Fuller Seminary has often described its mission as forming global leaders for kingdom vocations. The seminary educates students about Christianity around the world because we believe that Christian ministry today requires this global outlook regardless of the student’s vocation and context. When it comes to whole church communities, though, not many places exist to encourage this type of global vision. One of the few such places is the World Council of Churches (WCC)—a fellowship of 352 denominations from around the world that seek visible unity together, in dialogue and mission. Together, these churches account for around a quarter of Christians globally from Protestant and Orthodox churches.
Our seminary has a long history with the WCC.1 In 1949, Fuller’s first president, Harold Ockenga, hired the Hungarian Reformed minister Béla Vassady as the seminary’s professor of biblical theology and ecumenics after Vassady helped found the WCC in 1948. Ockenga believed he would help Fuller prepare its students for ministry contexts around the world. Missions professor Donald McGavran’s graduate assistant, Manuel Gaxiola, attended the 1973 Bangkok Consultation of the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME). Gaxiola’s report to McGavran influenced the development of the church growth movement. David Allan Hubbard, Fuller’s third president, invited South African minister David du Plessis, a former WCC staff member, as resident consultant on ecumenical affairs. Hubbard soon after hired Cecil Robeck as professor of church history and ecumenics due to his contributions to the WCC. Robeck, at the Karlsruhe Assembly, served on a theological dialogue committee with Fuller MDiv alumnus Sotiris Boukis. Fuller’s Paul E. Pierson Chair in World Christianity, Kirsteen Kim, previously served as vice-moderator of the CWME, a commission with recurrent contributions from Amos Yong and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen on interfaith dialogue. Daniel Lee, academic dean of the Asian American Center, more recently spoke at a WCC webinar on the history of racialized violence in North America.2 And David Emmanuel Goatley was recently interviewed by the WCC for his involvement with the Council and his presidential appointment at Fuller.3
I was honored to have been one of the handful of Fuller community members and alumni at the 2022 WCC Assembly held in Germany. (Assemblies of churches are held every eight years in different countries; past gatherings were held in South Korea, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Australia among others.) Present were around 4,000 denominational delegates, advisors, and NGO leaders who gathered to work towards overcoming their divisions and meeting the needs of the world. I attended as a steward, a youth member of the event staff who came from all around the world, and served on the communication team, which supported the 350 journalists covering the event in several languages.
The purpose of this Assembly was to plan the next eight years of the churches’ work together in the WCC, and leaders of churches gathered to talk about the issues facing their communities. Sessions covered topics like creation care, theological dialogue, poverty, and statelessness. Each Assembly also devotes special attention to concerns that affect the host country, so the 2022 gathering held in Germany focused on the Ukrainian refugee crisis and on the Russian-Ukrainian war. While other regions of the world have watched the war unfold on the news, churches in Europe have watched it in their own backyard. The Germans I talked to spoke about the Ukrainian refugees they welcomed into their neighborhoods and their fears that the war could spill into other countries. The WCC is important in these conversations because of the Russian Orthodox Church’s presence at the Assembly. A reason the Council exists is so that churches can work out their conflicts with each other in light of their common belonging to Christ.
A common criticism is that organizations such as the WCC suffer from bureaucracy or the inability to make much of a difference in the world and that the Council also struggles against a legacy of Western Christian dominance in setting theological and missional agendas for world Christianity. But WCC Assemblies and other similar events are among the rare spaces where believers can witness what it looks like for churches and institutions to strive for the kind of global vision for which Fuller forms its students. It is not enough to learn about Christians from other cultures and countries without finding ways to relate to and work alongside them equitably. Councils of churches are a way for communities to make systemic and financial commitments to work together, even when it is inconvenient. The global scope of the WCC lets churches make decisions together on matters that affect them all. Churches learn to pursue mission and evangelism, not as competitors but as colaborers. What would it look like to not only train individuals but whole church communities to have a global outlook?
Joey Baker (PhD ’23) is director of operations and research for the Global Christian Forum and secretary of the North American Academy of Ecumenists.
