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  Religious Freedom and the World Council of Churches

  Vischer, Lukas (1926-2008) (PAULIST PRESS, 1966)

  When we compare the Declaration on Religious Freedom of Vatican Council II with the texts produced by the generalassemblies of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam (1948) and New Delhi (1961), we see that there is a large measure of agreement. Yet the scope of the problem is not identical for all parties concerned. -After World War I many factors in Western Europe shook the assumption that the inhabitants of a given region were themembersof a given Church. The missionary movement and the gradual emergence of “young Churches” prepared the way for a new and deeper understanding of the nature of the Church. During the rule of Nazism in Germany the “Confessing Church” was an attempt to preserve the Church’s freedom within a Church and a State that were menaced by a false ideology or had already yielded to it. –In 1937, the Oxford Conference dealt with the nature of those freedoms which the Church could claim from the State. Thisdiscussion expandedin the course of time. The Churches could hardly claim freedom for themselves without likewise claiming it for others. Finally, religious freedomwas considered an essential condition for international organizationslike the World Council of Churches.The ecumenical movement had beeninaugurated to precipitate dialogue andto work together as a community. TheOxford Conference called upon the Churches “to guard against the sin of themselves conniving at repression of Churches and religious bodies of a faith and order differing from their own”. It regarded mutual respect as an opportunity for Christian witness, since it is by setting an example of tolerance that the Churches actually promote international understanding. The conferenceheld the view that aChurch which tries to attract the members of another Church by non-spiritual means (proselytism) makes it impossible for the Churches to live together. Their communion in Christ imposes upon the Churches a positive responsibility for each other. -Vatican Council II barely treated this aspect of religious freedom.One question has yet tobe discussedin the ecumenical movement: How far is the Church itself a community based on freedom? Where must we draw the line between a plurality that strengthens the witness to Christ and a plurality that destroys it?If the Churches are expected to set “an example of freedom to all”, as the Oxford Conference put it, this question is of decisive importance. The Churches should formulate their convictions in common. There is no need to stress the value of such a witness in a world whose order is imperilled by a false absolutismandundermined by indifference toward the truth as the source of life, respectively.
• Ethik für das Leben : 100 Jahre Ökumenische Wirtschafts- und Sozialethik

  Princeton Theological Seminary Library; Raiser, Konrad; Stierle, Wolfram; Werner, Dietrich; Heider, Martin (Rotherburg : Ernst Lange - Institut fur ökumenische Studien, 1996-01-01)

  Es gehörte von Beginn an zu den zentralen Anliegen der ökumenischen Bewegung, die soziale und politische Verantwortung der Kirchen weltweit wahrzunehmen. Dieses Anliegen dokumentiert die Quellenedition „Ethik für das Leben"; sie gibt einen repräsentativen Überblick über fast hundert Jahre ökumenischen Sozialdenkens. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf der neueren Entwicklung und der Dokumentation des Konziliaren Prozesses.
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