Council Works: 60 Years On…

When the UN was founded in 1945 it was guided by the vision “To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to affirm faith in fundamental human rights, to establish the basic conditions for justice and the rule of law, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Does that sound like the kind of statement that World Federalists might make? Perhaps. But listen to how that paragraph goes on... “People of faith inspired this vision and it has been the basis for the strong support that the World Council of Churches (WCC) has rendered to the work and aspirations of the UN and to the principle of multilateralism throughout its 60 years’ history.” This quote forms part of a major report on UN reform, and comes from the fourth of eight statements issued by the recent Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Brazil, an Assembly of 4,000 people from 348 Christian denominations from over 120 countries.

It was within just a few short years in the history of our globe that the United Nations, the World Federalist Movement, the World Council of Churches and the Canadian Council of Churches all came into existence. It is 60 years on… for all four of those ways of being in community in the globe.

And these organizations converge in myriad ways, the most recent being the fact that the new President of the Canadian Council of Churches is also the current chair of the WFM international council – The Rev. Dr. James Christie.

The recent WCC Assembly in Brazil – ‘60 years on’ as the WCC is, in its history of faith and witness, justice and peace – issued not only the above-quoted statement on UN reform but also, among its eight major statements, one on the Responsibility to Protect or R2P as it is known to so many of us.

That report, entitled Vulnerable populations at risk: Statement on the Responsibility to Protect, begins by setting out the nature of the debate and discussion in the churches, around the use of force. It then goes on to outline the contents of R2P, focusing on the support of the churches for ‘prevention’ as R2P sets it out and then it gives some detail about how such prevention might be achieved. It emphasizes international law, in accordance with the UN charter, if prevention, after all efforts, fails. And then it limits the use of force to the protection of the vulnerable.

The statement closes with resolutions like the following:

“Because churches and other faith communities and their leadership are rooted in the daily spiritual and physical realities of people, they have both a special responsibility and opportunity to participate in the development of national and multilateral protection and war prevention systems.”

For more information on the World Council of Churches ‘60 years on’ and all the ways in which we might rightly perceive the WCC, the CCC, WFMC and the UN converging, just ‘google’ the World Council of Churches or the Canadian Council of Churches. Or visit the websites www.wcc-coe.org or www.ccc-cce.ca.

That convergence also lives in the person of the writer of this article – the Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton is the Chair of the Executive of WFMC and, in her day job, the General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches.