Interfaith World - David E. Anderson

A Reader's Digest Article Critical of the Interfaith World...

By DAVID E. ANDERSON, UPI Religion Writer



WASHINGTON -- A Reader's Digest article critical of the interfaith World Council of Churches was called 'biased and unfairly negative' Tuesday by a group of U.S. church leaders, many of them the heads of their denominations.

The council is made up of 304 Protestant and Orthodox religious bodies from around the world.

A statement signed by leaders from a broad range of U.S. Protestant and Orthodox denominations signed the statement calling the article 'a biased and unfairly negative view of the World Council unsubstantiated by facts,' and saying it was 'contrary to the realities we have personally experienced.'

The article, in the August edition of the 31-million circulation magazine, was titled 'Karl Marx or Jesus Christ?' and written by roving editor Joseph A. Harris.

Harris charged that money from the council's special voluntary fund, the Programme to Combat Racism, was used to support revolutionary guerrilla movements and 'Soviet front' groups.

The article also said the council has become political as 'its initial goal of Christian unity withered over the years.'

Charles Pintchman, spokesman for Reader's Digest in Pleasantville, N.Y., said the magazine 'stands by' the article.

'It was carefully researched and thoroughly documented. It speaks for itself. We do not feel any purpose would be served by responding to the WCC charges,' he said.

In their reply, the American church leaders challenged the contention the Council has abandoned the cause of Christian unity and specifically cited an agreement on Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry reached earlier this year in Lima, Peru.

Considered by many theologians to be a major ecumenical breakthrough, the Lima agreement climaxed 50 years of interfaith work on some of the thorniest doctrinal issues dividing the world's Christian churches.

The U.S. leaders said the agreement shows Christian unity 'remains the vital heart of the Council's life and is primary among its purposes.'

In their statement, the U.S. leaders said they became aware of the Digest article while in Geneva for a meeting of the Council's Central Committee 'with our sisters and brothers from around the world.'

'We were therefore particularly dismayed to see that it begins by demeaning some of them as 'Bible-toting' and continues by describing others in terms of superficial stereotypes and code words which obscure the rich Christian community that we experience in the World Council of Churches.'

'To dismiss our friends and colleagues as 'anti-Western,' 'anti-capitalist,' 'Marxist,' 'leftist' etc., is to do them an injustice,' the U.S. church officials said. 'It is also to do a disservice to the readers of the Digest, many of whom are members of the churches we serve.'

Signers of the statement included: Presiding Bishop John Allin of the Episcopal Church; Dr. Arie Brouwer, head of the Reformed Church in America; Dr. Robert Campbell, head of the American Baptist Churches in the U.S.A.; Dr. Paul Crow, chief ecumenical officer of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Bishop James Crumley, president of the Lutheran Church in America; the Rev. John Groenfeldt of the Moravian Church in America (Northern Province); Dr. Robert Huston, chief ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church; the Rev. John Meyendorff of the Orthodox Church in America; Dr. Avery Post, president of the United Church of Christ, and William Thompson, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.