Editor EMILIO CASTRO

Managing Editors T. K. THOMAS MARLIN VANELDEREN

Editorial Assistant JOAN CAMB~SIS

The quarterly of the World Council of Churches

Editorial We devote this issue of The Ecumenical Review to the subject of dialogue with

people of living faiths. Dialogue is not of course a new reality for Christians, especially for those who are

living in daily contact with people of other religious persuasions. In their everyday life, many Christians are involved in relations of friendship and cooperation with people who have very different religious convictions. What is relatively new is the ecumenical reflection on this reality, which has been taking place during recent years, especially promoted within the WCC constituency by the Sub-unit on Dialogue. We must also recognize the part played by the Second Vatican Council, which opened doors of dialogue and cooperation between the Roman Catholic Church and other world religions. The happy collaboration between the Sub-unit on Dialogue and Vatican’s Secretariat for Non-Christians is one of the positive developments in ecumenical work.

What is also new is the fact that many Christians in Western countries are today living among people of other faiths. The movement of populations over the last several years has meant that in almost every nation of the world we have a religiously pluralistic stituation. For people in Great Britain, for example, other religions were an object of mission in foreign lands; today they must live side by side with people professing other faiths, and they cannot help being exposed to the values and the lifestyle of their neighbours of other faiths.

There is also the reality of the resurgence of old religions. The Missionary Conference in Jerusalem in 1928 was afraid that religions were being undermined by the growth of secular thought; today we realize that religions are alive and powerful, and continue to command the loyalty of millions of people. The new life that is evident in Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism is a clear indication of the capacity of the religious

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experience to adapt to changing worldviews and to the technological revolution of our times. Many Christians, especially in Asia and Africa, are in the process of affirming their ancestral cultures; they are fully committed to being Christian as part of, and not apart from, their communities. They claim to be inheritors of the wisdom of centuries shaped by other religious convictions. This awareness of the fact that they have two histories - the history of the people of Israel and the early church that comes to them through the Bible, and the history of their own people, the community to which they belong - and the desire to keep these two together, must necessarily lead to an external dialogue with their neighbours of other faiths, and a passionate internal dialogue within each person and each Christian community. Dialogue is integral to their search for identity.

The reflection on dialogue has not been easy. In fact, it has been a polemical issue within the World Council of Churches and in the life of the member churches. In one sense, this has been good, as one of the writers in this issue points out, because it has obliged the Christian “dialogue on dialogue”, to examine at depth our own Christian convictions and to root the dialogue in our faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, discovering within it, and as integral to it, an attitude of openness and listening, of humble service and reciprocity, to our neighbours of other convictions.

One aspect of the internal dialogue is explored in the essay here on dialogue and mission. The two have come closer to each other through the years. We know today that witness is not possible without an authentic dialogic attitude, and that dialogue needs to be rooted in our faith-commitment and that it must include the testimony of what we owe to Jesus Christ.

In a recent conversation with Jewish leaders in Buenos Aires, we were reminded that their special relation to the land of Israel is an essential component of the Jewish identity, and that Christians who would like to relate constructively and dialogically to them should be aware of that particular conviction that belongs to the very essence of the Jewish consciousness. We responded that we would try to appreciate and respect that conviction, because we too have basic convictions that belong to our Christian identity. One of these convictions is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not a personal property of Christians, but belongs to the common treasure of humankind, and that it is the privilege and duty of the Christian to share this conviction with everybody.

At the Vancouver Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1983 emerged other dimensions of the polemic on dialogue. When the report of the Issue Group on “Witnessing in a Divided World” was presented to the plenary, the discussion centred on one single sentence. In the first draft it read as follows: “While affirming the uniqueness of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus to which we bear witness, we recognize God’s creative work in the religious experience of people of other faiths.” A number of interventions registered objection to the recognition in other religions of God’s creative work. The report was sent back to the sub-committee which had prepared it. No fewer than 68 written proposals were received, all relating to that one sentence. Finally, the Central Committee immediately following the Assembly accepted - not unanimously - the following formulation: “While affirming the uniqueness of the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus to which we bear witness, we recognize God’s creative work in the seeking for religious truth among people of other faiths.” What is recognized here as belonging to God’s creative work is not the achievement of other religions, but the searching for truth within those religions. Many

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were dissatisfied with the statement, but it illustrates how controversial the dialogue concern continues to be.