Fuller Seminary has often described its mission as forming global leaders for kingdom vocations. The seminary educates students about Christianity around the world because we believe that Christian ministry today requires this global outlook regardless of the student’s vocation and context. When it comes to whole church communities, though, not many places exist to encourage this type of global vision. One of the few such places is the World Council of Churches (WCC)—a fellowship of 352 denominations from around the world that seek visible unity together, in dialogue and mission. Together, these churches account for around a quarter of Christians globally from Protestant and Orthodox churches.
Our seminary has a long history with the WCC.1 In 1949, Fuller’s first president, Harold Ockenga, hired the Hungarian Reformed minister Béla Vassady as the seminary’s professor of biblical theology and ecumenics after Vassady helped found the WCC in 1948. Ockenga believed he would help Fuller prepare its students for ministry contexts around the world. Missions professor Donald McGavran’s graduate assistant, Manuel Gaxiola, attended the 1973 Bangkok Consultation of the WCC’s Commission on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME). Gaxiola’s report to McGavran influenced the development of the church growth movement. David Allan Hubbard, Fuller’s third president, invited South African minister David du Plessis, a former WCC staff member, as resident consultant on ecumenical affairs. Hubbard soon after hired Cecil Robeck as professor of church history and ecumenics due to his contributions to the WCC. Robeck, at the Karlsruhe Assembly, served on a theological dialogue committee with Fuller MDiv alumnus Sotiris Boukis. Fuller’s Paul E. Pierson Chair in World Christianity, Kirsteen Kim, previously served as vice-moderator of the CWME, a commission with recurrent contributions from Amos Yong and Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen on interfaith dialogue. Daniel Lee, academic dean of the Asian American Center, more recently spoke at a WCC webinar on the history of racialized violence in North America.2 And David Emmanuel Goatley was recently interviewed by the WCC for his involvement with the Council and his presidential appointment at Fuller.3
I was honored to have been one of the handful of Fuller community members and alumni at the 2022 WCC Assembly held in Germany. (Assemblies of churches are held every eight years in different countries; past gatherings were held in South Korea, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and Australia among others.) Present were around 4,000 denominational delegates, advisors, and NGO leaders who gathered to work towards overcoming their divisions and meeting the needs of the world. I attended as a steward, a youth member of the event staff who came from all around the world, and served on the communication team, which supported the 350 journalists covering the event in several languages.
The purpose of this Assembly was to plan the next eight years of the churches’ work together in the WCC, and leaders of churches gathered to talk about the issues facing their communities. Sessions covered topics like creation care, theological dialogue, poverty, and statelessness. Each Assembly also devotes special attention to concerns that affect the host country, so the 2022 gathering held in Germany focused on the Ukrainian refugee crisis and on the Russian-Ukrainian war. While other regions of the world have watched the war unfold on the news, churches in Europe have watched it in their own backyard. The Germans I talked to spoke about the Ukrainian refugees they welcomed into their neighborhoods and their fears that the war could spill into other countries. The WCC is important in these conversations because of the Russian Orthodox Church’s presence at the Assembly. A reason the Council exists is so that churches can work out their conflicts with each other in light of their common belonging to Christ.
A common criticism is that organizations such as the WCC suffer from bureaucracy or the inability to make much of a difference in the world and that the Council also struggles against a legacy of Western Christian dominance in setting theological and missional agendas for world Christianity. But WCC Assemblies and other similar events are among the rare spaces where believers can witness what it looks like for churches and institutions to strive for the kind of global vision for which Fuller forms its students. It is not enough to learn about Christians from other cultures and countries without finding ways to relate to and work alongside them equitably. Councils of churches are a way for communities to make systemic and financial commitments to work together, even when it is inconvenient. The global scope of the WCC lets churches make decisions together on matters that affect them all. Churches learn to pursue mission and evangelism, not as competitors but as colaborers. What would it look like to not only train individuals but whole church communities to have a global outlook?
Joey Baker (PhD ’23) is director of operations and research for the Global Christian Forum and secretary of the North American Academy of Ecumenists.
In this issue of FULLER magazine, guest edited by Soong-Chan Rah, we explore what it might mean for us to be faithful bearers of God’s good news in and for our world today.
