Being one hundred percent wrong is a remarkable record, but it has been achieved by the World Council of Churches. In order to accomplish this feat, this organization of churches has forgotten that Christ's kingdom is not of this world, that the church's mission is solely that of preaching the gospel, and that true gospel ministers do not meddle in politics. When all this is overlooked and repudiated, it becomes easier to be one hundred per cent wrong.
The Geneva Office of the World Council of Churches has recently issued an eleven-point memorandum covering the agreements and disagreements existing between the churches and members of the Ecumenical Council "for the purpose of clarifying issues for further discussion in preparation for the elaboration of a just and durable peace."
Before giving the eleven points of their memorandum, a preliminary statement is made that "owing to the hard lessons churches have had to learn during this war, an ecumenical consensus is emerging concerning the function sand the message of the church . . . in rendering a common witness to the true foundations of a peace."
It appears from this that only now is the church coming to learn the nature of its function and message. Most of us have been laboring under the conviction that the function and message of the church were determined nineteen centuries ago by its divine Founder, in the gospel commission. The eleven points with the reasons why each one is wrong, are as follows:
1. "The church has a specific task in relation to peacemaking and the creation of an international order." (Wrong. The church has only one specific task. That is to preach the gospel to all the world.)
2. "The church can perform its task in this realm by itself constituting a world-wide fellowship under one Lord in which national differences are eliminated." (The church has not been charged with the responsibility of eliminating national differences or constituting one world-wide organic fellowship. Its simple task is the preaching of the gospel.)
3. "The church must proclaim to the nations that Jesus Christ is Lord over all men and all powers." (The church has but the single mission of proclaiming Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world and the coming King.)
4. "The church must proclaim the divine commandments concerning the order that is to reign in the world." (The church has only to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, the saving gospel of human redemption.)
5. "The church will call the nations to repentance for their common guilt and to work tor reconciliation." (The church is to call individuals, not nations, to repentance.)
6. "The church is to proclaim that international relations must be subordinated to divine law." (The church is to proclaim only the redeeming message of the salvation which has been provided by Jesus Christ. It is not to concern itself in international relations.)
7. "The church is to proclaim that the state is neither an aim in itself nor a law unto itself, and that its God-given function is to maintain an order based on law that guarantees fundamental human rights." (The proclamation which the church is to make is with reference to the salvation of individuals, not the function of states.)
8. "The church will proclaim that political power must be exercised with a sense of responsibility toward all those who are affected by that power." (The church has no message to the political powers. It has a message only to individuals.)
9. "The church is to proclaim that society must provide all its members with the opportunity to fulfill a meaningful vocation, and that it should provide conditions of social security for all." (The church has no mission to the state, and no message to proclaim to society regarding social conditions. It has the single message of salvation to proclaim to all men as individuals.)
10. "The church is to proclaim that the nations are interdependent, and that they must all have equal access to the resources of the earth." (God never commissioned the church to make any such proclamation.)
11. "The church will proclaim that no people can claim the right to rule over another people, and that the dominating purpose of colonial administration must be to prepare colonial peoples for self-government." (The church has no business and no authorization in the political realm at all. It has no authority to speak to the state regarding its dominating purpose in colonial administration, and nothing to do with the political principles of self-government. It has only the message of salvation to make known to men.)
If the memorandum of the World Council of Churches does nothing else, it at least discloses how completely this church organization has departed from the original purpose of the divine Founder of the church.
