1. NEW CREEDS FOR BREAKFAST
THE FORCE OF ECUMENISM

2. ECUMENISM
• The World Council of Churches under the
leadership of Willem Adolph Visser’t Hooft
sought to unify the churches under one general
council. In the sixteenth century the church was
divided into four major movements: Lutheran,
Reformed, Anabaptist, and Anglican. By the
twentieth century their were over 200
denomination in the U.S. alone.
• Centrifugal: Proceeding or acting in a direction
away from a center or axis.
• Centralization: To bring to a center consolidate.
• Ecumenism: Movement toward unity or
cooperation among the Christian churches.

3. MOVEMENTS TOWARD CHRISTIAN
UNITY
• On very few subjects do all men think alike. Certainly
Christians do not think alike about their faith. They
have differences about doctrine, morality, worship, and
organization. And they hold their religious views not as
mere opinions but as religious convictions.
• The first real effort at unity among Protestants was the
Evangelical Alliance established in London in 1846. In
1908 thirty one American denominations joined in the
Federal Council of Churches. In 1950 the Federal
Council was absorbed by a larger body, the National
Council of Churches of Christ. The most ambitious
expression of ecclesiastical ecumenism is the World
Council of Churches formed in 1948 in Amsterdam.

4. FOUR GREAT LEADERS
• John R. Mott (1865-1955) a Methodist layman, at age
twenty three he became a student secretary of the
international Committee of the Young Men’s Christian
Association (YMCA). He served as chairman of the
International Missionary Council for twenty years. No
man contributed more to Christian unity than Mott.
• Charles Brent (1862-1929 was a Canadian Anglican
who served as a missionary to the Philippine Islands.
Brent was concerned about doctrinal differences, and
he saw Anglicanism as the bridge that might span the
differences. Disunity, he said, is fundamentally creedal.
Until these differences are resolved, Christians will find
no authentic unity.

5. FOUR GREAT LEADERS CONT.
• Nathan Soderblom (1866-1931) Lutheran Archbishop
of Uppsala in Sweden, was the founder and chief
promoter of the Life and Work Movement. He rejected
faith in the divine and human nature of Christ because
he considered it unacceptable to modern man. True
religion rests not in our conception of God but in our
moral character.
• Willem Adolph Visser’t Hooft (1900-1985) following
the footsteps of Mott, he served as secretary of the
Worlds Committee of the YMCA. He called the church
to be itself again. That was the unofficial slogan of the
men who started the ecumenical movement. Let the
church be the church. Meaning the church should not
echo the trends of the world, neither should the
church run away from the world.

6. DENOMINATIONAL MERGERS
• In the U.S. over thirty mergers of denominations were
completed from 1900-1970, including such major
creations as the United Methodists and United
Presbyterians.
• Outside the U.S. a more significant merger was the
Church of South India formed in 1947 through the
union of three religious bodies: Anglican Church, South
India Methodist Church, South India United Church
over 19,000,000 members strong.
• Through ecumenism other alliances have met
periodically for discussion and fellowship. International
Congregational Council, The Mennonite World
Conference, The World Methodist Conference, The
Baptist World Alliance, The Lutheran World Federation,
and The World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian
Churches

7. EVANGELICAL EXPRESSIONS OF UNITY
• Evangelicals have always stressed the necessity of a
personal religious experience. Their primary concern in
the Church is the mission of the Church.
• In the early 1940’s American Evangelicals created two
organizations: The National Association of Evangelicals
and The American Council of Christian Churches.
• In 1974 International Congress on World
Evangelization, meeting in Lausanne Switzerland, gave
clear evidence of a new maturity in the evangelical
views of Christian unity. The honorary chairmanship of
Billy Graham invited 2700 participants, and they forged
the Lausanne Covenant.

8. THE CLOSE
• As the 1970’s closed, the ecumenical spirit in
the World Council of Churches apparently had
turned to social concerns at times employing
overt political instruments as the primary
expression of Christian unity.
• Among conservative evangelicals the aim was
the restoration of evangelism to its central
place in the mission of the church, with hope
that unity would follow.