It is hoped that this issue of The Ecumenical Review will help clarify concepts and advance the debate. We would like to underline three areas of concern:

First is what may be called the pragmatic one. Communities of people are living together, facing common problems; we need to learn to cooperate in order to survive. No programme of the WCC can be developed today in religious isolation. We live in a pluralistic world, and other religions play a role in the shaping of attitudes and convictions among very large sections of people. When we are dealing with the important issues of peace, disarmament and ecological responsibility, we must be in dialogue with people of other faiths and people professing secular ideologies. And dialogue is also a necessary component of the common struggle of the poor, of different religious convictions, against injustice and oppression. Our Christian voca- tion of love must find expression in our readiness to cooperate with others in the overcoming of common difficulties and in shaping our common future.

The second area of concern is related to a theological understanding of religions. The Vancouver Assembly called for a study on the theological significance of other religions, raising the question for Christians of how we appraise the role of other religions in God’s providential plan for humankind. This is in the traditiion of the debate at Tambaram 1938, which is referred to by a few of the writers in this issue.

The third dimension is the witnessing or evangelistic dimension. The concern for a dialogical attitude, in this case, is motivated by the Christian conviction that Jesus Christ is wider than the Christian Church. He can convince where we cannot, and there is no need for us to be nervous or afraid in our relationship with others, and no need to fight shy of our confession of his lordship.

The article included in this issue on Christ-centred syncretism takes up some of these issues. The author of the article elsewhere in his writings speaks of “risking Christ for the sake of Christ.” This is a provocative way of opening up a new phase in the history of the relation of Christians with people of other faiths.

Other articles here deal with the practice of Dialogue, in multi-religious Western contexts and inter-religious developmental contexts. We hope in the near future to devote an issue of The Ecumenical Review to the whole question of faith and culture, where this debate could be continued and deepened.

Colleagues in the Dialogue Sub-unit have cooperated with us in the planning and preparation of this issue, and we are grateful to them.

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Eugene Carson Blake In the last issue of The Ecumenical Review we carried a brief note on Dr Visser ’t

Hooft, the first general secretary of the World Council of Churches, who died in Geneva on July 4. Dr Eugene Carson Blake, who succeeded Dr Visser ’t Hooft as general secretary of the World Council in 1967, died a few weeks later, on July 31. We owe to these two men of God much more than we realize or acknowledge.

I was privileged to meet Dr Blake a few weeks before I took over as general secretary. I found him physically weak but mentally alert. He recalled his term as general secretary and we talked about the problems the Council had to face then and

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the challenges that we face today. We compared notes, and discussed the similarities and differences between then and now.

Dr Blake was called to serve the Council at a particularly difficult phase of its history. In the period after the Fourth Assembly, the WCC had become a truly worldwide movement. The upsurge of youth in the West and of whole peoples in the third world had produced a climate of general unsettlement. The emerging concerns of social justice, world development and international peace called for an ecumenical response.

Writing in the October issue of One World Dr M.M. Thomas, who worked closely with him during the major part of this period as moderator of the WCC Central Committee, talks of Dr Blake’s response to these:

He set himself a double task; restructuring the Council in its secretariat to express the fellowship which had grown confessionally and geographically worldwide; and at the same time inaugurating concrete action programmes to combat the forces of social oppression and international exploitation.

Controversial programme activities like the Programme to Combat Racism and Dialogue with People of Living Faiths owe a vast deal to Dr Blake’s brave initiatives and Christian courage. To quote Thomas once again:

Much of the structure and many of the programme directions he gave to the WCC still seem to endure. Of course, with changing times and changing concepts of ecumenical tasks, they should and will change. But the ecumenical vision which Blake shared on the koinonia of a worldwide church, spiritually penetrating the modem world, renewing human c o m u - nity and relationships, presenting Christ as Saviour and Lord and becoming a sign of the kingdom to come must continue to inspire new generations of ecumenical leadership.

We thank God for Dr Blake’s vision and his courage, for his many contributions to his own church and society in the USA and to the wider fellowship of the WCC.

EMILIO CASTRO

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