Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present, and Future (Part 4 of 5) by Amos Yong
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Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present, and Future (Part 3 of 5)
Pentecostalism and Ecumenism: Past, Present, and Future (Part 5 of 5)
Notes
16 The Faith and Order section of the WCC has been active up through to the present. Some Pentecostals who have been deeply involved in the interdenominational activities with the charismatic movement and many other large independent charismatic churches may have noticed that more often than not, such “ecumenism” has emphasized experience to the neglect of doctrine! This is ironic in light of the charge leveled against ecumenical organizations such as the WCC that it has abandoned the truth of the gospel for visible unity and social programs (see my earlier discussion in Part II, Obj. 2). However, the internal policies and vision of the WCC is motivated in part by the fact that its quest for unity, including the work done by Faith and Order, does not bypass serious doctrinal issues. Instead, the WCC wants to ensure that the fellowship of the churches “is not based on the illusion that differences can be overcome by ignoring them” (van Elderen, Introducing the World Council of Churches, 5).
17 See Part 3, Summer 2001 (Vol 4, No 3), page 21.
18 See, e.g., article on the “World Council of Churches” by J. L. Sandidge in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, eds. Stanley M. Burgess, Gary B. McGee and Patrick H. Alexander (Grand Rapids: Regency Reference Library, 1988), 901-3.
19 Upon returning from Canberra, Cecil M. Robeck, Jr., an ordained Assemblies of God minister and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, penned these thoughts which may reflect the sentiments of many who witnessed that event: “The second [speaker] was a young Korean Presbyterian woman, Professor Chung Hyun Kyung, who made a stunning presentation as an introduction to the theological theme [of the conference]. She attempted to speak from the perspective of a minjung theology which she believed to be especially representative of Asian women. At points, I found her to be genuinely prophetic. At other times, I was very uncomfortable. I worried that she had passed outside the bounds of orthodoxy as, for example, when she ‘summoned’ various spirits of Han, spirits of those who had been touched by anger, resentment, bitterness and grief…. To be sure, there is much to be said for the communion of saints, even among evangelicals and Pentecostals. It is also the case that our understanding of the church allows us to see ourselves in relationship with those who have gone before us in the church. Furthermore, as one who comes from a tradition which rose first among the poor, the disenfranchised and marginalized in North American society, I could identify at points with her minjung concerns. But the summons of departed spirits to come to the assembly, if that is what was really intended, seemed to me to be more akin to the liturgies of Spiritism or was more rooted in ancestor worship than it was in the classical expressions of Christianity” (see Robeck, “A Pentecostal Reflects on Canberra,” in Bruce J. Nicholls and Bong Rin Ro, eds., Beyond Canberra: Evangelical Responses to Contemporary Ecumenical Issues [Oxford: Regnum Books, 1993], 108-20; quote from 111-12).
20 This may explain, at least in part, why the Roman Catholic Church has never become a member of the WCC since it is rather a bit more convinced that Christian unity includes uniformity under one head, identified of course, under the papal symbol. Since Vatican II, however, Rome has certainly been involved in ecumenical activity.
21 And, of course, it is ironic that some in the ecumenical movement are threatened by the possibility that the WCC might some day be dominated by the presence of hundreds if not thousands of independent Pentecostal churches, the majority of which would derive from the two-thirds world! On this point, see Donald W. Dayton, “Yet Another Layer of the Onion, or, Opening the Ecumenical Door to Let the Riffraff In,” The Ecumenical Review 40 (1988): 87-110.
Category: Fall 2001, Ministry, Pneuma Review
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