Richard Shaull and the globalization of the ecumenical movement

Maybe it is a cyclical generational thing, but suddenly there seem to be a whole series of reflections on the globalization of the ecumenical movement in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. In Karlsruhe, there is the project on the globalisation of the World Council of Churches, which is organizing a conference on the theme in March 2010. Now there is a new book by Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell, focusing on the contribution of the missiology of Richard Shaull to contextual theology and revolutionary transformation in Latin America. The 1966 World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva is remembered among other things for Shaull's contribution. Here's the blurb:

U.S. audiences know Latin American liberation theologies largely through translations of Latin American Catholics from the 1970s and beyond. Most of the few known Protestant authors were students of Richard Shaull, whose critical thinking on social change, prophetic Christianity, and dialogue with Marxism and Christian use of Marxist analysis precedes the emergence of the formal schools of liberation theology by two decades. His own education at Princeton, and the education he provided in Brazil, charts the course of Protestant influences into this stream of theological reflection that became a global phenomenon in the latter decades of the twentieth century.

Also, Shaull's career roughly parallels the emergence of the World Council of Churches and the engagement of the Catholic Church—in Latin America and around the world—after the Second Vatican Council. He himself was engaged, and became the flash point, in some of the major conferences, movements, and institutions of the 1960s and beyond.

Santiago-Vendrell documents the entrance of the ecumenical movement in Brazil, among the most dramatic transformations in Catholic-Protestant relations around the globe, as well as Shaull's role in that development. Along the way he notes Shaull's prophetic and destabilizing role in the worldwide student movement in the 60s and 70s, charting decisions that mark the ecumenical movement. Shaull's contributions are important for an understanding of the ethical debates in the worldwide, ecumenical Protestant and Orthodox communities.

Santiago-Vendrell examines primary, secondary, and historical documents that shine a light on Shaull's transformation into a contextual theologian of the poor. He offers a definitive view of this North American Protestant missionary who wrote extensively on Latin American liberation theology, the base Christian communities, and how conversion to solidarity with the poor offers transforming possibilities for the mainline churches' theological identity and practical faith.

And here are the book details: Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell: Contextual Theology and Revolutionary Transformation in Latin America: The Missiology of M. Richard Shaull, Pickwick Publications, ISBN 978-1-60899-305-5.

The globalisation of the World Council of Churches

Following its third assembly in 1961 in New Delhi, the World Council of Churches developed from being a body with a mainly North American/European orientation to one with a global scope.The integration of the WCC and the International Missionary Council opened the council to the churches of Africa and Asia.  At the same time, the broader Orthodox participation that followed New Delhi meant a greater role for churches from Eastern Europe. In Latin America, the movement for liberation theology was emerging, charted by Protestants as well as Roman Catholics. The holding of the Second Vatican Council created a new openness in the Roman Catholic Church offering cooperation with the WCC not only in Faith and Order issues - but in the second half of the 1960s, at least, also on issues relating to society, development and peace. The civil rights movement in the United States and the student protest movements in North America and Western Europe impacted on the churches, and were reflected in the World Conference on Church and Society in Geneva in 1966 and the WCC's fourth assembly two years later in Uppsala.

An international conference from 4 to 6 March 2011 at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey organized under the auspices of the  research project,  “On the Road to a Global Christendom: European Protestant Ecumenism and the ‘Discovery’ of the ‘Third World’”, is to examine this these changes from a global historical and ecumenical perspective. It will be of particular importance to analyze the historical, sociopolitical and theological developments in the 1960s and 1970s which contributed to this change (decolonization, liberation movements, revolutions, human rights, the Second Vatican Council, the rise of contextual theologies and so on.).

A call for papers has been addressed to researchers working on areas concerning the WCC since the 1960s, from a historical or theological perspective, or those researching the “getting global” of churches during the 1960s and 1970s from other angles.More details here (scroll down for English).