencies, breaking barriers between people, seeking justice and peace and upholding the integrity of creation.
According to Beach (2008:2) the World Council of Churches‟ Ninth Assembly formulated the council‟s programme priorities for the period ahead. Until the next assembly in 2013, the WCC will be working within the framework of six programs:
-WCC and Ecumenical Movement in the 21st century -Unity, Mission, Evangelism and Spirituality
-Public Witness: Addressing power, Affirming Peace -Justice, Diakonia and Responsibility for creation -Education and Ecumenical Formation
-Inter-Religious Dialogue and Cooperation.
Justice, Diakonia and Responsibility toward creation, is to a greater extent, the focus of this study. The program of, Justice, Diakonia and Responsibility for creation, calls for an
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ecumenical commitment to justice, enabling people to transform their lives by meeting immediate human needs, enabling churches to work together to address the structural roots of injustice, and help them to identify and combat the threats to creation. In the various Assemblies of the WCC the concept “diakonia” has been the major theme, which means the Church manifests the Lordship of Christ over the world also by its humble service (diakonia) to the world (Beach 2008:12; Collins 1990:21).
Collins (2008:20) and Gonzalez (1995) say in the Protestant theology, “diakonia”
already existed as:
An attractive motif due to the intention to reform the ecclesiastical structures, which were felt by many to have rendered much of the church‟s ministry remote and inept, the sociological tensions that strict clericalism, was fostering democratic age. In the councils, “diakonia” emerged as the basic theme, it spoke of humility, service as ministry in action, brotherly give and take at all levels of church life, and it had a biblical pedigree.
In the third Assembly of the World Council of Churches at New Delhi, India in 1961,
“diakonia” had been a major theme and many of the council fathers had been aware and the several commentators have in fact alluded to the influence on the council of ecumenical thinking in this regard. Collins (1990:20-21) says:
The New Delhi Assembly was plainly Christological, Jesus Christ the Light of the World, to which the three topics: “Witness”, “Service” and “Unity” – would seem to have a clear relevance…Unity was understood strictly as the Greek
“Koinonia,” witness and service were formed as one single coherent responsibility within it – this is the stand of the assembly. Service to human need was first presented as a biblical doctrine of “diakonia”.
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Paauwe (2003:37) says at the Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala, in Sweden in 1968, that it became clear the world is changing; hence there was a necessity to evaluate the missionary principles. The following were the criteria for such an evaluation:
Do they place the church alongside the poor, the defenseless, the abused, and the forgotten? Do they allow Christians to enter the concerns of others to accept their issues and structures as vehicles of involvement? Are they the best situations for discerning with other men the signs of the times, and moving with history towards the coming of the new humanity?” The answer to these criteria was the reform of the Church according to the needs of the people and in that way achieves the Kingdom of God.
Paauwe (2003) and Orthodox Diakonia (2009), affirm that Uppsala set the unity and catholicity of the church squarely within the sphere of God's activity in history. Stating that:
The Church is bold in speaking of itself as the sign of the coming unity of mankind", the assembly admitted that secular "instruments of conciliation and unification... often seem more effective than the church itself" (Orthodox Diakonia 2009:3). Therefore under this situation: Churches need a new openness to the world in its aspirations, its achievements, its restlessness and its despair (Paauwe 2003:37).
Norborg-Jerkeby (2006:21) asserts that in the wake of Uppsala several new programs were added to the World Council of Churches. They are:
1. Unit I, The program to combat racism (PCR),
2. The Commission on the Churches' Participation in Development, 3. The Christian Medical Commission,
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4. Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies, and 5. The Sub-unit on Education.
6. Unit II, Justice and Service, became from 1971 onwards the largest unit in the Council.
Eventually, Collins (1990:22) states that:
The World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, United and Independent Churches conceive “diakonia” to be the transference to man in his humanity of love that Christ manifested in effecting the world‟s salvation, the mandate for the churches in political and social situations. In this, Christian service, as distinct from the world‟s concept of philanthropy, springs from and is nourished by God‟s costly love revealed by Jesus Christ. Any Christian ethic of service must have its roots there. The measure of God‟s love for men is to be seen in the fact that His Son was willing to die for them.
The World Conference on Church and Society in 1966 did profess that:
The Church can no longer seek to be “the governing, dominating institution,” and that it had now “a chance to restore one of the essential marks of Christ‟s Church, namely to be a serving community in the world”, but this formed no more than a minor motif at a conference where complex questions of world development took precedence over theology. The question evolved similar passing reference to service at the assemblies in Uppsala and Nairobi, but the social, economic and political problems these assemblies set out to confront were of such a scale as to reveal the total unpreparedness of theology to cope with them (Collins 1990:23).
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The potential of theology to contribute to the Church‟s solution was among the first questions the joint Roman Catholic Church and World Council Committee – Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX) took up. Collins and Dunne suggest that:
The theme of service does not seem to have been relevant to the Roman Catholic Church and SODEPAX purpose unless we accept a reference to Christ‟s relationship to his neighbors, his service in society as recorded in the Gospels and reflected in the theological and ethical statements of the Epistles (Collins 1990:23-4; Dunne 1996:i).
In addition, Orthodox Diakonia (2009:3) asserts that in its ecumenical form, diakonia seeks justice; it is global (for all people) and inseparable from society. It also aims towards creating long-term sustaining relationships, empowering communities, building capacities and integrating relief, rehabilitation, development and reconciliation.