Word: vissering
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...most critical decision to come before the World Council of Churches since its founding 16 years ago is the choice of a successor to the Rev. Willem Visser 't Hooft, 64, its omnicompetent general secretary. Last week, meeting in the improbable town of Enugu, Nigeria, the council's 100-member central committee showed its deep concern over the decision by rejecting one officially nominated successor and ordering a search for someone else...
...head of its Faith and Order Department, only since 1961. He is well liked in Western ecumenical circles but virtually unknown to Orthodoxy and the "new churches" of Asia and Africa, which are playing an increasingly important role in the council. Surprised by last August's action were Visser 't Hooft, who was not consulted, and Rodger himself, who was given 24 hours to decide whether he would accept the nomination. He said he would...
...churchmen at Tutzing chosen Rodger? Most council observers believed that the executive committee wanted to rearrange the power structure of the ecumenical movement. The general secretary is technically a servant of the council's 209 member churches, but some clerics felt that Visser 't Hooft runs the council as a private fief. With the little-known and unassertive Rodger in office, the executive committee would clearly have more authority...
Altering the Course. At Enugu, op position to Rodger came from the Rus sian Orthodox representatives, who appreciate Visser 't Hooft's great interest in keeping open the lines of communication between churches on both sides of the Iron Curtain. African and Asian leaders were also disturbed about en trusting the secretaryship to an inexperienced ecumenist. "It is not enough to keep the council on course," explained one "new church" spokesman...
Faith of the Future? Without question, most Christians are not ready to proclaim the death of the church or to embrace the skeletonized faith of the future that some modern-day reformers propose. The World Council's Visser 't Hooft notes that the much-questioned territorial parish has proved to be a valuable instrument in Soviet-bloc countries, where it remains the one autonomous institution in a would-be omnicompetent state. Roman Catholic Layman Michael Novak warns that even if the institutional church withers away, another will eventually take its place, and that "there...